A history of London Bridge - online talk from 20/1/26 by Don Brown

[00:00:01]I'll start with a a little tune.

[00:00:05]Uh we'll come on to the nursery rhyme probably at the end. Um there is uh a long history of bridges in London and London Bridge in particular. So, we're going to be going back about 2,000 years. Uh, covering the most famous of the bridges, which we can see there in in front of us, the medieval bridge, uh, a town in itself, [snorts] maybe 500 people living on it in its peak, 140 shops and houses, five stories, some of them crossing the bridge, and this stone bridge survived for 600 years or more.

[00:00:48]uh but we'll also look at some of the earlier iterations and uh the more modern ones. Uh and we will start in fact with the modern one.

[00:01:01]Uh this is the the most recent iteration of a of a nearly a 2,000y old legacy.

[00:01:08]This one opened by the queen in 1973 and it's the work of engineers Mos Haye and Anderson.

[00:01:17]uh with input by the uh post-war modernist brutalist architect uh and planner William Holford. It's made of four huge concrete and steel box beams. So imagine great long thin boxes of concrete and steel.

[00:01:40]Uh, and even though it's bigger in all dimensions than the one it replaced, uh, John Renie's 1830 bridge, it it weighs considerably less. Um, the modern bridge, as you can see, it's got two peers, so three spans. Uh, Ren Reny's bridge had five spans on it. Uh, the central span of this one, 100 meters wide. you know, about five, six times wider than Reny's. Uh, a maximum height of of 9 mters, 30 feet uh beneath the central arch. Uh, it's about 3/4 wider than its predecessor. Uh, and it's nicely finished. It's um got uh granite from Devon uh on the ballast ballastrades and some nice stainless steel handrails and the foot waves of footways have got York stone paving slabs and granite curbs. So, you know, all all lovely stuff, but I think the best that we can probably say about it is that it's sort of inoffensive.

[00:02:52]It's uli utilitarian.

[00:02:55]Um, it is really a little bit bland.

[00:02:58]It's sort of striving for that um elegance, that simplicity of of of Giles Gilbert Scott's Waterloo Bridge just up the river, but not quite hitting its mark. Um, if it had been a road bridge that's taking a dual carriageway over the Tease or the Trent or the Taff, we we we wouldn't we wouldn't worry about it. It we wouldn't pass the time.

[00:03:26]We would drive over it in 30 seconds and that would be it. But this is London Bridge. Um, the most famous bridge in the world probably, possibly. Um, it's the heir to a river crossing that takes us back to at least the Romans.

[00:03:46]And as such, this one is a little bit disappointing.

[00:03:52]The it's the reason I suppose why half of the Americans who come to London think the Tower Bridge is London Bridge.

[00:04:00]Something that famous with that much history has to be somehow dramatic. This is just a bridge. Um, so we'll we'll come back to this towards the end. We we'll look we'll look at the histories of the the bridge. We'll look at um who made them, how they functioned, um what went wrong with them, uh war battles on them, jousts, conflicts, invasions, rebellions, all that stuff of history. uh and then come back uh to this one at the end. And we we'll finish up with a sort of coder about that nursery rhyme uh London Bridge is falling down which has got half a dozen different ascribed sources to it and we'll we'll try and nail some of those down as as we get further on. It's probably going to be slightly longer talk than usual. So it's going to be over an hour. Generally, I I aim for an hour. Works out to be about an hour and 10 minutes. Probably another five or 10 minutes on top of that. I should get my watch off so I can actually see what the time is so that I don't um don't impose on you for for far too long. Um because there is so much history. There is so much that that is crammed into it. I mean, it starts with the [snorts] Romans. London always starts with the Romans. Uh this isn't London Bridge.

[00:05:33]This is Sir John Stone's imagining uh of one of Caesar's bridges across the Rine.

[00:05:41]So this dates to about 50 um BCE.

[00:05:47]Uh it Caesar built um a couple of substantial bridges across the Rine as part of his campaign to to conquer Gaul.

[00:05:58]Uh, and these crossed rivers maybe as long or maybe as wide rather uh as as London Bridge. Um, certainly as deep, possibly 9 m deep.

[00:06:13]And they were built quickly, days, uh, the records tell us. And they're pretty substantial. You you could get legions to march across them. And it's this sort of engineering that it comes to play in London. So after the Claudian invasion, after the um defeat of the tribes in southeast England, a bridge is constructed across the tempames. We think the first bridge was there by the year 50, may have been there by the year 45.

[00:06:49]Um, we don't know what this first bridge was like. May even have been a sort of rough sort of pontoon bridge. So, it's simply to carry people across. Uh, probably destroyed in the Budacan revolt of AD60.

[00:07:06]We know then that there was another bridge that survived to the 80s or the '9s. Um, another one that was built around about 85 90. Uh that was replaced in AD 120 by a much more substantial structure. Um great oak piles sunk into the river. Um uh stone peers uh a wooden um surface that could be replaced when it got damaged. There's speculation that there was a drawbridge in the middle of it because there were warves what we would call upstream of the river.

[00:07:47]Um, and as one historian put it, um, London is a parasite on the bridge. London grew up almost because of the bridgeg's existence. The the the the Roman road network leads to London. What you can see in this um um artist's imagining as well is that this is the city side over here on the right. Um the river was much wider uh over on the south bank uh where where modern day Sach is that was a Roman settlement another uh another part of Roman Londinium crossed with rivers the south much marshier much lower um roots through it have to be picked through. Um the river was wider slower moving flooded more.

[00:08:41]There is evidence that this final Roman bridge is not being used as much by the end of the 4th century. Londinium [clears throat] itself had gone into a huge decline by this point as as the Roman Empire contracts as trouble brews in Lond in uh in Europe on the continent as Saxon pirates raid the coast and raid into London. the warves, the harbors of Roman London aren't being used. And what seems to be happening is in some of the big approach roads uh to the bridge, they're being dug up. The gravel is being extracted, which means the roads aren't getting the aren't capable of getting the heavy use that they were before. So the the the the traffic, the transport, the carts aren't passing over that bridge. We don't know how long that bridge survived after the collapse of the Roman Empire, after the uh around about 4007 uh when the the Roman legions have finally been withdrawn and Roman Londinium decays pretty rapidly after that. But that bridge may have survived a little bit longer. Just before we get on to what then happens because we've got a gap of five 600 years perhaps when there wasn't a bridge. I'm just going to go a little bit up up river. I've been talking about the Roman bridge as the first London Bridge. There may be one that was a bit earlier say a bit earlier thousand years or so. This is from about three and a half thousand years ago.

