LONDON BRIDGE, appears to have been originally built between the years 993, and 1016, since in the first-mentioned year, Anlaf, the Dane, sailed up the Thames, with a fleet of ninety-three ships, as far as Stanes; and in the last, Canute, King of Denmark, caused a canal to be formed on the south side of the Thames, for conveying his ships above the bridge. If the traditionary account of the origin of the ancient wooden bridge, delivered by Bartholomew Linstead, alias Fowle, the last Prior of St. Mary Overy’s convent, is worthy of credit, we are indebted to the public spirit of that religious house for this structure: “A ferrie being kept, says he, in a place where now the bridge is builded; at length the ferrieman and his wife deceasing, left the same ferrie to their only daughter, a maiden, named Marie, which, with the goods left by her parents, as also from the profits arising from the ferrie, builded a house of sisters in a place where now standeth the east part of St. Mary Overie’s church, unto which house she gave the oversight and profits of the ferrie: but afterwards the said house of sisters being converted into a college of priests, they builded the bridge of timber, as all other the great bridges of this land were, and from time to time kept the same in good reparations; till at length, considering the great charges of repairing the same, there was, by aid of the citizens of London and others, a bridge builded with arches of stone.” However, the continuators of Stow imagine, that Linstead, in this account, exceeds the truth, in ascribing all the praise of so public a work to a small house of religious, who might probably only consent to its being built, upon the monks receiving a sufficient recompence for the loss of the ferry, by which they had always been supported; the probability of this appears from there being lands appropriated for the repairs of the bridge so early as in the reign of Henry I. Besides, it can scarcely be supposed, that a petty convent could be able to erect and support such an edifice, which, besides other accidents, was burnt down in 1136, and was again so ruinous in 1163, that it was obliged to be new built, under the inspection of Peter, Curate of St. Mary Colechurch, in London; a person who had obtained great reputation for his skill in architecture. At length, the continual and large expence in maintaining a wooden bridge becoming burthensome to the people, who, when the lands appropriated to that use fell short of their produce, were taxed to make up the deficiencies, it was resolved in 1176, to build one of stone, a little to the west of the other, which in the time of William the Conqueror began at Botolph’s wharf; and this structure was completed in 1209.