London Bridge

Para1For nearly 900 years, and through various constructions and designs, London Bridge has been one of the central avenues for crossing the River Thames between the City of London and the Borough of Southwark. Residents of and visitors to the London area would have used the bridge regularly to travel by foot or horse, as the only other way to cross the river was by boat. The current concrete London Bridge, which is not same as the iconic Tower Bridge erected in 1894, opened in 1973 and still stands as a major traffic artery.

Structure

Para2London Bridge was originally constructed out of wood during Roman times and remained wooden into the early Middle Ages. In the mid-twelfth century, it was reconstructed under the direction of Peter Colechurch, with sturdier stone replacing the wood.
Para3The medieval bridge was approximately 900 feet in length, about 40 feet wide, and stood almost 60 feet above the river tide. It consisted of 19 arches, with gates and a drawbridge was located at the southern end. The design of the bridge arches made it almost impossible for ships to travel under the bridge.
Para4Buildings and residences lined the bridge, with St. Thomas Chapel located near the center. Over the centuries, the bridge became a tunnel of sorts, as taller buildings were added. At its narrowest, the width of the road was a mere 12 feet. Because of the bridge’s centrality and because it was the only way to cross the river on foot, horse, or cart, London Bridge was always bustling. The multitude of people crossing from the south into the City of London had to pass beneath the decapitated heads of executed traitors on the bridge gatehouse.

Bridge Maintenance

Para5Though the original wooden bridge was replaced with stone, it had to continually be repaired because of the damage over time from the wear and tear of so many people and carts crossing the bridge, the water and debris beating against the pillars, occasional flooding, tumultuous weather, and even war.
Para6To help finance the repairs, funds were continually raised and collected through passage tolls, rent for the properties on the bridge, and of course taxes. The bridge became a vulnerable site for disasters, including several fires. One fire in about 1212 burned down many of the buildings on top of the bridge, resulting in a large number of deaths.

The Bridge Over Time

Para7New bridge crossings on the Thames were added at Westminster in 1738 and Battersea in 1771. After six centuries, the Old London Bridge was torn down in the 18th century to make way for the construction of a new version. Construction started in the mid-1700s under the direction of John Rennie, and in 1831, though Rennie had passed away, the New London Bridge was completed by his sons, George and John Rennie, Jr. The New London Bridge lasted until the 1960’s, which prompted the construction of the current London Bridge. Parts of Rennie’s bridge were salvaged and now reside as a tourist attraction in the United States at Lake Havasu in Arizona.

Key Print Sources

McEwan, John A. Charity and the City: London Bridge, c. 1176–1275. Medieval Londoners: Essays to Mark the Eightieth Birthday of Carol M. Barron, edited by Elizabeth A. New and Christian Steer. University of London, Institute of Historical Research, 2019, pp. 223-244.
Norris, David A. London Bridge. History Magazine vol. 19, no. 6, Aug. 2018, pp. 23–26.

Key Online Sources

Best, Michael. The City of London. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, Accessed 5 Nov. 2024. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/city%20life/citylondon.html.
Introduction. London Bridge: Selected Accounts and Rentals, 1381–1538, edited by Vansessa Harding and Laura Wright. London Record Society, 1995, pp. vii-xxix. British History Online. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-record-soc/vol31/vii-xxix. Accessed 27 May 2020.
Billingham, David P. London Bridge. Encyclopædia Britannica. 07 May 2013. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Old-London-Bridge.

Prosopography

Channing Hyde

Channing Hyde was a student at Utah Valley University.

Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

University of Victoria (UVIC1)

https://www.uvic.ca/

Metadata

Authority title London Bridge
Type of text Critical
Publisher University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series Early Modern England Encyclopedia
Source
By Channing Hyde, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions
Editorial declaration This document uses Canadian English spelling
Edition Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a
Sponsor(s)

Early Modern England Encyclopedia

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.
Encoding description Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines
Document status published, peer-reviewed
Funder(s) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Mitacs Globalink Research Internship
Utah Valley University
License/availability
Intellectual copyright in this entry is held by Kate McPherson on behalf of the contributors. Copyright on the TEI-XML markup is held by the University of Victoria on behalf of the LEMDO Team. The content and TEI-XML markup in this file are licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license. This file is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and /or data; (2) this availability statement must remain in the file; (3) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except for quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (4) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO. Neither the content nor the code in this file is licensed for training large language models (LLMs), ingestion into an LLM, or any use in any artificial intelligence applications; such uses are considered to be commercial uses and are strictly prohibited.