Bridewell Bridge, the last over the Fleet before its entering the Thames, and the last built (in the sixteenth century), was at first a timber bridge, between Blackfriars and the House of Bridewell, on the site of the Castle Mountfiquet, which originally stood there. In 1708, or thereabouts, it was replaced by one of stone, much higher than the street, being ascended by fourteen steps. It was for foot passengers only. It was pulled down in 1765. We may now conclude our account of the Fleet with a few statements concerning the vicissitudes it passed through. A great many antiquities—British, Saxon, and Roman—have been found in the bed of this river, such as coins of silver, copper, and brass, but none of gold; lares, spur rowels, keys, daggers, seals, medals, vases, and urns. An anchor, three feet ten inches in height, encrusted with rust and pebbles—a sketch of which is given in the October number of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1843—is said to have been discovered near the site of Holborn Bridge, which may be genuine, as ships are known to have ascended so far up the river in the fourteenth century. But early in that century already the river was choked up ’by the filth of the tanners and others, and by the raising of wharves, and especially by a diversion of the water in the first year of King John (1200) by them of the New Temple for their mills without Baynard’s Castle, and by other impediments, the course was decayed, and ships could not enter as they were used.’ Upon this complaint of Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, the river was cleansed, the mills removed, and other means taken for its preservation; but it was not brought to its former depth and width, and so was soon filled with mud again. The scouring of the river seems to have been necessary every thirty or forty years, at a great expense to the City. We find that it was so cleansed in 1502, and once more rendered navigable for large barges, but the dwellers on its banks would continue to make it the receptacle of all the refuse, and the wharves built on its banks proved unsuccessful, as vessels could not approach them. Consequently, in 1733 the City of London, seeing that all navigation had ceased, and that the ditch, as it was then called, was a danger to the public on account of its unsanitary state, and because persons had fallen in and been suffocated in the mud, began covering it in, commencing with the portion from Fleet Bridge to Holborn Bridge, and the new Fleet Market was erected on the site in 1737. The part from Fleet Street to the Thames was covered in when the approaches to Blackfriars were completed between 1760 and 1768. One stubborn citizen, however, would not surrender a small filthy dock; a barber, from Bromley, in Kent, was, in 1763, found in it standing upright and frozen to death.