Marie Prior, 'The Medieval Bridge in the Georgian City: London Bridge C
Marie Prior, ‘The Medieval Bridge in the Georgian City: London Bridge c.1730–1762’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xVIII, 2010, pp. 77–90
text © the authors 2010 THE MEDIEVAL BRIDGE IN THE GEORGIAN CITY: LONDON BRIDGE c. –
MARIE PRIOR
The remodelling of London Bridge in – London has been largely ignored. This is especially transformed the City’s famous street over water into a surprising considering the scale of changes wrought unified work of architecture. This article argues that upon the bridge during the s and s, and in the new visual scheme – an eclectic mix of classical and particular the stylistically intriguing aesthetic Gothic features – was a product of two phenomena: imposed during the remodelling of to . the anxieties of the Corporation of London concerning Orchestrated by the Corporation of London – the the growth of Westminster, and the perception of body with stewardship over the bridge – and London Bridge not only as medieval, but as specifically overseen by the architects George Dance the Elder Gothic. In doing so, this article seeks to emphasise the and Sir Robert Taylor, the remodelling transformed significance of this now-vanished building to the the most famous bridge in Georgian England from the Georgian metropolis, and to highlight the holistic overcrowded, dramatic, and frequently dangerous nature of developments along the urban Thames. inhabited structure that most of us will associate with the name London Bridge, to a far simpler building in ondon Bridge is one of the most famous which classical and Gothic elements combined to Lvanished structures in England. Begun during form a unique new visual scheme. It is the purpose the final decade of the twelfth century, it served as of this article to investigate these radical changes, and London’s only permanent Thames crossing until the to explore the motivations behind this intriguing completion of Charles Labelye’s Westminster Bridge early use of a revived Gothic vocabulary. In doing so, in , and endured until its demolition between this study will reveal that London Bridge was not and , following the completion of John only a significant aspect of the architectural Rennie’s replacement. The romantic image of the landscape of the Georgian City of London, but that inhabited bridge has intrigued scholars and laymen the intimate relationship which existed between the alike for centuries, and the bones of its history have bridge and its guardian body was a driving force for been laid bare in a succession of studies and changes to the bridge’s physical fabric, while monographs. It is easy to see why it has exerted perceptions of the bridge as essentially medieval such a pull on the collective imagination; it was influenced the aesthetic direction of those changes. clustered with a remarkable diversity of buildings for Never a simple river crossing, London Bridge the major part of its long existence and, at almost was a topographically complex and dynamic ft. in length, it presented a spectacular focus for aggregation of parts. In order meaningfully to the Thames riverscape. explore the events of the mid century, it is first Despite this, London Bridge has attracted essential to establish the major characteristics of the remarkably little attention from art historians, and bridge during the preceding decades. This will its place within the architectural history of Georgian necessitate the use of images, but only to provide a
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XVIII THE MEDIEVAL BRIDGE IN THE GEORGIAN CITY : LONDON BRIDGE C . ‒
Fig. . Samuel and Nathanial Buck, ‘Panorama of London and Westminster: the City of London ’, detail of London Bridge, . City of London, London Metropolitan Archives, Guildhall Library Print Collection, cat. no. q .
