The Roman bridge may have been erected primarily for the passage of goods, or for the movement of troops, rather than for the convenience of pedestrians. Its superstructure was of wood, and in 1834 some bulky oak piles were dredged from the river; they had “shoes” of a hard iron that only the Romans could have made. When the ancient medieval bridge was being demolished, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, specimens of Roman coinage were found that covered the whole period of occupation. So the bridge was continually in use. It quickly became the centre of commerce for the entire island, and the point of communication between that island and continental Europe; it was a crossing, and a terminus, the nodal point of England itself. The city began to cluster around it, with important avenues of commerce and of communication on both sides of the Thames. The growth of London was thus determined by the bridge, and it marked the centre of the financial and mercantile life of the capital.
It is now generally agreed that there were three succeeding Roman bridges across the Thames. The first of them was erected in AD 40s, and connected Fish Street Hill with a section of the bank close to the southern end of the modern bridge; this was followed by a temporary bridge in AD 85–90 that came out from Pudding Lane. A third and more permanent bridge was then built, in approximately AD 100, on the same site as the first of the bridges; this was more securely fashioned with stone piers and a wooden superstructure. The thoroughfare from the bridge proceeded up Fish Street Hill and along the present Gracechurch Street, until it reached the front entrance to the great forum of London. This bridge lasted some 230 years before it fell. There is a commemorative medal, struck in AD 290s, which displays a warship on the Thames together with gate-towers on either side of the bridge. It has also been suggested by the students of Roman London that there were several shrines, or altars, upon the bridge where votive offerings were made to the gods of the river and of the sea. In Rome itself the collegium pontifices, or “college of bridge-builders,” made a ritual journey each May across the Sulpicius Bridge where images were thrown into the river Tiber. It is not inconceivable that a similar pilgrimage was undertaken across London Bridge.
The first Saxon bridge cannot be securely dated. The earliest mention of it in the public records occurs in AD 730, when a witch was thrown from its parapet and drowned in the river. There is a reference to a long and low wooden bridge, in AD 994; it was built of thick rough-hewn timber planks, placed upon piles, with movable platforms to allow the Saxon vessels to pass through it westward. It was said to have dissuaded King Sweyn of Denmark from further invasion. The history of the various phases of this bridge is necessarily uncertain. Some historians of London say that a bridge was built at the end of the tenth century, in order to forestall Danish invaders. Other authorities state that a bridge was erected here by a college of priests situated at Southwark.
We can say with certainty only that it was a rickety structure lined on each side with rows of dirty wooden huts. It was broad enough to accommodate two wagons passing one another—the same width, therefore, as the principal London streets—but it was packed with jostling life. Itinerant merchants and dealers in goods spread out their wares on the pathway so that the narrow thoroughfare became another London market; the bridge was also blocked by cattle for sale, and by wagons of provender. It is mentioned frequently in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, but there is also a compelling narrative in the sagas concerning Olaf Haraldson.
He had sailed up the river with his fleet of Norwegian ships, in 1014, in order to assist Ethelred and the English in their bid to fight back the Danish invaders of London. But Olaf was impeded by the Danish army who had massed upon the bridge with their weapons and missiles. The sagas report that the bridge was itself defended with towers and wooden parapets “in the direction of the river,” an apt indication that the bridge itself could be used for defence as well as for communication. Olaf protected his oarsmen against attack from above, with shields and coverings of hide, and proceeded to sail beneath the bridge. Then he fastened great ropes around the piles of the bridge and, with the help of the incoming tide, managed to unloose them from the bed of the river; the bridge, with its Danish defenders, fell into the water. A curious alternative history suggests that Olaf burned down the bridge.
In any event the early Norse poet, or skald, Ottar Svarte, composed some verses:
London bridge is broken down,
Gold is won and bright renown.
Here then we may see the true origin of the ancient rhyme, “London Bridge is falling down,” which is worth quoting in full in order to measure the true significance of the bridge in the popular memory:
London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, Falling down.
