BEYOND HAMMERSMITH BRIDGE
Without counting the railways, fourteen bridges now span the Thames from Hammersmith downward, and even fourteen we sometimes find inadequate to our needs in this hurrying life. Not until the middle of the eighteenth century was the historic London Bridge backed up by a second. Before that time, all men crossed by boat, or by the ferry at Westminster, or even by the ford there, a feat which the embanking of the river has long rendered impossible.
We can see it, this great river of ours, as in a vision, gradually emerging from its primeval wilderness. First it spread widely between the rising ground on each side, a vast area of lagoons, flooded at high tide, and at low tide a swampy place full of half-submerged islets. Then one or two small settlements for trade were planted on its banks, first at Westminster, and others about the site of Cannon Street Station, where the Walbrook leapt to meet the larger current. There was a gradual extension of houses along the brink. At last an attempt was made to bridge the river over, probably by a wooden bridge. This succeeded, and when the bridge had stood for some time it was replaced by another in the twelfth century. This was built and rebuilt, as the turbulent river, feeling the erection of earthworks to curtail its flood, fretted to be free, and rushed seaward with force, tearing down the obstruction offered by this quaint old London Bridge with its double line of houses. Many a picture of this bridge still remains. It was a fascinating, a wonderful structure. Numberless children have yearned to have lived there, high above the flood. What delight to look out from one's nursery window and see the grey-green water hastening past. To see it mysteriously stop as if by some command from on High, then slowly turn and race inward again. Marvellous feat! Miraculous bridge! There was a beautiful chapel, a veritable gem of work, upon this bridge. There was a house like a puzzle-house, put together with pegs, without an iron nail in it. There were gateways at each end, and on the gateways were the grisly remains of the heads of men and women who had been executed. There were shops on each side of the road where ribbons and laces and other haberdashery might be bought at will.
THE CUSTOM HOUSE
There were gaps between the houses, where one could escape for a moment from the lumbering, creaking, groaning traffic pent up in the narrow, mud-splashed roadway, and see the water itself, and see how the houses were built out over it, resting on nothing. Another miracle! A mighty tome might be written about Old London Bridge; of all the relics of a past London, it is the one I should like most to have seen. Mills there were on this bridge, to which the people could bring their corn to be ground by the force of the water. Waterworks there were, too, and the bridge itself contained a drawbridge to protect London against invasion, for, as there was none other crossing, an enemy prevented here might well be held in check altogether.
Next to London Bridge, the oldest bridge across the river was at Kingston, and it is on record that in 1554, Sir Thomas Wyatt, finding London Bridge closed against him, marched all the way to Kingston in order to cross, but on arrival there, found that he had been anticipated, and that the bridge was broken down.
The present London Bridge has been recently widened. At one end of it rises the white tower of St. Magnus, a Danish saint, and behind it is the pointing finger of the Monument, while down the river are the market of Billingsgate, the quay of the Custom House, and beyond, rising tall and ghostly, close to the Tower itself, the Tower Bridge, the latest addition to the list.