0:00:08 > 0:00:13Between Richmond and the North Sea, 30 bridges span the Thames.
0:00:13 > 0:00:17They carry people across a stretch of river 35 miles long,
0:00:17 > 0:00:20bringing together a population of nearly eight million.
0:00:22 > 0:00:27These extraordinary structures have been the making of London,
0:00:27 > 0:00:30Britain's capital and, I think, Europe's greatest city.
0:00:33 > 0:00:37Millions of Londoners cross these bridges every week.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40Most, I don't suppose, give them a second thought.
0:00:40 > 0:00:44But for me, bridges are far more than merely means of transport,
0:00:44 > 0:00:47ways of getting from one place to another.
0:00:47 > 0:00:51They are also ways of linking the present to the past.
0:00:57 > 0:01:00London's bridges are not just functional objects,
0:01:00 > 0:01:02they are also symbols, metaphors.
0:01:02 > 0:01:05They transform, connect, inspire.
0:01:05 > 0:01:08And they tell great stories.
0:01:08 > 0:01:11Of Bronze-Age relics of the Vauxhall shore,
0:01:11 > 0:01:14of why London Bridge was falling down,
0:01:14 > 0:01:17of corpses splashing beneath Waterloo Bridge
0:01:17 > 0:01:22and, above all, of the sublime ambition of London's bridge builders themselves.
0:01:25 > 0:01:28I was born when London was still one of the world's great ports
0:01:28 > 0:01:32and the Thames one of the world's great working rivers.
0:01:32 > 0:01:37I well remember, as a child, the impression that London's bridges made on me.
0:01:37 > 0:01:40I suppose bridges gave me
0:01:40 > 0:01:45my first thrilling, stomach-churning architectural experience.
0:01:45 > 0:01:50And, goodness me, they are doing the same now.
0:01:50 > 0:01:52Oh! Brilliant view!
0:01:56 > 0:02:01Some of London's bridges have vanished or been replaced.
0:02:01 > 0:02:03They are ghost crosses of the past,
0:02:03 > 0:02:06but each of them is a clue to the city's hidden history.
0:02:06 > 0:02:08In some ways, they ARE that history,
0:02:08 > 0:02:12a history that's lasted nearly 4,000 years.
0:02:34 > 0:02:36In the beginning was the river, the Thames.
0:02:36 > 0:02:40The greatest, the longest river in England.
0:02:40 > 0:02:46200 miles from its source, the river meets the tidal stream.
0:02:46 > 0:02:49The result is a landscape of marshes and islands,
0:02:49 > 0:02:52indeterminate and always changing.
0:02:52 > 0:02:56Only here, far downstream from the City of London,
0:02:56 > 0:03:02can you understand the elemental world of sand, mud, pebbles and debris
0:03:02 > 0:03:06that was the Thames before the city and its bridges were built.
0:03:08 > 0:03:11For generations stretching back over centuries,
0:03:11 > 0:03:16Londoners laboured in the marshes at now long-lost trades,
0:03:16 > 0:03:21mud larks and scavengers, toshers and dredgers,
0:03:21 > 0:03:25watermen and oyster-gatherers. All gone, a lost class.
0:03:26 > 0:03:31The river has always been a portal into the past.
0:03:31 > 0:03:39It's inspired artists and writers, none more so than Joseph Conrad,
0:03:39 > 0:03:41who wrote that, "Nothing is easier
0:03:41 > 0:03:45"than to evoke the great spirit of the past
0:03:45 > 0:03:49"upon the lower reaches of the Thames."
0:03:49 > 0:03:53From here, Conrad could see the great modern City of London
0:03:53 > 0:03:56from an ancient perspective.
0:04:01 > 0:04:05"The monstrous town was marked ominously on the sky,
0:04:05 > 0:04:10"a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars.
0:04:12 > 0:04:16"And this also has been one of the dark places of the Earth.
0:04:18 > 0:04:23"We live in the flicker, but darkness was here yesterday."
0:04:26 > 0:04:30The marshy landscape on the banks of the Thames gave birth to London.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33But the earliest bridge was built not here,
0:04:33 > 0:04:36but 15 miles upstream to the west.
0:04:36 > 0:04:40Past the city of London, beyond the seat of power at Westminster,
0:04:40 > 0:04:44at a place which today we call Vauxhall.
0:04:44 > 0:04:46Here, in 1500 BC,
0:04:46 > 0:04:51before Troy fell and long before Julius Caesar came to Britain,
0:04:51 > 0:04:54the people of the marshes made a first attempt at a crossing.
0:04:54 > 0:04:56We are extremely lucky,
0:04:56 > 0:04:59the remains are only completely exposed twice a year
0:04:59 > 0:05:04at the very bottom of the spring tide, but what a find.
0:05:04 > 0:05:07Tests have shown that these timber piles
0:05:07 > 0:05:10have been preserved here for 3,500 years.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13So you've had this dated with dendrochronology, have you?
0:05:13 > 0:05:15- Yes.- So you're therefore sure...
0:05:15 > 0:05:19It's 1,500 years calendar-dated BC, yes.
0:05:19 > 0:05:24- 1,500, so...- BC.- BC. - Which is about 3,500 years.
0:05:24 > 0:05:26So therefore, this is, in a way,
0:05:26 > 0:05:31it's the oldest of an in-situ bit of structure in London, isn't it?
0:05:34 > 0:05:37Why did they build this bridge?
0:05:37 > 0:05:40Some archaeologists think it carried people not across the river,
0:05:40 > 0:05:44but to an island that probably existed in the stream.
0:05:44 > 0:05:48We can't know for sure, but Gustav and his team think that, back then,
0:05:48 > 0:05:50this was the highest point of the tidal stream.
0:05:50 > 0:05:53It's also a place where three rivers met,
0:05:53 > 0:05:56the Thames and two of its lost tributaries,
0:05:56 > 0:05:58the Tyburn and the Effra.
0:05:58 > 0:06:01That's obviously magical - three rivers meeting,
0:06:01 > 0:06:04then weird and wonderful tidal things happen, I suppose.
0:06:04 > 0:06:07That's right, and if this was the tidal head in the Bronze Age, that's a very magical place.
0:06:07 > 0:06:12- Yes.- Because the moon is definitely saying when the tide will be low and when it will be high.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16And when people can see this connection between those things in the sky, you know,
0:06:16 > 0:06:21that the moon, and those things on Earth, the river, they connect, you know, as a sacred thing...
0:06:21 > 0:06:22You would need to placate the river,
0:06:22 > 0:06:25because very high tides would flood any settlements you had round here,
0:06:25 > 0:06:30so we have, possibly, a sort of sacred river at this point.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36When the bridge was discovered,
0:06:36 > 0:06:38the archaeologists found two bronze spearheads
0:06:38 > 0:06:41driven point down into the mud
0:06:41 > 0:06:42beside the bridge.
0:06:42 > 0:06:44Were they offerings to the deity of the river?
0:06:44 > 0:06:48Like coins in the fountain, this urge is universal
0:06:48 > 0:06:52and, even today, Londoners continue to make offerings.
0:06:52 > 0:06:55All the way up and down the Thames these days,
0:06:55 > 0:06:56we find this kind of stuff.
0:06:58 > 0:07:02Now, these are not Bronze Age, these are Diwali lamps.
0:07:02 > 0:07:04Oh, my goodness me.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07So it's like in India. It's like in the sacred Ganges.
0:07:07 > 0:07:09Hang on a minute.
0:07:09 > 0:07:11- But they are modern, modern... - What's that?
0:07:11 > 0:07:13Lord Ganesh!
0:07:13 > 0:07:15Overcomer of obstacles, great fellow.
0:07:15 > 0:07:18And that looks like Krishna or something, doesn't it?
0:07:18 > 0:07:19And these chaps?
0:07:19 > 0:07:21That looks like Krishna, doesn't it?
0:07:21 > 0:07:22So you found these in the Thames.
0:07:22 > 0:07:25So Hindus living in England, in London, are casting,
0:07:25 > 0:07:29using the Thames as...like the Ganges, the sacred river?
0:07:29 > 0:07:33Right, so they're replicating what we used to do in the Bronze Age.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36A ritual river, a powerful god.
0:07:38 > 0:07:40If Gustav is right,
0:07:40 > 0:07:43this challenges a lot of our assumptions
0:07:43 > 0:07:45about what bridges are for.
0:07:45 > 0:07:49It didn't originate as a means of transport or trade,
0:07:49 > 0:07:52but as sacred creations.
0:07:52 > 0:07:58This was a bridge between a spiritual, not a material divide,
0:07:58 > 0:08:01a bridge between worlds, a bridge between the world of man here
0:08:01 > 0:08:04and the world of gods, between life and death.
0:08:04 > 0:08:08The Thames was like the River Jordan,
0:08:08 > 0:08:11to cross it was to cross to a promised land.
