The name "London Bridge" refers to several historic crossings that have spanned theRiver Thames between theCity of London andSouthwark incentral London sinceRoman times. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is abox girder bridge built from concrete and steel. It replaced a 19th-century stone-arched bridge, which in turn superseded a 600-year-old stone-built medieval structure. In addition to the roadway, for much of its history, the broad medieval bridge supported an extensive built up area of homes and businesses, part of the City'sBridge ward, and its southern end in Southwark was guarded by a large stone City gateway. The medieval bridge was preceded by a succession of timber bridges, the first of which was built by theRoman founders of London (Londinium) around AD 50.
The abutments of modern London Bridge rest several metres above natural embankments of gravel, sand and clay. From the lateNeolithic era the southern embankment formed a naturalcauseway above the surrounding swamp and marsh of the river'sestuary; the northern ascended to higher ground at the present site ofCornhill. Between the embankments, the River Thames could have been crossed by ford when the tide was low, or ferry when it was high. Both embankments, particularly the northern, would have offered stable beachheads for boat traffic up and downstream – the Thames and its estuary were a major inland andContinental trade route from at least the 9th century BC.[3]
There is archaeological evidence for scattered Neolithic,Bronze Age andIron Age settlement nearby, but until a bridge was built there, London did not exist.[4]A few miles upstream, beyond the river's upper tidal reach, two ancient fords were in use. These were apparently aligned with the course ofWatling Street, which led into the heartlands of theCatuvellauni, Britain's most powerful tribe at the time ofCaesar's invasion of 54 BC. Some time beforeClaudius'sconquest of AD 43, power shifted to theTrinovantes, who held the region northeast of the Thames Estuary from a capital atCamulodunum, nowadaysColchester in Essex. Claudius imposed a majorcolonia at Camulodunum, and made it the capital city of the new Roman province ofBritannia. The first London Bridge was built by the Romans as part of their road-building programme, to help consolidate their conquest.[5]
It is possible thatRoman military engineers built apontoon type bridge at the site during the conquest period (AD43). A bridge of any kind would have given a rapid overland shortcut toCamulodunum from the southern andKentish ports, along theRoman roads ofStane Street (now theA3,A24,A29 andA285) andWatling Street (now theA5 to the north of the river andA2 south east through Kent). The Roman roads leading to and from London were probably built around AD50, and the river-crossing was possibly served by a permanent timber bridge.[6] On the relatively high, dry ground at the northern end of the bridge, a small, opportunistic trading and shipping settlement took root and grew into the town ofLondinium.[7]
A smaller settlement developed at the southern end of the bridge, in the area now known asSouthwark. The bridge may have been destroyed along with the town in theBoudican revolt (AD 60), but Londinium was rebuilt and eventually, became the administrative and mercantile capital of Roman Britain. The bridge offered uninterrupted, mass movement of foot, horse, and wheeled traffic across the Thames, linking four major arterial road systems north of the Thames with four to the south. Just downstream of the bridge were substantial quays and depots, convenient to seagoing trade between Britain and the rest of theRoman Empire.[8][9]
With theend of Roman rule in Britain in the early 5th century, Londinium was gradually abandoned and the bridge fell into disrepair. In theAnglo-Saxon period, the river became a boundary between the emergent, mutually hostile kingdoms ofMercia andWessex. By the late 9th century,Danish invasions prompted at least a partial reoccupation of the site by the Saxons. The bridge may have been rebuilt byAlfred the Great soon after theBattle of Edington as part of Alfred's redevelopment of the area in his system ofburhs,[10] or it may have been rebuilt around 990 under the Saxon kingÆthelred the Unready to hasten his troop movements againstSweyn Forkbeard, father ofCnut the Great. Askaldic tradition describes the bridge's destruction in 1014 by Æthelred's allyOlaf,[11] to divide the Danish forces who held both the walled City of London and Southwark. The earliest contemporary written reference to a Saxon bridge isc. 1016, when chroniclers mention howCnut's ships bypassed the crossing during his war to regain the throne fromEdmund Ironside.[12]
Following theNorman Conquest in 1066,King William I rebuilt the bridge. It was repaired or replaced byKing William II, destroyed by fire in 1136, and rebuilt in the reign ofStephen.Henry II created a monastic guild, the "Brethren of the Bridge", to oversee all work on London Bridge. In 1163, Peter ofColechurch, chaplain and warden of the bridge and its brethren, supervised the bridge's last rebuilding in timber.[13]
An engraving byClaes Visscher showing Old London Bridge in 1616, with what is nowSouthwark Cathedral in the foreground. The spiked heads of executed criminals can be seen above the Southwark gatehouse.
