Chronicles of London Bridge

by Richard Thompson

“It was on December the 4th, 1586, that the Commissioners appointed to try the unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots, issued their sentence against her from Richmond; which, on the 6th, was openly read in London, by William Sebright, the Town-Clerk. This proclamation, as Stow relates in his ‘Annals,’ page 741, was made with the Serjeants at Arms, and by sound of trumpets, about ten o’clock in the morning, at four places in the City; namely, at the end of Chancery lane; at the Cross in Cheapside; at the corner of Leadenhall; and also at St. Magnus, London Bridge. It was witnessed by several of the Nobility; the Lord Mayor, and Aldermen, in their scarlet dresses; the City Officers; the principal part of the gentry of London, and the most eminent Citizens habited in velvet with gold chains; all mounted on horseback. The tidings which were thus made known, were received by the people with every kind of rejoicing; ‘as manifestly appeared,’—says Stow,—‘by ringing of bells, making of bonfires, and singing of psalmes in euery of the streetes and lanes of the Citie.’

“I do not find, in the preparations for defending London against the Spaniards, in 1588, any orders concerning the guarding of the Bridge; though in the scheme for marshalling the City, then drawn up by Edmund York, and printed in volume ii. of Stow’s ‘Survey,’ page 569, it is observed that the Bridge is to be one of the places watched as a gate of London. This, however, was not the first time that the Citizens had been under military discipline, for Stow relates, in the same volume, page 567, that in September, 1586, when so much danger was anticipated from the conspiracies of the Papists, a series of orders was drawn up for their instruction. In these regulations it was stated, that the gates should be shut every night, and the Portcullises put in order; and that one of the stations of the watch by the water-side, should be by the engine which supplied the City with water, which was at the North-West corner of London Bridge, and almost adjoining to the present site of Fishmongers’ Hall. Both these anticipated dangers, however, passed away without any other effect upon London, than that of evincing the courage of the Citizens; and, after the notable defeat of the Armada, eleven of the captured standards were hung upon London-Bridge, towards Southwark, on Monday, September the 9th, the day of the Fair in that place, to the great rejoicing of all who saw them.

“Besides the before-mentioned engines for supplying the City with water, there were, however, also Corn Mills erected near London Bridge, at a very early period in the sixteenth century: for Stow, in volume i. of his ‘Survey,’ page 42, observes that they were built on the Thames, about the year 1508. These were, however, not the most ancient machines of that nature erected about this place; for in the year 1197, in an exchange of the Manor of Lambethe for the Manor of Darent, made between Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Monks of Rochester, there is a notice of a Mill which ‘the aforesaid Monks have without Southwark on the Thames, towards the East, against the Tower of London.’ You may see the original instrument in the third volume of Dugdale’s ‘Monasticon Anglicanum,’ London, ‘In the Savoy,’ 1673, folio, page 4. It was therefore, upon these precedents, for the better supply of the City, in consequence of the dearth and scarcity of corn which had extended for several miles round London, and also on account of the difficulty of grinding meal for the poor, that in March 1588, the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty, petitioned Queen Elizabeth that they might erect four Corn Mills under two roofs on the Thames, near the Bridge, in parts where they could not occasion any injury. On the 1st of April, therefore, a commission was addressed from the Court, at Greenwich, to Mr. Rokesby, Master of St. Katherine’s, Mr. Fanshaw, Master of the Requests, and Mr. Peter Osborn, Remembrancer of the Exchequer, to call before them such persons as should be appointed by the City to manage their cause; some of the principal Officers of the Navy, and certain Masters of the Trinity-House, to consult with them whether the erection of such Mills would be beneficial, or inconvenient; and to consider in what places they should be set up, in order that the Queen might be moved to grant the City’s petition. After this consultation, a certificate, dated May the 16th, was returned by all the parties summoned, and the eight Masters and Overseers of the River, and others of the Assistants of the Company of Watermen, that the erecting of such Mills could not in any way be hurtful to the Thames. But as Stow has left on record the Trinity-House Certificate, I shall give it you in the original form and words.

“‘Whereas it hath pleased the Lords of Her Majesty’s most Honourable Privy Council to direct their letter to the Worshipful Mr. Rookesby, Master of St. Katherine’s, Mr. Fanshaw, Mr. Osborn, Commissioners for the building of certain Mills on the South side of Thames upon the starlings above the Bridge: and the Commissioners above-named, have sent for us, the Master and Assistants of the Trinity-House of Deptford-Strand in Kent, that we should make the survey, whether the erecting of those Mills might be prejudicial, or hurtful, to the said River; We whose names are hereunder written, with others, have taken a view of the said place, and do find, as far as we can judge and foresee, it will not be hurtful, nor prejudicial, to the said River in any way. April 4th, 1588.

John Hawkins.	William Holstock.
Richard Gibs, Master.	By me, Edw. Wilkinson.
By me, Will. Harris.	By me, Peter Hills.’
By me, Tho. Andros.

“In Stow’s same work and volume, page 62, he states, that as soon as these Mills were set up, complaint was made to the Court, which produced the foregoing enquiry; and that it was then ordered, that the water should have free course through the arches of the Bridge, and that the parts of the Mills which stood nearest to the stone-work of the edifice, should still be twelve feet distant from any part of it. The intent of these Mills was to provide a remedy for times of dearth, when the common people paid from 4d. to 6d. the bushel for grinding their corn, and often, for a considerable time, could not get it ground at all; to supply which they were constrained to buy meal at the meal-sellers’ own prices, which they increased at their pleasure.

“We have no very perfect idea left us of the appearance of either the Mills, or the ancient Waterworks erected against London Bridge. Gough, in his ‘British Topography,’ volume i., page 735, states on the authority of Bagford, that in the Pepysian Library, at Cambridge, there is ‘a draught of London Bridge, expressing the Mill at the end;—as also a very old drawing of this Bridge on Fire, on vellum.’”

“Yes, Master Postern,” said I, “he does so; and that same ‘very old drawing,’ is nothing less than a most fair and interesting view of the Western side, as it appeared about the time of Elizabeth, or James I., delicately drawn with a pen, slightly shaded, coloured, and gilded, but all faded by time, and nearly worn out by having been folded in two, from the continual friction of the surfaces. It measures about 24¼ inches, by 4³⁄₈ inches; and is now contained in the portfolio marked ‘London and Westminster, 1. 246, 247. C.’ As the Bridge is represented with the Northern end in a perfectly entire state, it must have been drawn anterior to the great conflagration which destroyed it in 1632-33; though it was probably to commemorate that event, that some rude and barbarous hand has disfigured it with those numerous streaks of red, which Bagford and Gough supposed to represent flames. From the minute and careful manner in which it is drawn, it may certainly be esteemed as peculiarly authentic; and, therefore, I proceed to notice to you, that it, very probably, contains a representation of the four Mills, which you have already mentioned as being set up near this place. At the Southern end, below the Traitors’ Gate, is a kind of long shed, formed of shingles, or thin boards, erected on three of the sterlings, and covering, as the Citizens proposed, four water wheels, which edifice is, doubtless, intended to represent the Ancient Corn Mills at London Bridge.

“Now, Mr. Barnaby, as this building stands out so far from the Bridge itself as to leave a considerable space between them, though enclosed on all sides, a sort of water-square open at the top, it appears to me an evident proof that it represents those very Mills. In the roof of the building are three sets of windows; and an open stage, or floor, appears a short distance below it. At the North end, also, of this most interesting prospect, against the first sterling, is a high square building, like a tower, having a low wooden gallery in front of it; and a single water-wheel turning beneath it; which are, most probably, intended for the Waterworks and Tower at London Bridge.