frame of reference, as it is outside the scope of this This tends not to be reflected in contemporary study to approach the immense and intriguing images. Instead, the impressive scale of the bridge subject of London Bridge in art, or the problematic and its principal landmarks provide the focus. This issue of the relative accuracy of any particular is most evident in Samuel and Nathaniel Buck’s depiction. Beginning with its most basic elements, panorama of London of (Fig. ), the largest and London Bridge was composed of a gently canted most detailed image of the mid-century bridge to carriageway over a series of low arches, supported by survive. Starting at the City end, the Waterworks wide piers. The core fabric dated to the turn of the are the first identifiable feature, nestled between the thirteenth century, while the pointed forms of most west side of the bridge and the City shore. Founded of the arches were almost certainly the result of later in in order to supply water to parts of the City, medieval reinforcements. Although bulky, the piers and periodically expanded until , the required protection from the scour of the tides, Waterworks were both a blessing and a curse. They necessitating the construction and augmentation of contributed a small yet steady revenue to the Bridge massive timber starlings, which resembled extended House Estates, while their expansion hastened the cutwaters. Images indicate that the crowns of the deterioration of the masonry and starlings. South of arches were concealed by the lowest storeys of the the Waterworks, a block of regularised buildings bridge buildings (Fig. ), the majority of which almost certainly represents ‘The Piazzas’. This were timber framed, and given over to commercial colloquial Italianate title was given to two sets of five and domestic uses. Most dated from , having terraces, one either side of the carriageway, designed been constructed ‘in a new and regular manner’ as by George Dance the Elder and completed in . part of a package of improvements, but by the These replaced a section of dilapidated housing, and middle of the eighteenth century these ‘new and were distinguished by a colonnade fronting regular’ buildings had themselves attracted criticism commercial premises. Other key landmarks include for their state of disrepair. St Thomas’ Chapel (not featured on the Bucks’
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XVIII THE MEDIEVAL BRIDGE IN THE GEORGIAN CITY : LONDON BRIDGE C . ‒ panorama due to the perspective adopted), Nonesuch London, the Borough of Southwark, the West House, and the Stonegate. Located on a pier off the Country Bargemen, the Company of Watermen, and east side of the carriageway, St Thomas Chapel had the inhabitants of London Bridge; in short, those been founded shortly after the bridge itself, and who benefited from the commercial uses of the river remodelled during the fourteenth century. Dissolved and the unique nature of London’s only permanent in the wake of the Reformation, it had long been crossing. When, in the mid s, the decision was turned to secular use, and retained only a small made to site the new bridge as close as possible to portion of its superstructure in the early eighteenth the Houses of Parliament, the corporation protested century. Situated on the pier between the seventh again, citing the danger it posed to ‘several Rights, and eighth arches from the Southwark shore (at the properties, privileges and Franchises of this City’. southern end of the third block of bridge buildings These responses can be read as a symptom of depicted), Nonesuch House comprised a ground anxieties produced by the relatively recent rise of floor in stone with three further timber storeys, and Westminster as a locale of fashionable living, and the four domed timber-framed towers. Constructed in consequent decline in aristocratic associations for – as a replacement for the Drawbridge Gate, London Bridge and the Square Mile; anxieties it appears to have still presented a distinctive aesthetic which were almost certainly compounded by the until the remodelling. The Stonegate was a masonry atmosphere of potentiality and optimism generated gatehouse located very close to the Southwark shore by the project for the new bridge. Indeed, it is clear (the narrow building to the left of the three houses that – even before the commencement of the works – with steep gables in the bottom right of the image), the prospect of a new bridge at Westminster brought and had been widened in . about a reassessment of the condition and suitability The inhabited bridge thus presented an of London Bridge. impressive spectacle, but this was not to last. Indeed, In , two years before work began at the fashionable new Piazzas were in use less than Westminster, Nicholas Hawksmoor produced a twenty years before they, along with all other pamphlet entitled A Short Historical Account of buildings on London Bridge, were destroyed. The London-Bridge; With a Proposition for a new Stone- relatively sudden shift from new building work to the Bridge at Westminster: As also an account of some complete clearance of the carriageway implies the remarkable stone-bridges abroad, and what the best existence of a significant catalyst, and that catalyst authors have said and directed concerning the methods was almost certainly Westminster Bridge. Until the of building them . As much a product of patriotic third decade of the eighteenth century, London enthusiasm for the new bridge as it was of concerns Bridge had enjoyed an unchallenged monopoly on about the old, Hawksmoor’s account constitutes the road traffic crossing the Thames. The Lambeth first in-depth published study of London Bridge. Ferry had served Westminster, but ferries were no Unlike earlier accounts, which tend to take the form challenge to the bridge, which itself had become a of anecdotal social histories, Hawksmoor provides significant commercial thoroughfare due to the sheer a more technical survey. The historical account is volume of traffic funnelled across it. The herald of limited to a brief discussion of the construction of change came in , when a group of interested the stone bridge, and is itself merely a foundation for individuals made their first petition to parliament in Hawksmoor’s argument concerning the unsuitable support of a bridge at Westminster; the following nature of London Bridge to the contemporary year, the first petition was raised against it. metropolis, and the measures that might be taken to Tellingly, this objection issued from the City of improve matters. For Hawksmoor, London Bridge
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Fig. . Nicholas Hawksmoor, ‘London Bridge as it was left by the First Builders AD the Sterlings Excepted and Proposition for a New Bridge at Westminster of which there is a Model in stone , ’. This print extracts an image initially published in Hawksmoor’s Historical Account ( ), appendix. Westminster Archives Centre, box , no. .