After the murder of his former friend and later opponentThomas Becket,Archbishop of Canterbury, the penitent KingHenry II commissioned a new stone bridge in place of the old, with a chapel at its centre dedicated to Becket asmartyr. The archbishop had been a native Londoner, born atCheapside, and a popular figure. TheChapel of St Thomas on the Bridge became the official start ofpilgrimage to hisCanterbury shrine; it was grander than some town parish churches, and had an additional river-level entrance for fishermen and ferrymen. Building work began in 1176, supervised by Peter of Colechurch.[13] The costs would have been enormous; Henry's attempt to meet them with taxes on wool and sheepskins probably gave rise to a later legend that London Bridge was built onwool packs.[13]
In 1202, before Colechurch's death, Isembert, a French monk who was renowned as a bridge builder, was appointed byKing John to complete the project. Construction was not finished until 1209. There were houses on the bridge from the start; this was a normal way of paying for the maintenance of a bridge, though in this case it had to be supplemented by other rents and by tolls. From 1282 two Bridge wardens headed an organisation known as Bridge House, appointed to maintain the bridge fabric. Neglect of this duty was blamed for two known collapses of the bridge, one in 1281 (involving five arches) and one in 1437 (involving two arches). In 1212, perhaps the greatest of theearly fires of London broke out, spreading as far as the chapel and trapping many people.
The bridge was about 926 feet (282 metres) long, and had nineteen piers, supported by timber piles. The piers were linked above by nineteen arches and a wooden drawbridge. Above and below the water-level, the piers were enclosed and protected by 'starlings', supported by deeper piles than the piers themselves. The bridge, including the part occupied by houses, was from 20 to 24 feet (6.1 to 7.3 metres) wide. The roadway was mostly around 15 feet (4.6 metres) wide, varying from about 14 feet to 16 feet, except that it was narrower at defensive features (the stone gate, the drawbridge and the drawbridge tower) and wider south of the stone gate. The houses occupied only a few feet on each side of the bridge. They received their main support either from the piers, which extended well beyond the bridge itself from west to east, or from 'hammer beams' laid from pier to pier parallel to the bridge. It was the length of the piers which made it possible to build quite large houses, up to 34 feet (10 metres) deep.[14]
The numerous starlings restricted the river's tidal ebb and flow. The difference in water levels on the two sides of the bridge could be as much as 6 feet (1.8 m), producing ferocious rapids between thepiers resembling aweir.[15] Only the brave or foolhardy attempted to "shoot the bridge" – steer a boat between the starlings when in flood – and some were drowned in the attempt. The bridge was "for wise men to pass over, and for fools to pass under."[16] The restricted flow also meant that in hard winters the river upstream was more susceptible to freezing.
