“In the year 993,” says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, “came Olaf with 90 ships to Staines and ravaged thereabouts; and went thence to Sandwich, and so thence to Ipswich, and that all overran, and so to Maldon.” How, it is asked, would Olaf sail past the bridge? There can be two answers to this question. It looks, to begin with, considering that Sandwich, Ipswich, and Maldon all lie close together, near or on the coast, as if Olaf had no business at Staines at all. Why, Staines is 120 miles from the North Foreland, round which the fleet must sail. And the answer to the question is, therefore, that some other place is intended. If, however, Olaf did really sail up the river to Staines, then the bridge must have been in a ruinous condition. But the stout piles remained, or at least as many of them as were wanted to show how the work could be restored or rebuilt. Snorri Sturlason, the Icelander, who wrote in the thirteenth century, has preserved a curious account of the bridge (Chronicles of London Bridge, p. 16).
A FIGHT
Harl. MS., 603.
“They—that is, the Danish forces—first came to shore at London, where their ships were to remain, and the City was taken by the Danes. Upon the other side of the River is situate a great market called Southwark—Sudurvirke in the original—which the Danes fortified with many defences; framing, for instance, a high and broad ditch, having a pile or rampart within it, formed of wood, stone, and turf, with a large garrison placed there to strengthen it. This the King Ethelred—his name, you know, is Adalradr in the original—attacked and forcibly fought against; but by the resistance of the Danes it proved but a vain endeavour. There was, at that time, a Bridge erected over the River between the city and Southwark, so wide, that if two carriages met they could pass each other. At the sides of the Bridge, at those parts which looked upon the River, were erected Ramparts and Castles that were defended on the top by pent-house bulwarks and sheltered turrets, covering to the breasts those who were fighting in them; the Bridge itself was also sustained by piles which were fixed in the bed of the River. An attack, therefore, being made, the forces occupying the Bridge fully defended it. King Ethelred being thereby enraged, yet anxiously desirous of finding out some means by which he might gain the Bridge, at once assembled the Chiefs of the army to a conference on the best method of destroying it. Upon this, King Olaf engaged—for you will remember he was an ally of Ethelred—that if the Chiefs of the army would support him with their forces, he would make an attack upon it with his ships. It being ordained then in council that the army should be marched against the Bridge, each one made himself ready for a simultaneous movement both of the ships and of the land forces.”
King Olaf then constructed a kind of raft or scaffold which he placed round his ships so that his men could stand upon them and work. As soon as they reached the bridge they were assailed by a hail-storm of missiles, which broke their shields, and forced many of the ships to retire. Those that remained, however, made fast the ships with ropes and cables. Then the rowers tugged their hardest; the tide turned in their favour; and crash! down fell that part of the bridge and all the people who were on it into the river. Thus Ethelred was restored. In memory of this exploit the Norse Bard sang:—
“And thou hast overthrown their Bridges, Oh thou Storm of the Sons of Odin; skilful and foremost in the Battle! For thee was it happily reserved to possess the land of London’s winding City. Many were the shields which were grasped sword in hand, to the mighty increase of the conflict; but by thee were the iron-banded coats of mail broken and destroyed....
Thou, thou hast come, Defender of the Earth, and hast restored into his kingdom the exiled Ethelred. By thine aid is he advantaged, and made strong by thy valour and prowess; Bitterest was that Battle in which thou didst engage. Now in the presence of thy kindred the adjacent lands are at rest, where Edmund, the relation of the country and the people, formerly governed.”
There is nothing about all this in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It may have happened; but it could not have been invented with a stone bridge in view, the piers of which all King Olaf’s ships together could not move. Of a wooden bridge constructed in the way described above the thing seems quite possible.
The next event in the history of the bridge is the unsuccessful siege by Cnut. In the course of this siege the besiegers dug the trench round the south end of the bridge and dragged their ships through it, so as to attack London all along the river face. Maitland, the historian, pleased himself by thinking that he had discovered vestiges of the trench all the way round. In his time (circa 1740) there were meadows and pastures and orchards over the whole of south London.
“By a diligent search of several days,” Maitland says, “I discovered the vestigia and length of this artificial water-course: its outflux from the river Thames was where the Great Wet Dock below Rotherhithe is situate: whence, running due west by the seven houses in Rotherhithe Fields, it continues its course by a gentle winding to the Drain Windmill: and, with a west-north-west course passing St. Thomas of Watering’s, by an easy turning it crosses the Deptford Road, a little to the south-east of the Lock-Hospital, at the lower end of Kent Street; and, proceeding to Newington Butts, intersects the road a little south of the turnpike; whence, continuing its course by the Black Prince in Lambeth Road, on the north of Kennington, it runs west-and-by-south, through the Spring garden at Vauxhall, to its influx into the Thames at the lower end of Chelsea Reach.”