failed its city on several counts. The piers were too to pass each other. In addition to their practical wide, the arches too narrow and numerous, and the failings, he perceived the bridge buildings to be an whole was ‘ill-contrived’. Of the total length of the unattractive nuisance, and described the river-facing bridge, which he gives as almost ft., he states elevations to be ‘so disagreeable, that it exposes the that a waterway of ft. would be available when Skill of the Projectors, and sinks their Taste down to the tide was above the starlings, but at low tide, that the lowest Barbarity’. would decrease to a mere ft. This difference Hawksmoor’s distaste for London Bridge as it resulted in the famous weir, described by stood during the s is also revealed in his choice Hawksmoor as ‘many frightful Cataracts’, which of illustrations. Indeed, an elevation of the occasioned ‘the Loss of Lives and Goods, and the contemporary bridge is conspicuously absent. Vessels, which are either thrown upon the Sterlings, Instead, Hawksmoor provides a plan of the piers or sunk within the Arches’. Passage under the which emphasises the narrowness and irregular span bridge thus presented a significant danger, but of the arches, and a reconstruction of the bridge ‘as it passage over the bridge was also problematic. was left by the first Builders’ in (Fig. ). These Hawksmoor reports that encroachment of the are juxtaposed with a plan and elevation entitled buildings onto the carriageway rendered it unsafe for Proposition for a New Bridge at Westminster of which pedestrians, and too narrow even to allow two carts there is a Model in stone . Although presented as a
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XVIII THE MEDIEVAL BRIDGE IN THE GEORGIAN CITY : LONDON BRIDGE C . ‒ comparison, this juxtaposition does not represent a provenance of the bridge as discussed in Hawksmoor’s contrast between the City of London and its rival, text. Likewise, the chapel, which Home points out is but is instead a celebratory vision of the metropolitan wrongly located, takes an approximation of its mid- riverscape wherein the reconstructed London Bridge fourteenth century form, providing an emphatically represents the very best of medieval ingenuity, and Gothic accent to the centre of the bridge. This the proposition for Westminster provides direction feature would probably have been most familiar to for the immediate future. Much as Hawksmoor Hawksmoor from post-medieval images of the bridge levelled criticism at the contemporary insufficiency made before the superstructure suffered further of London Bridge, he reserved praise for the bridge it changes, but like the arches it does not reflect the had been when newly completed. For Hawksmoor, appearance of the bridge as it would have been in the bridge of was a ‘great and laudable . Although these inaccuracies serve to Undertaking’, far better suited to the thirteenth- emphasise a general uninterest in the detail and century city than the bridge of his day was to the relative antiquity of medieval styles, they combine to contemporary metropolis. It is thus unsurprising present a positive vision of London Bridge that is that he should choose that bridge to compare with fundamentally and essentially Gothic. This close his proposal for a new bridge at Westminster, and association almost certainly emerged from the not the ramshackle and disharmonious entity of the pointed form of the majority of its actual arches, and s. And it is equally unsurprising that his the remaining features of the fourteenth-century reconstruction should provide the basis for his own chapel as they stood during the early eighteenth proposal for the remodelling of London Bridge century, and it is an association that Hawksmoor (Fig. ). evidently felt was not inappropriate for this Hawksmoor’s reconstruction presents a fantasy particular kind of secular civic building. of the medieval bridge, and one which reveals a The awareness of London Bridge not only as strong perceptual association between London medieval, but as specifically Gothic, is made explicit Bridge and the Gothic style. The almost triangular in a statement given by Charles Labelye in support of profile of the arches do not engage with either the proposals for remodelling submitted to the City actual variations in the size and shape of the arches Corporation in . By stating that ‘ London Bridge so as they appeared in Hawksmoor’s lifetime, or the mended would be the finest and most commodious variations of curvature in actual thirteenth-century Gothick bridge in the world’, Labelye both arches, but they do serve to emphasise the medieval establishes a direct connection between that building
Fig. . Nicholas Hawksmoor, ‘Proposition for London Bridge to be Alter’d for the Navigation & the safty of the Passengers over it ’, . This print extracts an image initially published in: Hawksmoor’s Historical Account ( ), appendix . WAC box , no. , acc. , first of three prints .
