The opening ceremony was a festive occasion, with crowds massing on either side of the river. The Lord Mayor welcomed the royal party with a loyal speech, but the Mayor of Southwark was not to be outdone. When George V crossed to Southwark, the Mayor reminded him that ‘James I of Scotland was married at the Cathedral Church to Joan, niece of Cardinal Beaufort. At our local church of St George the Martyr, Henry V sought the Divine Blessing when setting out for his victorious campaigns in France.’ Having established Southwark’s royal connections, he handed over to the Bishop of Southwark, who pronounced a blessing on the bridge and those who had designed and built it.
The new bridge provides a carriageway of 35 feet and two 10-foot-wide footways, which are cantilevered out from the supporting arches. The cantilevering was required because Rennie’s original 42-foot-wide abutments were used for the 55-foot-wide bridge. The river-piers had to be rebuilt in different places because they now had to support five arches instead of three. With the wider carriageway and the removal of the hump, it was expected that usage of the crossing would increase substantially. In fact, according to Transport for London statistics, Southwark Bridge is still by far the least used of all London’s Thames bridges, with fewer than 13,000 crossings per day. Because of the new attractions on the south bank, probably more people today walk along the Thames Path and pass under the arches of Southwark Bridge than cross it. Those who go under the southern approach arches will see slate murals showing pictures of the old Frost Fairs. Under the arches on the north side are more traditional tile murals showing pictures of the old Southwark Bridge and its construction.
On the night of 20 August 1989, Southwark Bridge was the scene of one of London’s most disastrous river collisions, when the Bowbelle dredger crashed into the stern of the Marchioness pleasure cruiser, resulting in the loss of 51 lives. The Marchioness had set out at about one in the morning from Charing Cross with 113 young people on board, who were celebrating the birthday of Antonio Vasconcellos, a Portuguese financier. After passing through Blackfriars Bridge, the Marchioness gradually overtook another pleasure cruiser, the Hurlingham, and then sailed under the centre arch of Southwark Bridge. Although one of the reasons for rebuilding Southwark Bridge with five arches was to ensure alignment with Cannon Street Railway Bridge, it seems that the centre arches are still slightly offset and the Marchioness had to adjust its course between the bridges. Meanwhile, the Bowbelle had passed the Hurlingham but seemingly was unaware of the presence of the Marchioness as it too passed through the centre arch of Southwark Bridge and smashed into the stern of the much smaller vessel. Even though both boats were travelling in the same direction at no more than 8 knots, the massive weight of the 260-foot-long dredger caused the Marchioness to tip over and sink. The Bowbelle itself bumped into Cannon Street Railway Bridge after the collision but none of its nine-man crew was injured.
Fifty-one people on board the Marchioness drowned, including the skipper, Stephen Faldo. This death toll was in spite of the efforts of the crew of the Hurlingham, which arrived soon after the accident and was able to help in the rescue efforts. The coroner issued a verdict of ‘unlawful killing’. Allegations were made about heavy drinking among the crew of the Bowbelle. However, the Crown Prosecution Service decided that there was not sufficient evidence to bring any prosecutions, although many found it hard to believe that a Thames pleasure cruiser could have been invisible to the approaching dredger. Later inquiries severely criticised the state of river safety. Appropriately, Southwark Cathedral has a moving memorial to the victims of the tragedy.
Cannon Street Railway Bridge
Cannon Street Railway Bridge crosses the river to Southwark only 150 yards downstream of Southwark Bridge. Up to medieval times, the River Walbrook used to flow into the Thames here from the north. John Stow states that the Walbrook had been largely covered over by the end of the sixteenth century,48 and today, like the other ‘hidden rivers’ of London, it has been turned into an overflow sewer. This was also the location of the Steelyard, where merchants of the Hanseatic League had special privileges to run their own affairs after Richard I granted them a charter allowing them to trade throughout the country in 1194. The merchants brought in much trade, to the delight of later monarchs who benefited from the customs duties. Their success allowed them to build an impressive mansion called Steelyard Hall, for which Holbein painted two huge pictures, The Triumph of Riches and The Triumph of Poverty, both unfortunately now lost. However, the merchants aroused the jealousy of the English trading guilds and were eventually banished by Elizabeth I. The site of the Steelyard was built over in 1865 to form Cannon Street Station. According to Stow, the name Cannon Street has nothing to do with armaments, but is derived from the former Candelwykestrete, where candle-makers dwelt. Today, the tradition of candle-making is kept up by the Tallow Chandler’s Hall, which occupies a site in Dowgate Hill next to the station.
After the London, Chatham and Dover Railway had started building their terminus on the north bank at Blackfriars, the South East Railway were determined to match them by bringing their trains even nearer to the centre of the City. In June 1861, they obtained permission to extend their railway line across the Thames and to construct a station on the north bank within walking distance of the Bank of England. The SER engineer Sir John Hawkshaw designed both the bridge and the station. The station was a typically splendid triumph of Victorian engineering, stretching from Cannon Street to the banks of the Thames. The platforms were covered by a vast iron roof, which had a span of 190 feet. It was glazed over two-thirds of its surface. The roof was supported by solid brick walls and enclosed by two towers of monumental proportions, which seem to mimic church steeples by Sir Christopher Wren. The towers contained water for use in running the hydraulically powered lifts and for cleaning the trains.