0:08:13 > 0:08:19The link between bridges and the sacred echoes through the millennia.
0:08:19 > 0:08:22It's in fact commemorated in our language.
0:08:22 > 0:08:24The head of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope,
0:08:24 > 0:08:27is called in Latin the Pontifex,
0:08:27 > 0:08:30which means both bridge builder and priest.
0:08:30 > 0:08:33Indeed, it was the Romans,
0:08:33 > 0:08:37about 1,500 years after our marsh people's activities here,
0:08:37 > 0:08:42who built London's first traditional, conventional bridge.
0:08:44 > 0:08:46Bridging the Thames is not easy.
0:08:46 > 0:08:48The river bed is changing all the time,
0:08:48 > 0:08:51because of tides and currents and human activity.
0:08:51 > 0:08:54But in truth, it's very shallow.
0:08:54 > 0:08:58Sometimes less than two metres deep at low tide.
0:08:58 > 0:09:00The Romans knew this.
0:09:00 > 0:09:04They were champion engineers of the ancient world.
0:09:04 > 0:09:07They put their bridge on the shallowest, narrowest part of the river,
0:09:07 > 0:09:10now spanned by the modern London Bridge,
0:09:10 > 0:09:15right next to the ancient port, what is called the Pool Of London.
0:09:15 > 0:09:19The consequences have been immense.
0:09:19 > 0:09:25For centuries, this area was the heart of the British economy.
0:09:25 > 0:09:27A key reason for that is that
0:09:27 > 0:09:29this was the first place upstream from the sea,
0:09:29 > 0:09:32about 40 miles in that direction,
0:09:32 > 0:09:34that a bridge could be constructed
0:09:34 > 0:09:39to connect the south and the north banks of the Thames.
0:09:39 > 0:09:43In addition, by the bridge is a tidal pool,
0:09:43 > 0:09:46allowing the large ships to anchor, very good for trade.
0:09:46 > 0:09:51There's been a bridge here on and off for nearly 2,000 years
0:09:51 > 0:09:54and that's been the making of London.
0:09:56 > 0:09:58Because of the crossing,
0:09:58 > 0:10:01London became an explosively successful settlement,
0:10:01 > 0:10:03right from the beginning.
0:10:03 > 0:10:07So successful, in fact, that only when building work takes place
0:10:07 > 0:10:09can we get a glimpse of the Roman foreshore.
0:10:11 > 0:10:13As conquerors, the Romans needed
0:10:13 > 0:10:16a defensible riverside site and port,
0:10:16 > 0:10:19so that reinforcements could be rushed in if needed
0:10:19 > 0:10:22and an evacuation could take place at speed
0:10:22 > 0:10:24in the case of an emergency.
0:10:24 > 0:10:28The trauma of Boudica's rebellion in AD 61,
0:10:28 > 0:10:31when the Roman capital of Colchester was burnt,
0:10:31 > 0:10:34combined with the fact that, already at that time,
0:10:34 > 0:10:38the bridge here made London the transport centre of Roman Britain
0:10:38 > 0:10:41meant that when Roman authority was re-established,
0:10:41 > 0:10:45London, not Colchester, became the provincial capital.
0:10:45 > 0:10:50From here, the Romans could control England,
0:10:50 > 0:10:53and they did that for several centuries.
0:10:53 > 0:10:55You're looking at a slice of Roman London,
0:10:55 > 0:10:57or the beginning of a slice of Roman London.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01The very first of the First-Century waterfront would have come through
0:11:01 > 0:11:05roughly where the guy down there is digging.
0:11:05 > 0:11:08- We're looking south, at the moment, towards the river.- Yes, exactly.
0:11:08 > 0:11:11So it would have cut across more or less there.
0:11:11 > 0:11:14So you can see we're only just beginning to uncover...
0:11:14 > 0:11:17We've only been here a couple of days, but you can see the difference
0:11:17 > 0:11:19between this modern stuff which they're digging out
0:11:19 > 0:11:23and the actual layers of archaeology which are left.
0:11:23 > 0:11:26And that's what they're trying to do, they're trying to distinguish
0:11:26 > 0:11:28real archaeology from modern rubbish.
0:11:28 > 0:11:32'This is the first chance we've had to investigate the Roman bridge
0:11:32 > 0:11:34'for more than 30 years.'
0:11:34 > 0:11:36As far as we can make out,
0:11:36 > 0:11:39we only saw one pier of the bridge in 1981,
0:11:39 > 0:11:41- but quite a lot of it.- Yeah.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44It's formed of a combination of horizontally laid timbers
0:11:44 > 0:11:48- stacked on top of each other cantilevering out.- Yes.
0:11:48 > 0:11:52And then the actual bridge platform, the deck, is laid along the top of that.
0:11:52 > 0:11:54So that's, using the evidence
0:11:54 > 0:11:56of what we actually found in the ground,
0:11:56 > 0:12:01- how we speculate the bridge would have looked.- Yes. Fascinating.
0:12:03 > 0:12:05As the excavation continues,
0:12:05 > 0:12:08the archaeologists begin to find wooden piles,
0:12:08 > 0:12:12survivors of nearly 2,000 years of urban development.
0:12:12 > 0:12:16I can't resist coming to grips with Roman engineering.
0:12:16 > 0:12:19This is a pile. Ooh! Very solid.
0:12:21 > 0:12:22'These battered stumps
0:12:22 > 0:12:25'are the remains of the wharves beside the bridge,
0:12:25 > 0:12:28'through which the goods of empire flowed in and out,
0:12:28 > 0:12:32'changing the physical geography and economy of Britain forever.'
0:12:34 > 0:12:36'But the invaders never forgot
0:12:36 > 0:12:40'that a bridge was still a sacred, metaphysical place too.
0:12:40 > 0:12:42'When the Georgians built the predecessor
0:12:42 > 0:12:44'to the bridge I'm standing on,
0:12:44 > 0:12:48'they dredged the river bed to clear the bottom for ships to pass.'
0:12:50 > 0:12:52Out there, in the middle of the river,
0:12:52 > 0:12:54they found a large cache of Roman coins,
0:12:54 > 0:12:56rather like these, wonderful things.
0:12:56 > 0:12:59Bronze and brass and maybe silver.
0:12:59 > 0:13:02Archaeologists believe there was a shrine in the middle of the bridge
0:13:02 > 0:13:05and people passing over would cast coins
0:13:05 > 0:13:08into the mighty Thames to appease its power.
0:13:08 > 0:13:11So, for the Romans,
0:13:11 > 0:13:14as with the Bronze-Age marsh people upstream at Vauxhall,
0:13:14 > 0:13:17bridges were sacred things, things of religion.
0:13:17 > 0:13:20We have to remember, of course, that in Rome,
0:13:20 > 0:13:24the same word was used for bridge builder as for priest - Pontifex.
0:13:24 > 0:13:28Indeed, it was one of the titles of the Roman Emperor.
0:13:33 > 0:13:35Both emperors and empire are, of course, long gone
0:13:35 > 0:13:37and the bridge with them.
0:13:37 > 0:13:41For centuries, there was no attempt to rebuild it and no real need.
0:13:41 > 0:13:44The main settlement in London now was a long way
0:13:44 > 0:13:47from the remains of the Roman bridge.
0:13:47 > 0:13:52A mile and a half upstream around what is now Covent Garden,
0:13:52 > 0:13:55a new trading post grew up by a sharp bend in the river.
0:13:55 > 0:13:57It was a beach market town
0:13:57 > 0:14:01and the London street names preserve its memory,
0:14:01 > 0:14:04of the Strand, where early English merchants pulled up their ships,
0:14:04 > 0:14:07and the Aldwych, the old vicus or trading port.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12And the river became, as it had been before the Romans,
0:14:12 > 0:14:15a frontier, a border between warring kingdoms
0:14:15 > 0:14:21with names like Essex, Middlesex, Surrey and Kent.
0:14:24 > 0:14:27For London to achieve its destiny as a great city,
0:14:27 > 0:14:29it needed a proper bridge.
0:14:29 > 0:14:33Once King Alfred and his successors had reunited England
0:14:33 > 0:14:35and reoccupied the Roman city,
0:14:35 > 0:14:37a bridge was built.
0:14:37 > 0:14:40But it was really no more than a flimsy causeway,
0:14:40 > 0:14:44intended more to stop raiders travelling upstream
0:14:44 > 0:14:47than to be an aid to transport.
0:14:47 > 0:14:49For a proper and solid bridge,
0:14:49 > 0:14:53London had to wait around 1,000 years after the Roman bridge.
0:14:53 > 0:14:58But then, that bridge was very solid and very proper indeed.
0:14:58 > 0:15:01# London Bridge is falling down
0:15:01 > 0:15:04# Falling down, falling down... #
0:15:04 > 0:15:06Of all the river crossings in London,
0:15:06 > 0:15:09the one we actually call London Bridge is the most famous,
0:15:09 > 0:15:13the one we remember in the nursery rhyme.