[00:10:27]That's Vauxhall Bridge that you can see up there. MI6 just tucked in there. And these little wooden posts that are revealed at low tide um and you can still go and see them have been dated to about three and a half thousand years ago. Time team, the Channel 4 archaeology program did an excavation of them in in 2001.

[00:10:52]They speculated that it was some sort of bridge over to one of the islands uh that at that point existed in the middle of the tempames there. Whether that continued over to the other side of the river, i.e. a bridge across the the the hole of the tempames, we don't know.

[00:11:13]Whether there was actually a bridge, we don't know. It might have been a warf.

[00:11:16]It might have been a jetty of some sort.

[00:11:18]Uh but we do know that the bron the late bronze age um this is when this dates to and then later the iron age votive offerings were made into rivers. It may have had some religious um or sacred connotation uh for for the people there.

[00:11:35]This did not develop into a London bridge which we're going to discuss. Nor did whatever settlement that was around here develop into any sort of town. But those of you who want to go and stroll down Vauhall embankments at low tide, um you can still see it. And um actually on the other side of the bridge at the at the um uh what is it? The neep tides, the very lowest tides of the year, you can see a couple of posts going into the river that are another couple of thousand years older than this, which no one knows the purpose of. Again, warf jetty communication into the river. We don't know. But back to the main um main drag, the Romans leave, the Saxons arrive. Um they don't seem to have had a a a bridge as far as we know. The first Saxon settlements further down river down close to modern day Covent Garden.

[00:12:35]One on there is is the Royal Opera House where um when they were um redoing that 101 15 years ago there were some excavations done and part of the Saxon street pattern was found under there.

[00:12:47]This is known as London Wick or London Witch um which is a market town. Uh the Saxon traders seem to have come down the river um murred up and as the tide sinks the boats become their shops. Their places for trade uh there on the river.

[00:13:08]They're not sailing past any bridge.

[00:13:10]There is no need for a bridge at this point. Um and we we know that um this area was inhabited for a good 250 300 years until um Alfred the Great uh and he moves the population back within the old confines of Londinium um builds up the wall. It's the time of the Viking raids. the men from the north coming down. London was attacked in 842.

[00:13:48]Again, in 851, we know that the Vikings overcamped for the winter in what was within the the old Roman walls. In 871, um Alfred moves the population from Londonwick into London Berg, a b a berg, a a fortified town in 886.

[00:14:10]Um, England is then divided between the Anglo-Saxon bit, the Dan law, the stuff controlled by the Vikings, and that border.

[00:14:22]It's the the river Lee, so it's not that far away. London is a border town. We don't know if Alfred built a bridge. Um, probably not. It probably would have been recorded. There is also um a hive or a warf up river of where the current bridge is. Um and that would have been a difficult place to trade if if if a bridge is is blocking that um um uh transport up and down the river. The first mention we have of a London bridge that comes from Anglo-Saxon records is in the 970s, but it's probably wrong. Uh there is a the the tale of a of a of a widow and her son who are tried and condemned for having made effiges uh of someone that they were um in conflict with and and essentially sticking pins in that and and the widow is um the son escapes, the widow is condemned to death and the records say that she was thrown from London Bridge.

[00:15:36]Uh most modern um interpretations of that is that um this was a a bridge that was on a road to London because this all took place about 80 miles north of uh London, well into Cambridge. Uh and it seems unlikely that she would have been brought down uh to London uh just to be executed. And like most witch trials, this was all about property anyways.

[00:16:00]Some someone wanted the land she had, the rich landowner wanted the land she had. they cooked up this tale of witchcraft and uh she lost out because of it. Um so the the some books you read say that there is a mention of a London Bridge in the 1970 um 970s 980s uh but this seems to be a sort of false record.

[00:16:24]The Vikings again um do start to figure in our stories of the bridge in uh 994.

[00:16:35]Vain Forkbeard, King of the Danes, and Olaf Triv. What is it? I've written it down. Trig um King Olaf I of Norway. Um attack London. Um they are beaten back. It is speculated that uh they've landed on the south or they're coming from the south um and are trying to cross the bridge.

[00:17:02]they can't uh get the bridge and that is one of the reasons why their their attack um fails.

[00:17:10]There have been timbers found of this Saxon bridge which uh are dated between 982 and 1032. So it it sort of worked. There is a bridge there certainly by the year 1000. We don't know whether it had been there 20 years, whether it's not built for another 10 years, but by about the year 1000, there is a bridge and then we have an unbroken history of a bridges at London Bridge uh right up to the present. Um I say unbroken, some of those bridges did break uh but there has always been a structure there regarded as being London Bridge. Um, it next uh sort of figures in the turn of that century, the early uh 1000s when the king is Etheld the unready um the Danes are being assertive. First SWain again, Swain Forkbeard, then his son Canute uh Canute the Great. Um, London falls to the Danes in 1013.

[00:18:28]Swain Fbeard occupies the city. And this is when we get the first um or one of the more famous stories about the bridge.

[00:18:43]uh which comes from an Icelandic sort of um bardic poet called Snory Sterles called Heims Crinkler. Um this is um actually written 200 years after the event. So we have to take it with a large pinch of salt. Um but after Sain Forkbeard is um uh has taken the city, Ethel Red, the Unready um allies with the new king of Norway. He's also called Olaf, Olaf Haroldson, Olaf II. H and they attack London. Um the Danes have got a fort in Suffach. They have a fort um on the north bank of the river close to where the Tower of London is. There is a fortified bridge. Um the um the Anglo Norwegian army uh cannot um get up river. They cannot get past it. As this illustration shows, it is packed full of armed men. And the um saga says that King Olaf um covered his boats with these um thatched with these roofs to protect them from the arrows and rocks that were flung on them from the defenders of the bridge. They row up to the bridge, attach huge cables of chains around the post, and then using the tide and rowing like hell, they bring down the bridge. The bridge is collapsed.

[00:20:23]Soduk is disconnected uh from the North Bank.

[00:20:30]The English and the Danes take Soduk.

