page_title: London Bridge
section_title: Medieval bridge
hierarchical_section_title: London Bridge / History / Medieval bridge
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail from en:Image:Panorama of London by Claes Van Visscher, 1616.jpg, made in 1616 by Claes Van Visscher. It shows Old London Bridge in 1616, with Southwark Cathedral in the foreground. The spiked heads of executed criminals can be seen above the Southwark gatehouse.
context_page_description: London Bridge is a bridge over the River Thames. It is in central London, and connects the City of London with Southwark. It is between Cannon Street Railway Bridge and Tower Bridge.
  On the south side of the bridge are Southwark Cathedral and London Bridge station. On the north side are the Monument to the Great Fire of London and Monument tube station.
  It was previously the only bridge over the Thames downstream from Kingston until Putney Bridge opened in 1729. The current bridge opened on 17th March 1973 and is the latest in a succession of bridges to occupy the spot and claim the name.
  The bridge carries part of the A3 road, which is maintained by the Greater London Authority; the bridge itself is owned and maintained by a charity overseen by the City of London Corporation.
  The name London Bridge is often mistakenly applied to Tower Bridge, which is the next bridge downstream.
context_section_description: The southern gatehouse, the Stone Gateway, became the scene of one of London's most notorious sights: a display of the severed heads of traitors, stuck on pikes and dipped in tar to preserve them. The head of William Wallace was the first to appear on the gate, in 1305, starting a tradition that was to continue for another 355 years. Other famous heads on pikes included those of Jack Cade in 1450, Thomas More in 1535, Bishop John Fisher in the same year, and Thomas Cromwell in 1540. In 1598 a German visitor to London counted over 30 heads on the bridge:
  "On the south is a bridge of stone eight hundred feet in length, of wonderful work; it is supported upon twenty piers of square stone, sixty feet high and thirty broad, joined by arches of about twenty feet diameter. The whole is covered on each side with houses so disposed as to have the appearance of a continued street, not at all of a bridge.
  Upon this is built a tower, on whose top the heads of such as have been executed for high treason are placed on iron spikes: we counted above thirty".
  The practice was finally stopped in 1660.
  The mediaeval bridge itself was demolished in 1831.
caption: Engraving by Claes Van Visscher, 1616. Shows Old London Bridge, with Southwark Cathedral in the foreground. The spiked heads of executed traitors and criminals are above the Southwark gatehouse.
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