0:15:13 > 0:15:15But the structure immortalised in the song
0:15:15 > 0:15:18is not the ruthless concrete span we see today,
0:15:18 > 0:15:20nor even the one that preceded it.
0:15:20 > 0:15:24The bridge we remember is the mediaeval bridge,
0:15:24 > 0:15:26the bridge of Thomas Becket and Dick Whittington,
0:15:26 > 0:15:29the one Chaucer and Shakespeare knew.
0:15:29 > 0:15:32But it's a ghost which haunts me still.
0:15:32 > 0:15:36And the question I ask myself is, "What was it really like?
0:15:36 > 0:15:40"What was London Bridge and why was it falling down?"
0:15:40 > 0:15:45To find out, we have to go back 800 years to the 12th Century.
0:15:48 > 0:15:51At the time, London was booming.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55Much of the street plan of the modern city was laid down by then,
0:15:55 > 0:15:58although very few of the actual buildings survive.
0:15:58 > 0:16:01But what has endured are the records of the bridge,
0:16:01 > 0:16:05preserved in the archives of the Corporation Of London.
0:16:05 > 0:16:10They tell us that in 1173, a religious community -
0:16:10 > 0:16:14the Chaplains, Brethren And Sisters Of The Bridge Of London -
0:16:14 > 0:16:18were entrusted with building a new stone bridge.
0:16:18 > 0:16:20And the mastermind of the project was a parish priest,
0:16:20 > 0:16:24Peter of Colechurch, off Cheapside.
0:16:25 > 0:16:28These ancient documents offer insights
0:16:28 > 0:16:31into the creation, the use and maintenance
0:16:31 > 0:16:34of one of London's greatest structures,
0:16:34 > 0:16:36Old London Bridge.
0:16:36 > 0:16:40Started in 1176, it's been long lost.
0:16:40 > 0:16:44But this treasure trove of intimate and evocative documents
0:16:44 > 0:16:47almost bring it back to life.
0:16:47 > 0:16:50Look at this wonderful thing, for example.
0:16:50 > 0:16:54It is a grant, dated 1205,
0:16:54 > 0:16:57a grant from Peter the Priest, Peter of Colechurch,
0:16:57 > 0:17:00the architect, the creator of London Bridge. Incredible.
0:17:00 > 0:17:04And attached to this grant is something utterly wonderful.
0:17:04 > 0:17:05It's a seal.
0:17:05 > 0:17:07Here it is.
0:17:07 > 0:17:09And it shows Peter of Colechurch
0:17:09 > 0:17:12not as an architect or an engineer,
0:17:12 > 0:17:15but as a priest offering communion.
0:17:15 > 0:17:17Absolutely wonderful.
0:17:17 > 0:17:22Such a direct connection with the main man behind Old London Bridge.
0:17:22 > 0:17:27Now, this is a charter of about 1320,
0:17:27 > 0:17:34and we have attached to it here another seal, again wonderful.
0:17:34 > 0:17:37It shows an abstract representation of the bridge, I suppose.
0:17:37 > 0:17:42Just simply an arch with Thomas Becket sitting on the top of it,
0:17:42 > 0:17:46and below the arch, we see the city of London.
0:17:46 > 0:17:48Absolutely wonderful image.
0:17:48 > 0:17:53St Paul's in the centre. Old St Paul's with its spire intact,
0:17:53 > 0:17:57flanked by city churches with their spires pointing to the heavens.
0:17:57 > 0:18:02# London Bridge is falling down Falling down... #
0:18:02 > 0:18:05One of the reasons the mediaeval London Bridge became such an icon for the city
0:18:05 > 0:18:07was that it was a living bridge,
0:18:07 > 0:18:11an astonishing structure with houses and shops built upon it.
0:18:11 > 0:18:15The oldest image of it dates from the 15th century.
0:18:15 > 0:18:19Here we see it. It's the first sort of drawn image of London Bridge.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22In the foreground, the Tower Of London,
0:18:22 > 0:18:23with various activities going on,
0:18:23 > 0:18:25and there's the water gate for the Thames.
0:18:25 > 0:18:27And in the background,
0:18:27 > 0:18:30an incredible image of the northern half of London Bridge.
0:18:30 > 0:18:33Great chapel in the centre
0:18:33 > 0:18:38and the arches connecting that to land at the north bank.
0:18:38 > 0:18:42And in the background, an uncannily similar image to that on the seal -
0:18:42 > 0:18:45the skyline of London with the spires,
0:18:45 > 0:18:47old St Paul's and the spires of the city churches.
0:18:47 > 0:18:50It's a wonderful thing, this drawing,
0:18:50 > 0:18:52manuscript drawing.
0:18:55 > 0:18:58In our search for Old London Bridge,
0:18:58 > 0:19:01the street plan of the city is a major clue.
0:19:01 > 0:19:03We know that the mediaeval bridge
0:19:03 > 0:19:06lay just to the east of its modern counterpart.
0:19:06 > 0:19:08And if you decode the street plan,
0:19:08 > 0:19:12its ghostly location begins to reveal itself.
0:19:12 > 0:19:15The monument to London's great fire of 1666
0:19:15 > 0:19:19was put up beside the ancient northern approach to the bridge.
0:19:19 > 0:19:24And at each end of the bridge, we're told there was a church.
0:19:24 > 0:19:29Following the road here, Fish Street Hill, leads us down to the church of St Magnus Martyr,
0:19:29 > 0:19:33which stood, like a kind of spiritual tollbooth,
0:19:33 > 0:19:35at the northern end of the bridge.
0:19:35 > 0:19:38Once you understand that Old London Bridge
0:19:38 > 0:19:41stood slightly to the east of modern London Bridge,
0:19:41 > 0:19:43everything here makes sense.
0:19:43 > 0:19:48This splendid elevation on the tower of St Magnus Martyr Church,
0:19:48 > 0:19:52which everybody crossing London Bridge would have passed,
0:19:52 > 0:19:55because the carriageway, the roadway to London Bridge was here,
0:19:55 > 0:19:58and inside there, within the arch, so to speak,
0:19:58 > 0:20:01below the tower, was the pedestrian route.
0:20:01 > 0:20:07And here, we have salvaged some of the stones from Old London Bridge.
0:20:07 > 0:20:13I suppose they are part of the mid-18th century recasing of the bridge in Portland stone.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20Inside the church, there's something of a relic.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23Our next clue to what Old London Bridge might have been like.
0:20:25 > 0:20:30This wonderful model shows London Bridge as it could have looked,
0:20:30 > 0:20:33as indeed I'm sure it did look in about 1400.
0:20:33 > 0:20:40It's, er, was then, 900-feet long from the city here to Southwark
0:20:40 > 0:20:45with the carriageway, the roadway, carried on 19 stone-built arches,
0:20:45 > 0:20:50the 20th arch being that of the drawbridge somewhat in the middle.
0:20:50 > 0:20:54And on the stone-built arches,
0:20:54 > 0:21:00we have an array of timber-built houses and shops, about 140 in 1400.
0:21:00 > 0:21:07Also, one can see very clearly that about half the width of the river
0:21:07 > 0:21:13is sort of constrained by the thick piers of the arches
0:21:13 > 0:21:17and the breakwaters in front of them, they're called starlings,
0:21:17 > 0:21:19with the edges protected by timber piles.
0:21:19 > 0:21:25In the middle, roughly, is the great fortification, the drawbridge,
0:21:25 > 0:21:28a reminder that London was defended to a degree by the Thames.
0:21:28 > 0:21:30It was like a moat. And to span it
0:21:30 > 0:21:32was to compromise the defence of the city,
0:21:32 > 0:21:35so one needed to prevent invaders
0:21:35 > 0:21:37coming across the bridge from the south.
0:21:37 > 0:21:40Up comes the drawbridge, this is a fortification,
0:21:40 > 0:21:43which, in a sense, is part of the defences of London,
0:21:43 > 0:21:45along with the city wall.
0:21:45 > 0:21:46I don't know. One just wonders,
0:21:46 > 0:21:50can anything of this wonderful bridge still survive
0:21:50 > 0:21:54below the waters of the Thames?
0:21:59 > 0:22:04It was 30 years before this legendary crossing was completed, in 1209.
0:22:04 > 0:22:08It stood longer than any other in London's history.
0:22:08 > 0:22:10But like all bridges, it was never really finished.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13To resist the huge force of currents and tide on the river,
0:22:13 > 0:22:16it had to be maintained.
0:22:16 > 0:22:20# Build it up with wood and clay My Fair Lady. #
0:22:20 > 0:22:24And that offers us a clue to the real meaning of the nursery rhyme.
0:22:27 > 0:22:32What we have here, bizarrely, is what the cut waters,
0:22:32 > 0:22:35the piers for London Bridge would have looked like,
0:22:35 > 0:22:36the medieval bridge.