The number of houses on the bridge reached its maximum in the late fourteenth century, when there were 140. Subsequently, many of the houses, originally only 10 to 11 feet wide, were merged, so that by 1605 there were 91. Originally they are likely to have had only twostoreys, but they were gradually enlarged. In the seventeenth century, when there are detailed descriptions of them, almost all had four or five storeys (counting thegarrets as a storey); three houses had six storeys. Two-thirds of the houses were rebuilt from 1477 to 1548. In the seventeenth century, the usual plan was a shop on the ground floor, a hall and often a chamber on the first floor, a kitchen and usually a chamber and a waterhouse (for hauling up water in buckets) on the second floor, and chambers and garrets above. Approximately every other house shared in a 'cross building' above the roadway, linking the houses either side and extending from the first floor upwards.[17]
All the houses were shops, and the bridge was one of the City of London's four or five main shopping streets. There seems to have been a deliberate attempt to attract the more prestigious trades. In the late fourteenth century more than four-fifths of the shopkeepers werehaberdashers, glovers,cutlers,bowyers andfletchers or from related trades. By 1600 all of these had dwindled except the haberdashers, and the spaces were filled by additional haberdashers, by traders selling textiles and by grocers. From the lateseventeenth century there was a greater variety of trades, including metalworkers such as pinmakers and needle makers, sellers of durable goods such as trunks and brushes, booksellers and stationers.[18]
The three major buildings on the bridge were the chapel, the drawbridge tower and the stone gate, all of which seem to have been present soon after the bridge's construction. The chapel was last rebuilt in 1387–1396, byHenry Yevele, master mason to the king. Following theReformation, it was converted into a house in 1553. The drawbridge tower was where the severed heads of traitors were exhibited. The drawbridge ceased to be opened in the 1470s and in 1577–1579 the tower was replaced byNonsuch House—a pair of magnificent houses. Its architect was Lewis Stockett, Surveyor of the Queen's Works, who gave it the second classical facade in London (after Somerset House in the Strand). The stone gate was last rebuilt in the 1470s, and later took over the function of displaying the heads of traitors.[19] The heads were dipped in tar and boiled to preserve them against the elements, and wereimpaled on pikes.[20] The head ofWilliam Wallace was the first recorded as appearing, in 1305, starting a long tradition. Other famous heads on pikes included those ofJack Cade in 1450,Thomas More in 1535,Bishop John Fisher in the same year, andThomas Cromwell in 1540. In 1598, a German visitor to London,Paul Hentzner, counted over 30 heads on the bridge:[21]
On the south is a bridge of stone eight hundred feet in length, of wonderful work; it is supported upon twenty piers of square stone, sixty feet high and thirty broad, joined by arches of about twenty feet diameter. The whole is covered on each side with houses so disposed as to have the appearance of a continued street, not at all of a bridge. Upon this is built a tower, on whose top the heads of such as have been executed for high treason are placed on iron spikes: we counted above thirty.
The last head was installed in 1661;[22] subsequently heads were placed onTemple Bar instead, until the practice ceased.[23]
There were two multi-seated publiclatrines, but they seem to have been at the two ends of the bridge, possibly on the riverbank. The one at the north end had two entrances in 1306. In 1481, one of the latrines fell into the Thames and five men were drowned. Neither of the latrines is recorded after 1591.[24]
In 1578–1582 a Dutchman, Peter Morris, created a waterworks at the north end of the bridge. Water wheels under the two northernmost arches drove pumps that raised water to the top of a tower, from which wooden pipes conveyed it into the city. In 1591 water wheels were installed at the south end of the bridge to grind corn.[25]
A view of London Bridge burning in the fire of 1633 Private Collection
In 1633 fire destroyed the houses on the northern part of the bridge. The gap was only partly filled by new houses, with the result that there was a firebreak that prevented theGreat Fire of London (1666) spreading to the rest of the bridge and to Southwark. The Great Fire destroyed the bridge's waterwheels, preventing them from pumping water to fight the fire. For nearly 20 years, only sheds replaced the burnt buildings. They were replaced In the 1680s, when almost all the houses on the bridge were rebuilt. The roadway was widened to 20 feet (6.1 metres) by setting the houses further back, and was increased in height from one storey to two. The new houses extended further back over the river, which would cause trouble later.
