_The Bridge._--It is supposed that during the early years of the Roman occupation there was a ferry across from London to Southwark, but that a bridge was built when Roman London had become a place of importance. We have already seen that a wooden bridge existed during the Saxon period. This must have been constantly rebuilt, and the last wooden bridge continued for many years after the Norman Conquest. The first stone bridge was commenced in the year 1176, under the superintendence of Peter de Colechurch, chaplain of St. Mary Colechurch, a building which stood in the Old Jewry until the time of the Great Fire, when it was destroyed. Peter died in 1205, and was buried in the crypt of the chapel built over the centre pier of the bridge and dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury. Here the chaplain's bones were found in 1832, when the old bridge was cleared away after the opening of the new bridge. So little public interest was taken in relics of the past at this time that the bones were sacrilegiously, flung into a barge along with the accumulated rubbish and destroyed by careless workmen.
The building of the stone bridge was a long operation, and in 1201 King John entrusted its completion to a Frenchman named Isembert. The King seems to have made a careful choice, for the Frenchman had already shown his skill by the erection of fine bridges in the French cities of Saintes and La Rochelle. M. Jusserand, in his _English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages_, quotes from the Original Patent, published by Hearne in his edition of the _Liber Niger Scaccarii_ (1771, vol. i. p. 470). Jusserand also quotes from Hearne as to a series of Letters Patent relating to the maintenance of the bridge. John ordered certain taxes to be devoted to this purpose, and a patent of Henry III. was addressed 'to the brothers and chaplains of the Chapel of St. Thomas on London Bridge, and to other persons living on the same bridge,' to inform them that the officers of St. Katharine's Hospital by the Tower would receive the revenues and take charge of the repairs of the bridge for five years.
After the Battle of Evesham in 1265, when the city was at the King's mercy, Henry III. granted his Queen the custody of the bridge: 'Alianore, by the grace of God, Queen of England, Lady of Ireland, Duchess of Aquitaine, and by our lord the King Henry, Warden of the Bridge House.' The Queen continued to enjoy the rents and lands belonging to the bridge for nearly six years, during which time the repair of the bridge was neglected. Realising at length how matters stood, she restored it to the citizens, who, on 1st September 1271, elected again their own wardens.[81]