Old London Bridge’s days of glory nearly came to an end in 1666 when the City was almost completely destroyed by the Great Fire of London. The bridge itself survived, although several houses and the waterwheels at the northern end were burned down. Although the City was quickly rebuilt after the Great Fire, many people decided to move their residences to the attractive new squares and riverside developments that grew up in the west of London. Like the City itself, Old London Bridge ceased to be fashionable. Writing in 1750, Thomas Pennant gave a depressing description of conditions on the bridge for its inhabitants, who ‘soon grew deaf to the noise of the falling waters, the clamours of the watermen or the frequent shrieks of drowning wretches’.54
The very structure of the bridge was also suffering. An eighteenth-century historian described it as follows:
[There were] nineteen disproportioned arches, the starlings increased to an enormous size by frequent repairs, supporting the street above. These arches were of very different sizes and such that were low and narrow were placed between others that were broad and lofty. The back part of the houses next the Thames had neither beauty nor uniformity: the line being broken by a great number of closets that projected from the bridge and hung over the starlings.55
The truth is that by the eighteenth century Old London Bridge had ceased to be a wonder of the world and was looking distinctly old-fashioned and decrepit. This is shown in William Hogarth’s painting of the final scene of his Marriage à la Mode series, in which the ramshackle houses leaning over the river form the backdrop to the death of the countess in the drawing room of her father’s house overlooking the Thames.
In the eighteenth century, Old London Bridge became a byword for congestion, leading to increasing threats to build new bridges which would improve cross-river traffic by removing Old London Bridge’s monopoly. The City Corporation tried to improve the situation by introducing a new rule requiring traffic to keep to the left. This decision turned out to have enormous importance in the later standardisation of the rule throughout the United Kingdom, which was formalised in the Highways Bill in 1835. It was even enshrined in a piece of doggerel:
The rule of the road is a paradox quite,
For if you keep to the left, you’re sure to be right.
It was claimed that the ‘keep left’ rule was based on the fact that most people are right-handed and that it allowed them to defend themselves more easily with their swords from any approaching attacker. Unfortunately, not all countries agreed, possibly because the carrying of swords was going out of fashion, and today three-quarters of the world drives on the right.
Despite the introduction of the ‘keep left’ rule, Old London Bridge’s monopoly was finally broken, first at Putney in 1729 and then more significantly for the City, because in central London, at Westminster in 1750. This led to serious consideration of whether the City should build a new London Bridge, or remove the houses so as to improve the flow of traffic. The City surveyor, George Dance the Elder, produced a report showing that the bridge’s 500-year-old foundations were still safe and recommending that all the houses should be removed so that the roadway could be widened from 12 feet to 45 feet, and that the two central arches should be made into a single wider arch to improve navigation. In 1756, an Act was passed authorising the work at a cost of £160,000, which was financed from BHE resources.
The project started with the construction of a temporary wooden bridge that allowed traffic to cross the river while the houses were removed from Old London Bridge. On a night in April 1758, the temporary bridge burned down, causing the City to be cut off from Southwark except by ferry. There were a number of suspicious circumstances which convinced people that the fire had been caused by arson. Suspicion fell on the owners of the houses, since they had strongly objected to the destruction of their property. However, nothing was proven. The City reacted fast, hiring a thousand workmen to reconstruct the temporary bridge in less than six months. Guards were set on both bridges, and by 1762 the last house was demolished, leaving the ancient structure shorn of all its past glory.
Without its houses, Old London Bridge no longer aroused the strong emotional attachment of the past. Throughout its life, it had been in a constant state of flux resulting from changing fashions, natural deterioration and numerous fires, with the result that by now hardly any material was left from the original structure except for some underwater rubble and piling. The escalating costs of repair resulting from a series of severe winters and the continuing danger to river traffic passing under the arches led to renewed demands for a new bridge. Its death knell was sounded in 1801 by the Third Report from the Select Committee upon the Improvement of the Port of London, which found that Old London Bridge was now insecure. The report recommended the construction of a new bridge. Several designs were submitted, including one by the egregious Ralph Dodd. The most exciting proposal was for a 900-foot single-span iron crossing by Thomas Telford. This attractive concept was deemed impractical and no decision on a new bridge was made at the time.