0:22:36 > 0:22:39They would have been round wood piles like this...
0:22:39 > 0:22:43- Made out of what, chestnut, or oak, or...?- Elm?- Elm?
0:22:43 > 0:22:46- Often. ..driven in with a ram... - Yeah.
0:22:46 > 0:22:50..and then clad behind with timber planking.
0:22:50 > 0:22:54That would have been made up with masonry, with earth...
0:22:54 > 0:22:58all sorts of solid things in-between the timber posts and beams.
0:22:58 > 0:23:00That's right. So the bridge would be supported
0:23:00 > 0:23:03by the infill of these artificial islands,
0:23:03 > 0:23:06- held in place by planks and round wood piles.- Right.
0:23:06 > 0:23:10- Very laborious work.- But when do these date from, do you think?
0:23:10 > 0:23:14These are contemporary with probably the last phase of the mediaeval bridge.
0:23:14 > 0:23:17These would have been here in the late-18th century.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20The obvious question for a layman is that these...
0:23:20 > 0:23:23these piles are some centuries old,
0:23:23 > 0:23:24they've survived underwater.
0:23:24 > 0:23:27Well, at low tide. At high tide, the water is right up here.
0:23:27 > 0:23:31It's astonishing, so timber is preserved by being kept wet?
0:23:31 > 0:23:34Yes. If it's kept wet, it will be preserved.
0:23:34 > 0:23:36If it's kept dry, it will be preserved.
0:23:36 > 0:23:38The real problem is if a timber rises
0:23:38 > 0:23:41from the bottom above the high water mark,
0:23:41 > 0:23:43it will decay at the high water mark,
0:23:43 > 0:23:48because part of it is dry and therefore doesn't expand,
0:23:48 > 0:23:51and part of it is wet, and therefore it expands when it's wet
0:23:51 > 0:23:52and then it shrinks when it's dry.
0:23:55 > 0:23:58'It took huge quantities of timber and Kentish ragstone
0:23:58 > 0:24:00'to maintain Old London Bridge.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04'The enormous costs were paid for by the proceeds from tolls,
0:24:04 > 0:24:07'from both people and ships.'
0:24:07 > 0:24:10But sometimes, the money went astray
0:24:10 > 0:24:13and the result could be catastrophic.
0:24:13 > 0:24:17In 1282, five of the arches of the bridge collapsed.
0:24:17 > 0:24:20About 12 years earlier,
0:24:20 > 0:24:23King Henry III had given the revenues of the bridge
0:24:23 > 0:24:24to his wife, Queen Eleanor,
0:24:24 > 0:24:28and she spent it on herself, not on maintaining the bridge.
0:24:28 > 0:24:30That's why London Bridge collapsed.
0:24:30 > 0:24:34She is the "My Fair Lady" of the nursery rhyme.
0:24:34 > 0:24:37A nursery rhyme which reveals Londoners' deep anxiety
0:24:37 > 0:24:40about the future of their all-important bridge.
0:24:40 > 0:24:43If it wasn't properly maintained on a regular basis,
0:24:43 > 0:24:45it would indeed collapse.
0:24:48 > 0:24:50After the disaster, there was a small revolution.
0:24:50 > 0:24:54The City of London took back the revenues of the bridge
0:24:54 > 0:24:57from the Crown and gave them permanently to the people.
0:24:57 > 0:25:01Indeed, to the successors of Peter of Colechurch's community,
0:25:01 > 0:25:04now called the Bridge House Estate.
0:25:04 > 0:25:09The bridge now symbolised London's new-found civic independence,
0:25:09 > 0:25:12but its religious roots were not forgotten.
0:25:12 > 0:25:15There were churches at each end
0:25:15 > 0:25:17and in the middle was a chapel on two levels.
0:25:17 > 0:25:19One at the roadside, for travellers,
0:25:19 > 0:25:22and one at the water's edge, for boatmen.
0:25:22 > 0:25:26Spiritual tolls were paid then, and now.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29Every year, on the feast of the baptism of Christ,
0:25:29 > 0:25:30which is in January,
0:25:30 > 0:25:33we process from this church to the middle of London Bridge
0:25:33 > 0:25:36and there we meet some of our friends from Southwark Cathedral,
0:25:36 > 0:25:38coming the other way.
0:25:38 > 0:25:41We have a short service in the middle of the bridge
0:25:41 > 0:25:44and we pray for people who work on the river,
0:25:44 > 0:25:46who take their recreation on the river,
0:25:46 > 0:25:48for people who've drowned in the river, indeed.
0:25:48 > 0:25:52And then we throw a wooden cross into the river itself
0:25:52 > 0:25:55as a sign of God's blessing.
0:25:58 > 0:26:02These youngsters too are a direct link to that mediaeval world,
0:26:02 > 0:26:07because the organisation which built and preserved Old London Bridge still exists.
0:26:07 > 0:26:11It has an income of £700 million a year
0:26:11 > 0:26:13derived from centuries of investment.
0:26:13 > 0:26:15It's still responsible
0:26:15 > 0:26:18for all the bridges within the bounds of the city,
0:26:18 > 0:26:22but they have an annual surplus of up to £20 million,
0:26:22 > 0:26:24which goes to London charities.
0:26:24 > 0:26:26Like this dance group,
0:26:26 > 0:26:29founded directly from the tolls and charity left by mediaeval Londoners
0:26:29 > 0:26:33all those centuries ago.
0:26:36 > 0:26:39Old London Bridge stood about 15 metres over there.
0:26:39 > 0:26:42With its tall buildings, its houses and shops,
0:26:42 > 0:26:46it was, in a sense, a city within the city.
0:26:46 > 0:26:50In that space, people, Londoners, lived and died,
0:26:50 > 0:26:57toiled and took their pleasures for nearly 600 years.
0:26:57 > 0:26:59I live nearby and often come here
0:26:59 > 0:27:03to look, to imagine this spectral bridge,
0:27:03 > 0:27:07to listen, to see if I can pick up the sounds
0:27:07 > 0:27:09echoing through the centuries
0:27:09 > 0:27:14of the pilgrims, the merchants, the travellers, the soldiers
0:27:14 > 0:27:16crossing one way and the other.
0:27:16 > 0:27:18It may seem fanciful,
0:27:18 > 0:27:22but who knows? Perhaps... Perhaps...
0:27:24 > 0:27:28For 600 years, London Bridge dominated the city
0:27:28 > 0:27:33and the massive iconic structure redefined the very river it spanned.
0:27:33 > 0:27:35Its huge piers and starlings
0:27:35 > 0:27:38interfered with the flow of the Thames itself.
0:27:38 > 0:27:41The blockage caused by the bridge slowed the current.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44As a result, the river regularly froze over.
0:27:44 > 0:27:48Londoners took to the ice with gusto
0:27:48 > 0:27:50and what were called "frost fairs,"
0:27:50 > 0:27:53with games and processions, stalls and even bull-baiting,
0:27:53 > 0:27:56became a London institution.
0:27:56 > 0:27:59By holding back the water,
0:27:59 > 0:28:02the piers of the bridge also functioned as a giant weir.
0:28:02 > 0:28:04In even the earliest manuscript,
0:28:04 > 0:28:07we can clearly see the rapids pouring through the arches.
0:28:07 > 0:28:11Passing through it was known as "shooting the bridge,"
0:28:11 > 0:28:14and boats were often overturned.
0:28:14 > 0:28:16Framed by the arches of London Bridge,
0:28:16 > 0:28:21the Thames became a theatre for the royal pageantry.
0:28:21 > 0:28:23The more unpopular wives of Henry VIII
0:28:23 > 0:28:26shot the bridge as a rite of passage,
0:28:26 > 0:28:29rather than being given more conventional coronations.
0:28:29 > 0:28:32And later on, royalty travelled on the Thames
0:28:32 > 0:28:35in wonderful barges such as this.
0:28:35 > 0:28:41This splendid thing was made in the 1730s for Frederick, Prince of Wales.
0:28:41 > 0:28:44And, of course, ordinary Londoners enjoyed the Thames as well.
0:28:44 > 0:28:47There were frost fairs, firework displays,
0:28:47 > 0:28:52and the Lord Mayor's Show was originally held on the water.
0:28:55 > 0:28:58Like Venice, London was a world of the water.
0:28:58 > 0:29:00The whole city faced the foreshore.
0:29:00 > 0:29:04Here in Greenwich, downstream from the City of London,
0:29:04 > 0:29:08you can still catch a sense of how the river and city once merged.
0:29:08 > 0:29:14Here stood one of the great Tudor palaces, right on the water.
0:29:14 > 0:29:18Rebuilt by the Stuarts from 1610 onwards,
0:29:18 > 0:29:20Greenwich never lost its river focus.
0:29:20 > 0:29:23It's a relic of the world of the Royal river,
0:29:23 > 0:29:25a world which, it seemed, would last forever.
0:29:25 > 0:29:27But London's growth changed all that.
