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Chronicles of London Bridge. Richard Thompson
Читать онлайн.Название Chronicles of London Bridge
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isbn 4057664620606
Автор произведения Richard Thompson
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
The Piers and Arches were both measured from the squares of the latter, the triangular ends being left un-noticed, excepting in the instance of the Great Pier. The length of the whole Bridge was 926 feet; its height, 60; and the breadth of the Street over it, 40 feet.
“Let us now then, my good Sir,” continued Mr. Postern, “ascend to the Platform or Street of the old London Bridge, erected by Peter of Colechurch, and look at the buildings which stood upon it; the most celebrated of which was the famous Chapel dedicated to St. Thomas à Becket, the Martyr of Canterbury, whence it was familiarly called St. Thomas of the Bridge. This was erected upon the Tenth, or Great Pier, which measured 35 feet in breadth, and 115 from point to point; whilst the edifice itself was 60 feet in length, by 20 feet broad, and stood over the parapet on the Eastern side of the Bridge, leaving a pathway on the West, about a quarter of the breadth of the Pier, in front of the Chapel. The face of the building itself was forty feet in height, having a plain gable, surmounted by a cross of about six feet more; whilst four buttresses, crowned by crocketted spires, divided the Western end into three parts. The wide centre contained a rich pointed-arch window, of one mullion, with a quatrefoil in the top; and the two sides were occupied by the entrances to the Chapel from the Bridge-Street, each being ascended by three steps. Such was the general appearance of the West Front of the Chapel on London Bridge.
“The interior of this edifice consisted of two stories, both consecrated to sacred purposes, and greatly resembling each other in their appearance. The Upper Chapel was lofty, being supported by fourteen groups of elegant clustered columns, and lighted by eight pointed-arch windows divided by stone mullions into a double range of arches, surmounted by a lozenge. Beneath each of the windows were three arched recesses, separated by small pillars; and the roof itself was also originally formed of lofty pointed arches; though, when this magnificent fane was transformed into a warehouse, a wooden ceiling, with stout beams crossing each other in squares, was erected, which cut off the arches where they sprang from the pillars, and divided into two parts the Interior of the Upper Chapel of St. Thomas.
The Eastern extremity of this building formed a semi-hexagon, having a smaller window in each of its divisions, with richly carved arches under them, corresponding with the series already mentioned on the side: and the architectural lightness and elegance of the whole, meriting the highest encomium. Beneath this principal edifice, was a short descending passage, having, on the left hand, a stone basin cut in a recess in the wall, for containing Holy Water, and leading, through the solid masonry of the Pier, into the Lower Chapel of St. Thomas, which was constructed in the Bridge itself.
“This Crypt was entered both from the upper apartment and the street, as well as by a flight of stone stairs winding round a pillar, which led into it from the nearest Pier: whilst in the front of this latter entrance, the Sterling formed a platform at low water, which thus rendered it accessible from the River. The Lower Chapel, which—even decorated as that was, in my estimation, very far exceeded the upper one in architectural beauty—was about 20 feet in height, and its roof supported by clustered columns, similar to those I have already described; from each of which sprang seven ribs, the centre, and the two adjoining it in every division, being bound by fillets with roses on the intersections; whilst the great horizontal ribs had clusters of regal and ecclesiastical masks, producing an effect little to be expected in such a structure, in such a situation; though I may trust to your correct taste, my good Mr. Barbican, for duly appreciating it. There was also a rich Series of Windows in the Lower Chapel,
which looked on to the water, similar in character to, though much smaller than, those above: whilst the floor was beautifully paved with black and white marble; for in this place did the pious Architect propose to rest his bones. His monument, remarkable only for its plainness, was formed, according to Maitland’s ‘History,’ page 46, under the Chapel staircase, in the middle of the building; and it measured seven feet and an half, by four in breadth. There was, indeed, neither brass plate, nor inscription, nor carving found about the sepulchre, when Mr. Yaldwin, the inhabitant of the Chapel in 1737, then a dwelling, and warehouse, discovered the remains of a body in repairing the staircase; though, from the ‘Annals of Waverley,’ page 168, we know that the reliques of Peter were certainly entombed in this place. ‘In 1205,’—runs the passage—‘died Peter the Chaplain of Colechurch, who began the Stone Bridge at London, and he is sepultured in the Chapel upon the Bridge.’ By this entry then, we are assured that he lay there; and as for an epitaph, was not the whole edifice an everlasting catafalco to his memory, which should speak for all times? How finely, indeed, might we apply to him that inscription, which the son of Sir Christopher Wren composed for his father’s burial-place in St. Paul’s—‘He lived, not for himself, but for the public! Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you!’
“And now, before we enter upon an examination of the bed of the Thames at London Bridge, and consider whether the River were turned, as Stow thinks, to admit of its erection, let me cite you some ancient authorities concerning St. Thomas’s Chapel. The first of these shall be the ‘Itinerary of Symon Fitz Simeon, and Hugo the Illuminator,’ both of whom were Irish Monks, of the Order of Friars Minors, who visited London on their pilgrimage to Palestine, in 1322. ‘This flux and reflux,’—say they, at pages 4, 5—‘continues to the sea from the famous River named Thames, upon the which is a Bridge, filled with inhabitants and wealth; and in the midst of them is a Church dedicated to the blessed Thomas, Archbishop and Martyr, which is well served continually.’ About the year 1418, also, William Botoner, a Monk of Worcester, of the Parish of St. James in Bristol, who then travelled from that City to St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, in his ‘Itinerarium,’ pages 301, 302, thus spake of London Bridge and the Chapel. ‘The length of the Chapel of St. Thomas the Martyr, upon London Bridge, is about twenty yards; having an under Chancel in the vault, with a choir, but the length of the nave of the said Chapel contains fourteen yards. The width of the middle steps is one yard. The length of the Bridge on the South, from the posts to the first gate newly founded by Henry the Cardinal, unto the two posts erected near the Church of St. Magnus, consists of five hundred of my steps. Item: there are five great windows on one side,’—of the Chapel—‘each of which contains three panes:’ or rather divisions. Of these Itineraries I will observe nothing farther, than that they were published from the original Manuscripts in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, by James Nasmith, the Editor of Tanner’s ‘Notitia Monastica;’ in 1778, octavo; under the title of ‘Itineraria Symonis Simeonis, et Willielmi de Worcestre.’