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.
Take a key and lock her up,
Lock her up, Lock her up.
Take a key and lock her up,
My fair lady.
How will we build it up,
Build it up, Build it up?
How will we build it up,
My fair lady?
Build it up with silver and gold,
Silver and gold, Silver and gold.
Build it up with silver and gold,
My fair lady.
Gold and silver I have none,
I have none, I have none.
Gold and silver I have none,
My fair lady.
Build it up with needles and pins,
Needles and pins, Needles and pins.
Build it up with needles and pins,
My fair lady.
Pins and needles bend and break,
Bend and break, Bend and break.
Pins and needles bend and break,
My fair lady.
Build it up with wood and clay,
Wood and clay, Wood and clay.
Build it up with wood and clay,
My fair lady.
Wood and clay will wash away,
Wash away, Wash away.
Wood and clay will wash away,
My fair lady.
Build it up with stone so strong,
Stone so strong, Stone so strong.
Build it up with stone so strong,
My fair lady.
Stone so strong will last so long,
Last so long, Last so long.
Stone so strong will last so long,
My fair lady.
Much speculation has been devoted to the identity of the “fair lady,” but it seems likely that the phrase describes Eleanor of Provence, wife of Henry III. Her husband granted her the income from the tolls upon the bridge, but she was signally unwilling to spend any of the funds on the maintenance of the structure. For this she earned popular opprobrium, and emerges in the rhyme as the fair lady who will under no circumstances “build it up.” It was perhaps appropriate that in 1236, on endeavouring to escape to Windsor from the Londoners who supported the de Montfort faction, she was pelted with dirt and stones from the bridge until she retreated to the Tower of London. We may say, then, that over a long period the poem accrued various images and details related to the bridge; like the bridge itself it was rebuilt over many generations until it had become a thing of harmony and proportion. There are other variants of the rhyme, the most important being the introduction of “my lady Lee” considered to be a reference to the Lea river that runs into the Thames at Wapping. It is in large part a threnody of transience and decay, until in its last two verses it touches upon the salvation of London Bridge in the form of stone.
The wooden bridge was indeed continually being damaged or destroyed by fire, and constantly being rebuilt. Between 1077 and 1136 it was endangered by eight great fires, and the Chronicle reports that the city and the surrounding counties were “grievously oppressed” by the taxes levied to maintain “the bridge that was nearly all afloat.” In the reign of William Rufus it was swept away in a great flood. Six years later, in 1097, the Chronicle reports that once more it was “nearly washed aw
ay.” In 1130 Geoffrey “Ingeniator” was paid £25 for the construction of two new arches. In 1163 the bridge was completely rebuilt in elm, but the new structure lasted for only thirteen years.
The cost of continual renovation and rebuilding had finally persuaded the city fathers, at the end of the twelfth century, to erect a great bridge of stone. The work was supervised by Peter the Bridge Master, or Peter of Colechurch, and was not completed for more than thirty years. It was built a few yards downstream from its wooden predecessor, so that the original might remain in use until the stone edifice was completed. Its precise dimensions are not known; it is estimated to have been a platform of Kentish rag stone some 900 feet (274 m) in length, with a width said by John Stow to be approximately 30 feet (9.1 m)—rather narrow for the weight of business that would soon press upon it. It was supported by nineteen arches, with great piers, or “starlings,” to buttress them, and there was a wooden drawbridge both to prevent invasion from the river and to allow the passage of ships upriver. The drawbridge eventually began to decay, however, and was dismantled in the middle of the sixteenth century.
Peter of Colechurch died in 1205, four years before the bridge was completed. But he was eventually interred in the floor of the bridge-chapel, dedicated to St. Thomas à Becket, so that he found his resting place in his great monument. His burial here may also have been a recognition of the old superstition that, in the foundations of bridges, a human sacrifice must be laid. Peter’s tomb was discovered by the workmen demolishing the old bridge in 1834; no reference to the ultimate destination of his remains has ever been found.
