Show BRIDGE LONG PART OF LONDON TOWN structure across thames in use for more than a century that bridge across the thames at london which Is borne upon five granite arches and known as load london on bridge has completed years yea rs of history but its name Is much older than a century at or near the point at which this modern structure spans the river there has been a crossing from time immemorial the saxons had a bridge there or successive bridges made of wood and barred by a fortified gate a gate to the city it wag wa 0 swept away by a storm then in 1180 only a little more than a century after the had bad come was commenced that stone I 1 structure which served river crossing londoners Lon doners for nearly years U until n the middle of the eighteenth century it alone drca drev together the two banks of the thames at london in its it vied with the rialto of venice nail and the polite of florence which in some part it resembled on each side of its roadway it had shops and stately houses some with gardens on their roofs there was a twelfth century chapel on a wider pier at about the middle the structure however was suited better to the ideals and customs of the middle ages than to modern notions about bridges within the feet of the rivers width it had 18 solid stone piers varying from 25 to 84 34 feet in thickness so that in effect it sent the waters of the thames through a greatly narrowed channel the piers supported buildings four stories in height which in turn narrowed the passage for fop vehicles and pedestrians and darkened it to almost tunnel blackness the buildings were cleared away in the middle of tha eighteenth century but the obstruction to navigation still belll remained and in 1823 after bitter debate it was ile decreed creed that a new bridge must be built two years yeara later the duke of york laid the foundation stone and then after six els years more tho the new structure only a few yards higher up the river was opened with flags music oratory and parades in the following year old london bridge went the way of the centuries but london bridge Is still london bridge it still divides the thames into above and below lt and though there are other bridges now tower and victoria waterloo and westminster and the rest it still carries londoners Lon doners from one bank to the other just as its predecessors carried saxon and conquer br cr knight and cleric and though the pace Is swifter now what with motor cars speeding along the deck widened in the beginning of the motor age the bridge has not broken with britaina Brit ains past its lamp posts are cast of the cannon britons captured in the war of the peninsula |