Our story starts with the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1170.
King Henry II commissioned a new stone bridge across the river Thames in London in place
of the old London Bridge, with a chapel at its centre dedicated to Thomas Becket as a martyr.
The Chapel of St Thomas on the Bridge became the official start of pilgrimage to his Canterbury
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 and took 33 years, finishing in 1209 during the reign of King John.
John tried to recoup the cost of building and maintenance by licensing out building
plots on the bridge but this was never enough.
The bridge was 26 feet (8 m) wide according to some records that were later disputed.
The structure was about 800–900 feet (240–270m) long, supported by 19 irregularly spaced
arches, founded on starlings set into the river-bed.
Starlings are the brick defensives surrounding the bridge’s supports.
They’re shaped to ease the flow of the water around the bridge, reducing erosion and spreading
the weight of the piers.
The bridge had a drawbridge to allow for the passage of tall ships, and defensive gatehouses
at both ends.
By 1358 it was already crowded with 138 shops.
At least one two-entranced, multi-seated public latrine overhung the bridge parapets and discharged
into the river below; so did an unknown number of private latrines reserved for Bridge householders
or shopkeepers and bridge officials.
The buildings on London Bridge were a major fire hazard and increased the load on its
arches, several of which had to be rebuilt over the centuries.
In 1212, perhaps the greatest of the early fires of London broke out on both ends of
the bridge simultaneously, trapping many people in the middle.
Houses on the bridge were burnt during Wat Tyler's Peasants' Revolt in 1381 and during
Jack Cade's rebellion against the Government in 1450.
By the Tudor period, there were some 200 buildings on the bridge.
Some stood seven storeys high, some overhung the river by seven feet, and some overhung
the road, to form a dark tunnel through which all traffic had to pass.
This was made worse by the 1577 addition of the palatial Nonsuch House.
The available roadway was just 12 feet (4 m) wide, divided into two lanes, so that in
each direction, carts, wagons, coaches and pedestrians shared a single file lane six feet wide.
When the bridge was congested, crossing it could take up to an hour.
Those who could afford the fare might prefer to cross by ferry, but the bridge structure
had several undesirable effects on river traffic.
The narrow arches and wide pier bases restricted the river's tidal ebb and flow, so that in
hard winters, the river upstream of the bridge became more susceptible to freezing and impassable by boat.
The flow was further obstructed in the 16th century by waterwheels under the two north
arches to drive water pumps, and under the two south arches to power grain mills.
The difference in water levels on the two sides of the bridge could be as much as 6
feet (2 m), producing ferocious rapids between the piers.
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."
In 1666, the Great Fire of London first destroyed the bridge's waterwheels, preventing them
from pumping water to fight the fire, and then burned one third of the houses on the
bridge; a gap in a building left by a previous fire in 1633 prevented the destruction of the rest.
The southern gatehouse became the scene of one of London's most notorious sights — a
display of the severed heads of traitors, impaled on pikes, a tradition that started
in 1305 and continued for 355 years.
Over the years, incidents of arches collapsing were recorded in 1281, 1282 and 1437.
By 1710, most of the houses on the bridge had been rebuilt in the Restoration style
and in order to widen the roadway to 20 feet (6 metres), the new houses were built overhanging
the river supported by wooden girders and struts which hid the tops of the arches.
In 1722 congestion was becoming so serious that the Lord Mayor decreed that "all carts,
coaches and other carriages coming out of Southwark into this City do keep all along
the west side of the said bridge: and all carts and coaches going out of the City do
keep along the east side of the said bridge."
This has been suggested as one possible origin for the practice of traffic in Britain driving on the left.
A fire in September 1725 destroyed houses on the bridge's east side and damaged some
on the west side, but were rebuilt.
The last houses to be built on the bridge were in 1745, but even these elegant buildings
had begun to subside within a decade.
In 1756, the London Bridge Act 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.
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 1762 and the last tenant departed after some
550 years of housing on the bridge.
The roadway was widened to 46 feet (14 metres) and a balustrade was added together with fourteen
stone alcoves for pedestrians to shelter in.
However, the creation of the Great Arch had weakened the rest of the structure and constant
expensive repairs were required in the following decades.
The old nursery rhyme “London Bridge is falling down” was very apt.
The structural weakness, combined with congestion both on and under bridge, often leading to
fatal accidents, resulted in public pressure for a modern replacement that was opened in 1831.
Famously this bridge was sold to Missouri entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch in 1967.
It now spans the Bridgewater Channel canal.
Despite many rumours, he didn’t think he was buying the more famous Tower Bridge!