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Home::Reference & Education
The History of London Bridge
Author : S Wander
Copyright 2005 S Wander
London Bridge today is not the same London Bridge that crossed
the Thames when it was first built. Peter, a priest and chaplain
of St. Mary's of Colechurch, began the foundation of the
original bridge in 1176 to replace a wooden bridge (expensive to
maintain and repeatedly burned down) that had first been built
by the Romans. The original London Bridge consisted of nineteen
pointed arches, each with a span averaging 7 meters, and built
on 6-metre-wide piers. A twentieth opening in the bridge was
spanned by a wooden drawbridge. With the building of this
bridge, a peculiar effect was discovered - the tide roared
through the narrow arches every day with great force; in fact,
it was so dramatically affected that it created temporary
5-foot-high cataracts every day as it went in and out.. A new
sport based on this nifty effect was "shooting the bridge" -
slipping through the arches in a small boat when the tide was
turning.
Peter of Colechurch died in 1205, and his work was completed by
three other London citizens by 1209. The bridge, already rather
narrow for its function, became even narrower (about 4 metres
wide) when shops and homes were built along both sides of the
roadway right on the bridge itself; by 1358, 138 places of
business were recorded in the tax rolls. And, like most older
London buildings, the shops were built so that the upper floors
stretched over the roadway - at last, the bridge became more
like a long tunnel lined with shops, through which travelers and
other people flowed. One can only imagine the smell, with the
sheltered road, no real drainage, and lots of horses and people!
The houses were built so that they overhung the water as well as
the roadway, and were anchored by tying them together across the
street with arches of strong timber. In 1580, water mills added
to the general chaos of the bridge.
The bridge was not only a home and place of business, it was a
defensible structure. More than once, its drawbridge was raised
and men fought under its strong tower to repulse invaders or
rebels, putting the wooden houses built on the bridge at some
risk. Until after the Scottish Restoration, the bridge was often
decorated by the heads, quarters, or body parts of the executed
who were to be put on display afterward. As late as the year
1598, a German traveller counted over thirty heads.
But having so much on the bridge itself became dangerous indeed
to inhabitants and travellers. Only three years after it was
first completed, a huge fire destroyed its buildings, killing
perhaps 3000 people when it jumped from one end of the bridge to
the other, trapping firefighting crowds between the flames. The
houses were quickly rebuilt - and in 1282 five of the bridge
arches collapsed with the weight of winter ice. But they too
were rebuilt along with their requisite buildings, and the
bridge continued as London's sole crossing of the Thames until
1750, when Westminster Bridge opened.
At about this time, the designer of Westminster Bridge was hired
to repair and renovate London Bridge. Redesign and repair was
deemed necessary by the narrowness of the road, the huge
supports of the bridge (which took up about a quarter of the
river's width), and by the dangerous sport of shooting the
bridge and other health hazards posed by the bridge. By 1762 the
character of the bridge was changed: all the houses were gone,
the roadway was 14 metres wide, and the two central arches
replaced by one great arch, allowing much easier passage for
larger boats.
Alas, this central arch proved difficult to maintain, and in the
early 1800s a second bridge was built a few meters away. The
original London Bridge was demolished by 1832. The new bridge
was called Rennie's Bridge. Designed by George Rennie and
constructed by John Rennie, it was composed of only five arches,
with the central span reaching 46 metres. Rennie's London Bridge
had a very odd ending. It lasted less than 140 years. Between
1968 and 1971, it was dismantled and shipped across the Atlantic
to the United States, where it was rebuilt in Lake Havasu City,
where it still stands, crossing Lake Havasu, 255 kilometres
south of Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. To see that London
Bridge, Londoners have to fly ten thousand miles!
The current London Bridge is modern pre-stressed concrete with a
central span of 104 meters.
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