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XVIII THE MEDIEVAL BRIDGE IN THE GEORGIAN CITY : LONDON BRIDGE C . ‒ and a specific (if generalised) conception of contemporary bridge through the lens of architectural style, and the limitations imposed by Hawksmoor’s reconstruction, Labelye reveals the that association. As a Gothic bridge, it could only be strength of the continued association between the best of its type; however, the implicit value London Bridge and an idea of the medieval expressed judgement concerning style does not negate the through pointed architecture. possibility of the remodelled Gothic bridge being a Labelye’s comparison was produced at the prestigious building appropriate to the Corporation request of Richard Hoare, then Lord Mayor of and the City. Labelye’s proposals made use of a London. The date of this request indicates that the design ‘according to the Opinion of the Celebrated Corporation were growing more anxious about their Architect Sir Christopher Wren’ (Fig. ), which own position as Westminster Bridge neared incorporates new pointed arches built over select completion, but that they had as yet not decided how existing piers (the others to be removed), and a best to proceed. Unfortunately, the extant records of Gothic balustrade with what appear to be onion- the Corporation and of the Bridge House Estates do domed and crocketed recesses set off the carriageway. not provide a full account of the motivations of the Intriguingly, Labelye contrasts this image with one patrons and architects. Hence these must be that he labels ‘The Plan and Western Front of reconstructed as far as possible using the available London Bridge exclusive of the Houses with the evidence, which itself emerges from the records of Sterlings reduced’. This is not in fact the bridge of the now-vanished buildings. Work began on stripped of its buildings, but is an unattributed Westminster Bridge in , two years after the copy of Hawksmoor’s reconstruction as he believed publication of Hawksmoor’s pamphlet, and it was the bridge to have looked in . By viewing the opened in November . The remodelling of
Fig. . Comparison between Nicholas Hawksmoor’s plan and west front of London Bridge in (unattributed), and Charles Labelye’s drawing of Sir Christopher Wren’s design for altering London Bridge, Charles Labelye, . WAC, box. , no. , acc. , third of three prints .
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Fig. . Joseph Farington, ‘View of London Bridge including the Church of St Magnus and the Monument’, . etching. London Metropolitan Archives , GLPC, cat no. q x.
London Bridge began a mere seven years later, supported a gently curved carriageway lined with under the supervision of George Dance the Elder, balustrades, but clear of buildings. The curves of the the Corporation’s Clerk of the Works, and the arches and carriageway were articulated with strong architect Robert Taylor, and was assisted by voussoirs and a corbelled cornice, and a succession parliamentary grants totalling £ , allotted of small half-domed recesses lined either side of the between and . By , the bridge had pavements to provide shelter for pedestrians (Fig. ). been transformed; no longer a disharmonious street Each of these features was echoed in Dance and over water, it had become a single, unified work of Taylor’s London Bridge, where a series of half- architecture (Fig. ). domed pedestrian shelters projected above alternate The similarities between Westminster Bridge and piers, a corbelled cornice provided a strong the remodelled London Bridge strongly indicate that horizontal emphasis on the river-facing elevations, the architects had Labelye’s project in mind when and the Central Arch appears to have possessed designing the new scheme. Westminster Bridge accented voussoirs similar to those at Westminster responded to the classical idiom exhibited in the (Fig. ). The width of the remodelled scheme also developments of London’s West End. Faced in appears to respond to the challenge posed by Portland Stone, fifteen round-headed arches Westminster. The new bridge possessed a total width
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Fig. . Samuel and Nathanial Buck, ‘Panorama of London and Westminster: the City of Westminster ’, detail of Westminster Bridge, . London Metropolitan Archives, GLPC cat. no. q .
of ft., ft. of which was carriageway, with ft. purpose-built toll-houses – situated on the pavements to either side. Dance and Taylor approaches, rather than the carriageway itsel f – extended the full width of their bridge to ft., but the scheme as a whole exhibited a remarkable thereby encasing the medieval fabric within a shell of eclecticism. Instead of attempting to classicise the brand new masonry. The whole was clad in white entire fabric of the bridge, Dance and Taylor retained Portland Stone, and where previously the river-facing and augmented the forms of the variously sized and elevations had exhibited a rhythm of projecting shaped Gothic arches. The exact extent to which cutwaters, Dance and Taylor brought the entire these were manipulated is impossible to judge, as the elevation – as viewed at high tide – onto the same architects’ plans do not appear to have survived, plane, with only the cornice and the buttresses of the but the visual record provides a general indication of piers in relief. The new facing provided a bright the extent to which the remodelled scheme responded and clean aesthetic unity that the ancient and much- to the core fabric. In J. T. Smith’s engraving of , repaired bridge had lacked, while the open the new work appears more emphatically pointed carriageway enhanced its function as a grand than the original fabric, the crown and apex of the processional avenue into the City and one which – arch having been raised significantly (Fig. ). significantly considering Hawksmoor’s criticisms – Photographs taken in of the land arch revealed rendered the bridge wide enough for an uninterrupted during work on Adelaide House, and subsequent flow of traffic. analysis of that feature, support Smith’s depiction. Despite these similarities, the remodelled London Thus, far from reducing the Gothic appearance of Bridge was more than a mirror of Westminster. the majority of the arches, Dance and Taylor Although elements of the visual scheme provided a appear to have exaggerated them, echoing the response to Labelye’s bridge, the form and ornament emphatically pointed arches of Hawksmoor’s were also guided by the existing fabric, and by the reconstruction and proposal. Although it may have perception of London Bridge as medieval in origin. been technically possible to construct classically The new Central Arch provided an appropriate inspired arches between the piers, these would have focus for contemporary taste, as did a pair of varied in span and headway, thus negating the
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Fig. . J. T. Smith, ‘An Arch of London Bridge as it appeared during the Great Frost ’. WAC, box . no. .
