In 1176, when Colechurch prepared his designs, everybody was excited about a great and very useful enterprise. The King, the clergy, the citizens of London, even country-folk, endowed the bridge with lands or sent money to hasten its completion. The Archbishop of Canterbury subscribed a thousand marks. During the sixteenth century the list of donors was still to be seen “in a table fair written for posterity,” treasured in the chapel on the bridge.[88] Stow makes no reference to the mayor who at his own expense built the chapel; he says only that Colechurch was buried “in the chapel builded on the same bridge in the year 1205.” Four years later the bridge was finished by three “worthy merchants of London--Serle Mercer, William Almaine, and Benedick Botewrite, principal masters of work.” Their director-in-chief was a Frenchman, brother Isembert by name, whose magnificent bridge at Saintes had delighted King John, and who was chosen to superintend the finishing of Old London Bridge a little while before the death of Colechurch. In July, 1212, a terrific fire occurred on the bridge, beginning at the Southwark end, but spreading to the houses at the north end also; no fewer than 3000 persons lost their lives. Citizens gathered at the north end to watch the spectacle, and were overtaken by the swift-travelling flames and by panic also. Many jumped into the river and were drowned; others were killed by falling timbers, and many were scorched to death. Again and again, in after years, London Bridge and her chapel were ravaged by fire; as in 1300, in 1471, in 1632, in 1666, and in September, 1725. Here is Stow’s picture of the houses:-- “The building was of timber, very substantial and beautiful, for the houses were three stories high, besides the cellars, which were within and between the piers, and over the houses were stately platforms, leaded, with rails and ballasters about them, very commodious and pleasant for walking and enjoying so fine a prospect up and down the river, and some had pretty little gardens with arbours.” All this fine architecture was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, but a still better pile of buildings was put up, and now the houses were separated by a roadway twenty feet wide. In earlier times the passage between the houses ranged in width from twelve feet to fourteen. At last, in 1756, every house on the bridge was pulled down, but the chapel was granted a few years more of life. Guess why? Because some vandal or other was willing to use the chapel as a warehouse. At about the same time the chapel on Rotherham Bridge, Yorkshire, was a tobacco shop. As for the merchant who leased the Chapel of St. Thomas à Becket, he built a new ceiling with heavy beams that crossed each other; soon he tired of his warehouse, and then--then the historic old fane was destroyed. A city is like a board meeting--from time to time it has a conscience.