[00:20:34]The North Bank then surrenders and Ethel Red the Unready um reclaims London again.

[00:20:43]Later on the bridge is rebuilt. seems to be rebuilt very quickly because Canute sails sorry yes canute sails up in 1800 1014 can't get past the bridge um and digs a huge ditch that goes all the way around it can ditch is meant to be sort of 4 kilometers long going from Rotherhive all the way through round to uh beyond Westminster brings his longboats round there and takes or attempts to take position probably neither of these stories are true. Um but um as I say um Sterles is writing at least 200 years after King Olaf. Um but there is there is something happening around the bridge for these stories to to uh to continue to um uh to be perpetuated. Uh St. Olaf, by the way, the going to the city of London, there are half a dozen St. Olaf ch churches.

[00:21:51]Uh he was he was kned, canonized. Um he Christianized Norway and is Norway's patron saint and Tuli Street south of the river is a um a corruption of St. Olaf uh because that is where uh Olaf and his forces landed to inject uh the Danes at that point. Um there is a bridge though in the uh early part of the last millennium. Um, we also know that it is we also believe uh that it is this that stops William the Conqueror taking London uh straight after the Battle of Hastings.

[00:22:36]After he's defeated um Harold at Hastings, the English forces retreat, regroup in London. Um Williams forces are reinforced. They march on the capital. There is a battle, the battle of Soduk, where the uh English are defeated and retreat, but William can't get across the river. So that implies another fortified bridge, another defense uh that uh that stops these attacking forces getting across this bottleneck of troops, makes it very easy to defend.

[00:23:16]So, William burns. Soduk burns the southeast, swings west, destroying the countryside as he goes. Uh, and eventually London surrenders to him uh towards the end of of 1066.

[00:23:33]Um, William rebuilds the bridge. Um, and more work is done by William's son, William II, William Rufus. We know that that bridge is then destroyed in 1091 uh by what is a tornado. Um it is a a huge storm the like of which London had never seen uh and has never seen again.

[00:24:04]Uh some u meteorolog meteorologists uh basing it on um um pretty scant information. I have to say uh speculate that the winds might have got to over 200 miles an hour blowing through London. There are 600 houses destroyed.

[00:24:23]The bridge is destroyed. Uh St. Mary Leau in Cheapside is blown down and it is said that 26 foot long beams um are [snorts] thrust into the ground by the force of the storm um to such a degree that only 4 feet of them uh appears above the earth. the bridge is rebuilt again. Um and um there is then a great fire of London uh in 1135 breaks out uh near the London stone near modern day Cannon Street, burns uh all the way up uh down to the river fleet, but also destroys the bridge. Um rebuilt yet again. Um and then we get to the hero of the story I suppose. Um Peter, uh who is the priest of St. Mary Cole Church, which is number six just there, St. Mary Cole Church just on the corner of um Cheapside uh and Poultry uh rather in uh in the city of London. Um because he's a priest of St. Mary Kell Church.

[00:25:38]He's come down to us in history as Peter Dolchurch.

[00:25:42]Um he is the one who builds the last wooden bridge that goes up in 1163 constructed of elm. H and then a dozen or so years later he starts work on the stone bridge. So 1176 reign of Henry II he is starting work uh on the stone bridge and it is this stone bridge that takes 33 years to build. Peter dies four or five years before its completion but this stone bridge lasts in one form or or another for the next 600 years until Renie rebuilds it.

[00:26:25]Um the construction methods um they are sinking huge piles into the river. Uh these um uh manually operated pile drivers um sticking these great wooden stakes in. You then fill those up. That gives you they're known as in these towns stings. Uh and above those you build the peers on which stand the bridges. There are 19 of these stings and these peers. Uh 20 archers.

[00:27:01]They're not regular. They're not building them uh at regular intervals.

[00:27:05]They're building them where they can where the ground seems uh to be able to uh take that. It is a huge challenge to do this of course because as you build one you've narrowed the river slightly.

[00:27:19]the flow of the rest is increased and the [clears throat] more you build the more that flow is increased. So it is a it is a difficult job. It is a challenging job which is probably the reason it takes 33 years uh to build it.

[00:27:35]Um but once built uh it is regarded as one of the wonders of Europe. It is about a thousand ft long. Um it has got a drawbridge in the center, a stone gate at one end. Um the houses probably this is a obviously not a contemporary illustration. It comes from um this this uh this book about the uh the houses on the bridge. The building probably not this regular. Um they are slightly more chaotic uh in their build. Uh the bridge is about a,000 ft long.

[00:28:14]um width um I think it's just over 20 feet um but with the houses perched on the sides of it um the roadway in the middle can be as narrow as 12 feet in some po points.

[00:28:31]So that's that's under uh under four meters. So it is it is very narrow indeed.

[00:28:39]Um the houses um are built two or three feet uh on the stone paraput and then there are supports that uh sort of can lever out uh where the um uh where the the the bulk of the house uh resides.

[00:28:58]A big chapel in the middle the uh one of the central peers is is bigger than the others as is the drawbridge pier. Um and it is a chapel dedicated to Thomas Beckett uh the um archbishop of Canterbury murdered in 1173 on the orders of of Henry II.

[00:29:21]The financing of it comes from attacks on wool on attacks on leather on attacks on cloth. Uh it was said that London Bridge is built on wool packs because the the woolen trade was so valuable to England and the tax on that generated the funds that allowed it to be built.

[00:29:42]It was always going to be an occupied bridge. Houses were included from the start. These are not just residences.

[00:29:52]They are places of trade. the ground floor, a shop or a workshop, a tiny little ledge where the um uh trader could display their wares. The rents from this went towards m the uh cost of the upkeep, the maintenance of the bridge. It is narrowing the flow of the river. So um you can see here at low tide uh the um the arches um very constricted uh by these stings. These are these platforms on which the peers are are are built. At low tide the river is maybe being squeezed into a a third or a quarter of the space it would have occupied normally. At high tide at best a half. Um so you are setting up all sorts of consequences um that um uh that I'll come to in a in a minute. Um almost immediately after this is is uh is completed in 1209 there is the great fire of Soduk uh that breaks out in 1212. So Soduk is the south side of the bridge the other side uh to the city. Um, hugely destructive fire. Um, hundreds of houses burning, people trying to escape one way over the bridge, other people coming the other way either to help or to watch. A strong wind blowing from the south. And what happens is some of those sparks carry down to the city end of the bridge that catches fire. The houses burn. People are trapped on the bridge. Um, some some are killed in the flames. Some uh manage to get into boats and escape.