possibility of overall symmetry or any system of alternate piers. This feature has been mentioned classical proportion. This would have robbed a numerous times in the literature, but no satisfactory classical scheme of any sense of gravitas, thus explanation has thus far been offered for its inclusion. rendering it ridiculous. Gothic, however, was The panels applied to the square buttresses of every allowed to be uneven; the irregularity of the core second pier (alternate buttresses were half octagonal fabric made this style the only appropriate mode of – as at Westminster) were simple in character, architectural expression for the area below the incorporating two blind lancets with internal cornice, where the architects were required by the cusping, surmounted by a quatrefoil, all of which financial constraints imposed by the corporation to appears to have been contained in a larger, rounded work more sensitively with the existing fabric. arch with a flattened crown. These details are not In , the British Chronicle reported that the very clear on early images of the remodelled bridge, bridge would be ‘finished in the Gothic taste’. This which also tend to distort the proportions and refers not only to the augmented form of the irregular elongate the height of the piers. Later images pointed arches, but also to the ornament applied to display the details more clearly, for example
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Farington’s etching of (Fig. ), and Smith’s Westminster Abbey, and the screen of Westminster engraving (Fig. ), and help to convey the prominence Hall installed by William Kent in the s. Three of this feature, and the way in which it was integrated decades after the completion of the remodelled into the overall design. But what prompted this bridge, the corporation commissioned George particular manifestation of ‘Gothic taste’? Regarding Dance the Younger – son of George Dance the Elder source material, there are two major contenders. The and heir to his father’s position as City Surveyor first is the perceived appearance of the west window –to provide a new façade for the Guildhall. Like of St Thomas Chapel, which appears in an engraving London Bridge, the core of the Guildhall was also by George Vertue of with two lights, a very medieval, and the new work combined a revived simple Y of intersecting tracery, and a quatrefoil Gothic vocabulary with allusions to another above, although the enclosing arch is pointed and architectural style. Although the Guildhall façade the lights are not cusped. The other is a detail in is far more elaborate than the simple ornament of the lowest register of the eighteenth-century work of London Bridge, the use of a modified Gothic the Towers of Westminster Abbey, designed by vocabulary in two such significant public buildings Hawksmoor and completed in . These appears to signify more than just an adherence to a incorporate similar pairs of cusped lancets nestled particular form out of financial necessity. Instead, it within a rounded arch, although unlike the features reveals a growth in the significance of associations of London Bridge the panelling continues above. It with the medieval past when forging and consolidating is clear that the medieval fabric of London Bridge civic and corporate identity. made it a special case, but this does not explain why The remodelling of London Bridge the Corporation would have sanctioned the added simultaneously forged links with the medieval past expense of ornamenting the piers. Yet an explanation and the fashionable present. It divorced the aesthetic presents itself when the remodelled scheme is from the core fabric, while uniting the idea of the considered as a whole. If the classical elements are bridge as medieval with a contemporary conception read as a direct response to anxieties about the of medieval architectural style. No longer an Corporation’s own place within the developing inhabited bridge, it became one among a group of metropolis, a purpose for the Gothic features in significant medieval buildings within the metropolis revealed. A tie to the City’s past, they emphasise the to incorporate a revived Gothic vocabulary. The new long provenance of the Corporation, and the bridge issued a statement of the Corporation’s ability medieval roots of its authority and identity. to compete with the latest in Thames engineering, Although the Gothic style was almost certainly while providing an emphatic reminder of the ancient adopted in response to the challenge of remodelling source of that patron’s authority, a duality which was rather than rebuilding, it does not follow that it was evidently perceived as appropriate to the identity of a lamented choice. The combination of classical the Corporation of London. Working within an and Gothic styles was not without precedent; atmosphere of competitive anxiety, Dance and Taylor Hawksmoor’s celebratory proposal of had made equipped the City with what was effectively a new a feature of the strong if generic Gothic elements of bridge, and provided the Corporation with the his reconstruction, combined with an elegant pair of opportunity to prove that London could compete large, classical arches either side of Chapel Pier with Westminster. It was a chance to ornament the (Fig. ). Furthermore, the mid-eighteenth century Thames with a bridge that would not embarrass revival of Gothic forms was far from isolated, them with its ramshackle housing and incommodious following swiftly on the heels of the additions to carriageway. Unfortunately for the Corporation, the
