Has London Bridge Ever Fallen Down?

London Bridge crosses the Thames in a place where lots of bridges have stood -- and technically fallen -- before. Learn about the history of these bridges (and the nursery rhyme) in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/london-bridge.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuffloren Boglebaum.
Here crossing the River Thames between the city of London
and southern The London Bridge in some form has welcomed
travelers for two millennia. Yet despite its longevity and fame,

(00:22):
it even has its own nursery rhyme. Oh. What people
think of as the London Bridge is often not the
London Bridge at all. In fact, do a Google search
for images of London Bridge and what you'll probably see
instead are images of the Tower Bridge, the famous Victorian
Gothic structure with two towers, which, to be fair, is
also a bridge in London. The actual London Bridge offers

(00:46):
a much simpler profile, and while the current structure dates
for the late nineteen hundreds, the story of the bridges
that have stood on that site is considerably longer. Today,
the London Bridge, Tower Bridge and three others are all
managed by the City Bridge Foundation, which has been operating
in one form or another for some nine hundred years.

(01:08):
It's a charitable trust and money is not required by
the bridge maintenance budget go to helping out Londoners in
need via the funding arm a City Bridge Trust. The
City Bridge Trust donates thirty million pounds a year in
this way. Okay. The first stone bridge on this site
across the Thames was built between eleven seventy six and
twelve oh nine CE. It was replaced in the early

(01:30):
eighteen hundreds and then again when the existing bridge was
built in the nineteen sixties and seventies. However, even before
the twelfth century stone bridge, a series of wooden bridges
had been constructed at the site, and the story of
the London Bridge begins with a Roman invasion and the
founding of the settlement of London Eum. It got its

(01:51):
start as a military pontoon bridge built by the Romans
when they were settling the area. For the next two
thousand years, the position of the bridge remained in nexus
for economic development. Timber bridges on the site were damaged
by multiple fires and a storm. The final wooden bridge,
designed by Peter, the Bridgemaster Chaplain of Saint Mary Colechurch,

(02:11):
was completed in eleven sixty three. Henry the Second commissioned
the first stone structure, also designed by Peter, just a
decade later, slightly to the west of the timber bridge location.
It was a simple masonry arched bridge and included a drawbridge.
This version, now referred to as the Old London Bridge,

(02:32):
was used as both day river crossing and a development
site for half a millennia. The stone Bridge was home
to around two hundred buildings at any given time, including residences, shops,
and a chapel dedicated to Saint Thomas of Canterbury. It
was during this period that the bridge was also home
to a morbid display the heads of traders to the

(02:53):
Crown dipped in tar and set on pikes at the
bridge's southern gateway, including those of Scottish hero Sir William
Walla and King Henry the Eighths. Chief Minister Thomas Cromwell,
who we've talked about in our episode on Humpty Dumpty
of all Things, Charles the Second stopped the practice in
sixteen sixty. Over the years, with so much development, the

(03:14):
bridge became constricted, not to mention the bathroom facilities dropped
straight into the Thames. So the city started removing the
buildings in these seventeen hundreds. As the London Bridge continued
to be a major transportation route even without its buildings,
a structural problems appeared. The arches deteriorated and the bridge,

(03:34):
which had experienced a variety of damage, was slowly sinking.
By the eighteen twenties, it was deemed structurally problematic. For
the article this episode is based on How Stuff Works.
Spoke via email with Roger Hobbs, Emeritith, professor in the
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College, London.
He explained a bridge peers are libel to damage from

(03:57):
shipping and from the force of the river rushing through.
This finished the life of the medieval bridge and probably
earlier bridges. They also need maintenance before problems become serious
or dangerous, so a so called New London Bridge was
proposed and it was completed in eighteen thirty one. A
Scottish civil engineer, John Rennie designed the masonry stone structure,

(04:21):
which was sturdier and highly engineered, but he died before
the design was approved. His sons constructed it upstream from
the twelfth century bridge, which was quickly demolished less than
one hundred years later. In the nineteen twenties, the city
knew that renovation or reconstruction would be necessary, although weight
of newfangled automobile traffic was causing it to sink slowly

(04:43):
into the river, but this new bridge remained until the
late nineteen sixties when it was finally replaced, but it
wasn't demolished. Instead, the new London Bridge, built in the
eighteen hundreds, was sold to one Robert P. McCullock, senior
chainsaw and motorboat magnate, who founded Lake Havasu City, Arizona,

(05:03):
in the nineteen sixties as a company town to test
his motors. In nineteen sixty eight, he purchased the bridge
for two point four million dollars of plus shipping costs
of an extra two hundred and forty thousand to bring
it to his new home, where he had it reconstructed
above a man made channel. Today, the city claims it's
the most visited built attraction in the state, an important

(05:26):
distinction for a place that also contains the Grand Canyon.
The London Bridge of today was designed by city engineer
Harold Knox King, with architects Mott hay And Anderson and
William Holford and partners. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth
in nineteen seventy three. The bridge features three spans founded
on concrete piers and is constructed of concrete and polished granite,

(05:49):
which isn't particularly striking, but is still a crucial roadway
and a curious public space. The structure is similar to
most overpasses in US high construction and isn't generally somewhere
tourists visit for its beauty, especially considering the historical architecture
throughout the rest of the city. However, the London Bridge

(06:10):
does offer an excellent location from which to take photos
of the nearby Tower Bridge. Until Westminster Bridge opened in
seventeen fifty, the London Bridge offered the city's only option
for crossing the Thames. Today, it connects two vibrant neighborhoods.
On the north side is the City of London, which
is the financial sector like Wall Street. To the south

(06:32):
is Southerark, with the Borough Market, the Shard and the
London Dungeon. Even with its current important status in modern London,
the bridge remains a site of tradition, such as the
twelfth century right to use it to drive sheep into
the City of London for sale. In twenty thirteen, twenty
sheep crossed the bridge in a reenactment of the historical

(06:53):
charter as part of a fundraising effort. This modern version
is expected to last over a century. But technically, yes,
the London Bridge has fallen down to some degree many
times during its two thousand year history. But where did
the nursery rhyme London Bridge is falling Down originate? It

(07:13):
was first published in the mid eighteen hundreds, but it
had probably been known long before that. There are a
few prevailing theories about what event the song refers to,
including an eleventh century Viking attack, the sixteen sixty six
Great London Fire, the rumored live entument of a person
in the structure's foundation, or even the ongoing issue of

(07:33):
the bridge needing repair. No consensus has been reached regarding
the identity of the fair lady mentioned in the rhyme either.
A one possibility is Eleanor of Provence, who was Harry
the Third's consort and controlled London Bridge revenue during the
late thirteenth century. Another guest is Matilda of Scotland, a
consort of Henry the First, who commissioned bridge projects more

(07:56):
than a century earlier. It has also been suggested that
it could be a member of the Lee family, who
claim it was one of their relatives who was walled
up in the bridge. Rumors of immurement have never been substantiated. Really,
it's Anybody's guests. Today's episode is based on the article

(08:18):
London Bridge has never fallen down, but it keeps getting
rebuilt on how stuffworks dot Com, written by Kerry Whitney.
Greenstuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership with
how stuffworks dot Com, and it is produced by Tyler Klang.
Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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