“And a very fair Memorial too, Master Geoffrey,” answered the Antiquary, “especially when we consider the extreme difficulty of procuring such information as this is: but, to carry on our history, I must now enter upon a less amusing subject; the summary of the Bridge Accounts for the years 1624 and 1625, taken from the printed sheet which I have so often cited. ‘1624. To John Langley, and Richard Foxe, Bridge-Masters, half a year’s fee at our Lady-day, £50: and for the other half year augmented by order of the Court of Aldermen, £66. 8_s._ 4_d._, and for their Liveries, &c. £6. Total £122. 8_s._ 4_d._ Rental £2054. 4_s._ 2_d._--1625. To the said Bridge-Masters, £133. 6_s._ 8_d._ Liveries, &c. £6. Total to each of them, £69. 3_s._ 4_d._ Rental, £2054. 4_s._ 2_d._’ These notices of the prosperity of this edifice, conduct us down to the time when so much of its glory was lost in devastating flames and mouldering ruins. “The year 1632-33 must be ever memorable in the history of London Bridge: for scarcely in the awful conflagration which consumed almost the whole City, did our brave old edifice suffer so severely. And now, Mr. Barbican, you must forgive me if I be a little prolix in describing that desolating fire, since it not only destroyed more than a third part of the Bridge Houses, but, at one time, its ravages were feared even in the City itself. I shall commence my account then by reminding you that Richard Bloome, one of Stow’s continuators, on page 61 of his ‘_Survey_,’ thus speaks of the calamity. ‘On the 13th day of February, between eleven and twelve at night, there happened in the house of one Briggs, a Needle-maker near St. Magnus Church, at the North end of the Bridge, by the carelessness of a Maid-Servant setting a tub of hot sea-coal ashes under a pair of stairs, a sad and lamentable fire, which consumed all the buildings before eight of the clock the next morning, from the North end of the Bridge to the first vacancy on both sides, containing forty-two houses; water then being very scarce, the Thames being almost frozen over. Beneath, in the vaults and cellars, the fire remained glowing and burning a whole week after.’