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XVIII THE MEDIEVAL BRIDGE IN THE GEORGIAN CITY : LONDON BRIDGE C . ‒ success of this project was short-lived. The tides NOTES continued to take their toll on the fabric, the central For an authoritative study of Westminster Bridge, arch had an unforeseen and dangerous effect on the see R. J. B Walker, Old Westminster Bridge: The bridge of fools (Newton Abbot, London and North current, and the starlings persisted in blocking the Pomfret (Vt), ). major part of the waterway. The remodelled fabric Bruce Watson, Trevor Brigham and Tony Dyson, deteriorated quickly, and despite some preventative London Bridge: years of a river crossing action by the Corporation, replacement swiftly (London, ), p. . became the only sensible option. But for a few brief The earliest comprehensive study of London Bridge is Richard Thompson’s Chronicles of decades the remodelled bridge stood between London Bridge , which was published London and Southwark, testimony to the pressures pseudonymously in . The second major study, and anxieties prompted by the developing and the one which remains the most comprehensive metropolis, and to the significance of the medieval work on the history of the bridge, is Gordon past in an age so dominated by the influence of Home’s Old London Bridge of . John Hearsey’s classical antiquity. Bridge, Church and Palace in Old London (London, ) and C. W. Shepherd’s A Thousand Years of Old London Bridge (London and New York, ) rely heavily on Home, and cover a limited expanse of the same ground. The most significant recent ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS work is Watson, Brigham and Dyson’s London Grateful thanks to the London Metropolitan Bridge: years of a river crossing , which was published following a long-running archaeological Archives and the Westminster Archive Centre for investigation by the Museum of London their kind permission to reproduce the images Archaeology Service. Also published since the featured in this article. millennium are Patricia Pierce, Old London Bridge; The story of the longest inhabited bridge in Europe by Patricia Pierce (London, ), and Bruce Watson’s authoritative condensed history, Old London Bridge, Lost and Found (London, ). Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., p. ; Nicholas Hawksmoor, A Short Historical Account of London-Bridge; With a Proposition for a new Stone- Bridge at Westminster: As also an account of some remarkable stone-bridges abroad, and what the best authors have said and directed concerning the methods of building them (London, ), pp. –. Attention has begun to turn towards London Bridge as other elements of Thames culture are explored, for example Joseph Monteyne’s analysis of images of the – frost fair (Joseph Monteyne, The Printed Image in Early Modern London: Urban space, visual representation, and social change (Aldershot and Burlington (Vt), , p. , pp. – and p. ), but a significant amount of work remains to be done. Although very little in- depth study has thus far been accomplished, images of London Bridge remain popular as subjects for exhibitions, the most recent of which was ‘Spanning the River: Artists’ views of Thames bridges’, held at
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the Guildhall Art Gallery in (D. McFetrich, Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., pp. – . Spanning the River: Artists views of Thames bridges Thomson, op. cit ., pp. – . For a description of (London, Guildhall Art Gallery exhibition other sources of revenue generated by the Bridge catalogue, ). Although not a scholarly text, House Estates, see: Watson, Brigham and Dyson, Peter Jackson’s London Bridge: A visual history op. cit ., pp. – . (London, ; ), is important in showcasing a Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., pp. , ; selection of images unavailable elsewhere. Home, op. cit ., pp. – ; Thomson, op. cit ., Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit. , pp. – . pp. – . Although much work remains to be undertaken on Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., p. ; Home, images of London Bridge, in my doctoral thesis I op. cit ., p. . The plan and road-facing elevation took the first few steps towards mapping this new of Dance’s terrace is reproduced in Home, territory: M. F. Prior, ‘Style, Perception and op. cit ., facing , and Jackson, op. cit ., pp. – . Identity: the gothic bridge in London and York Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., p. . c. – ’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of York, ). St Thomas’ Chapel was dedicated to the martyred This is illustrated by a discussion of the form of the Archbishop of Canterbury: Watson, Brigham and bridge buildings in Watson, Brigham and Dyson, Dyson, op. cit ., p. . pp. – . Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., pp. – . Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., pp. – . Home, op. cit ., pp. – ; Watson, Brigham and Watson, Old London Bridge, pp. , ; Watson, Dyson, op. cit ., p. . Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., pp. – . Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., p. . Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., p. . Thomson, op. cit ., pp. – ; Watson, Brigham Ibid. , pp. –, – , – . and Dyson, op. cit ., p. . Also see Westminster Archives Centre (hereafter Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., pp. , . WAC) Box , A, and Sutton Nicholls’s Thomson records that Nonesuch House was engraving, reproduced in Jackson, op. cit ., pp. –. prefabricated in Holland and fixed together using Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., pp. – . only wooden pegs, hence gaining its name through Ibid. , pp. – . a measure of awe at its construction: op. cit ., p. . Home mentions several reports of instabilities and Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., p. . collapses in the houses on the bridge, for example Ibid. , pp , –, . the studio of eighteenth-century artist John Watson, Brigham and Dyson suggest that the Laguerre, which ‘is described as being in a bow- construction of Westminster Bridge directly led to windowed room projecting over the water, which the remodelling of London Bridge; they also note trembled when the flow of the river came with its the basic visual similarities, but do not draw any full force through the arches’ (Home, op. cit ., p. , conclusions from this: op. cit ., pp. – . – ). For a discussion of the development of Until this point, London Bridge was the only buildings on London Bridge, see: Watson, Brigham permanent river crossing between Kingston Bridge, and Dyson, op. cit ., pp. – . twelve miles upstream, and the sea: Watson, Brigham In Hogarth’s ‘Marriage-a-la-Mode’ VI: The Death and Dyson, op. cit ., p. ; Walker, op. cit ., p. . of the Countess ( ), London Bridge is shown Home, op. cit ., p. . covered in tall, narrow houses which lean out of Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., p. . alignment with each other. This image echoes Walker, p. . This was not the first attempt to gain contemporary complaints about the state of the support for a new bridge at Westminster, but it was houses (David Bindman, Hogarth (London, ), the first stirrings of the successful scheme. pp. – . Home, op. cit ., facing p. and Walker, op. cit ., pp. – . pp. –). Home, op. cit ., pp. – . This is one panel of a five-sheet series, depicting the Walker, op. cit ., pp. – . metropolis from Westminster to London; the full John Summerson, Georgian London (London, : dimensions are x mm: R. Hyde, A Prospect ), pp. – . of Britain: The town panoramas of Samuel and J. Sweetman, The Artist and the Bridge (Aldershot Nathaniel Buck (London, ), pp. and . and Brookfield, ), p. .
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Hawksmoor’s pamphlet was dedicated to Lord Earlier in his career, he had defended the use of Sundon and Sir Charles Wagner, both of whom Gothic as an appropriate style for ecclesiastical were parliamentary representatives for Westminster: architecture: Hart, op. cit ., p. ). Hawksmoor, op. cit ., p. . Hawksmoor’s pamphlet is Formatting as in original: Walker, op. cit ., p. . discussed in brief by R. J. B. Walker and Vaughan WAC, box , no. . A copy of this image is Hart, in relation to the scheme for Westminster reproduced in Home, op. cit ., p. . Bridge, but no conclusions are drawn regarding Home, op. cit ., p. . perceptions of London Bridge: Walker, op. cit ., Walker, op. cit ., p. . pp. – ; Vaughan Hart, Nicholas Hawksmoor: Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., pp. – . Rebuilding ancient wonders (New Haven and Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of London[?], ), pp. – . British Architects, – (New Haven and For example in Stowe’s Survey of London, and the London, ), pp. – ; Jill Lever, Catalogue of text accompanying John Norden’s early the Drawings of George Dance the Younger ( – ) seventeenth-century engraving of London Bridge: and of George Dance the Elder ( – ): From John Stow, A Survey of London, reprinted from the the collection of Sir John Soane’s Museum (London, text of , with introduction and notes by Charles Oxford and New York, c. ), p. . Lethbridge