Drawing of London Bridge from a 1682 panorama
London Bridge in 1757 just before the removal of the houses, bySamuel Scott
In 1695, the bridge had 551 inhabitants. From 1670, attempts were made to keep traffic in each direction to one side, at first through a keep-right policy and from 1722, through a keep-left policy.[26] This has been suggested as one possible origin for the practice of traffic in Britaindriving on the left.[27]
A fire in September 1725 destroyed all the houses south of the stone gate; they were rebuilt.[28] The last houses to be built on the bridge were designed byGeorge Dance the Elder in 1745,[29] but these buildings had begun to subside within a decade.[30] TheLondon Bridge Act 1756 (29 Geo. 2. c. 40) gave the City Corporation the power to purchase all the properties on the bridge so that they could be demolished and the bridge improved. While this work was underway, a temporary wooden bridge was constructed to the west of London Bridge. It opened in October 1757 but caught fire and collapsed in the following April. The old bridge was reopened until a new wooden construction could be completed a year later.[31] To help improve navigation under the bridge, its two centre arches were replaced by a single wider span, the Great Arch, in 1759.
Demolition of the houses was completed in 1761 and the last tenant departed after some 550 years of housing on the bridge.[32] Under the supervision of Dance the Elder, the roadway was widened to 46 feet (14 m)[33] and abalustrade was added "in theGothic taste" together with 14 stonealcoves for pedestrians to shelter in.[34] However, the creation of the Great Arch had weakened the rest of the structure and constant expensive repairs were required in the following decades; this, combined with congestion both on and under bridge, often leading to fatal accidents, resulted in public pressure for a modern replacement.[35]
London Bridge from Pepper Alley Stairs byHerbert Pugh, showing the appearance of London Bridge after 1762, with the new "Great Arch" at the centre
Old London Bridge byJ. M. W. Turner, showing the new balustrade and the back of one of the pedestrian alcoves
In 1799, a competition was opened to design a replacement for the medieval bridge. Entrants includedThomas Telford; he proposed a single iron arch span of 600 feet (180 m), with 65 feet (20 m) centre clearance beneath it for masted river traffic. His design was accepted as safe and practicable, following expert testimony.[36] Preliminary surveys and works were begun, but Telford's design required exceptionally wide approaches and the extensive use of multiple, steeply inclined planes, which would have required the purchase and demolition of valuable adjacent properties.[37]
A more conventional design of five stone arches, byJohn Rennie, was chosen instead. It was built 100 feet (30 m) west (upstream) of the original site by Jolliffe and Banks ofMerstham,Surrey,[38] under the supervision ofRennie's son. Work began in 1824 and the foundation stone was laid, in the southerncoffer dam, on 15 June 1825.[citation needed]
The old bridge continued in use while the new bridge was being built, and was demolished after the latter opened in 1831. New approach roads had to be built, which cost three times as much as the bridge itself. The total costs, around £2.5 million (£287 million in 2023),[39] were shared by theBritish Government and theCorporation of London.
Rennie's bridge was 928 feet (283 m) long and 49 feet (15 m) wide, constructed fromHaytor granite. The official opening took place on 1 August 1831;King William IV andQueen Adelaide attended a banquet in a pavilion erected on the bridge. The northern approach road, King William Street, was renamed after the monarch and astatue of the king subsequently installed.
New London Bridge in 1927
In 1896 the bridge was the busiest point in London, and one of its most congested; 8,000 pedestrians and 900 vehicles crossed every hour.[20] To designs by engineerEdward Cruttwell,[40][41] it was widened by 13 feet (4.0 m), using granite corbels.[42] Subsequent surveys showed that the bridge was sinking an inch (about 2.5 cm) every eight years, and by 1924 the east side had sunk some three to four inches (about 9 cm) lower than the west side. The bridge would have to be removed and replaced.
Common Council of the City of London member Ivan Luckin put forward the idea of selling the bridge, and recalled: "They all thought I was completely crazy when I suggested we should sell London Bridge when it needed replacing."[43] Subsequently, in 1968, Council placed the bridge on the market and began to look for potential buyers. On 18 April 1968, Rennie's bridge was purchased by theMissourian entrepreneurRobert P. McCulloch ofMcCulloch Oil for US$2,460,000. The claim that McCulloch believed mistakenly that he was buying the more impressiveTower Bridge was denied by Luckin in a newspaper interview.[44] Before the bridge was taken apart, each granite facing block was marked for later reassembly.