[00:31:57]Others overload the boats and the boats sink. Uh, John Stowe writing in 400 years later um said that 3,000 people were killed as a result of the fire. It almost certainly wasn't that many, but probably several hundreds were killed and the bridge itself very badly damaged, almost cleared of houses, the chapel destroyed. This is one of the first of the many rebuildings that take place because of fires, because of accidents, uh because of general wear and tear uh that that happens uh to London Bridge. The first illustration we have of it uh dates from about 1500.

[00:32:44]Looks back to the 1430s um of um Charles the Duke of Olong uh captured at Azinor and kept prisoner in the Tower of London. And you can see the bridge here at the back. There is the chapel, the rebuilt chapel um rebuilt in the in the late 1300s. Uh and um just a little closeup for you. Um you can also see a version of this which I hope this works. I shall click through uh within the church of St. Magnus the Martyr which is the church at the Can people see that? Can you see that little bridge? Uh the church of St. Magnus the Martyr uh which is at the north end of the bridge. In fact, it it on in the middle ages um you you stepped out of the church and you were on the roadway that led into the bridge. Uh the church itself most sorry the bridge itself most of that was within the parish of St. Magnus. Within that there is this rather wonderful um scale model of the bridge designed or made as it would have looked in about 1400. Uh it's commemorating um Henry V's uh procession over the bridge uh and um uh it has got about 900 different figures on it made by someone called David Agot in 1987. And um if you are in London and you go to um St. Magnus um you can see this. Oops, gone the wrong way there. Um and you can see here the uh the the spans of the river, the the great drawbridge tower. There is a drawbridge obviously lifting up so that uh boats with masts could sail sort of gingerely through. Um at this end what's called the stone gate. That was another layer of protection. The borders of the city of London began just on the southern side of that. 1282 it was decreed that the bridge was part of the city of London, not the responsibility and and no claim on it u by uh the county of Surrey or the burough of Suk on the other side. Um you get a sense as well. This is this is great. Love this.

[00:35:20]that time um uh of the narrowness of that bridge. Uh this is the only bridge across the tidal temps until Putney Bridge is built in 1729.

[00:35:33]This is where if you're coming up from the southeast of England, you either have to make a huge long detour, you have to find somewhere to or you have to go over London Bridge. And you just imagine the chaos uh the carts, the people here. Sheep, presumed sheep, um are being herded over the bridge. This is happening uh constantly. Things going backwards and forwards. It could take an hour uh to cross the bridge. All the while um you have got people shouting out uh their uh their wares, people trying to sell you things, people trying to rob you. Um it is a chaotic scene.

[00:36:21]The other fascinating thing about it is that lots of it was covered. Uh, so much of it was dark and sometimes people were on the bridge without realizing it. They thought they were just in some other London street and until they walked along and then there's a gap through the houses and they could see the rushing water um on on either side. Um, and the problems with going through the bridge, the narrowness uh of this space because this is blocking um a half at least of the river flow.

[00:37:00]It's acting like a dam um at high tide there could be as much as a six-foot drop between one side of the bridge uh and the other. Incredibly dangerous.

[00:37:13]Hundreds of people if not thousands lost their life trying to shoot the bridge.

[00:37:18]People generally particularly the nobility particularly people who were uh traveling up river would get off their boat at one side allow the boatman to take it through and then rejoin it on the other side. Um one of the other dangers for the boatman all of this overhang. Um quite frequently this is where um the latrines were in houses. So you not have to be careful of um uh what's underneath you.

[00:37:49]You have to um be very aware of of what's above you. There were also public latrines uh based on the um uh on on the bridge. Uh one of which collapsed in 1381. Um, five men were killed as it plunged into the waters beneath. Let's see if I can get back to this. Here we go.

[00:38:15]Um, and this in um Nordon's um illustration of the bridge in 1597. Um he has even drawn in one of those um boats sinking um or being overturned um as it has attempted to to shoot the rapids.

[00:38:35]Um this also causes problems for the bridge itself, not just the people going through them. There is someone else trying to get through just squeezing through. Um this narrowness, this this this increased flow going through it meant that these stings needed constant repair. And also the the peers on which they were built at high tide, they're going to be affected by the movement of the of the water as well as the tide flows in and out. Um it's a very narrow gap. Boats are hitting them. Uh people would be fishing close to them. At one point, um, fishermen were not allowed to have fishing boats within 20 fathoms.

[00:39:19]That's what 160 ft um 50 mters. Uh, they weren't allowed to fish within 50 m of the bridge because of damage had been done by by the fishing boats. Um, there is the drawbridge again. Uh, we'll come to the heads which are on this big stone gate house at one side. Um by the time Nordon's doing this, the um drawbridge tower that had existed had been replaced. We get to something called non-such house. Look at that shortly.