Kingsford (Oxford, ; ), pp. Colvin, op. cit ., pp. – . – . A tinted copy of Norden’s engraving can be Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., p. . found at WAC, box , no. . Dorothy Stroud provides a brief description of the Hawksmoor, op. cit ., p. . form of the remodelled bridge: Dorothy Stroud, Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., p. . George Dance , Architect, – (London, ), Hawksmoor, op. cit ., pp. –. p. . An overview of the remodelling can also be Walter Thornbury, Old and New London (London, found in Walker, op. cit ., pp. –. ), II, p. ; Watson, Brigham and Dyson, Summerson, op. cit ., pp. – , – . op. cit ., . For a discussion of the accuracy of Canaletto’s Hawksmoor, op. cit ., p. . views of Westminster Bridge, see Walker, op. cit ., Ibid. , p. . pp. – . Ibid. , p. . Walker, op. cit ., p. ; Watson, Brigham and Dyson , Ibid. , appendix. op. cit ., p. . The model mentioned is almost certainly one of Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., p. . several presented to parliament in February : The cutwaters were still present, but were reduced Walker, op. cit ., pp. –. in height. This can most easily be appreciated in Hawksmoor, op. cit ., pp. – . Gordon Home’s diagram, ‘Seven phases in the Ibid. , pp. –. evolution of old London Bridge, – ’ in Ibid. , pp. – . Home, op. cit ., facing p. . The pointed form of a number of the arches of Home, op. cit ., p. . London Bridge during the first half of the No such plans are lodged at the London Metropolitan eighteenth century was probably due to medieval Archives, which hold the vast majority of material rebuilding and strengthening, particularly after the relevant to Old London Bridge. An engraved design collapse of two arches in ; the original arches for the centring of London Bridge survives, were probably rounded in form: Watson, Brigham executed in : Lever, op. cit ., p. , pl. ). and Dyson, op. cit ., p. . Watson, op. cit ., pp. –; National Archives, Work Chapel pier was not at the exact centre of the bridge, / , ‘Ancient Monuments: Old London Bridge as Hawksmoor depicts it; Home, op. cit ., p. . (Archaeological Remains), London. Request from The remodelling itself occurred between and the public re. presentation.’ ( – ); Watson, , and did not come to light until the early Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., pp. – . twentieth century: Home, op. cit ., p. . An engraving by Edward Cook of reveals that For example Wyngaerde’s panorama of London, at least one of the arches appears to have been made c. , reproduced in Watson, Brigham and Dyson, elliptical, possibly due to the distance between the op. cit ., p. , fig. . piers: Watson, Brigham and Dyson, fig. , p. ).
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XVIII THE MEDIEVAL BRIDGE IN THE GEORGIAN CITY : LONDON BRIDGE C . ‒
Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., pp. – . Hawksmoor, op. cit ., p. . British Chronicle , July , reproduced in J. Goodall, ‘The Medieval Palace of Westminster’, in Home, op. cit ., p. . C. Riding and J. Riding (eds), The Houses of Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., p. ; Pierce, Parliament: History, art, architecture (London, op. cit ., p. ; Home, op. cit ., p. ; Jackson, ), p. . op. cit ., p. . Summerson, op. cit ., p. . Only once is an explanation offered, and this Ibid. , pp. –. somewhat dismissively: ‘The new square buttresses For a comprehensive archaeological survey of the were decorated, no doubt for sentimental reasons, Guildhall, see: D. Bowsher, The London Guildhall: in Gothic taste and carved with lancet-shaped An archaeological history of a neighbourhood from panels and quatrefoils’ (Jackson, op. cit ., p. ). early medieval to modern times , vols (London, Examples of prints which display this feature ). include: WAC, box , no. B; WAC, box , This other style has been identified as Indian, and no. B; WAC, box. , no. A. interpreted as a celebration and assertion of the Guildhall Library Print Collection (hereafter corporation’s links with the East India Company GLPC), cat. no. q . This depiction is and eastern trade: Summerson, op. cit ., pp. –. notably very different from Hawksmoor’s For the relationship between the Corporation of reconstruction, where the west window is decidedly London and the East India Company, see H. V. Perpendicular. The interior of St Thomas’s Chapel Bowen, The Business of Empire: The East India was a popular subject for engravers. Other examples Company and imperial Britain, – include: GLPC cat. no. q ; GLPC, cat. no. (Cambridge, ), pp. – . q ; and GLPC, cat. no. q . Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., pp. , ; Walker, op. cit ., p. . C. Wilson, P. Tudor-Craig, Thomson, op. cit ., pp. , – . J. Physick, and R. Gem, The New Bell’s Cathedral Watson, Brigham and Dyson, op. cit ., pp. – . Guides: Westminster Abbey (London, ), pp. – .
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