0:29:27 > 0:29:30As the Industrial Revolution swept onwards,
0:29:30 > 0:29:32London planned more bridges.
0:29:32 > 0:29:36Bridges made possible by new technology.
0:29:36 > 0:29:41This volume contains visionary proposals for Thames-side London.
0:29:41 > 0:29:45They were drawn up in 1800 for the City Corporation
0:29:45 > 0:29:50which, at that time, wanted to reorganise the port of London.
0:29:50 > 0:29:54That involved rebuilding London Bridge and moving it significantly to the west.
0:29:54 > 0:29:58This shows a rebuilt London Bridge.
0:29:58 > 0:30:02This is the central arch. Cast iron, much higher,
0:30:02 > 0:30:06so greater clearage for, indeed, high-masted ships shown going through.
0:30:06 > 0:30:07This is an amazing image.
0:30:07 > 0:30:13Incredible, of course, this did not happen.
0:30:13 > 0:30:17But things weren't done, things didn't happened, all has changed.
0:30:17 > 0:30:24Change, to a large degree, brought about by engines such as this.
0:30:24 > 0:30:27This is a drawing of a pile driver,
0:30:27 > 0:30:30designed in the late 1730s
0:30:30 > 0:30:33for the construction of the foundations
0:30:33 > 0:30:35of Westminster Bridge.
0:30:35 > 0:30:38This is an early product of the Industrial Revolution, I suppose.
0:30:38 > 0:30:41Here you see horses,
0:30:41 > 0:30:42it says "horse-powered,"
0:30:42 > 0:30:44going round a sort of capstan,
0:30:44 > 0:30:48with a gear devised to increase the power of the horses.
0:30:48 > 0:30:52The ropes would rise this great hammer up here,
0:30:52 > 0:30:54there it is, this hammer's brought up to the top here.
0:30:54 > 0:30:56Then it would be released,
0:30:56 > 0:30:58and rushed down - pow -
0:30:58 > 0:31:03and drive the timber pile into the river bed.
0:31:03 > 0:31:06So a very important movement in bridge construction.
0:31:06 > 0:31:09The Industrial Revolution, of course, transformed London,
0:31:09 > 0:31:10it transformed the world.
0:31:10 > 0:31:13And very particularly for London,
0:31:13 > 0:31:16it fuelled an explosion of bridge construction.
0:31:16 > 0:31:19For more than 500 years,
0:31:19 > 0:31:22London Bridge stood alone as the crossing of the Thames.
0:31:22 > 0:31:26It defined the original city, the commercial giant.
0:31:28 > 0:31:30But two miles upstream
0:31:30 > 0:31:34was another big urban centre, Westminster.
0:31:34 > 0:31:37From 1300 onwards, this area had been the seat
0:31:37 > 0:31:41both of political power and social prestige in England,
0:31:41 > 0:31:43but it had no bridge.
0:31:43 > 0:31:45That's because the City of London
0:31:45 > 0:31:50had fought to preserve Old London Bridge's lucrative monopoly.
0:31:50 > 0:31:52So when plans for another crossing at Westminster
0:31:52 > 0:31:56were mooted in the 1660s, there was uproar.
0:31:56 > 0:31:59It wasn't just the city fathers who objected,
0:31:59 > 0:32:01they were joined by thousands of watermen,
0:32:01 > 0:32:02such as boatmen and ferrymen,
0:32:02 > 0:32:05who believed their livelihoods would be threatened
0:32:05 > 0:32:07if a second bridge was built.
0:32:07 > 0:32:09Must remember that then, unlike now,
0:32:09 > 0:32:11the Thames was London's main highway,
0:32:11 > 0:32:14packed with crafts of all types,
0:32:14 > 0:32:17carrying goods and people up and down and from side to side.
0:32:20 > 0:32:23Now, the watermen were a very powerful lobby indeed.
0:32:23 > 0:32:27They had their own city livery company and even their own poet,
0:32:27 > 0:32:31the "Waterman Poet," John Taylor.
0:32:31 > 0:32:33He complained about the competition
0:32:33 > 0:32:36after the introduction in Tudor times of the sprung carriage.
0:32:36 > 0:32:41"Carroaches, coaches, jades And Flanders mares
0:32:41 > 0:32:46"Doe rob us of our shares Our wares, our fares
0:32:46 > 0:32:49"Against the ground we stand And knocke our heeles
0:32:49 > 0:32:54"Whilst all our profit runs away On wheels."
0:32:54 > 0:32:56They couldn't charge more than the set fare,
0:32:56 > 0:32:58as taxis do today.
0:32:58 > 0:33:02But if you could persuade your passenger
0:33:02 > 0:33:03that it was against the tide,
0:33:03 > 0:33:05and it was a terrible evening and whatever,
0:33:05 > 0:33:08and, "I'll do my best, sir, to get you there on time,"
0:33:08 > 0:33:12- then, of course, there might be a nice tip at the end of it.- Indeed.
0:33:12 > 0:33:14So, OK, the watermen would be involved in many things,
0:33:14 > 0:33:17but one, of course, was getting people across the Thames.
0:33:17 > 0:33:20So in a sense, bridges were the enemy of watermen.
0:33:20 > 0:33:21They took away the trade.
0:33:21 > 0:33:25- Absolutely, yes. - And they objected to them.
0:33:25 > 0:33:26They objected to every bridge
0:33:26 > 0:33:29and were compensated very often for,
0:33:29 > 0:33:32or at least the company was compensated very often,
0:33:32 > 0:33:35for a bridge being built, taking trade away.
0:33:35 > 0:33:37Would you object to another bridge being built,
0:33:37 > 0:33:40did the Waterman's Company object to the Millennium Bridge?
0:33:40 > 0:33:42- Oh, absolutely, yeah. - You did?- Oh, yes.- Excellent!
0:33:42 > 0:33:45We thought that was hilarious. We call it "the wobbly bridge".
0:33:45 > 0:33:48The wobbly bridge, yes. Vindicated! Wobbly...
0:33:48 > 0:33:52But, no, seriously, you would object, did object to that bridge.
0:33:52 > 0:33:55Yes, much more venomously in the past,
0:33:55 > 0:33:58but we still say, you know, you don't need another bridge there.
0:33:58 > 0:33:59THEY CHUCKLE
0:34:03 > 0:34:06It was only in 1736, after centuries of argument,
0:34:06 > 0:34:09that Parliament agreed to a bridge at Westminster.
0:34:09 > 0:34:15Under the act, the watermen got £25,000 compensation,
0:34:15 > 0:34:18the equivalent today of more than £2 million.
0:34:21 > 0:34:24When Westminster Bridge officially opened in 1750,
0:34:24 > 0:34:27London was transformed once again.
0:34:27 > 0:34:30The Thames had been a kind of moat protecting the city.
0:34:30 > 0:34:33Now, all that changed.
0:34:33 > 0:34:36The commercial and political powers north of the river,
0:34:36 > 0:34:39once represented mainly by the church,
0:34:39 > 0:34:42now took charge across the river.
0:34:42 > 0:34:45And so started the dramatic transformation
0:34:45 > 0:34:47of the south bank of the Thames.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50Traditionally, the south bank had been a place
0:34:50 > 0:34:53independent of the city on the north bank,
0:34:53 > 0:34:56a place free of the city's controls and statutes.
0:34:56 > 0:35:00It was, I suppose, a land of liberty and libertines.
0:35:00 > 0:35:04There were theatres, bear-baiting pits, brothels,
0:35:04 > 0:35:07market gardens and pleasure grounds.
0:35:07 > 0:35:11But now, it became something quite different.
0:35:11 > 0:35:15It became, in a way, a province of the north bank of the Thames,
0:35:15 > 0:35:17largely because, perhaps ironically,
0:35:17 > 0:35:20one of the major landowners and developers
0:35:20 > 0:35:23of the south side of the Thames was the City Corporation.
0:35:28 > 0:35:32The City and the Bridge House Estate owned land across the river
0:35:32 > 0:35:38which jumped in value once Westminster and then Blackfriars Bridge were built.
0:35:38 > 0:35:40And the obelisk they erected here,
0:35:40 > 0:35:44planned to be the focus of a grand new urban district,
0:35:44 > 0:35:46marks the centre of their holdings.
0:35:46 > 0:35:48As a result of the new bridges,
0:35:48 > 0:35:53London north and south of the river had become one great city.
0:35:54 > 0:35:57The new crossings were a distinctive part of
0:35:57 > 0:36:00what was to be the zenith of Georgian London.
0:36:00 > 0:36:03But like the Roman and mediaeval bridges before them,
0:36:03 > 0:36:06they too are now ghosts, swept away by development.
0:36:09 > 0:36:15Flying 14 miles upstream, however, we can experience their effect.
0:36:15 > 0:36:19Richmond bridge, a classic 18th-century masonry arched structure,
0:36:19 > 0:36:23is the only one of London's Georgian bridges to survive.