[00:39:53]And the chapel has gone in the reformation. This has now been converted to a general residence. Uh but that chapel, that Beckett Chapel, the biggest um building on the whole bridge by the time it was um uh finished and enlarged in the 1380s is about 60 ft long, so just under 20 m, 40t high. It's over a couple of of layers. There's an underc to it from the river. the the undercraftoft uh was sometimes called the the the boatman's chapel because you could step onto the stling up a flight of stairs and go into that undercraftoft. Um it's in that undercraft as well that Peter to Cole Church who' started the bridge uh where his body was buried um it's on the biggest pier in the bridge. It is where pilgrimages to Canterbury started. So if you were one of Chorse's pilgrims, you would have gone and prayed in the Becket Chapel on the bridge. Beckett at this point, the p certainly the patron saint of London, if not the patron saint of England, then you would have started your your pilgrimage the next morning from one of the inns uh on there on the southern side. Um this I wonders as well the pope decreed at one point that if you uh went and prayed in the Beckett Chapel um on Beckett's birthday 29th of December uh you were you were given 30 days of indulgences. So 30 days of purgatory uh to by um uh by by visiting the chapel on Beckett's birthday. It doesn't survive the reformation. Henry VII has got a very big downer uh on the cult of Beckett. It's um converted to uh um worship Thomas the Apostle doubting Thomas uh in 1538 all the images of Beckett are taken away from it and 10 years later 1548 it's deconsecrated. Um by 1553 it's it's occupied by a a grosser. uh he's using the undercraftoft as his as his storoom and and doing his trade from the main part of the building. Um so this this place is this bridge is part of London's life, part of the fabric of it, the only bridge across um the the city. The um a a place of wonder for visitors who've never seen anything like it. It is the largest inhabited uh bridge in the world. It is the biggest stone bridge in the world. Uh it is regarded as being one of the wonders of medieval Europe. It's an entrance into the city. It is uh a defense. That's why the drawbridge is there. That's why the great stone gate is there. It becomes part of the warp and weft of medieval London life. is as much a high street for London as cheap side is or say Whiteall or Pal is is now. So all sorts of different events and pro processions take place on the on the bridge. One of my favorite takes place in 1390 a joust between the champion of England called De Wells and uh the Scottish champion Dindsey. He and his uh entourage are given passes to be able to come down to England. It is meant to be a a fight to the death. Um there are banners across the the bridge. All the properties that are there uh are rented out. The nobility take all the best views. Boats mirror in the river so that people can try and um see up to where it is. We think the joust probably took place in the open space uh in front of the chapel. Um even though it's meant to be a a fight to the death, it is a a challenge between England and Scotland. Um and Delsey the Scottish champion unseats [snorts] De Wells.

[00:44:24]He he there is then fighting on the foot and dindi doesn't um administer the coupra. Um he is proclaimed the champion. uh Dwells is is stretched off the field and recovers, but the the Scottish champion is um uh given the honors uh is given riches and he and Dwells form a friendship um because of their their combat together. Um it also fe features in battles. There is another battle of Soduk. mentioned William the Conqueror before. Uh in 1381 in the peasants revolt that drawbridge is lifted. Those gates are locked to stop the men of Kent uh coming into the city. But because the men of Essex have also revolted, they've gone in through Old Witch. The bridge is lowered and uh the rebellious peasants then stream across. A couple of generations later during the reign of Henry V 6 during the um Wars of the Roses uh we have Jack Cad's rebellion. Jack Cade again getting the men of Kent to uh to rise up. They march on London uh in order to remove the um uh the evil advisers to King Henry V 6. Whenever rebellions happen in the Middle Ages, it's never against the king. at all was against their advisers.

[00:46:02]Um Cade and his men uh stable their horses in Soduk. That's where all the the ins are. Fewer of them in um in the city of London. The drawbridge is raised against them so that they can't get in.

[00:46:18]Uh but Cade and a party row to the drawbridge um overpower the guards, cut the ropes on the drawbridge so it can't be um lifted up h and ride into the city where they uh lynch a couple of the king's advisers um go back to Soduk uh [snorts] for the night.

[00:46:43]While this has been going on, the city of London has raised some forces. They go down to the bridge. They close the stone gate in the middle of the night.

[00:46:54]Cad's forces uh realize what's happening. There is a battle on the bridge for the control of that great stone gate uh for eight hours or more.

[00:47:05]In the end, the city of London triumphs.

[00:47:09]The rebels are driven off. Kate Cade is ultimately captured and dies of his wounds before he can be executed. Uh the gate and the drawbridge also feature in uh rebellions Falenberg's rebellion Wyatt's rebellion uh in the 1500s when the Spanish armada is sailing in 1588 those gates are closed again and defenses are prepared. So you have the bridge not just as communication but also as a way of blocking access from the south, defending access by the road, defending uh the river uh from forces sailing up it. There are better things that happen there as well. Um, one of the most dramatic being of the parade for the restoration in 1660, uh, when Charles II rides into London. Uh but it had been used before this um decked out and [snorts] decorated uh the black prince in 1357 when he rides after the the battle of Cessie over battle of Puatia over the um over the bridge bringing the the prisoners that he's kept. Banners are unfurled. Crowds appear um in 1395 for Richard II's wedding. Again, more decorations. The biggest ones perhaps in 1415 after Azinkor where there are two huge statues carved that stand by the stone gates probably or possibly of Gog and Magog, the the uh giants that are said to protect the city of London. These things are said to have been carved so that they were bigger than the towers, 60 feet high. Uh there are um another procession, a grimmer one uh after Henry V's death. Royal brides are frequently met on the bridge uh by the Lord Mayor of London and conducted with great ceremony and procession across it. Um, but the um the the the description of Charles II's procession sort of knocks most of that into a into a cocked hat.

[00:49:35]Um, it said that tapestries were draped over all of the buildings. Uh, there were giant decorations. They got all the repairs done in time. And on 29th of May, which was Charles II's 30th birthday, uh the procession from the Lord Mayor crossed the bridge to meet Charles at uh St. George's Fields uh just south of the river. And then this massive great parade went across. 300 gentlemen in cloth of silver, 300 men in purple coats. Then the troops marching, then 700 horsemen, 72 [snorts] sheriff'smen, men of the city of London, uh the city livery companies, uh all wanting to be associated with the the return of the king uh as he came across the river. Um just that thing on the um on the repairs to the bridge being done.

[00:50:36]Not sure how good they were because um a few years later, Samuel Peeps uh reports that he was walking over the bridge and um fell down a hole um probably close to where the drawbridge is and needed helping out. He he could see the river underneath as his leg plunged through the boards. So sometimes the bridge is not being maintained and kept up to the standards we expect. Um the um the responsibility of the this was given to something called bridge house. Uh they they have a a royal charter from 1282.

[00:51:20]Uh the city of London gets jurisdiction over the bridge. I think I said 1282 before. was 1258. 1282 is is bridge house. This is getting income from rents on the bridge, rents from uh land given to them. Uh within the city of London, there was a a big bit of land close to where Mansion houses in the stocks market. Uh it was regarded as a religious duty to leave money to churches and to the upkeep of bridges.

[00:51:53]Bridges have always had this religious connotations as well. Um so there are donations of money, donations of land.