Compared with the magnificent station, Cannon Street Railway Bridge was strictly functional. It originally took nine lines across the 855-foot width of the Thames. Its five spans of wrought-iron plate girders were supported by piers of four cast-iron columns. On either side of the tracks, there were narrow footways. One was used only by railway staff, but the other was open for pedestrians for a halfpenny toll until 1877, when the Metropolis Toll Bridges Act abolished all tolls on London’s bridges. Unlike at Charing Cross, where pedestrians could use the footway after the Metropolitan Board of Works paid compensation to its owners for the loss of the right to charge tolls, the SER decided to close the Cannon Street footway.
1864 view of Cannon Street Railway Bridge with the original massive station arch
The station and bridge were opened on 1 September 1866. The total cost was £350,000, which stretched the SER finances to such an extent that they were unable to build the essential railway hotel. This project was soon taken on by an independent company, who commissioned E.M. Barry to design a grand building in a similar style to what he had already constructed for the SER at Charing Cross Station.
Most of the railway traffic originally ran from London Bridge across the river to Cannon Street and then back over the river to Charing Cross. This involved complicated manoeuvring, as the trains had to back out of Cannon Street Station for the southern crossing. When the District Underground line was constructed shortly afterwards, providing a direct service from Cannon Street to Embankment, the overland trains to Charing Cross ceased to attract many customers. However, it seems that prostitutes found the first-class carriages, with at least seven minutes of uninterrupted journey time from Cannon Street to Charing Cross, highly profitable.49 The fare was considerably less than the charge for services rendered. Evidently, drawn blinds on this line were a common sight until the service was withdrawn in 1916.
Mainline traffic in general, however, did increase, and in 1893 the bridge was widened to take ten lines. This involved building two extra sets of columns on the upstream side, while leaving the original four downstream sets of columns in place. At the time, it was claimed that Cannon Street was the widest railway bridge in the
world. Its place in history was confirmed when various revolutionary bodies met there in 1920 to form the Communist Party of Great Britain.
During the Second World War, Cannon Street Station suffered massive bomb damage on the night of 10 May 1940. The hotel was completely gutted and the station roof nearly collapsed. The glazing was removed for safety, but the roof proved too weak to reinstall the glass after the war. This is probably the origin of an amusing but apocryphal story often told on pleasure-boat trips as they pass under the bridge. According to this story, for security reasons the station roof was removed during the war to a location in the country. Unfortunately the location was bombed and the roof destroyed, while Cannon Street Station itself remained intact. In fact, the damaged roof remained in situ without being reglazed, until it was demolished in 1959 and sold for scrap. The Royal Fine Art Commission insisted that the towers and brick walls were preserved, and they still stand as a reminder of the once magnificent train shed. In 1991, a modern air-rights office was built, which juts out rather incongruously between the two Victorian towers. Here the traders of the London International Financial Futures Exchange operate and can enjoy views of the river from the roof garden on top of the building.
Cannon Street Railway Bridge itself lost its only decorative features during strengthening work in 1981, when the Doric capitals of the columns were encased in concrete. Today, it has surely replaced Hungerford Bridge as London’s ugliest Thames crossing.
Cannon Street Railway Bridge today, with the original station towers
CHAPTER 14
London Bridge
London Bridge crosses the Thames from Southwark on the south, one of London’s poorest districts, to the very heart of the City’s financial district on the north. It is the latest of several crossings that have spanned the river in this area. Because of its strategic position, there has been a river crossing here since Roman times, and indeed London Bridge was the only crossing in central London right up until 1750 when a further bridge was built over the Thames at Westminster. Southwards, the bridge leads to Borough High Street, the ancient route to the south coast, and passes Southwark Cathedral on its upstream side. Northwards, it leads to King William Street and then on to the Bank of England, after passing by the Church of St Magnus the Martyr on the downstream side. It seems appropriate that today’s London Bridge is still associated with these two outstanding ecclesiastical buildings, since in its most famous incarnation as an inhabited bridge it was built by a priest.
Of all the Thames bridges, London Bridge has played the most outstanding role in the life of London, and also of England, for nearly 2,000 years. Although there is no archaeological evidence, it is likely that the Romans built a wooden bridge in this area soon after they conquered Britain in AD 43. At that time, the Romans chose Camulodunum, today’s Colchester, as the capital of Roman Britain, as it was a major tribal centre and allowed them to control the east of England, where the most powerful tribes were based. In order to secure the route over the Thames to Camulodunum from the south, the Romans founded Londinium as a settlement on the north side of the river, with a smaller settlement on the south side. Soon, a road network converged at this point, leading from Richborough and Chichester in the south to Camulodunum. Later, the great roads of Watling Street and Ermine Street (to Chester and York respectively) were constructed from Londinium to improve the legions’ access to the North.
