OUR ANCESTORS © Museum of London Note the Piers and Starlings at first over the drawbridge and then over the bridge gate at Southwark.”39 Among the most memorable of the many thus displayed were those of Sir Wil- liam Wallace,40 Sir Thomas More41 and Thomas Cromwell.42 A famous travel author of the time, Paul Hentzner,43 “when in England in 1598, counted ‘above thirty’ heads upon the bridge.”44 Navigating the Bridge As a practical matter, this massive bridge across the river presented a major 39 Henry Benjamin Wheatley, London, Past and Present, J. Murray, London ,1891, p. 418 40 a Scottish knight, winner of the Battle of Stir- ling Bridge in 1297, executed by King Edward Longshanks in 1305. His life was depicted in the 1995 American theatrical film, Braveheart, and his head was the very first to be displayed on London Bridge, starting the tradition that lasted 355 years. 41 Lord Chancellor for King Henry VIII, behead- ed in 1535 after refusing to sign the Act of Su- premacy which declared Henry the Supreme Head of the Church of England. 42 Henry VIII’s chief minister, who ran afoul of his ruler and went to the block in 1540. 43 Paul Hentzner’s Travels in England, During the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, Edward Jeffrey, London, 1797 44 Wheatley, op. cit, p. 418 ff impediment to the free flow of water under- neath it, both from the Thames basin above and the strong flood and ebb tides from the estuary below. London, Past and Present: “The wa- terway was obstructed not merely by the great breadth of the piers and starlings45 and the narrowness of the arches but by corn- mills, which in the first half of the 16th Cen- tury had been built in some of the openings, and the great waterworks constructed at the southern end of the bridge in 1582 and re- garded as one of the wonders of the City. “Of the arches left open, some were too narrow for the passage of boats of any kind. The widest was only thirty-six feet, and the resistance caused to so large a body of water on the rise and fall of the tide by this con- traction of its channel produced [falls or rap- ids] under the bridge, so that it was neces- sary to ship oars to ‘shoot the bridge,’ as it was called – an undertaking, to amateur wa- termen especially, not unattended with dan- ger.”46 Depending on the state of the tide, the difference between the heights of the water on either side of London Bridge could be five feet or more, and this made the rushing torrent very dangerous for any boat and led 45 a pointed cluster of pilings for protecting a bridge pier from drifting ice, debris, etc. 46 Wheatley, op. cit, p. 418 ff 25
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