Sometime in 1521, Anne Boleyn, learned that her father had arranged a marriage for her with her cousin James Butler, her father’s rival for the title of Earl of Ormonde, in order to settle their land dispute. At the time she learnt of this, she was serving Queen Claude at the French court of Francois I.
We know that her father met her at Calais and that they took passage back to England together, crossing the English Channel – known then as the Narrow Sea, sometime in December. We do not know whether Anne and her father, Thomas Boleyn, landed at Dover and continued on horseback to the court in London, perhaps stopping at their family seat of Hever Castle in Kent, or whether their boat took them round to the Thames Estuary and straight up the river to the docks at Billingsgate.
The latter seems more probable as it would have been an exhausting journey over the mud-choked roads in freezing December. Also, most well-to-do people of the time preferred to avoid travelling through the towns, which were rife with pickpockets and plague. If this was Anne’s true route, she would have seen London Bridge for the first time on her journey, towering over the river.
In Tudor times, London was already a tourist destination, drawing visitors to its many famous sights: the Tower of London, built by the Conqueror to guard the capital; the slender spire of the old St Paul’s Cathedral, soaring 224ft higher than the dome of today; and Goldsmiths’ Row, a row of ten houses and fourteen shops, erected by Thomas Wood, which stood as testament to Cheapside’s gold and silversmith trade. Its frontage was elaborate. Lead figures of woodmen riding on monstrous beasts were carved into the timbers along with the Goldsmiths’ arms. But it was the wondrous London Bridge that was the most famous attraction of all, with its nineteen arches and piers. London’s watermen nicknamed the arch nearest the drawbridge Draw Lock. The arch south of the chapel they called Narrow Passage Lock. Rock Lock and Gut Lock were among the other nicknames.
In 1562 the bridge was described in the London Journal as ‘a remarkable sight even among the beauties of London.’ It was the gateway to the City. Sited where Southwark Bridge stands today, it linked the City of London and Southwark.
A striking feature of the bridge was its gothic church, St Magnus the Martyr, which was located mid-stream and named after Thomas à Becket, London’s patron saint. Pilgrims would gather there before setting out on the sixty-mile journey to his saint’s shrine at Canterbury.
Imagine the bridge in all its glory, bustling with people and traffic. The trapping of horses’ hooves. The rattle of cart wheels. Shouts from peddlers to passers-by about their wares. Pickpockets lurking in the dark, cavern-like corridor known as Bridge Street. Seagulls screeching overhead. Dogs barking. The squeal of confused and frightened cattle. Church bells ringing to mark the hour. And, from the windows of the great houses, buckets being lowered into the river. It must have been a magnificent sight.
Henry VIII’s palaces were located along the river Thames at Richmond, Westminster, Lambeth, Greenwich, Sheen and Baynard Castle. Although the King travelled over the bridge, it is said that he didn’t trust its strength and stability for his heavy artillery, which he would send via a different route. Cardinal Wolsey didn’t trust the torrents of water, which surged around the buttress supports, and he would disembark before the bridge and re-join his barge at the docks at Billingsgate.
‘Shooting the bridge’ was an irresistible challenge to thrill-seekers of the day. This involved attempting to take a boat through the bridge at high tide, when the water rapids surged between the timber starlings. This is the origin of the old proverb, ‘London Bridge is for wise men to go over and fools to go under’.
The bridge was multi-functional and its history multi-layered. It bore witness to uprisings and survived attacks and rebellion. When the betrothal of Mary I to Philip II of Spain was announced, the thought of a Spanish king sparked fury throughout the kingdom. The rebels of Kent rose in rebellion to prevent the marriage but were stopped from entering the capital across London Bridge. The drawbridge was cut down and thrown into the river, the bridge gates shut, and its ramparts and fortifications raised. Later the rebellion’s leader, Thomas Wyatt, was captured and executed for high treason.
In the 1600s came the addition of the spectacular renaissance Nonesuch House – literally meaning ‘none such like it’ – which replaced Drawbridge Gate, also called Traitors’ Gate, that had previously displayed the gruesome sight of severed heads of commoners, priests, physicians, lords, and knights, who found themselves on the wrong side of the law. One foreign visitor reported seeing as many as 34 rotting heads at one time. The Keeper of the Heads impaled each new head on a long wooden pole and set it among the others above the gateway at the Southwark side of the bridge.
On a happier note, London Bridge joined in the Midsummer celebrations. Its gates were decorated with white lilies, long fennel, green birch and St John’s Wort, white and yellow jasmine.
In the times of Dickens, when the Thames froze over, fairs were held on the frozen river. It is said that when the sheets of ice broke up, they tore at the bridge, sometimes pulling down an arch or two.
Over the centuries, much of London Bridge had to be re-built due to collapse, fire, alterations, and reinforcement, until little of the early bridge remained. Eventually the longest inhabited bridge in Europe was dismantled and a new bridge was built to ease London’s growing congestion. The majority of the Commons Council at the time wanted to see the bridge rebuilt, with changes, but on 25th June 1756, the London Bridge Act was passed. It gave the Common Council the authority to start buying and demolishing the houses on and around the bridge. By 1762 all the houses had been demolished. The final destruction came in 1832, after the new London Bridge, designed by Rennie, opened about 100ft upstream.
In April 1968, Rennie’s London Bridge was sold to an American oil corporation for nearly $2.5 million. Today’s crossing opened in 1973, some 98ft up stream from its predecessors. Built of concrete and steel, it lacks the romance of the Old London Bridge. But as long as children go on singing the nursery rhyme ‘London Bridge is falling down,’ that bridge will live on in our memories.
Nowadays, a model of the old London Bridge can be seen inside the church of St Magnus The Martyr, Lower Thames Street, London, EC3 6DN. Nearest tube station is Monument.