The Corporation of London has some medieval documents, making grants of land “to God and the Bridge.” So it was treated with veneration. Yet it was also a bridge of motley. There were the wooden huts and earth floors of the poorer residents, together with the stone oratories and stained glass of the chapel, and the battlements of the defences. There were large dwellings divided into tenements known as “Bridge-House Rents.” There were shops and ale-houses and cellars. In 1281 the bridge is recorded as having “almost innumerable people dwelling thereon,” and in the middle of the fourteenth century there were sixty-two shops on the east side and sixty-nine shops on the west side. There were many apophthegms concerning it. It was said, for example, that “wise men walked over London Bridge and only fools went under it,” referring to the strength of current created by the piers. It was also said that “you can never cross London Bridge without seeing a white horse,” the origins of which are obscure. Perhaps it was true.
It was never wholly a safe foundation, however. The dwellings on London Bridge were principally built of wood, and there were frequent occasions of fire. Only four years after the bridge had been constructed, in 1213, there was a serious conflagration in Southwark. Crowds of people swarmed onto the bridge from the south bank in order to escape the flames, only to confront another crowd coming in from the north bank to watch, to help, or to pillage. At that point a sudden gust of wind sent the blazing timbers across to the north end of the bridge, where all became consumed; the crowd swayed and hesitated, watching as the southern end then took blaze. In all, some three thousand people were burned or drowned. It was just one of the many disasters that have affected the history and character of the bridge. A royal patent of 1280 discloses that “it hath lately been represented to us, and it grieves us to see, that the Bridge of London is in so ruinous a condition; to the repair of which, unless some speedy remedy is put, not only the sudden fall of the Bridge, but also the destruction of innumerable people dwelling upon it may suddenly be feared.” Just a year later five arches collapsed. When in 1399 the crowds gathered to greet the young bride of Richard II, “viii persones vp on London bregge weren crowsed to the dethe.” In 1437 two more arches fell down at the southern end. The subsequent renewal took some forty years. Then in 1481 the public privy on the bridge, known as the “common siege,” fell into the river, drowning five men.
In its refashioned state of the 1480s and 1490s, however, London Bridge became once more the centre of commerce; its sides were lined with shops and stalls and houses. In a record of the late fifteenth century there are listed 129 “tenements” upon the bridge, among them the shops of “haberdassher, jueller, cultellar, bowyer, armurar, fleccher, taillour, peyntour and goldsmith.” It became the most famous sight of all London, the centre of the river, with its unmistakable outline of crowded buildings, irregular arches, and rushing water. A market was held on the bridge itself, but the congestion became so great that it was eventually moved to the dry land of Southwark where it still remains. It was an engine, as well as a centre, of commerce; tolls were levied on all traffic passing over, and all vessels sailing under, the bridge. The tolls of 1398, for example, are recorded as a halfpenny for a small ship and a penny for a “greater one.” “For ships which are filled with wood, one log of wood shall be given as toll.” There is also extant an exhaustive inventory of goods that attracted the bridge toll, ranging from “vermillion” and “verdigrease” to almonds and garlic.
In the sixteenth century the bridge acquired another function, of equal significance to Londoners. It became a source of piped water. It had always been the washing machine, and the well, and the public convenience, of London. But in 1580 the first watermill was established on one of the arches closest to the City; from here the water was pumped, through tubes or “quills” of wood, to the adjacent streets. The experiment was so successful that other mills were installed upon other arches.
