A short history of London Bridge

There has been a bridge here, on and off, for almost two thousand years. This is the story in brief, with every fact linked to where it comes from.

A Roman crossing

People have crossed the Thames close to today's bridge since the Roman town of Londinium was founded, around 47 CE.^[1] The Institution of Civil Engineers notes evidence that the Romans built the first bridge some time after AD 43.^[4]

After Roman rule ended, around 409 CE, the crossing kept being rebuilt. By about the year 1000 there was a Saxon timber bridge. Timber bridges here were wrecked again and again by storms, fire and ice; a storm in 1091 destroyed one of them.^[1]

The medieval bridge with houses

Work on a stone bridge began in 1176 under Peter de Colechurch. It had 19 arches, stretched about 900 feet and took 33 years to build. Peter died before it was finished.^[2] It was completed in 1209.^[1]^[3]

The bridge carried houses, shops and inns, and a chapel dedicated to Thomas Becket. London Museum calls it the longest inhabited bridge in Europe. It also had fortified gates, towers and a drawbridge, and from about the 14th to the 17th century the heads of executed traitors were displayed on it.^[1]

A gap left by a fire in 1633 acted as a firebreak in the Great Fire of 1666.^[1] The bridge stood for more than 600 years.^[1]^[2]^[4]

Since the Middle Ages the bridge has been paid for by a charity of its own. Bridge House Estates was formally established by a Royal Charter of Edward I in 1282. Renamed City Bridge Foundation in 2023, it still looks after five Thames bridges, including London Bridge and Tower Bridge.^[3]

Rennie's bridge

The medieval bridge was replaced by a design of John Rennie the Elder.^[2] Rennie died before building began, and his sons John and George carried it out. The first stone was laid on 15 June 1825 and King William IV opened the granite bridge on 1 August 1831.^[4] Demolition of the old bridge was complete by 1832.^[1] Rennie's bridge was widened in the 1920s.^[1]

Sold to Arizona

In 1968 Rennie's bridge was sold to the American businessman Robert P. McCulloch. The contract of sale is dated 18 April 1968 and the price was $2.46 million.^[5]^[6] Its granite facing was taken down, shipped across the Atlantic and rebuilt around a new, stronger structure at Lake Havasu City, Arizona.^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7] It was dedicated there on 10 October 1971, and it still carries traffic and people today.^[5]^[6]

Some sources give 1971 as the year of the sale.^[2] That was the year the rebuilt bridge was dedicated in Arizona; the sale contract itself dates from 1968.^[5]

London Bridge crossing the Thames, with the towers of the City of London beyond — London Bridge and the City from the south bank. Video by George Morina · watch on Pexels

Today's bridge

The present bridge was designed by the engineers Mott, Hay & Anderson, with Lord Holford as architectural adviser.^[2] John Mowlem & Co built it between 1967 and 1972, and Queen Elizabeth II opened it on 17 March 1973.^[4] It has three spans of pre-stressed concrete,^[4]^[8] and it is about 32 metres wide.^[1]

Traces you can still see

The arch under the tower of St Magnus the Martyr, on the north bank, was once the pedestrian entrance to the old bridge.^[1]
On Borough High Street, the George Inn is described by London Museum as London's only surviving coaching inn.^[1]

What we left out, and why

We left out stories we couldn't confirm in a reliable source. These include where the very first Roman bridge stood, the origins of the rhyme “London Bridge is falling down”, and the popular tale that the buyer thought he was getting Tower Bridge (Lake Havasu City's own visitor bureau says he didn't).^[6] Where sources disagree on a number, we give the range they share: the medieval bridge stood “more than 600 years”, which covers the different figures given by London Museum, the City of London and the ICE.