In 1822, anticipating that Old London Bridge would soon be demolished, the City bought out the London Bridge Waterworks and removed the wheels. In the following year, an Act was passed ‘For the Rebuilding of London Bridge and for the improving and making suitable Approaches thereto’. The City selected a design for a 1,000-foot granite structure of five semi-elliptical arches by John Rennie, whose iron Southwark Bridge had recently been completed. Sadly, John Rennie died before work could begin, and it was his son, John Rennie Jr, who took over design supervision.
The ceremony of the laying of the foundation stone took place on 15 June 1825 in the presence of the Duke of York, brother of the recently crowned George IV. A massive cofferdam was sunk 45 feet below Thames High Water so that 400 guests could descend to watch the lowering of the 4-ton lump of granite and the placement of a set of contemporary coins and an inscribed copper plate underneath. The inscription contained a eulogy to George IV as ruler of the British Empire, as well as a defence of the decision to destroy Old London Bridge. It referred to the obstruction of the free course of the river by ‘the numerous piers of the ancient bridge’ and stated that the City of London was ‘desirous of providing a remedy for this evil by building a new, wider bridge of a character corresponding to the dignity and importance of this royal city’. The degradation of the one-time wonder of the world was complete.
William Knight’s depiction of London Bridge old and new in 1832
Rennie’s London Bridge was constructed 180 feet upstream of Old London Bridge. The contractors, Messrs Jolliffe and Banks, completed the work on 1 August 1831. Forty workmen lost their lives during the construction project. The cost of the bridge itself was £680,232, while the cost of the approaches amounted to over £2,000,000. William IV and Queen Adelaide opened the bridge on 1 August 1831 after coming down the river in the state barge. Thousands lined the banks of the Thames, which was crowded by brightly decorated boats of all shapes and sizes.
A contemporary commentator forecast that the solid granite structure would last 1,000 years and thus prove even more long-lived than its predecessor.56 Unfortunately, the new bridge sank one inch in each of its first eight years. By the 1960s, 50,000 commuters a day were crossing over the bridge from London Bridge Station, causing a dangerous crush on the narrow footways, while the heavy load imposed by buses and cars threatened the stability of Rennie’s bridge, despite its solid appearance. Rennie’s London Bridge therefore lasted in situ only 130 years, merely one-fifth of the life of its stone predecessor, which had been built without the aid of the mechanical and engineering advances of the Industrial Revolution. In 1967, a new London Bridge Act authorised the City Corporation to demolish Rennie’s bridge and construct a new one. One of the last boats to pass under the old bridge conveyed the body of Sir Winston Churchill by river from St Paul’s Cathedral following his state funeral.
The present London Bridge was designed by the firm of Mott, Hay and Anderson, with Lord Holford (190
7–75) acting as architectural adviser. The contractor was the firm of John Mowlem & Co., which completed the work in 1973 for the cost of £4,500,000. Finance was provided by the BHE. The new London Bridge is 105 feet wide, consisting of three flat pre-stressed concrete arches of 260 feet, 340 feet and 260 feet. It was originally proposed that some blocks of flats should be built on the bridge so as to continue the old tradition, but this idea was never likely to be accepted. As it has turned out, the plain, minimalist appearance of the current bridge could hardly be more different from the exotic idiosyncrasy of Old London Bridge. The only decorations are the granite obelisks on the faces of the piers and the polished granite facing of the parapet walls, surmounted by stainless steel handrails. Unseen by the crossing commuters is the heating system underneath the pavement which prevents the road icing over in severe winter weather, something to which Rennie’s bridge was susceptible.