In his Britannia (1586) Camden reinforces the praise of a bridge that “may worthily carry away the prize from all bridges in Europe, furnished on both sides with passing faire houses, joining one to another in the manner of a street.” There was then a gateway at the southern end of the bridge, and the bridge itself was by 1603, according to the Chronicles of London Bridge, “beautified with statelye palaces, built on the side therof…with excellent and beatuous housen built thereon.” It was a fashionable address with the houses occupied, according to Stow, by “rich merchants and other wealthy citizens, mercers and haberdashers.” On the roofs of some of the houses were built “penthouses” or river terraces. “Over the houses,” one contemporary wrote, “were stately platforms leaded with rails and ballasters about them, very commodious and pleasant for walking and enjoying so fine a prospect up and down the river, and some had pretty little gardens with arbours.” These terraces or penthouses were known at the time as “hautepas.” It was altogether a desirable area. Hans Holbein and John Bunyan were two of its residents.
There was even a palace on the bridge, named “Nonesuch House” because of its unique character. It was an elaborate and fanciful affair, made entirely of pieces of wood fastened together with pegs; it was ornamented with turrets and towers and cupolas, with windows and weather-vanes, the whole wooden structure being lavishly painted and gilded. On its south side, facing the water, was a sundial with the emblem “Time and Tide stay for no man.” There was still a chapel on the bridge, built on the eastern side above the tenth or central pier. It was a Gothic structure, some 60 feet (18 m) in length and 40 feet (12 m) in breadth, with a crypt beneath it; its interior was decorated with fourteen clustered columns and eight pointed arch windows. Its crypt could be reached by ascending a flight of stone steps from the pier itself, so that it was of ready access from the water. The chapel was an integral part of the bridge. No one could buy fresh fish on the bridge before Mass had been celebrated at the chapel. In one of the houses above the chapel lived a haberdasher, Mr. Baldwin; he had been born there, and had lived for seventy-one years in that place. When he was eventually ordered to go to Chislehurst for a change of air, “he could not sleep in the country for want of the noise.” He had always been used to the roar and rush of the tide beneath the bridge.
The many engravings show it to be a vast hive of human industry and human ingenuity, a monument to the energy and ambition of its makers. It was a vast street arching the water. As Michael Drayton wrote in
Polyolbion (1622):
With that most costly Bridge that doth him most renown,
By which he clearly puts all other rivers down.
In the manner of a street, too, there were shops and alcoves, small alleys and hovels that somehow always managed to emerge among even the grandest edifices of sixteenth-century London. There were many buildings that contained a shop on the ground floor, and lodgings above. Some of these upstairs rooms reached a fourth or even fifth storey, and often touched each other across the thoroughfare at roof level. There was a “cage” or small prison for offenders. In the middle of the sixteenth century a woman was imprisoned and told “to cool herself there” for refusing to pray for the soul of a recently deceased Pope.
In the middle of the seventeenth century there were bookshops at the sign of “The Three Bibles” and “The Looking Glass” there was a silversmith with the sign of “The White Horse,” and a milliner at the sign of “The Dolphin and Comb.” There was a maker of breeches, Churcher and Christie, at the sign of “The Lamb and Breeches” and a wig-maker, John Allan, at “The Locks of Hair,” who “Sells all sorts of Hair, Curled or Un-curled.” There was a map-seller “at the Golden Globe, under the Piazzas on London Bridge.” When the maid of a needle-worker put a tub of hot ashes beneath her master’s stairs, in 1632, she began a conflagration that destroyed some forty-three businesses along the northern end of the bridge. Among them were several haberdashers, grocers, mercers and shoemakers. For some reason the shops were not rebuilt for twelve years. Yet the Bridge escaped the worst excesses of the Great Fire and the Plague. The flames of the conflagration were prevented from crossing the bridge by the speedy demolition of the houses in its path, and during the “visitation” of the epidemic only two inhabitants died. The environment of the bridge was, indeed, considered to be a healthy one. It was open to the cleansing wind, was washed by tides, and was clear of the cesspits and open drains of the crowded city. In prints and engravings of the bridge, there are to be seen buckets being lowered down on ropes from the various windows of the houses.
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