0:36:23 > 0:36:26And it sits in a green riverside landscape,
0:36:26 > 0:36:31a middle-class suburb surrounded by aristocratic houses and parks.
0:36:31 > 0:36:35It allows us a glimpse of what Westminster might have been like
0:36:35 > 0:36:37when the bridge was new
0:36:37 > 0:36:42and the idea of London as a river city was at its height.
0:36:42 > 0:36:45Early one morning, in September 1802,
0:36:45 > 0:36:49William Wordsworth passed across Westminster Bridge
0:36:49 > 0:36:51on the top of a coach.
0:36:51 > 0:36:56He was inspired by what he saw, it was a vision. He wrote a poem.
0:36:56 > 0:36:59And the poem, in a most charming way, is here,
0:36:59 > 0:37:03in this bronze plate upon Westminster Bridge.
0:37:09 > 0:37:13"Earth has not anything To show more fair
0:37:13 > 0:37:17"Dull would he be of soul Who could pass by
0:37:17 > 0:37:20"A sight so touching in its majesty
0:37:20 > 0:37:23"This city now doth Like a garment wear
0:37:23 > 0:37:24"The beauty of the morning...
0:37:24 > 0:37:28"Ships, towers, domes Theatres, and temples lie
0:37:28 > 0:37:32"Open unto the fields And to the sky."
0:37:35 > 0:37:39Standing here, I can see the city as Wordsworth saw it.
0:37:39 > 0:37:42It haunts my imagination, Georgian London,
0:37:42 > 0:37:47one of the greatest urban creations ever achieved by mankind, I argue.
0:37:47 > 0:37:50And to think that, from here,
0:37:50 > 0:37:54that great city unfolded itself to Wordsworth
0:37:54 > 0:37:56in a way he could not resist.
0:38:00 > 0:38:05Wordsworth's poem was actually a swansong for Georgian London.
0:38:05 > 0:38:09Between 1750 and 1850, nine bridges were thrown across the Thames.
0:38:09 > 0:38:14But despite this, the city began to turn its back on the water,
0:38:14 > 0:38:17as a population of more than two and a half million
0:38:17 > 0:38:21pushed further and further away from the river banks.
0:38:21 > 0:38:27London was fast becoming an industrial megacity.
0:38:27 > 0:38:30It needed rapid transit and bridge builders like John Rennie.
0:38:33 > 0:38:35Rennie built three great bridges -
0:38:35 > 0:38:39Southwark Bridge, Waterloo Bridge and a new London Bridge.
0:38:39 > 0:38:42But sadly, none of them survive.
0:38:42 > 0:38:44So, like Old London Bridge,
0:38:44 > 0:38:48you have to search for Rennie's bridge.
0:38:48 > 0:38:52This is part of the southern approach to Rennie's London Bridge.
0:38:52 > 0:38:57It's a fragment that offers a glimpse of the character,
0:38:57 > 0:38:58of the power, of the whole,
0:38:58 > 0:39:03a reminder of the architectural and engineering wonder that we've lost.
0:39:03 > 0:39:06I love the bold classical cornice
0:39:06 > 0:39:09and the tremendously strong granite walling.
0:39:09 > 0:39:15It all has a Roman solidity and grandeur.
0:39:15 > 0:39:19Rennie's new London Bridge was his final work.
0:39:19 > 0:39:23It was built alongside the mediaeval bridge.
0:39:23 > 0:39:26New roads had to be built, much demolition was carried out
0:39:26 > 0:39:31and the historic street plan of London was changed.
0:39:31 > 0:39:34And although, to my mind, it never rivalled the mediaeval bridge,
0:39:34 > 0:39:37it too became a signature of the city.
0:39:37 > 0:39:42Famous enough to be dismantled and sold to rich Americans in the 1960s.
0:39:42 > 0:39:46The whole structure was rebuilt stone by stone
0:39:46 > 0:39:51to grace a housing development in the Arizona desert.
0:39:51 > 0:39:58# I must be going No longer staying
0:39:58 > 0:40:05# The burning Thames I have to cross... #
0:40:05 > 0:40:09The new bridges reduced Londoners' reliance on the river even more.
0:40:09 > 0:40:13Once, it was common to row on the river at night, like this.
0:40:13 > 0:40:15Not anymore.
0:40:15 > 0:40:18Success came with a price.
0:40:18 > 0:40:23The 1840s and '50s were grim years in London's history.
0:40:23 > 0:40:25The population of the city had swollen,
0:40:25 > 0:40:28London's infrastructure couldn't cope
0:40:28 > 0:40:31with the megacity London had become.
0:40:31 > 0:40:36The river was filthy, polluted with sewage and industrial waste.
0:40:36 > 0:40:38It was poisoning Londoners,
0:40:38 > 0:40:40it was killing them in their tens of thousands.
0:40:40 > 0:40:43Waterborne diseases like cholera were rife.
0:40:43 > 0:40:49The city was poisoning the wells of London and killing its population.
0:40:51 > 0:40:53The bridges shared in the sickness.
0:40:53 > 0:40:57Waterloo Bridge became notorious for suicides,
0:40:57 > 0:41:01particularly for despairing women jumping from its parapets.
0:41:01 > 0:41:05And statistics confirm its reputation.
0:41:05 > 0:41:09In the 1840s, about 15% of London's suicides
0:41:09 > 0:41:11jumped from Waterloo Bridge.
0:41:11 > 0:41:16This aspect of London's bridges and the Thames
0:41:16 > 0:41:20as theatres of death is etched into our literature.
0:41:20 > 0:41:23Charles Dickens, in Our Mutual Friend,
0:41:23 > 0:41:27essentially a novel about the river and river life,
0:41:27 > 0:41:30starts the story with these characters
0:41:30 > 0:41:34fishing in the Thames for corpses.
0:41:34 > 0:41:36A valuable commodity.
0:41:36 > 0:41:40# When shall I see you again?
0:41:40 > 0:41:43# When the fishes fly, love... #
0:41:43 > 0:41:45London had now become the largest, richest
0:41:45 > 0:41:47and most powerful city in the world.
0:41:47 > 0:41:50And yet, it was awash with disease and poverty.
0:41:50 > 0:41:54# ..In the heat of the sun. #
0:41:57 > 0:42:00The solution was a brutal taming of the Thames itself.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03An embankment, which contained not just a giant new sewer,
0:42:03 > 0:42:06but a railway line as well.
0:42:06 > 0:42:11It was the work of one London's great engineers - Joseph Bazalgette.
0:42:11 > 0:42:15I'm standing on the Victoria embankment.
0:42:15 > 0:42:18In front of me and above me is the Hungerford Bridge.
0:42:18 > 0:42:22Below me is Bazalgette's mighty sewer,
0:42:22 > 0:42:27the underground railway, a gas mains and a telegraph cable.
0:42:27 > 0:42:31This was, and remains, spectacular engineering.
0:42:31 > 0:42:36When completed, London would never be the same again.
0:42:38 > 0:42:41This was the death knell of the riverside,
0:42:41 > 0:42:43almost Venetian-looking London.
0:42:43 > 0:42:47Grand buildings like Somerset House once had spectacular water gates
0:42:47 > 0:42:51where, at high tide, people and goods could arrive by boat.
0:42:51 > 0:42:55But Bazalgette built a vast wall to separate the river from the city.
0:42:55 > 0:42:59Inside it, 22 acres of land were reclaimed,
0:42:59 > 0:43:03pushing the river back in places by more than 100 metres.
0:43:03 > 0:43:07This 17th-century water gate
0:43:07 > 0:43:11is the last surviving relic of the old waterfront
0:43:11 > 0:43:14and it's now marooned on the edge of Embankment Gardens.
0:43:14 > 0:43:16You can clearly see it in this painting,
0:43:16 > 0:43:21which shows just how splendid the Georgian waterfront must have been.
0:43:21 > 0:43:25Safer transport and cleaner water came with a cost.
0:43:25 > 0:43:28The legacy has been really rather appalling.
0:43:28 > 0:43:31It's cut off the river from the life of London.
0:43:31 > 0:43:34And the great riverside boulevard that may have looked wonderful
0:43:34 > 0:43:37just full of horse-drawn traffic and pedestrians
0:43:37 > 0:43:41is now a noisy and polluted urban motorway.
0:43:41 > 0:43:44And the buildings that once rose from the river,
0:43:44 > 0:43:50like some of the towers behind me, rose like places in Venice,
0:43:50 > 0:43:53now rise in swathes of traffic.
0:43:53 > 0:43:58So really, the embankment had a terrible effect on the city.
0:43:58 > 0:44:00It's one of the reason's why Londoners, in a way,
0:44:00 > 0:44:05have forgotten the wonders and beauty of the river.
0:44:09 > 0:44:13Nonetheless, Victorian modernity still had its triumphs.