[00:52:01]This is um going to the control of two people called the bridge masters. They have something called bridge house on the south side of the river. And at various times a large staff, carpenters, masons, um rent collectors. At one point there was even a keeper of the swans. Um the swans that went through it belonged to the city. Um and at one point as well keeper of the heads the heads that was stuck on the bridges uh on the towers over those bridges. Uh the bridge house uh also had to give money to the city at various times. It was um uh part funded the building of Guild Hall in the early 1400s after after the earlier building had been destroyed and that needed to be rebuilt. Um at times it had to borrow money off the city. Um but over the centuries it has acquired a fund that it now tops more than 1.5 billion pounds.

[00:53:09]It is a charity. It is still responsible for the upkeep of of the bridges within the city of London. Uh but it has also got um uh it changed its its rules about 15 20 years ago. So it could give money to to uh uh causes that weren't just um bridge related. And it gives out 50 or 60 million pounds a year both to the upkeep of the bridges and in charitable donations. um no longer called Bridge House. Um forgotten completely what it is called.

[00:53:44]It will come back to me but um probably not in the right time. Um this is the bridge in the 1540s.

[00:53:53]Um we can see heads here on the drawbridge tower. The drawbridge had stopped being used by this point.

[00:54:02]um the lifting and the closing of the drawbridge was doing severe damage um to uh to the bridge. So it was decreed in the 1480s that the bridge should not be lifted anymore except in defense and except in exceptional circumstances. So it was lifted a couple of times for Henry VIIth uh but after that um not at all. Um we have got the great stone gate here on this side. This is a replacement. Um the uh earlier one had collapsed into the river uh in the end of the 1300s blocking one of one of these um uh arches uh until the the new bridge is is built. Um bridge house ever on this side of the river. Uh we can still see the houses some of which are are spanning the uh the the bridge completely.

[00:55:06]One of the other consequences of the bridge acting as a dam is that upriver becomes very slowm moving. Um, and this has the consequence in very very cold weather, uh, that the temps might freeze. Sometimes the frosts, as they called it, are so great that the entire river freezes.

[00:55:31]There's tales of it freezing all the way down to Wulitch at at one point, but it is more likely uh that it freezes above the bridge. uh and these give rise to uh some of the most famous of the uh instances that surround the bridge, the so-called frost fairs uh when the the ice is so strong that um events can take place on on the river. These this I believe over the left is temple stairs.

[00:56:03]You've got the um the bridge in the background. Um the most famous of these perhaps or the biggest of these was in the winter of uh 1685 to 4 uh when it was said there was a a a street of boos that stretched from temple to Soduk. Uh so um uh people trading, people selling um there was bull baiting, uh horse and coach races across the ice. Um you can see people ice skating, puppet plays, um cooks and tippling uh and luda pursuits uh taking place uh on the river. Um these continue all the way up until the winter of 181314.

[00:56:58]Uh that is the last frost fair to be held. The last before the bridge is replaced. Um they are big events, big commercial events. But the freezing of the river has other consequences that ice um damages the peers, damages the stings. And in Thors, even more damage is done. Great ice flows flow down the river uh and crash into uh the structure of the building. Um at one point uh uh in in um uh 1281, five of the peers are destroyed by the ice flowing down and smashing into them.

[00:57:42]Uh so um you have got these wonderful events going taking place but I suspect the bridge masters uh are looking anxiously waiting uh for to see what damage is going to be be caused afterwards. The bridge is in this constant state of repair. Um it is the peers the stings are being replaced the buildings are being done upon it. There is a new drawbridge tower uh built in 1426.

[00:58:16]The great stone gate as I mentioned before actually it's 1437 that that collapsed into the river and needed replacing. By the time we get to 1616 the drawbridge tower has gone completely and you've got something that's called non such house. I'll look at that in just a second. And the great stone gate has become the repository for those heads. the keeper of the heads. When heads were first displayed on the river, and we think the first one was William Wallace, Braveheart in about 1300, uh they went on the on the drawbridge. That was the uh the the major tower, the bigger tower, uh on the bridge. Um after the drawbridge tower goes, they they move down to the Great Stone Gate. and a a visitor to London in the late 1500s records there being upwards of 32 heads uh stuck there on spikes on the river.

[00:59:17]The keeper of the head's responsibility uh to make sure they didn't rot too quickly and once they were uh past their best perhaps we can say uh he would um throw them in the river um uh to to sink to the bottom. Uh so prisoners executed at the Tower of London uh beheadings on Tower Hill. The heads of tracers uh would be displayed on the bridge. Uh this is also the place where the death warrant of Mary Queen of Scots was read out announced to the crowds. Um so a a a brutal entrance uh when you went through um the river. The last head to display be displayed there um was in 1678.

[01:00:05]Uh after that the the heads were displayed over uh Ren's rather lovely um temple bar uh in Fleet Street. Uh so the tradition continued uh but it moved from the bridge in this point. non- such house. Um this huge Elizabethan mansion that it it uh um looked like replaced the drawbridge tower as I say.

[01:00:33]Uh this was 75 ft wide. So that's what 22 m um 25 feet so about 8 mters deep.

[01:00:42]It's actually two houses split down the middle um uh which were uh occupied by um by the better sort uh and uh a classical facade which was painted um a glorious looking building uh during its construction during the rest of the um 16th and early um 17th century. Uh but by the middle of the uh 17th century it was starting to look a little bit the worse for wear. Um the bridge continues to suffer from collapses um breakages fires. There are fires in southern uh on numerous occasions. There is a big fire at one end of the bridge at the north end of the bridge in 1633.

[01:01:36]about a third of the houses are destroyed and Holler's uh vista here shows it um what 15 years after that before uh the rebuilding has started again. In fact, there are wooden parapits set up uh so that people crossing the bridge aren't going to be blown off the bridge in storms. Um there is non such house again. Um uh we the stone gate is down here. This is the um the house of windows I believe. Um is that what it was called? Um that was another glorious house at at at one end of the bridge. So fire at one end of the bridge. Um the houses are being rebuilt and then 1633.

