“On Thursday, September the 26th, 1754, the Bridge Committee presented their Report to the Court of Common-Council, an original verbatim copy of which is in the xxviiith. volume of ‘_London Tracts_’ in the British Museum, small folio. This Report stated, that the piles, &c. of old London Bridge having been surveyed by Mr. George Dance, then Clerk of the Works to the City, the foundations were declared good, and, with common repairs, likely to last for ages. That the houses on the Bridge being a public inconvenience, it was recommended that they should be removed, from St. Magnus’ Church to the City Gate, on the East; and from the corner of Thames Street to the Bear Tavern in the Borough, on the West. That Mr. Dance had produced a plan for an alteration of the Bridge, with estimates amounting to £30,000, in which were a carriage-road of 33 feet, with two foot-paths of 6 feet each; but that such expense might be reduced to £27,000, by leaving the houses standing on the South side of the Gate. That the annual rents of the houses to be taken down amounted to about £828: 6_s._, which would be lost to the Bridge-House estates; whilst the Parishes of St. Magnus and St. Olave would also lose in taxes, rents, and tythes, about the yearly sum of £484: 19_s._ 10_d._; and that the estimate of the houses then out upon lease, with others which must be bought, came to £8940: 11_s._ 7_d._; besides other satisfaction which might be required by the under-tenants. “The substance of Labelye’s plan for altering this edifice, is given in Maitland’s ‘_History_,’ volume ii., pages 826-832, together with the result of several other reports made in 1746. His chief objection to old London Bridge was to the sterlings surrounding the piers; which, occupying almost one fourth part in five of the water-way, caused a fall of nearly five feet perpendicular, during the greater part of every tide, thus rendering the passage of vessels through the locks equally difficult and dangerous. He, consequently, proposed casing the piers with four feet of Portland Stone, and to lessen the sterlings so as always to have about 400 feet of water-way, which, being twice as much as the Bridge originally possessed, would reduce the fall to about 15 inches. The expense of this plan, he conceived, would be about £2000 for each pier; two or three of which could be altered in a year, without stopping the passage either over or under the Bridge. He also proposed to adopt the idea of Sir Christopher Wren, in new-modelling the appearance of the building itself, by taking away eleven piers, and forming nine broad-pointed Gothic arches, springing from the lowest low-water mark: these were to be of different dimensions, and the fifth from the South end was to be 90 feet in span. The parapet was to be ornamented with Gothic crocketted recesses surmounting the piers; by a cast-iron ballustrade; or by a dwarf-wall, or even houses; and, according to this plan, there would have been a water-way of 540 feet,