0:44:13 > 0:44:16Hammersmith Bridge, in the western suburbs, is one of them.
0:44:16 > 0:44:20It is one of three built by the same Joseph Bazalgette.
0:44:20 > 0:44:25Unsurprisingly, construction at Hammersmith employed the latest technology.
0:44:25 > 0:44:27It's a suspension bridge,
0:44:27 > 0:44:31with the roadway supported from above rather than below,
0:44:31 > 0:44:33unlike traditional arch bridges.
0:44:33 > 0:44:36The road hangs from wrought-iron cables
0:44:36 > 0:44:38strung over cast-iron towers,
0:44:38 > 0:44:43with each end anchored firmly in the ground.
0:44:43 > 0:44:45It's wonderful looking at the bridge,
0:44:45 > 0:44:47it's a real window into mid-Victorian London.
0:44:47 > 0:44:51The engineering, of course, the epitome of Victorian engineering.
0:44:51 > 0:44:55A combination of beauty and of incredible strength.
0:44:55 > 0:44:57Cast iron, very strong, as I say,
0:44:57 > 0:45:00in compression, pushing down, very strong.
0:45:00 > 0:45:03That's perfect for the suspension towers,
0:45:03 > 0:45:07but the chains, of course, they have to be a bit more elastic,
0:45:07 > 0:45:10so they have a tensile strength,
0:45:10 > 0:45:12and hence wrought iron is used, so wonderful again.
0:45:12 > 0:45:14It doesn't seem much now to the casual observer,
0:45:14 > 0:45:17but a lot of engineering technology going on here.
0:45:17 > 0:45:20Functional, strong, also beautiful.
0:45:20 > 0:45:24And in cast iron, of course, you can cast lovely detail.
0:45:24 > 0:45:27Hence the suspension towers have this classical detail at the top.
0:45:27 > 0:45:31The cornices, and various acanthus leaves, rather wonderful mouldings.
0:45:31 > 0:45:34So every time you look at this bridge, you can read more into it
0:45:34 > 0:45:37and understand more about the wonder of the engineering
0:45:37 > 0:45:39in Victorian London.
0:45:39 > 0:45:42It's a complete Victorian piece.
0:45:42 > 0:45:45One of London's best bridges, I love it.
0:45:47 > 0:45:49Bazalgette's triumph at Hammersmith was commissioned
0:45:49 > 0:45:53by the newly-created Metropolitan Board Of Works.
0:45:53 > 0:45:56The Board was the first overall government
0:45:56 > 0:45:58for the new Victorian megacity.
0:45:58 > 0:46:03In 1869, it had taken over all the private bridges across the Thames
0:46:03 > 0:46:05and abolished all the remaining tolls.
0:46:07 > 0:46:10And it was determined to proclaim its authority.
0:46:12 > 0:46:17I love the ornament on this bridge, the iconography. It's so revealing.
0:46:17 > 0:46:19Look, for example,
0:46:19 > 0:46:22at this wonderful piece of heraldry, I suppose, behind me.
0:46:22 > 0:46:25In the middle is a royal coat of arms.
0:46:25 > 0:46:27To the left, the arms of the City of London.
0:46:27 > 0:46:30And to the right, the arms of the City of Westminster.
0:46:30 > 0:46:36But also, the arms of Kent, of Surrey, of Middlesex and of Essex.
0:46:36 > 0:46:40This bridge really defines London as it was in the late 19th century.
0:46:40 > 0:46:44It also reveals the power of bridge building.
0:46:44 > 0:46:47London was no longer simply a city,
0:46:47 > 0:46:48it was a city state.
0:46:51 > 0:46:55By the 1890s, Bazalgette and the Board Of Works had shaped the city,
0:46:55 > 0:46:58preparing it for the 20th century
0:46:58 > 0:47:02and, with it, the climax of the British Empire.
0:47:02 > 0:47:04The city of more than five million people
0:47:04 > 0:47:07stretched down both banks of the Thames.
0:47:07 > 0:47:09But for more than half that distance,
0:47:09 > 0:47:13from London Bridge to the sea, there were still no bridges.
0:47:13 > 0:47:16Just dangerous and expensive tunnels.
0:47:16 > 0:47:19They were dug because despite all the changes,
0:47:19 > 0:47:21London was still a port.
0:47:21 > 0:47:24Indeed, it was the greatest port city in the world.
0:47:24 > 0:47:29And a bridge would prevent big ships from coming upstream.
0:47:29 > 0:47:33The docks downstream - West India Dock, St Katharine's Dock -
0:47:33 > 0:47:35had been constructed in the early 19th century.
0:47:35 > 0:47:37But in the late 19th century,
0:47:37 > 0:47:41London's traditional port, the Pool Of London over there,
0:47:41 > 0:47:45still functioned, with ships moored several feet deep into the Thames,
0:47:45 > 0:47:49some almost as large as HMS Belfast over there.
0:47:49 > 0:47:52So any crossing of the Thames downstream from here
0:47:52 > 0:47:57had to allow the largest of ships still to reach the Pool.
0:48:00 > 0:48:03Everybody had their own idea of how to solve the problem.
0:48:03 > 0:48:07Two architects contributed different swing bridge plans.
0:48:07 > 0:48:10Another contemplated a tunnel under the Thames.
0:48:10 > 0:48:13Yet another hoped to build a transporter bridge
0:48:13 > 0:48:16which lifted people and traffic high enough to let the ships through.
0:48:16 > 0:48:20But the winning plan returned to a feature
0:48:20 > 0:48:24of the legendary mediaeval crossing, a drawbridge.
0:48:24 > 0:48:30The completed Tower Bridge deployed a vast hydraulic system
0:48:30 > 0:48:34powered by steam engines to pivot the entire roadway
0:48:34 > 0:48:36to let ships sail through.
0:48:36 > 0:48:39In the bowels of the structure, the scale of it all becomes clear.
0:48:39 > 0:48:44This vast cavernous space is a bascule chamber
0:48:44 > 0:48:46below the south tower.
0:48:46 > 0:48:48Water level is roughly here,
0:48:48 > 0:48:52and above me is the underside of the roadway.
0:48:52 > 0:48:57You can hear the traffic echoing. Quite uncanny.
0:48:57 > 0:49:00Everything that's painted white moves,
0:49:00 > 0:49:05so when the Tower Bridge roadway goes up,
0:49:05 > 0:49:08the white elements here, that's the counter weight,
0:49:08 > 0:49:11come down to occupy this space.
0:49:11 > 0:49:17Must be very scary to see that. Amazing.
0:49:17 > 0:49:20Of course, this a bridge like no other in London - it's a moving bridge,
0:49:20 > 0:49:22a living bridge, in a sense,
0:49:22 > 0:49:26with a crew, people in control rooms, machinery operating it.
0:49:26 > 0:49:31Living, vibrating, almost speaking, I can hear it!
0:49:35 > 0:49:38But all this engineering expertise was invisible
0:49:38 > 0:49:40in the completed bridge.
0:49:40 > 0:49:43Instead, the architecture was deliberately designed
0:49:43 > 0:49:46to merge with the Tower Of London next door.
0:49:46 > 0:49:51This is one of the most astonishing things about Tower Bridge.
0:49:51 > 0:49:55It's not a Gothic structure built out of stone,
0:49:55 > 0:50:00but it's a steel-frame structure, a modern building.
0:50:00 > 0:50:03And through this window, you can see exactly what I mean.
0:50:03 > 0:50:05I'm looking at the companion tower to this one.
0:50:05 > 0:50:09Outside, all this wonderful Tudor, Gothic finials,
0:50:09 > 0:50:11lovely ornamental details,
0:50:11 > 0:50:14all designed to fit in with the ancient Tower Of London.
0:50:14 > 0:50:18All history. And, in here, all is modern, steel,
0:50:18 > 0:50:20a functional building.
0:50:20 > 0:50:23Very strong. Very, very sort of...
0:50:23 > 0:50:28I'd say almost brutally honest in its construction. Inside.
0:50:28 > 0:50:33Outside, all is ornament, history, beauty, pedigree...
0:50:33 > 0:50:36evocation of dreams and a past.
0:50:42 > 0:50:45Hiding the brute functional realities behind a Gothic facade
0:50:45 > 0:50:51may have been a triumph of late Victorian genteel propriety.
0:50:51 > 0:50:53But the effect was to create a sense of immemorial age,
0:50:53 > 0:50:56that it had always been there.
0:51:00 > 0:51:03Old London Bridge, with its houses and shops,
0:51:03 > 0:51:05had been a unique icon of London.
0:51:05 > 0:51:11Now, the city had found its successor - Tower Bridge.
0:51:11 > 0:51:14The Imperial city's gateway to the massive docks downstream
0:51:14 > 0:51:17and its vast empire beyond.
0:51:19 > 0:51:22After 150 years of frantic bridge building,
0:51:22 > 0:51:24London had reinvented itself.