Rennie's New London Bridge rebuilt, Lake Havasu City, 2016
The blocks were taken toMerrivale Quarry atPrincetown inDevon, where 15 to 20 cm (6 to 8 in) were sliced off the inner faces of many, to facilitate their fixing.[45] (Stones left behind were sold in an online auction when the quarry was abandoned and flooded in 2003.[46]) 10,000 tons of granite blocks were shipped via thePanama Canal toCalifornia, then trucked fromLong Beach toArizona. They were used to face a new, purpose-built hollow core steel-reinforced concrete structure, ensuring the bridge would support the weight of modern traffic.[47] The bridge was reconstructed by Sundt Construction atLake Havasu City, Arizona, and was re-dedicated on 10 October 1971 in a ceremony attended by London's Lord Mayor and celebrities. The bridge carries the McCulloch Boulevard and spans the Bridgewater Channel, an artificial, navigable waterway that leads from the Uptown area of Lake Havasu City.[48]
An Act to empower the Corporation of London to reconstruct London Bridge, to construct other works and to acquire lands compulsorily; and for other purposes.
The current London Bridge was designed by architectLord Holford and engineersMott, Hay and Anderson.[49] It was constructed by contractorsJohn Mowlem and Co from 1967 to 1972,[49][50] and opened byQueen Elizabeth II on 16 March 1973.[51][52][53] It comprises three spans ofprestressed-concretebox girders, a total of 833 feet (254 m) long. The cost of £4 million (£71.4 million in 2023),[39] was met entirely by theBridge House Estates charity. The current bridge was built in the same location as Rennie's bridge, with the previous bridge remaining in use while the first two girders were constructed upstream and downstream. Traffic was then transferred onto the two new girders, and the previous bridge demolished to allow the final two central girders to be added.[54]
In 1984, the British warshipHMSJupiter collided with London Bridge, causing significant damage to both the ship and the bridge.[55]
OnRemembrance Day 2004, several bridges in London were furnished with red lighting as part of a night-time flight along the river by wartime aircraft. London Bridge was the one bridge not subsequently stripped of the illuminations, which are regularly switched on at night.[citation needed]
The current London Bridge is often shown in films, news and documentaries showing the throng of commuters journeying to work intothe City from London Bridge Station (south to north). An example of this is actorHugh Grant crossing the bridge north to south during the morning rush hour, in the 2002 filmAbout a Boy.[citation needed]
On 11 July 2008, as part of the annualLord Mayor's charity appeal and to mark the 800th anniversary of Old London Bridge's completion in the reign of King John, the Lord Mayor andFreemen of the City drove a flock of sheep across the bridge, supposedly by ancient right.[56]
On 3 June 2017, three pedestrians were killed by a van ina terrorist attack. Altogether, eight people died and 48 were injured in the attack. Security barriers were installed on the bridge to help isolate the pedestrian pavement from the road.[57]
Rennie's New London Bridge is a prominent landmark inT. S. Eliot's poemThe Waste Land, wherein he compares the shuffling commuters across London Bridge to the hell-bound souls ofDante's Inferno. Also in that poem is a reference to the "inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold" of the church ofSt Magnus-the-Martyr, designed bySir Christopher Wren, which marks the northern approach to the bridge, and the poem also ends with the lines "I sat upon the shore/fishing, with the arid plain behind me./Shall I at least set my lands in order?/London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down".
InCharles Dickens'Sketches by Boz, in the story entitledScotland-yard there is much discussion by coal-heavers on the replacement of London Bridge in 1832, including a portent that the event will dry up the Thames.
Gary P. Nunn's song "London Homesick Blues" includes the lyrics, "Even London Bridge has fallen down, and moved to Arizona, now I know why."[58]
English composerEric Coates wrote a march about London Bridge in 1934.
