It was again cleansed in the year 1549, Henry Amcotes being mayor, at the charges of the companies. And again, 1569, the 11th of Queen Elizabeth, for cleansing the same ditch between Aldgate and the postern, and making a new sewer, and wharf of timber, from the head of the postern into the town ditch, £814 15s. 8d. Before the which time the said ditch lay open, without wall or pale, having therein great store of very good fish, of divers sorts, as many men yet living, who have taken and tasted them, can well witness; but now no such matter: the charge of cleansing is spared, and great profit made by letting out the banks, with the spoil of the whole ditch.
I am not ignorant of two fifteenths granted by a common council in the year 1595, for the reformation of this ditch, and that a small portion thereof, to wit, betwixt Bishopsgate and the postern called Mooregate, was cleansed, and made somewhat broader; but filling again very fast, by reason of overraising the ground near adjoining, therefore never the better: and I will so leave it, for I cannot help it.
BRIDGES OF THIS CITY
The original foundation of London bridge, by report of Bartholomew Linsted, alias Fowle, last prior of St. Mary Overies church in Southwark, was this: A ferry being kept in place where now the bridge is built, at length the ferryman and his wife deceasing, left the same ferry to their only daughter, a maiden named Mary, which with the goods left by her parents, and also with the profits arising of the said ferry, built a house of Sisters, in place where now standeth the east part of St. Mary Overies church, above the choir, where she was buried, unto which house she gave the oversight and profits of the ferry; but afterwards the said house of Sisters being converted into a college of priests, the priests built the bridge (of timber) as all the other great bridges of this land were, and from time to time kept the same in good reparations, till at length, considering the great charges of repairing the same, there was, by aid of the citizens of London, and others, a bridge built with arches of stone, as shall be shown.
But first of the timber bridge, the antiquity thereof being great, but uncertain; I remember to have read,[29] that in the year of Christ 994, Sweyn, king of Denmark, besieging the city of London, both by water and by land, the citizens manfully defended themselves, and their king Ethelred, so as part of their enemies were slain in battle, and part of them were drowned in the river of Thames, because in their hasty rage they took no heed of the bridge.
Moreover, in the year 1016, Canute the Dane, with a great navy, came up to London, and on the south of the Thames caused a trench to be cast, through the which his ships were towed into the west side of the bridge, and then with a deep trench, and straight siege, he compassed the city round about.
Also, in the year 1052, Earl Goodwin, with the like navy, taking his course up the river of Thames, and finding none that offered to resist on the bridge, he sailed up the south side of the said river. Furthermore, about the year 1067, William the Conqueror, in his charter to the church of St. Peter at Westminster, confirmed to the monks serving God there, a gate in London, then called Buttolph’s gate, with a wharf which was at the head of London bridge.
We read likewise, that in the year 1114, the 14th of Henry I., the river of Thames was so dried up, and such want of water there, that between the Tower of London and the bridge, and under the bridge, not only with horse, but also a great number of men, women, and children, did wade over on foot.[30]
In the year 1122, the 22nd of Henry I., Thomas Arden gave the monks of Bermondsey the church of St. George, in Southward, and five shillings rent by the year, out of the land pertaining to London bridge.