At both the Hammersmith and Barnes ends of the bridge, there is a heraldic composition made up of seven coats of arms. These were formerly painted in their "correct" heraldic colours but have now been painted in the standard colour scheme. In the centre is the royal coat of arms of Queen Victoria which is surrounded by six others, representing municipalities within the area of the Metropolitan Board of Works, from top clockwise:^[1]

• 1: Coat of arms of the Borough of Guildford in Surrey: Sable, on a mount vert between two woolpacks argent a castle with three towers argent the central one triple-towered and charged with a shield of the royal arms of France and England quarterly the outer towers each surmounted by a spire under the battlements two roses in fesse and within the open port beneath a portcullis a key all Or on the mount before the port a lion chouchant guardant also or the base barry wavy argent and azure^[2]
• 2: Coat of arms of the City of Westminster: Azure, a portcullis or on a chief of the second a pallet of the first thereon a cross flory between five martlets also of the second being the arms of King Edward the Confessor between two united roses gules and argent^[3]
• 3: Coat of arms of the Borough of Colchester in Essex: Gules, four pieces of wood raguly conjoined in a cross proper each side arm transfixed with a nail palewise sable ensigned by an ancient crown or and that in base enfiling a like crown and transfixed by a like nail in bend
• 4: Coat of arms of the County of Middlesex (in its original form without the crown, identical to that of the later Essex County Council)
• 5: Coat of arms of the City of London
• 6: Coat of arms of the County of Kent