This bridge would not have survived the revolt of Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni, who in AD 61 burned down Camulodunum and Londinium, and slaughtered all the Romans she could find while the main Roman legions were pursuing their conquest of the north of Britain. Boudicca was exacting her revenge on the Romans, who flogged her and raped her daughters after she protested at their seizure of her property following the death of her husband. Following the revolt, the Romans marched their legions back to Londinium and, with relentless efficiency, defeated Boudicca and her marauding tribesmen. Londinium was rebuilt and soon superseded Camulodunum as the Roman capital of Britain.
The first Thames crossing for which archaeological evidence exists was built downstream of the present site of London Bridge, probably in AD 80–90. It was a wooden bridge with a central drawbridge to allow taller ships to pass through. A model of this, based on research by MoLAS, is displayed in the Museum of London.
Nothing is known of what happened to London Bridge after the Romans withdrew from Britain in 410. The Saxons who conquered Britain after the Romans had left made their main settlement further west, in the Strand area, leaving Roman Londinium to decay. Since a wooden bridge requires considerable maintenance, it is likely that it fell into disrepair and that no permanent crossing existed for several centuries, until Alfred the Great resettled the Roman city in the ninth century. References to a ‘London Bridge’ start to appear in tenth-century documents, at which time the Vikings from Denmark were a constant threat. The most famous event concerning London Bridge before the Norman conquest of 1066 occurred in 1014. As related in the Olaf Sagas,50 the Danes had occupied London and the Saxon King Aethelred, allied with Olaf, King of Norway, was trying to recapture his capital city. As the Danish forces stood on London Bridge to face the attack from the south, King Olaf sailed his fleet up to the bridge, tied ropes around the supporting wooden piles and rowed as fast as he could down the stream. The bridge collapsed and a great part of the Danish army fell into the river and drowned. A poem was composed by the Norse poet Ottar Svarte to commemorate the battle. The poem starts with the lines:
London Bridge is broken down,
Gold is won and great renown.
The well-known children’s nursery rhyme could have its origin in this poem, although the modern version does not appear until the seventeenth century:
London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down.
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.
The introduction of the ‘fair lady’ is obscure, although it has been suggested that this refers to Eleanor of Provence, who was given control of the later, stone London Bridge by Henry III in 1269. She collected the rents but failed to maintain the bridge properly, and so it fell into disrepair.
By the middle of the twelfth century, the wooden London Bridge had been repaired or even rebuilt on several occasions, partly because of the force of the tidal river and partly because of frequent fires. The final rebuilding occurred in 1163 under the control of Peter de Colechurch, who was the priest at St Mary Colechurch in Cheapside, medieval London’s main shopping street. Having experienced the problems of maintaining the wooden bridge, Peter de Colechurch decided that the time had come to construct a stone bridge befitting London’s growing importance as capital of England and as an international trading centre. The first pile was laid in 1176, and the priest was to devote the rest of his life to the groundbreaking project of spanning the fierce tidal flow of the nearly 1,000-foot-wide river.
It may seem surprising today that a priest should instigate and manage the construction of a bridge, but in the Middle Ages bridge building was seen as an act of piety. The famous Pont d’Avignon across the Rhône was built by St Bénezet at about the same time as the stone London Bridge (known today as Old London Bridge), and both bridges had chapels on them. Old London Bridge’s chapel was dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury, St Thomas Becket, who had fallen out with Henry II by insisting on the rights of the Church in opposition to the monarch. Becket had been martyred in 1170 when four knights took literal action on Henry II’s possibly rhetorical question ‘Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?’ and murdered him in Canterbury Cathedral. Sadly, Peter de Colechurch did not live to see the completion of his life’s work. On his death in 1205 he was laid to rest in St Thomas’s Chapel. His bridge was eventually opened in 1209 and was to last over 600 years. When it was finally demolished in 1832, some bones purported to be the remains of Peter de Colechurch were discovered in the undercroft of the chapel and were deposited in a casket in the British
Museum. Unfortunately, on subsequent examination only one bone was found to be human, the rest being of animal origin.
Finance for the 33-year-long project to build Old London Bridge was raised largely from a tax on wool, which was England’s most important export and formed the basis of the country’s wealth. This gave rise to the saying that ‘London Bridge was built upon woolpacks’. Money was also accumulated from a variety of other sources, including gifts ‘to God and the Bridge’. As time went by, an extensive property portfolio was built up by the Bridge House Estates, which was responsible for the maintenance of Old London Bridge, and in 1282 the BHE was granted a Royal Charter. The name arose from the Bridge House that became the administrative headquarters of Old London Bridge. This was situated on the south of the river downstream of Old London Bridge, next to St Olave’s Church – the church dedicated to the (now sainted) Olaf who had pulled down London Bridge in the battle against the Danes in 1014. Bridge House itself has long disappeared and St Olave’s Church was replaced in the 1930s by the art deco office block known as St Olaf House. Over the centuries, the BHE portfolio has grown to be worth over £500,000,000. Today, it is responsible for maintenance of all the bridges which cross the Thames from Blackfriars to Tower Bridge.
Crossing the River: The History of London's Thames River Bridges From Richmond to the Tower Page 24