“Sir, my hearty thanks to you,” replied I, rubbing my eyes, “for this Bridge Story is as dull as proving a Peerage, where there’s no reliance, and much doubting:--but how’s this, Master Postern!” continued I, looking into the tankard, “you have drank, and I have drank, and yet the jug is as full as ever, and as hot as it was as first?” “You’re pleased to be facetious, good Sir,” answered my visitor, “for truly I’m no Saint Richard to work such miracles; but, if you please, we’ll now return to the Bridge again. “We are here entering upon the golden age of London Bridge, for the new stone building, by Peter of Colechurch, was such an ornament as the Thames had never before witnessed; indeed, in my poor judgment, it very far surpassed that erection, of which I shall hereafter have occasion to speak; and perhaps, for its time, even that which now stretches itself across the flood. The person to whom was entrusted the building of the first stone Bridge at London, was, as I have already told you, named Peter, a Priest and Chaplain of St. Mary Colechurch; an edifice, which, until the Great Fire of London, stood on the North side of the Poultry, at the South end of a turning denominated Conyhoop Lane, from a Poulterer’s shop having the sign of three Conies hanging over it. This Chapel, of which the skilful Peter was Curate, was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and was famous as the place where St. Edmund and St. Thomas à Beckett were presented at the baptismal Font; still it must have been something very like having a church on a first floor, for you may remember Stow says, in his ‘_Survey_,’ volume i. page 552, that it was ‘built upon a vault above ground, so that men are forced to ascend into it by certain steps.’ Of the architectural knowledge of the Curate thereof, I have already shewed you that the Citizens of London had experienced some proofs, since he is said to have rebuilt their last wooden Bridge: and John Leland the Antiquary--whom I shall anon quote more particularly,--observes, in the notes to his famous ‘_Song of the Swan_,’--a book of which I will also speak hereafter,--that Radulphus de Diceto, Dean of London, who wrote about 1210, states from his own knowledge, that he was a native of this City. The same venerable Antiquary also tells us in his ‘_Itinerary_,’ edited by Thomas Hearne, Oxford, 1768-69, octavo, volume vii. part I. marginal folio 22, page 12,--that ‘a Mason beinge Master of the Bridge Howse, buildyd _à fundamentis_ the Chapell on London Bridge, _à fundamentis propriis impensis_;’ or, as we should now say, from bottom to top, at his own costs and charges. The property of Peter of Colechurch, however, would not stand Bridge-building by itself; and therefore the present will be the most fitting place, to give you some account of the other contributors to this great national work.