London Bridge today is a plain structure of steel and concrete, over which vehicle traffic flows from the City’s financial district to Borough High Street and on to the southern suburbs. Built in 1973 to replace the 1831 bridge, it is the newest of London’s eleven motor-traffic crossings over the Thames. It is, however, a successor to the most famous bridge in all the world, Old London Bridge, and to a medieval monument with strong Christian connections.
Here is its story:
London Bridge goes far back into antiquity, so far that no one knows exactly when it was first built. We are told that in Saxon times it was destroyed and rebuilt on several occasions, and that at the Conquest in 1066 it was a bridge of timber with a fortified gate like the other gates of London. Even after the Normans came, with their superior engineering skills, it was constantly being rendered useless—once, in 1091, by a terrific whirlwind that swept up the Thames. Toward the end of the twelfth century, however, the church came into the picture. The chaplain of St Mary Colechurch in the Poultry, Peter by name, was unusually skilled in bridge building and proposed that a stone bridge be constructed. A fund-raising campaign was started and money was contributed by the king and citizens alike. So popular was this campaign that it was the talk of the land, and the children made up songs about it, as follows: London Bridge is broken down, Dance over my Lady Lee; London Bridge is broken down, With a gay ladee. The new bridge, started in 1176, took thirty-three years to build. It was 926 feet long, 20 feet wide, and stood 30 feet above the water. It had a drawbridge and nineteen pointed arches. Later, houses and shops were built on it. Over the tenth and longest pier a chapel was erected and dedicated to St Thomas a Becket. Peter de Colechurch died during the construction and was buried in this chapel in 1205. The chapel had two levels, and the lower one was accessible by stairs from the river. No bridge in medieval Europe could compare with it for size and strength. Until the Reformation the maintenance of this most important edifice was in the hands of the Brethren of St Thomas of the Bridge. The London Bridge of Peter de Colechurch lasted for over 600 years. It was, however, often in need of repair due to fires, storms, ice floes, and so on. But as London’s main gateway to the southern ports it was indispensable and usually so crowded with traffic that it was difficult and even dangerous to cross on foot. From the fourteenth century onward it was the practice to place the heads of traitors over the bridge gates. In early Reformation times the head of Sir Thomas More was so displayed. The piers of the bridge were protected by huge boatshaped buttresses of logs, called starlings; the narrow openings under the bridge consequently created the effect of a dam, with the water upstream spilling over into the lower river like a series of rapids. As hundreds of boats plied the Thames ferrying passengers up and down stream, ‘shooting the bridge’ was a necessary hazard. Also, the slower movement of the upper river made it more susceptible to freezing. On 9 January 1684, John Evelyn records in his Diary: I went across the Thames on the ice, now become so thick as to bear not only streets of booths, in which they roasted meat, and had divers shops of wares... but coaches, carts, and horses passed over. By the late eighteenth century London Bridge had been deserted by the merchants who formerly had shops there, and had fallen into hopeless disrepair. A new bridge was proposed in 1789, but it took another thirty-three years before Parliament finally accepted a plan for a replacement, designed by Sir John Rennie. In 1824 work began 100 feet westward, and in 1831 the new bridge was opened with great ceremony by King William IV. After this, the old bridge was finally demolished. When nothing was left above water but the starlings, workmen excavated the old Chapel of St Thomas and the grave of Peter de Colechurch on the centre pier. London Bridge’s Christian origins then disappeared forever.