Remaining arch of Rennie’s London Bridge and Nancy’s steps
A remarkable epilogue to the story of London Bridge occurred with the sale of most of Rennie’s stonework to the McCulloch Oil Corporation for $2,460,000, which at the time amounted to £1,000,000. McCulloch had founded a new city in the deserts of Arizona and decided that London Bridge would be a major tourist attraction. The stones were numbered and shipped to Lake Havasu City, where Rennie’s bridge was re-erected. The foundation stone was laid on 23 September 1968 by the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Gilbert Inglefield, who stated in his speech that ‘this bridge serves as a noble and endearing monument to the strong bonds of friendship that exist between America and England. This foundation stone symbolises nearly 2,000 years of history and tradition.’ The reconstruction work was completed on 10 October 1971, 140 years after the original opening of Rennie’s bridge. The second opening ceremony of Rennie’s London Bridge was conducted in Lake Havasu City by another of London’s Lord Mayors, Sir Peter Studd, watched by a crowd of 100,000. The bridge still stands there today and is approaching its double centenary. As the traffic is light, it may yet last the predicted 1,000 years, albeit in a different climate. There is, incidentally, no truth in the amusing story that the Americans thought they were buying Tower Bridge rather than London Bridge.
London Bridge with Fishmonger’s Hall and City skyline, viewed from the south
Not all of Rennie’s bridge was shipped to America. One granite arch remains on the south bank, from which descends a set of narrow stairs known as Nancy’s Steps. This is where, in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, Nancy has her ill-fated conversation with Mr Brownlow in which she tells him that Oliver is in the hands of Bill Sikes. She is overheard and this leads to her brutal murder. Dickens knew London Bridge well, as he crossed daily to Southwark to have breakfast with his father and family when they were imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea prison in Borough High Street while he earned a living in the blacking factory at Hungerford Stairs near Charing Cross.
Remains of Old London Bridge can also be found in various other places. One of the half-domed stone alcoves erected in the 1760s to provide refuge for pedestrians now stands in the grounds of Guy’s Hospital, while two more alcoves are located in Victoria Park in Hackney. The colourful coat of arms of George III which was displayed at the Southwark stone gate was bought by a Southwark publican and today can be seen in Newcomen Street. Two relics are held in Fishmongers’ Hall, which stood upstream of Old London Bridge from the fourteenth century and was rebuilt in 1831 to accommodate Rennie’s bridge. The first relic is a chair made out of wooden piles from Old London Bridge and decorated with carvings of that bridge, Westminster Bridge, Rennie’s London Bridge and Robert Mylne’s Blackfriars Bridge. Indirectly associated with Old London Bridge, the second relic is the dagger with which William Walworth stabbed Wat Tyler in 1381 before having Tyler’s head impaled on the Drawbridge Gate.
Considerable remains of the second stone arch from the north were rediscovered in 1920 during excavations for the building of Adelaide House on the downstream side of London Bridge on the line of Old London Bridge. Gordon Home, author of the definitive Old London Bridge, tried to save the arch but failed to raise the necessary £7,000. Instead, three stones dated 1703 were raised onto the roof garden of Adelaide House. Three other stones were placed in the churchyard of St Magnus the Martyr, where they can be seen today. This location is especially appropriate since the footway onto Old London Bridge passed through here after the removal of the houses. Inside the church is a detailed model of Old London Bridge, showing the houses and hectic lives of the people who lived, worked and shopped there for over 600 years.
CHAPTER 15
Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge has now replaced London Bridge as London’s most dramatic crossing. It was constructed in 1894 at the eastern end of the Pool of London, the stretch of the river downstream from London Bridge which served as London’s main port from medieval times. Today, it is hard to imagine what this part of the river looked like in the nineteenth century, when ships from all over the world crowded along the wharves which lined both banks of the Thames to the east of London Bridge.
At the end of the eighteenth century, shipping here was so congested that ships would often wait for weeks to unload their cargoes. Thieving was rife, and sugar would turn to treacle before it could be landed. Parliament therefore decided to encourage the construction of a series of secure inland dock basins to the east of London by providing trade-monopoly incentives to private entrepreneurs. The nearest dock to the City, sited on the north bank of the river just to the east of the Tower of London, was St Katherine’s Dock, constructed in the 1820s. This was designed by Thomas Telford, who was also working on the great suspension bridge over the Menai Straits at the same time.