[01:02:25]So less than 20 years after Holler, we have the great fire of London. 80% of the city of London destroyed. That breaks out. There is St. Magnus's church as it existed before the Great Fire. Um the Great Fire breaks out. Pudding Lane is sort of around here somewhere. Um St. Magnus's church is one of the first to go. Uh the bridge fires is fire on the bridge but uh a break caused by the rebuilding a break caused uh up towards the chapel means that only about a third of the superructure of the bu the bridge is is uh damaged even though the heat of the flames do a lot of damage to the arches and to the peers. Uh and the bridge is not something that people can escape over. Uh there there are burning beams, there are fallen houses within it. But as an entirety, um the bridge manages to survive. At the other end of the bridge, 1676, there is a uh another fire in Soduk. Um, another one again in 1725 which damages the Great Stone Gate that needs replacing. Um, and um that great stone gate taken down um slightly later when the bridge it it is decided that the bridge is becoming anacronistic. This is a um a illustration, a drawing by Rollinsson um later 1787 um giving a hint of the chaos that took place on the bridge um when it was um emptied of buildings. So imagine what it was like when it was full of buildings.

[01:04:24]This is the the overgrown uh overdrive ox. this ox has escaped and is terrifying the coaches and the people crossing the bridge. Um, most commentators or reports of the bridge just tell you about how noisy it was, how crowded it was. Um, shouts, cries, screams, the noise of the rushing water underneath the bridge. There were water wheels at the St. Magnus end. There were cornmills at the water powered cornmills at the southern end. A great den as you went across amplified of course by these buildings over it. Animals being herded uh carts trying to get across this huge press of people. Um in 1675 it was decided that everyone should try and stick to the right. there were beagles appointed to try and maintain that and when the bridge was cleared and I'll come to that cleared of the houses um oh sorry in fact before that in 1722 um they changed their mind and decided that everyone should stick to the left this is um apparently um one of the reasons why the the British drive on the left rather than the right or certainly that's what um what legend tells us because of this decree and yet it could still take an hour to cross the bridge by the time we get to the 1700s.

[01:06:00]Um the bridge is becoming anacronistic.

[01:06:04]The the shops on the bridge in the Middle Ages they'd been very up market.

[01:06:11]It it is where you came to shop if you needed specific things, important things. By the time you get to the 1700s, there have been other markets, other shopping streets developed.

[01:06:25]It is less desirable. The um the retailers on the bridge uh are less upscale uh than other parts of London. So, it is not being visited in the same way by the quality. Um the houses being replaced, they now look more Georgian. um or certainly early Georgian and uniform.

[01:06:49]You can also see though that as they've got bigger, as they've got wider, they've needed to build a sort of platform uh on which these houses could stand. And that is reducing the height of the arches. So, it's making it even more difficult uh for boats to go up river. They can only really go up go through the bridge uh at low tide. So you're you're saying that the waters are only navigable up and down river for for maybe four six hours a day. Um other bridges are being built. Putney first in 1729. Then you've got Westminster Bridge, the city of London, the traders, the rivermen all fought this. That opens in 1750. Um it is much wider. It is much more open. a black friars's bridge just down ri just up river opens in 1769 the purpose the point of um London Bridge is being lost the city decides it needs to act um 1749 before Westminster before um black friars there is a threehour gridlock on the bridge uh when crowds have gone to Vauxhall pleasure gardens to listen to a rehearsal for the music for the royal fireworks. Uh, and the the flow of people trying to get back over the over the bridge into the city is so great uh that traffic stops completely for for for 3 hours. Um, there is more damage done in Thors in the in the 1730s. The bridge is gradually becoming second rate. So the city of London thinks it has to act. Um there are parliamentary committees, there are competitions for new bridges. Plans are drawn up. Uh but all of these are deemed a little bit too expensive. Um so their plan is to strip the houses from the bridge. So the leases are coming, most of them coming towards the end. Those that aren't are gotten rid of. That allows them to widen the roadway. the um oh sorry just as they're building it as as they're doing this they know it's going to take time to strip the properties so there is a temporary wooden bridge uh set up alongside it um and in 17 uh 58 this is destroyed by a fire um completely destroyed um the river is impassible for weeks because the the old London Bridge the stone bridge is busy being um remade, remodeled and is blocked. The temporary bridge that was acting as the conduit over the river um is completely destroyed by fire. Um witnesses report that the fire started in two places at once. So it is suspected that it is sabotage rather than accident. U but the stone bridge is cleared. Um and eventually it is completely cleared. It is completely cleared of buildings. Two arches in the center are knocked together to make the great arch. Um the great stone gate is taken down in 1760 and all the houses have gone by 17 uh 62. It has taken four years to clear all the uh structures from the bridge. um structures that I suppose you can say went back 550 years. It gives us um a slightly more elegant bridge finished in the Gothic taste. It is said there are recesses for pedestrians to shel and some of those are covered in little half domes uh for pedestrians to to shelter from um the the rain and the elements.

[01:10:56]ballastrades, stone ballastrades that go along it. Uh there are posts and chains within it to separate the walkways um from the uh the road, the general road surface that goes through. Um you can see on this one the water wheels that are still there on the north side of the bridge, but it is doesn't really fix the problem. Um by 1801 it's it's obvious that this really hasn't solved anything.

[01:11:31]Um more bridges are springing up.

[01:11:33]Vauhall 1816, Waterloo in 1817 designed by John Renie. Um that's said to have been able to take um four carriages going across it side by side. So almost twice the width uh of um London Bridge.

[01:11:50]Soduk Bridge, an iron bridge built in 1819 just upstream from this London Bridge. So it is regarded as necessary to get rid of the old bridge. Um there is an act in 1823, an act for the rebuilding of London Bridge and the um first piles to build these what are called coffer dams. the coffer dams. The water is pumped out. Then you can build your new stone pier. These stone peers that are being built. Um the first piles for those are put in in March of 1824.

[01:12:32]There is a great ceremony in one of these coffer dams in June 1825, the 10th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo where the 400 people um go down steps surrounded by this dam to see the Lord Mayor of London tap in the first granite stone, the first stone of the first pier that will construct London Bridge. The bridge is built just 100 ft or so up river of the old one. So here is the old one still in use as the new one is constructed uh next to it. This is still the line of the modern bridge.

[01:13:12]The line of the old bridge um passes as I say up in front of St. Magnus the Martr and then past the monument to the great fire of London. The monument is where it is precisely because you passed it after crossing the bridge. The first thing you saw after the church was the monument to the great fire. But here is um Reny's bridge being built. It's um a classic little bit of um British engineering. It's 18 months late in being opened, but it's um opened by William IV and Queen Adelaide on the 1st of August 1831.

