File:Blackfriars Bridge, Old Railway Bridge Columns and New Railway Bridge.jpg

English: The present Blackfriars bridge which on 6 November 1869 was opened by Queen Victoria is 923 feet (281 m) long, consisting of five wrought iron arches built to a design by Joseph Cubitt. Cubitt also designed the adjacent rail bridge (now demolished) and it was a condition that the spans and piers of the two bridges be aligned. Like its predecessor it is owned and maintained by the Bridge House Estates, a charitable trust overseen by the City of London Corporation. Like London Bridge the full length and its southern end is within the City's borders and not in the adjoining borough of Southwark. Due to the volume of traffic over the bridge, it was widened between 1907–10, from 70 feet (21 m) to its present 105 feet (32 m).

On the piers of the bridge are s0tone carvings of water birds by sculptor John Birnie Philip. On the East (downstream) side (i.e. the side closer to the Thames Estuary and North Sea), the carvings show marine life and seabirds; those on the West (upstream) side show freshwater birds – reflecting the role of Blackfriars as the tidal turning point. Temperance, a statue atop a drinking water fountain at the north end of Blackfriars Bridge. On the north side of the bridge is a statue of Queen Victoria (funded by Sir Alfred Seale Haslam), to whom the bridge was dedicated. The ends of the bridge are shaped like a pulpit in a reference to Black Friars.

There have been two structures with the name. The first bridge was opened in 1864 and was designed by Joseph Cubitt for the London, Chatham and Dover Railway. Massive abutments at each end carried the railway's insignia, preserved and restored on the south side. Following the formation of the Southern Railway in 1924, inter-city and continental services were concentrated on Waterloo and St Paul's Station became a local and suburban stop. For this reason, the use of the original bridge gradually declined. It eventually became too weak to support modern trains and was therefore removed in 1985 – all that remains is a series of columns crossing the Thames and the southern abutment, which is a Grade II listed structure.

The second bridge, built slightly further downstream (to the east) of the first railway bridge was originally called St Paul's Railway Bridge and opened in 1886. It was designed by John Wolfe-Barry and Henry Marc Brunel and is made of wrought iron. It was built by Lucas and Aird. When St Paul's railway station changed its name to Blackfriars in 1937 the name of the bridge was changed as well.