Runcorn Examiner. — 1893-06-10 (Runcorn, Cheshire, England)

OLD LON D BRIDGE.  The first bridge thrown over the Thames was a I wooden one, erected by the nuns of St. Mary's Monastery, a convent of sisters endowed by the daughter of a rich Thames ferryman. The bridge figures as a fortified place in the early Danish invasions; and the Norwegian Prince Olaf nearly dragged it to pieces in trying to disposses the Danes, who held it in low. it was swept away in a flood, and its successor was burnt. In the reign of Henry H., Pious Peter, a chaplain of St. Mary Colechurch, in the I Poultry, built a stone bridge a little farther west, and the king helped him with the proceeds of a tax on wool, I which gave rise to the old saying that "London Bridge was built upon woolpacks." Peter's bridge was a curious I structure, with nineteen pointed arches and a drawbridge. rhere was a fortified gatehouse at each end,' and a Gothic chapel towards the centre, dedicated to St. Thomas a Becket, the spurious martyr of Canterbury. ;In Queen Elizabeth's reign there were shops on either side, with flat roofs, arbours, and gardens, and at the south end rose a great four-storey wooden house, brought from Holland, which was covered with carving and gilding. In the Middle Ages, London Bridge was the scene of affrays of all kinds. Soon after it was built,the houses upon it caught fire at both ends, and 3,000 persons perished, wedged in among the flames. Henry 111, was driven back here by the rebellious De Montfort, Earl of Leicester. Wat Tyler entered the city by Liondon Bridge and, later, Richard 11. was received here With gorgeous ceremonies. It was the scene of one` of Henry V.'s greatest triumphs, and also of his stately funeral procession. Jack Cade seized London Bridge,and as he passed, slashed in two the ropes of the drawbridge, though soon after his head was stuck on the gatehouse. From this bridee the rebel Wyatt was driven by the guns of the Tower ; and in Elizabeth's reign waterworks were erected 6TI the bridge. There was a great conflagration on the bridge in 1632, and eventually the Great Fire almost destroyed it. In the Middle Ages countless rebels' heads were stuck on the gatehouses of London Bridge. Brave Wallace's was placed there; and so were the heads of Henry VlH.'s ViCtilllS—Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, the latter trophy being carried off by the stratagem and his brave daughter. Garnet, the Gunpowder-Plot Jesuit, also contributed to the ghastly triumphs of justice. Several celebrated painters, iecluding Hoearth, lived at one time or another on the bridge, and Swift and Pope used to frequent the shop of a witty bookseller, who lived under the northern gate. One or two celebrated suicides have taken place at London Bridge, and among these we may mention that of Sir William Temple's son, who was Secretary of War, and Etistacc Budget!, a broken-down author, who left behind him as an apology the following sophism : What Cato did and Addison approved of cannot be wrong. Pleasanter is it to remember the anecdote of the brave apprentice, who leaped into the Thames from the window of a house on the bridge to save his master's infant daughter, whom a careless nurse hid dropped into the river. When the girl grew up, many noble suitors came, but the generous father was obdurate. "No," said the honest citizen ; " Osborne saved her, and Osborne shall have her." And so he had ; and Osborne's great-grandson throve, and became the first Duke of Leeds. The frequent loss of lives in shooting the arches of the old bridge, where the fall was at time five feet, led at last to ft cry for a new bridge, and one was commenced in 1824. Rennie designed it, and in 1831 William IV. and Quern Adelaide opened it. One hundred and twenty thousand tons of stone went to its formation. The old bridge was not entirely removed till 1832, when the bones of the builder, Pious Peter of Colechurch, were found in the crypt of the central chapel, where tradition had declared thev lay. The iron of the piles of the old bridge was bought by a cutler in the Strand, and produced steel of the highest quality. Part of the old stone was purchased by Alderman Harmer, to build his house, Ingress Abbey, near Greenhithe.