[01:13:56]There is a procession up the river with royal barges. Uh the royal party lands just the other side uh on what are now called or what were called Adelaide steps in the early 1900s. uh a building was built there called Adelaide House named after the stairs which are named after the queen. They even had someone with a um hot air balloon as part of these huge great celebrations uh that took place. The bridge is 928 ft long, so a little bit shorter than the one it replaced. Um 17 m wide, so 50 55 60 feet wide. Um the bridge has its revenge on the river on the boatman on the other bridges that have been stealing its lunch. Um the improved flow means that the tides are three foot higher. Uh they're also 18 in lower and low and there were ships that grounded because the uh the tides were were were lower. A faster flow. That didn't just mean that the um frost fairs couldn't happen anymore. It means that the scouring from the debris within the rivers on the foundations of other bridges up river meant that they eventually needed replacing. Um Black Friars's bridge needs replacing.

[01:15:30]Waterloo bridge uh is is replaced because of the the faster flow brought about by the new bridge. Um by the middle of the 1800s cracks are already appearing on the bridge. The the seaside the east side has settled several feet.

[01:15:52]Uh but they do a survey and say that it's it's completely sound. Um but the bridge needs widening. So in 1902 it's it's widened. Uh basically what they do is they take the space that's there on the stairs and push it out on either side to try and cope with the extra traffic going over. But by the 1960s um there are 3,000 cars an hour going over the bridge. it it is known to be past its sell by date. Um and then we get the new one which ingeniously is constructed uh while the new bridge is being taken down in the center. First of all, uh, one of these box junctions built, uh, box, uh, frames built either side of the bridge so traffic can continue moving. They then took down the middle bit of the bridge and then put in, uh, the extra two sections uh, that uh, that needed to to complete the bridge to give us what we have now. As I say, sort of 75% wider um opened by the Queen in 1973, cost4.5 million pounds uh in uh their money at the time. I'm not sure what that corresponds to now, probably 30 or 40 million. Uh there was um provision built in for if the pedestrian traffic increased uh to actually build a an elevated walkway uh along the central re or over the central reservation between it. That never never happened. Um there was also plans when it was originally put through that the bridge would be heated so it would never ice over. Uh they didn't have enough money for that.

[01:17:48]Uh so that never never took place either.

[01:17:52]And that's what we've got now. Um there are a couple of um survivals of older bridges. One of those sort of covered parapits from the 1760s bridge when the old London Bridge was stripped of its buildings and the walkways put in and the covers. One of there's one in Victoria Park. This one is in um Guys Hospital uh where it fetched up after uh that bridge was demolished.

[01:18:21]If you uh go near Southern Cathedral, this is still the bit of Reny's Bridge, that 1830s bridge. Uh so the the new bridge uses that uh at the Southern End.

[01:18:35]used to use it as well at the other end until um lower temp street was widened in the 1960s uh and and that disappeared um 1960s 1970s uh and uh that disappeared as well. Um the main survival of course is the fact the glorious glorious fact that uh a an entrepreneur uh called Robert McCullik um bought the old London Bridge for $2.5 million. Um didn't transport it all. Um, but he was building a new town uh by Lake Havsu uh in Arizona and he thought this would be the perfect uh centerpiece talking point. He was a born salesman. Uh so the stones were numbered, the cladding was numbered, shipped over to the US and they clad [snorts] uh a steel framework underneath it.

[01:19:43]There was an act of congress so that the river could be diverted to go under the bridge and the opening ceremony attended by the Lord Mayor of London. uh bag pipers uh hot air balloons and echo back to the 1830s and it still stands there uh in the desert or in Arizona. And if I click through here, hopefully this will take us through live. Oh no, it's not going to work for Oh no, there we are.

[01:20:15]There we are. That is Lake Havsu now. 64 Fahrenheit, 18 Celsius.

[01:20:23]There we are. That is old London Bridge still there. It seems like a fairly ridiculous thing to do, but um what other London bridges can you name in the world? You know, why would we be talking about Lake Havsu? Why would be I be several thousand miles away looking at a webcam of a bridge um if London Bridge didn't still exist? Um and I actually think it's absolutely glorious that he did it. It's preserved there for us.

[01:20:53]So, I have been talking too long.

[01:20:57]Finally, finally, finally, next week's will be shorter. We'll be doing a an online tour of Southern.

[01:21:03]Still get tickets at stuffaboutlondon.co.uk.

[01:21:07]I'll keep next week's down to an hour.

[01:21:10]But just as a final coder, um the story London Bridge is is is falling down. Um, it has been said, I mean, this is a evidence of it going back to the 17th century, although it's not really written down until the 18th century. The melody is uh uh you think it was sung to one melody before. Uh the the the melody that we know now uh is is the one that is sung around the world. Um, some stories say that it was um due to Elellanena of Provence, the wife of Henry III, who was uh given the revenues from the bridge in the 1200s and the the bridge decayed because of that. Uh, another story says that it is uh, Queen Matilda or Maud who was married to Henry I who built bridges over the Lee rather than London Bridge itself. Um, some sources say it it's the Virgin Mary. Um, others say it takes us all all the way back to King Olaf, Solaf, that destruction of the bridge um, from the Hines Crinkler in 1014. And that's where um a lot of the the the tales there's a a rather wonderful book on um on old London Bridge. Um and um even that wonderful book quotes um a early 1800s translation of the Hines sprinkler after the after the bridge has been uh destroyed which goes London Bridge is broken down, gold is won and bright renown shields resounding warhorn sounding and that seems well you know there seems to be the evidence. It seems to be proof positive that um this is where uh the rhyme comes from. Um unfortunately it's a it's a back projection. Earlier translations of um the Scandic verse uh and nothing like that. It is the translator from the early 1800s who has decided uh to uh fit a a very loose translation into the into the meter. Um apparently in if we translate the Anglo-Saxon um uh uh into strictly it is it starts and further approver of the serpent of big storms valiant in war you broke down London's bridge which doesn't sound anything like the poem itself. So it seems to be just a folk song common to Europe. There are folk there are similar songs similar routines where you go through and the last person is is captured in the dance in Germany, in France uh and in other parts of Europe. Um it is just that because London Bridge is such a famous bridge, the stories of it are so great, the fame of it spread so wide and the dramas of it uh was so immense that the song has become so associated with that and we want to associate it with a um particular bit of history rather than just accept that it is a folk song. uh that has been adapted to the bridge.