DISCUSSION

The initial construction of England's most famous bridge came about when the invading Roman army needed to find a spot far up the Thames estuary where its ships could unload troops and supplies, and where a bridge could be built to connect its conquests south and north of the Thames. This spot, where the river may in those times have been shallow enough to support a ford at low tide, was also a good defensive position. Although the terrain was not attractive to substantial settlement to native Britons, there had been a ford and perhaps even a bridge further west, between what is now Lambeth and Westminster, before – and perhaps long before – the Romans arrived. But the future capital of England owes its existence to the crossroads of Roman bridge and river. When Londinium was designated the capital of the Roman province, a more permanent bridge was built, close to the site where the more famous medieval version would later stand. However, after the Roman army was withdrawn at the beginning of the fifth century, the timber bridge must have fallen into disrepair, if indeed the Romans had not already dismantled it, and there is some indication a ferry may have been operating in the seventh century.

We next hear of a bridge at London in the late tenth century, in association with records of tolls collected at Billingsgate (979) and with the execution of a woman accused of witchcraft by being thrown off the bridge (ca.963/984). It seems likely that the bridge would have been rebuilt after the Anglo-Saxon settlers in the vicinity – and particularly those of a large settlement immediately west of the old city, with the character of a wik – moved back into the city to seek the protection of the Roman walls in the mid-ninth century, although this did not prevent the Danes from taking control of London until Alfred's reconquest, after which Lundenwic took on a fortress role in the great struggle and became Lundenburg, and the gradual rebuilding of a great city began. Or it may have been after Alfred assigned London to the ealdorman of Mercia that the bridge was rebuilt, probably equipped with fortifications to act as a defence against ships heading up the estuary.

By 1000 tolls were being collected on the bridge. But the structure continued to have a very chequered history, in part because the city itself continued to be one focus for the struggle between Danes and Anglo-Saxons. In 1014 the forces loyal to King Ethelred destroyed the bridge, to try to divide the army of Canute, then occupying London. It was rebuilt. In 1066 London's first defensive stand against William of Normandy's troops was at the south end of the bridge, and was successful, forcing the Conqueror to try to isolate instead of capture London. At this period the bridge was probably about 15 feet wide – sufficient for two horse-drawn carts to pass each other. In 1087, after one of those destructive fires that plagued London, William Rufus supported a rebuilding initiative. However, this version of the bridge was destroyed by a storm in 1091, the next by floods in 1097, and the next by fire in 1135/36.

Yet another rebuilding initiative took place in 1163 under the direction of Peter the priest of St. Mary Colechurch. But recognizing the vulnerability of a timber bridge, Peter embarked on a more ambitious project in 1176: to build a new bridge in stone, and atop it a chapel dedicated to the sainted Londoner Thomas Becket; whether the dedication had anything to do with the fact that Becket had been christened in St. Mary Colechurch, or whether it was a shrewd move to foster donations from patriotic Londoners, we can only speculate. This structure, often referred to as the Peter de Colechurch bridge, is believed to have been completed in 1209; the tomb of Peter, who had died a few years earlier, was housed in the chapel.

The new bridge was just over 900 feet in length, standing on 19 piers of varying sizes, with 19 arches and a space (around the centre) covered by a drawbridge to allow masted ships to pass through. The road across it sloped upwards slightly towards the drawbridge. It is thought to have been between 25 and 30 feet wide, although part of this width was gradually consumed by the numerous buildings, some several storeys high, that came to be constructed on either side and projected out over the river; the useable road was probably only a dozen or so feet – about the width of that in mid-eleventh century, although a few stretches were not built on, creating gathering spaces. At the southern end a great stone gateway was built and equipped with a portcullis, while the drawbridge was also protected by a lesser gateway, rebuilt in stone in 1426; the first surviving mention of each was in 1258, but they were doubtless older. The great gate and other buildings were not cleared off the bridge until 1760.

The bridge must have been constructed in sections across the old wooden structure in order to keep a passage open; timbers used for the piles of the southern end have been dated to about 1188. It was a feat of engineering unparalleled in urban initiative (as opposed to the cathedral and castle building enterprises, not undertaken by townspeople) in medieval England. It became a symbol of the medieval city, and endured until replaced in the 1830s. A museum dedicated to its history is scheduled to open 800 years after its completion date.

Having a sturdier stone bridge did not end the trials or the financial burden. A fire in the city just a few years after the completion of the bridge did severe damage to the buildings atop it. The damming effect of its narrow arches resulted in a strong and dangerous current through the arches. To protect from the pressure of this, along with other environmental risks, barge-shaped starlings had been built around each pier. Nonetheless, the force exerted by heavy ice build-up (itself partly due to the damming effect) during the winter of 1282, combined with earlier neglect of bridge maintenance, resulted in five arches collapsing; they were quickly but temporarily replaced by a wooden structure while reconstruction in stone progressed. Some writers have attributed the well-known nursery rhyme "London Bridge is Falling Down" to either this event or the earlier pulling down of the bridge by Ethelred's forces; however, notwithstanding a few lines from Norse poem (ca.1089) describing the latter event, which has some superficial similarity, no mention of the children's verse is known prior to 1659, and the language/structure is not medieval.

There was further ice damage in 1309. Another major renovation programme was begun in the 1380s. After an arch cracked in 1425, iron-shod carts were banned from the bridge. By 1435 the bridge was in bad shape, and in 1437 the great gate collapsed along with its two supporting arches; extensive rebuilding followed. Further renovation, arch by arch, was underway from the 1460s to '90s; the drawbridge had become unusable by 1476 and thereafter remained closed.

Nor was the bridge free from the old threat of fire, for many of the buildings atop it were timber, wattle and daub. At the height of summer in 1212 fire broke out at the southern end of the bridge and the wind whipped it quickly to the north end; it was said – with the exaggeration typical of medieval chroniclers – that 3,000 people died trapped on the bridge. The bridge was also, inevitably, involved in the invasions of the city by rebels during the Peasant's Revolt, Cade's rebellion, and that of Fauconberg in 1485; during the latter two events, some of the bridge buildings were set afire. It was also on the bridge that the heads of slain rebel leaders were subsequently displayed.

If bridge building and maintenance was a dauntingly expensive undertaking for any English town, how much more so that of London Bridge. The arrangements made for funding and administering this work were therefore that much more elaborate than in other towns. Given the strategic importance of London, it is not surprising to find the king taking an interest. William Rufus levied a tax to support the reconstruction in 1087, and in 1097 another tax was imposed and local forced labour was brought into play to effect repairs. Henry II imposed a special tax on wool to help Peter de Colechurch with the stone bridge project. The organization that would shortly be created to administer and finance bridge work, and under the name Bridge House Trust still exists to look after five bridges across the Thames, claims to trace its origins to the 1097 tax (although on what grounds, I know not). There is some evidence to suggest property revenues had been assigned to bridge maintenance as early as 1122.

Peter himself was likely the founder of a gild to raise funds for the work: the Brethren of London Bridge. A list of unlicensed gilds at London, in 1179/80, showed them to include five dedicated to the Bridge and presumably intended to fundraise for it. With the backing of Henry II, and donations from the archbishop of Canterbury, London's first mayor, and other dignitaries, Peter aimed to provide support not only through taxation and alms, but also a permanent endowment in the form of property rents; he paid for the chapel out of his own pocket. King John granted wasteland to the city, for the purpose of building tenements that would generate such rents and, in 1201, gave permission for shops and houses to be built on the bridge itself, for similar purpose; although the first mention of houses there is not until 1221, it is likely that wooden buildings were thrown up quickly, while Peter was alive, to start bringing in rents.

This formed the nucleus of the Bridge House Estate, which derived its name either from a Southwark house near the bridge end, where bridge materials were stored, or from a house attached to the chapel where clerical members of the Brethren lived; the house is not referred to as an administrative base until 1243, but the building was one of those damaged in the 1212 fire, and deeds of the trust evidence the revenues assigned the bridge in preceding years. The accounts of the bridge-wardens in 1358 show 138 rent-paying shops on the bridge, with craft workshops above many; the rents were producing £160.4s. and over £205 a century later. A fishmarket was located nearby. It became necessary at one point for the authorities to quash the development of a market on the bridge itself.

Nonetheless, the bridge was an important public space in its own right, equipped with a large public latrine. On occasion it was the place where kings and queens entering London were ceremoniously greeted. The bridgewardens accounts show costs for decorating the bridge on such occasions. For the entry into the city of Henry V when he brought his new queen back from France, a sculptor was commissioned to create some giant heads, apparently for giant puppets designed to bow to the king, and there were also sculpted lions capable of movement. In the fifteenth century parts of the bridge were decorated with paintings, a reflection of the city's pride in the structure.

Some of its earlier history was gloomier for the bridge, however. Henry III had taken control of the bridge revenues in 1249, to help finance own military needs. Later he assigned these to his queen, who also diverted them to other uses. It was not until 1281 that Edward I returned to the city authority jurisdiction over the bridge, now in a bad state of disrepair, which contributed to the partial collapse it experienced in 1282 (mentioned above). Mayor Henry le Waleys, who held office in that and the following two years, dealt with the crisis by expanding the Bridge House Estate with the first of the properties off the bridge: he built in a fairly central location in the city a covered market called the Stocks which could provide revenues from the stalls leased by butchers and fishmongers, and in 1283 began to try to develop an area of wasteland near St. Paul's – an initiative that met with challenge and was not finalized until 1345. In 1324 the city authorities obtained from Edward II a confirmation of the arrangement regarding the Stocks market, after some butchers and fishmongers had found a way to avoid paying the stall rental, thus depriving the Bridge. By 1381 the Stocks rents were bringing in £100 a year, but in the following century the building required substantial renovations. By this time rows of shops had been erected in Newgate Market, and by the close of the Middle Ages, the Bridge trust was receiving revenues from hundreds of properties across the city.

To manage both the bridge and the properties that funded it was a large undertaking. The Bridge trust acted as a distinct department of the city government, headed by two bridgewardens who, from 1311, were elected annually by the community, and received an annual salary of £10 each. Edward II's charter to the city (as recited in his successor's confirmation) specified:

that the keeping of the bridge, along with the rents and revenues belonging to that bridge, are to be committed to two reputable and qualified men of the city who are not aldermen – and this through election by the community of the city, whomever the city wishes and who will be answerable to the community for the same.
[H.T. Riley, ed., Liber Custumarum, Rolls Series, no.12, vol.2 (1860), 441-42.]

We should bear in mind, however, that this charter (1319) embodied many reforms, reacting against a period of government by an aldermannic clique that had attempted to concentrate power into fewer hands.

What we find in practice is that the wardens were still drawn from those who were or would become leading citizens, such as William Chichele and William Sevenok – men with experience as chamberlains, councillors or even aldermen (despite the charter). At the opening of the fifteenth century, it was prescribed that no-one hold the office for more than two years consecutively, but this limitation was rescinded in 1406 and some men held it for extended periods thereafter.

Underneath the wardens was a staff of rent-collectors, toll-collectors, bailiffs, clerks, as well as chaplains serving the chapel on the bridge. The Clerk of the Works was the chief of this bureaucratic staff. Even some workmen were employed full-time, while others were taken on for specific projects. The intent was for an operation that was fiscally self-supporting; even today the trustee (the Corporation of London) may not use Fund money for anything but the bridges. At Exeter too, in the mid-fourteenth century, the Exe Bridge was likewise intended to be self-sufficient: it was in the care of a warden who accounted separately from the city financial officers for revenues allocated the bridge (house rents, the farm of a mill, bequests, and tolls on wagons crossing the bridge), expenditures on the bridge and its chapel, and the fees of himself and his clerk.

The London bridgewardens accounts were audited annually by a committee, whose members were elected some by the mayor and aldermen and others by the community at large. The accounts were scrutinized carefully, and in 1470 the wardens were criticized for claiming unwarranted costs for their horses, insisting that these only be claimed when the horses were used on bridge business; but more often a certain leaway was allowed with the claims. It has been suggested that amount of detail in the accounts reflects a strong sense of accountability [C.P. Christianson, Memorials of the Book Trade in Medieval London: The Archives of Old London Bridge, Cambridge, 1987, p.9].

The fiscal resources the wardens managed were, during the fourteenth century at least, equal to the demands of bridge maintenance. They were not drawn exclusively from the properties assigned it by national or local authorities. The tolls collected from those transporting merchandize over or under the bridge, or unloading it there, were another regular source of income. Edward I had authorized their collection in 1281. Only with the problems of the 1430s did it become necessary to resort to taxation once more, £333.13s.4d being sought by the city authorities.

The generosity of citizens, if less predictable, was also important. Many dozens of bequests to the bridge are known from wills enrolled in husting, dating between the 1260s and the 1480s, and Edward I had encouraged such gifts when he turned the bridge back to city jurisdiction. A few of these were of real estate. For instance, in 1269, mag. Richard Cocus left all his houses in Colechurch for the maintenance of the bridge, on condition the wardens provide a chantry for his soul, and in 1337 the bridge was bequeathed by Richard de Gloucestre a brewhouse. Most early bequests, in the time of Edward I and his son, were sums of money, ranging from 6d. to 100s. In 1301, widow Margery Bacheler left the Bridge her gold wedding ring. Such bequests became less common in the reign of Edward III. But in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there was a new trend: a number of testators setting up chantries nominated the mayor and wardens as backups, in case their original plans for chantry administration did not come to fruition; in those cases, the endowment was to default to the use of the Bridge in return for chantry maintenance. In fact, as early as 1305 the city authorities were upholding the testament of a citizen bequeathing some of his property be sold to fund a chantry, and assigning any proceeds (beyond what was necessary for the chantry) to the Bridge.

We should not let the splendour of "the Bridge" blind us to the existence of lesser bridges in and around London. Bridges across the Fleet and the Holborn carried roads into the walled city. There were other small bridges, occasionally mentioned. We know rather less about what arrangements were made for maintaining these, but the last two documents above show that landholders – whether citizens or religious houses – had some responsibility there. An enquiry by the city authorities in 1291, concerning the bridge by which the street known as Bucklersbury crossed the Walbrook, determined that four specific houses in that street (perhaps at either end of the bridge) had the responsibility for its maintenance; it was said that anciently (ca. mid-century) special stones were positioned in front of each house to designate their responsibility. This approach, shouldering responsibility on the householders whose property neighboured minor bridges, may have been typical.