“I am much your debtor, most worthy Master Geoffrey,” said Mr. Postern, as I concluded, “I, truly, am greatly your debtor, for these curious notices of a view, at once so rare, so interesting, and so antique: and, touching the Water-house, or Tower, to which you have alluded, although we have not any certain information of the time when it was erected, yet from the circumstance of its appearing with a name in John Norden’s very scarce view of London Bridge, which I shall presently mention, it may be supposed to have been set up in the time of Elizabeth, and was, perhaps, as old as the Water-works themselves. In the first edition of Stow’s ‘_Survey_,’ by Strype, London, 1720, volume i., book ii., page 174, there is a passage relating to the Water-house, which does not appear either in the original edition of 1598, nor in the last ancient one of 1633; and therefore may be very justly supposed to refer to the wooden building erected _after_ the Great Fire; when it will most properly be noticed. “I must here again refer to the Account-rolls of the Bridge Keepers, for the memoranda of some past years’ revenues and expenditure, to inform you that in the year 1562 the rental was £1071. 6_s._ The salaries, and allowance for horsekeeping, to William Draper and Robert Essington, the Wardens, were the same as those paid in 1556; but the liveries were increased to £3. 6_s._ 8_d._ each. The whole amount for the year being £64. In 1565,--says the same authority,--the allowance to each Bridge-Master for fees, livery, &c. was £33.: and the rental of the estates amounted to £1168. 8_s._ 5-1/2_d._: while in 1590, the Bridge rental was £1369. 7_s._ 2_d._; and Robert Aske and James Conneld, the Wardens, paid the two Bridge-Masters for their Year’s fee, £50. each, with £3. each for their horses and liveries; making the whole charge £106. “In the year 1591, a most singular instance of drought occurred in the vicinity of our history, as you may read in Stow’s ‘_Annals_,’ page 765, where he states, that on ‘Wednesday, the sixth of September, the wind West-and-by-South, as it had beene for the space of two days before, very boysterous, the riuer of Thamis was so voyd of water, by forcing out the fresh and keeping backe the sault, that men in diuers places might goe 200 paces ouer, and then fling a stone to the land. A Collier, on a mare, rode from the North side to the South, and backe againe, on either side of London Bridge, but not without danger of drowning both wayes.’