“And now let me remark that, by this we are informed that the City end of the Bridge was not anciently the foot of it, which is asserted by the evidence of Richard Newcourt, in his ‘_Ecclesiastical History of the Diocess of London_,’ London, 1708-10, folio, volume i., page 396, where he says, that ‘St. Magnus’ Church is sometimes called, in Latin, the Church of St. Magnus the Martyr, in the City of London, near the foot, or at the foot, of London Bridge.’ “This First Wooden Bridge, however, was not fated to stand long; for, on the sixteenth of November, the feast of St. Edmund the Archbishop, in the year 1091, ‘at the hour of six, a dreadful whirlwind from the South-East, coming from Africa, blew upon the City, and overthrew upwards of six hundred houses, several Churches, greatly damaged the Tower, and tore away the roof and part of the wall of the Church of St. Mary le Bow, in Cheapside. The roof was carried to a considerable distance, and fell with such force, that several of the rafters, being about twenty-eight feet in length, pierced upwards of twenty feet into the ground, and remained in the same position as when they stood in the Chapel.’ “The best accounts of this terrible event are to be found in the ‘_Chronicle_’ of Florence of Worcester, page 457, which was literally copied into the ‘_Annales_’ of Roger de Hoveden, Chaplain to King Henry II., printed in the ‘_Scriptores post Bedam_,’ already cited, page 462;--in William of Malmesbury, page 125;--and in the ‘_Chronicle_’ of John of Brompton, which I have also before quoted, page 987.