Despite the extra capacity of the inland docks, the Pool of London continued to be used because of its convenient location near the centre of the City. By the second half of the nineteenth century, the British Empire had expanded to regions in all five continents, and London was the pivot of a vast system of international trade. Tea came in from China, sugar and rum from the West Indies, rice and spices from India, ivory from Africa, and grain and timber from North America. The Royal River describes this stretch of the Thames as it was in the reign of Queen Victoria:
[The] wharves and warehouses [are] black with smoke of many years. Bales of goods dangle perilously as they wait to be lowered into barges which come up to landing stages. Nothing of beauty, but we see here matters of deepest interest affecting our country and her possessions in every part of the world. The greatness of Britain depends on this liberal & majestic Thames.57
London itself was constantly expanding eastwards. At the end of the eighteenth century, the ruins of the medieval Bermondsey Abbey could be seen in open fields on the south bank of the Thames between Shad Thames and Rotherhithe. However, during the nineteenth century, largely because of the construction of the docks and related industries to the east of the City, the landscape was built over to house the working population, in often crowded and unsanitary conditions. Charles Dickens describes one such area, known as Jacob’s Island, where Bill Sikes lives, as ‘the filthiest, strangest, most extraordinary of the many localities that are hidden in London’.
William Parrott’s 1840 painting of ships crowding the Pool of London
By the 1870s, a million people lived east of London Bridge on both banks of the Thames. They had no direct means of crossing the river from their homes. One option was to go further east to Wapping, where Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel had built their famous tunnel under the Thames in 1843. Originally, the tunnel was intended to cater for horse-drawn vehicles as well as pedestrians, but the money ran out before the necessary ramps could be constructed. Consequently, it was never financially viable, and in 1865 it was converted into a rail tunnel for the East London line, for which it is still used today. As a result, people streamed westwards in their thousands to John Rennie’s rather narrow London Bridge, which was permanently clogged up with horse-drawn carts and pedestrians.
The first attempt to improve this situation was the construction in 1870 of a new tunnel under the Thames just to the west of the Tower of London. The original idea of the tunnel was to use an ambitious combination of gravity and cables to draw trams along narrow rails inside its seven-foot diameter. The system proved impractical, so instead it was always used as a pedestrian walkway. This proved so popular that a million people a year paid their halfpenny toll to pass through until it was closed in 1897. Today, the tunnel carries water mains and all that can be seen above ground is a small round access building on Tower Hill.
Despite the tunnel, public demand for a proper new bridge near the Tower of London became so overwhelming that in 1876 the City Corporation set up a committee to investigate the matter. The first problem to be solved was how to finance the bridge. Taxes and tolls were always unpopular, so it was fortunate that the Bridge House Estates, originally set up to finance the building of Old London Bridge, had prospered greatly over the centuries and was now able to provide the money to build the new bridge as well as to maintain the three existing Thames bridges owned by the City Corporation – London, Blackfriars and Southwark. In order to overcome the powerful opposition of the owners of the wharves in the Pool of London, a formula for paying them compensation to cover any losses they might incur was agreed.
Tower Foot Tunnel entrance, later converted for use by the London Hydraulic Power Company
It remained to decide how to build a bridge in this strategic position without impeding the ships whose cargoes were so vital to London’s prosperity. Over 50 designs were submitted, many of which envisaged dramatic but not always practical use of the latest technology at the time. One fantastical idea was to build a high-level bridge with enough headroom to allow ships to pass beneath, while vehicles wishing to cross over were to be raised up to it using hydraulic lifts. Another envisaged a duplex bridge with sliding road sections so that ships could pass through the open sections while vehicles used the closed ones.
Crossing the River: The History of London's Thames River Bridges From Richmond to the Tower Page 26
