Old London bridge : "beneath its arches commerce dealt with death" / published by William Lucey, ... To meet the deficiency of charitable funds in the district.

  • Lucey, William.
Date:
[1864]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Old London bridge : "beneath its arches commerce dealt with death" / published by William Lucey, ... To meet the deficiency of charitable funds in the district. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    mentioned, when Earl Godwin, according to the chronicles, passed through the arches at the south end of the bridge, to attack the King’s navy lying at Westminster. William the Conqueror attacked and burnt Southwark, after the battle of Hastings, but there is not any record that the bridge, though then of timber, was destroyed or injured. In 1091 London Bridge was entirely swept away by a great storm, and in 1091 Bufus taxed the people to rebuild it. In 1136 the bridge was destroyed by tire, and a new one built of timber in 1163. In a description of the water sports of the Thames (formerly Tame-Isis) during the years 1170 and 1182, we have mention of London Bridge. In 1176 the first stone bridge was com¬ menced, and occupied thirty-three years in its con¬ struction, not being completed till 1209. It consisted of nineteen pointed arches of stone of various sizes and a drawbridge with massive stone piers from twenty-five to thirty-three feet thick, raised upon strong elm piles, covered with thick planks bolted together. This bridge was 946 feet long and forty wide. On the centre pier, which projected into the river, on the lower or eastern side were built the chapels of St. Thomas-a-Beckett, the martyr of Canterbury, the odour of whose sanctity was fresh in the minds of the people. One of these chapels was for mariners, and nearly on a level with high water mark. The papal legate to France, Scot¬ land, and England in 1176, and the then Arch¬ bishop of Canterbury, gave 1,000 marks towards the erection of the bridge, but it was mainly provided