OCR Text |
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 Ave granite arches and known as London bridge has completed 100 years 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 suc-cessive bridges) made of wood and barred by a fortified gate a gate to the city. It was swept away by a storm. Then, In 11SG, only a little more than a century after the Conquerer had come, was commenced that stone structure which served river-crossing Londoners for nearly fi.'O years. Until Un-til the middle of the Eighteenth century cen-tury It alone drew together the two banks of the Thames at London. In its picturesqueness it vied with the Rialto of Venice and the Ponte Vacchio of Florence, which. In some part, it resembled. On each side of Its roadway it had shops and stately state-ly houses, some with gardens on their roofs. There was a Twelfth-century 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 no-tions about bridges. Within the 900 feet of the river's width it had 18 solid stone piers varying from 25 to 34 feet in thickness, so that, in effect, it sent the waters of the Thames through a greatly narrowed channel. The piers supported buildings build-ings four stories in height, which in turn narrowed the passage for vehicles vehi-cles 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 remained, and, In 1823, after bitter debate, It was decreed that a new bridge must be built. Two years later the duke of York laid the foundation stone ; and then, after six years more, 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" and, though there are other bridges now Tower and Victoria, Waterloo and Westminster and the rest it still carries Londoners from one bank to the other, just as its predecessors carried Saxon and conquerer, 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 Britain's past. Its lamp posts are cast of the cannon Britons captured in the War of the Peninsula. |