0:51:24 > 0:51:27After so much of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain,
0:51:27 > 0:51:34London's bridges were sort of steeped in nostalgia, instantly historic.
0:51:34 > 0:51:37Look at Tower Bridge, utterly amazing.
0:51:37 > 0:51:41Now, there was to be a century of quiet on London's river,
0:51:41 > 0:51:44apart from two bridges built far upstream.
0:51:44 > 0:51:48A quiet that seemed timeless, as TS Eliot observed,
0:51:48 > 0:51:56as he, like me, slipped quietly downstream in The Waste Land.
0:51:59 > 0:52:03"The river sweats Oil and tar
0:52:03 > 0:52:06"The barges drift With the turning tide
0:52:06 > 0:52:08"Red sails Wide
0:52:08 > 0:52:11"To leeward, swing on the heavy spar
0:52:11 > 0:52:14"The barges wash Drifting logs
0:52:14 > 0:52:19"Down Greenwich reach Past the Isle of Dogs."
0:52:19 > 0:52:23By the end of the 20th century, the vast sprawl of Greater London
0:52:23 > 0:52:26meant travellers now had to be able to go round it as well as through it.
0:52:26 > 0:52:32By the time the bridge at Dartford was completed in 1991,
0:52:32 > 0:52:35carrying the orbital motorway across the Thames,
0:52:35 > 0:52:38engineering had moved into a new league.
0:52:38 > 0:52:42Between the towers, it's three times as long as Old London Bridge
0:52:42 > 0:52:46and runs 57 metres above the water.
0:52:46 > 0:52:50It's among the largest bridges of its kind in the world.
0:52:50 > 0:52:53Dartford's a cable-stayed bridge.
0:52:53 > 0:52:56This is not the same as a suspension bridge.
0:52:56 > 0:52:59Here, the forces, the loads, travel up the cables
0:52:59 > 0:53:02and then directly down the towers.
0:53:02 > 0:53:07Unlike in a suspension bridge, where they're anchored on each bank,
0:53:07 > 0:53:09this is a more stable design.
0:53:09 > 0:53:14It allows for the creation of vastly wide and high spans.
0:53:14 > 0:53:17This is a bridge that is making a statement. What's it saying?
0:53:17 > 0:53:24Well, it's proclaiming that the whole of the Thames estuary belongs to London.
0:53:26 > 0:53:30Crossing the Thames far downstream from the historic city,
0:53:30 > 0:53:34Dartford Bridge defines London as being larger than ever,
0:53:34 > 0:53:38a city state within South-East England.
0:53:38 > 0:53:41The claims of the Board Of Works,
0:53:41 > 0:53:43as displayed at Hammersmith far upstream,
0:53:43 > 0:53:46now seem vindicated.
0:53:46 > 0:53:49Here, you really do understand the nature of this bridge,
0:53:49 > 0:53:51it does command the estuary.
0:53:51 > 0:53:55It is this great gate, the approach to London is here now.
0:53:55 > 0:53:57The city over there, the sea over there.
0:53:57 > 0:53:59Ships come and go.
0:53:59 > 0:54:03My goodness me, I'm just about to see the towers of Canary Wharf.
0:54:05 > 0:54:09But however magnificent the bridge is in itself, however modern,
0:54:09 > 0:54:12it doesn't erase the echoes of the past
0:54:12 > 0:54:14that so intrigued Joseph Conrad.
0:54:16 > 0:54:19I'm about 15 miles downstream from the Pool Of London,
0:54:19 > 0:54:23where everything started, around 2,000 years ago.
0:54:23 > 0:54:26There, of course, things have changed many times,
0:54:26 > 0:54:29but here, in places like this,
0:54:29 > 0:54:31it feels well, surely, much as it did
0:54:31 > 0:54:34when the Roman triremes passed by.
0:54:34 > 0:54:41This is a strange location, seemingly lost between worlds,
0:54:41 > 0:54:44a very odd place indeed, an ancient frontier.
0:54:44 > 0:54:47Yet emerging from the primordial ooze and mud,
0:54:47 > 0:54:49and the slime and the reeds,
0:54:49 > 0:54:54much as London emerged all those centuries before.
0:54:54 > 0:54:57Ah, now, this is why I love the Thames.
0:54:57 > 0:55:00It carries memories of all the people
0:55:00 > 0:55:03who have travelled on it, who've lived beside it.
0:55:03 > 0:55:04Look, here.
0:55:04 > 0:55:06Bits of pottery, porcelain, earthenware.
0:55:06 > 0:55:12Look at this lovely, delicate handle from a teacup, I suppose.
0:55:12 > 0:55:15Beautiful, such an intimate connection
0:55:15 > 0:55:18with the person that owned it, loved it, lost it.
0:55:18 > 0:55:21That's what's so incredible about this place,
0:55:21 > 0:55:24that it's a living connection with the ghosts of the past.
0:55:24 > 0:55:28You stand here and one finds and connects and remembers.
0:55:34 > 0:55:37By AD 2000, London had lived through
0:55:37 > 0:55:40nearly 20 centuries of its own history.
0:55:40 > 0:55:43And what better way to celebrate that history than with a bridge?
0:55:43 > 0:55:45But not a giant, a jewel.
0:55:45 > 0:55:48One designed not for transport, but for human delight,
0:55:48 > 0:55:50a pedestrian bridge that opened up
0:55:50 > 0:55:53a new way through the city
0:55:53 > 0:55:55and, in a nod to its noble forebears,
0:55:55 > 0:56:01a spiritual bridge pointing directly to London's cathedral - St Paul's.
0:56:01 > 0:56:03Although it suffered teething troubles,
0:56:03 > 0:56:09the design, by engineers Ove Arup, architect Norman Foster
0:56:09 > 0:56:14and even a sculptor, Anthony Caro, is a work of art.
0:56:14 > 0:56:17This bridge has redefined London once again.
0:56:17 > 0:56:19By creating a new link across the Thames,
0:56:19 > 0:56:23it has brought added life to Southwark, in front of me,
0:56:23 > 0:56:25and the city behind me.
0:56:25 > 0:56:27It's created a wonderful connection
0:56:27 > 0:56:30between Tate Modern up there and St Paul's Cathedral.
0:56:30 > 0:56:33Doesn't it look absolutely fantastic?
0:56:33 > 0:56:39Also, the bridge has created spectacular new vistas of the city.
0:56:39 > 0:56:42From here, I can see an array of bridges to the left and to the right.
0:56:42 > 0:56:44Wonderful. Tower Bridge, over there in the distance.
0:56:44 > 0:56:48But also, a wonderful object, lovely to walk across,
0:56:48 > 0:56:51lovely to explore it, to touch it and to look at it.
0:56:51 > 0:56:53It reminds me, in a way,
0:56:53 > 0:56:56of other great pedestrian bridges around the world.
0:56:56 > 0:56:59The Rialto Bridge in Venice, for example, also exquisite.
0:56:59 > 0:57:01It, of course, is lined with shops,
0:57:01 > 0:57:04a lovely living thing, the Rialto Bridge.
0:57:04 > 0:57:06It puts me in mind of inhabited bridges.
0:57:06 > 0:57:09I wonder if London could ever recapture the glory
0:57:09 > 0:57:11of Old London Bridge with its houses.
0:57:11 > 0:57:14Could there be a new inhabited bridge in London?
0:57:14 > 0:57:16Perhaps, perhaps, I hope so.
0:57:21 > 0:57:27People have been building bridges in London for 3,000 years and more.
0:57:27 > 0:57:31And those extraordinary structures have defined the city.
0:57:31 > 0:57:34From the beginning, they were sites of primal spiritual power,
0:57:34 > 0:57:39as man attempted to tame and harness the brute forces of nature.
0:57:39 > 0:57:44But they've also shaped London's economic and political dominance.
0:57:44 > 0:57:45Once a permanent bridge was built,
0:57:45 > 0:57:48wealth and power found their way to London
0:57:48 > 0:57:51and, with them, the talents of millions of people.
0:57:51 > 0:57:53And so, these crossings became not only a vehicle
0:57:53 > 0:57:57for royal and political display,
0:57:57 > 0:57:59they helped London become, to my mind,
0:57:59 > 0:58:03the greatest city in the world.
0:58:03 > 0:58:06There will be new bridges, and different Londons, in the future.
0:58:06 > 0:58:11Even now, a cable car bridge is being built downstream at the docks.
0:58:11 > 0:58:14That, like this bridge, can only be a good thing
0:58:14 > 0:58:19to help Londoners regain the pleasures of the Thames.
0:58:19 > 0:58:22And only through the Thames and its bridges,
0:58:22 > 0:58:25can you grasp the true nature of London
0:58:25 > 0:58:29and understand those diverse people -
0:58:29 > 0:58:32costermongers and kings, warriors and merchants -
0:58:32 > 0:58:36who have made London the fantastic city it is.
0:58:57 > 0:59:00Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd