Of the other buildings on the bridge there is little to say, for, although they made up a picturesque composition, they were of a most flimsy character, and wanting at the last in any architectural merit. Our illustration ([fig. 2]), taken from an oil painting by Scott, belonging to the Fishmongers' Company, gives the principal group on the Surrey side, and in the sixth plate of Hogarth's Marriage a la Mode we get a view through the open window of another part in the last stage of dilapidation. There was, however, one exception to the commonplace among them, in a timber house, made in Holland, which was known as "Nonsuch House." It was erected, it was said, without nails, and placed athwart the roadway, hanging at the ends far over the river, with towers and spires at the angles, and over the great gate the arms of Queen Elizabeth. The top of the main front was surmounted, at a later date, with a pair of sundials, which bore the, for once, appropriate motto—"Time and Tide wait for no man."
Had old London Bridge survived to this day, its waterfalls would doubtless have been utilized to generate electricity, and the idea of setting the Thames on fire realized in lighting the streets of London by its means; but the value of the force of the falling water was not overlooked by our ancestors. As early as 1582 one Peter Corbis, a Dutchman, erected an engine, worked by the stream, which lifted the water to a reservoir, whence it was distributed by means of leaden pipes through the city. With many alterations and improvements, these water works continued in use until the last century, and it was stated before the House of Commons, in 1820, that more than 26 millions of hogsheads of the pellucid waters of the river were thus daily delivered to the city householders for their domestic use.
Such, shortly, is the history of the fabric, which, after enduring for more than six hundred years, was swept away to make room for the present structure. For any accounts of the many stirring events which occurred on it, or about it, we have no space here. Are they not written in the chronicles of England?
In the Fishmongers' Hall is preserved a valuable memorial of the ancient structure, of which we give an illustration ([fig. 3]) by permission of the Worshipful Company. It consists of a chair with a seat of Purbeck marble, reminiscent in its arrangements of the coronation chair, on which is engraved this inscription:—
"I am the first stone that was put down for the foundation of old London Bridge in June 1176 by a priest named Peter who was vicar of Colechurch in London and I remained there undisturbed safe on the same oak piles this chair is made from till the Revd. William John Jollife curate of Colmer Hampshire took me up in July 1832 when clearing away the old bridge after new London Bridge was completed."
The framework of the chair gives a pictorial chronicle of the city bridges; the top rail of the back shows old London Bridge after the removal of the houses, below which are new London Bridge, Southwark and old Blackfriars Bridges. The arms of the city are carved at the top, whilst the monogram of Peter of Colechurch and the device of the Bridge House Estates complete the decoration. This device, which appears to have been also the old badge of Southwark, was sometimes displayed upon a shield, thus:—Az., an annulet ensigned with a cross patée, Or; interlaced with a saltire enjoined in base, of the second. We give an illustration of this in [figure 5].
Fig. 3—The Foundation Stone Chair.
At the Fishmongers' Hall.