London Bridge is named in theWorld War II song "The King is Still in London" by Roma Campbell-Hunter & Hugh Charles.[59]
Fergie released a song titled "London Bridge" in 2006 as the lead single of her first solo album,The Dutchess.[60] The music video for the track features the singer on a boat near London'sTower Bridge,[61] which, despite the song's title, is not London Bridge. The song peaked at number one onBillboard'sHot 100 chart.[62]
^"About us".TeamLondonBridge. Archived fromthe original on 8 December 2008. Retrieved21 November 2008.
^Merrifield, Ralph,London, City of the Romans, University of California Press, 1983, pp. 1–4. The terraces were formed by glacial sediment towards the end of the last Ice Age.
^D. Riley, in Burland, J.B., Standing, J.R., Jardine, F.M.,Building Response to Tunnelling: Case Studies from Construction of the Jubilee line Extension, London, Volume 1, Thomas Telford, 2001, pp. 103 – 104.
^The site of the new bridge determined the location of London itself. The alignment of Watling Street with the ford at Westminster (crossed viaThorney Island) is the basis for a mooted earlier Roman "London", sited in the vicinity ofPark Lane. See Margary, Ivan D.,Roman Roads in Britain, Vol. 1, South of the Foss Way – Bristol Channel, Phoenix House Lts, London, 1955, pp. 46 – 47.
^Margary, Ivan D.,Roman Roads in Britain, Vol. 1, South of the Foss Way – Bristol Channel, Phoenix House Lts, London, 1955, pp. 46–48.
^Jones, B., and Mattingly, D.,An Atlas of Roman Britain, Blackwell, 1990, pp. 168–172.
^Merrifield, Ralph,London, City of the Romans, University of California Press, 1983, p. 31.
^Jeremy Haslam, 'The Development of London by King Alfred: A Reassessment';Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, 61 (2010), 109–44. Retrieved 2 August 2014
^Timbs, John.Curiosities of London. p.705, 1885. Available: books.google.com. Accessed: 29 September 2013
^Gerhold, London Bridge and its Houses, pp. 32-3; Sabine, Ernest L., "Latrines and Cesspools of Mediaeval London,"Speculum, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Jul. 1934), pp. 305–306, 315. Earliest evidence for the multi-seated public latrine is from a court case of 1306.
^Gerhold.London Bridge and its Houses. pp. 57,82–90.
^Ways of the World: A History of the World's Roads and of the Vehicles That Used Them, M. G. Lay & James E. Vance, Rutgers University Press 1992, p. 199.
^"The Widening of London Bridge".The Engineer. 21 December 1900. pp. 613–614.
^A dozen granite corbels prepared for this widening went unused, and still lie near Swelltor Quarry on the disused railway track a couple of miles south ofPrincetown onDartmoor.
^"London's new bridge— Open today: the latest in a line that goes back 1000 years",Evening Standard (London), 16 March 1973, p. 27
^"Rooftop vigil as the Queen opens bridge",Leicester Mercury, 16 March 1973, p. 1
^"Queen Hails New London Bridge", by Tom Lambert,Los Angeles Times, 17 March 1973, p. I-3 (Queen Elizabeth opened the newest London Bridge Friday, saying it showed no signs of falling down.")
Murray, Peter & Stevens, Mary Anne,Living Bridges – The inhabited bridge, past, present and future, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1996,ISBN3-7913-1734-2.
Pierce, Patricia,Old London Bridge – The Story of the Longest Inhabited Bridge in Europe, Headline Books, 2001,ISBN0-7472-3493-0.
Watson, Bruce, Brigham, Trevor and Dyson, Tony,London Bridge: 2000 years of a river crossing, Museum of London Archaeology Service,ISBN1-901992-18-7.
Yee, Albert,London Bridge – Progress Drawings, no publisher, 1974,ISBN978-0-904742-04-6.
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