Oil picture. 41 by 27½ in.
View of old London Bridge, of City of London, and part of Southwark,
before the Great Fire. In foreground, beginning on west or left
side, the following playhouses are shown in their order: the Swan,
destroyed about 1633, the Hope or Bear Garden, and the second Globe.
The turreted building below the Swan was the old Manor House of
Paris Garden. In the reign of Charles I it got a bad reputation, and
was called Holland’s Leaguer from a woman who occupied it. The next
important building is the hall of the Bishop of Winchester’s house.
Then St. Saviour’s, originally church of Priory of St. Mary Overy,
and now Southwark Cathedral. Passing bridge, on right, is the church
of St. Olave, Tooley Street, replaced by present structure (lately
closed) in 1737-39. On Middlesex side, old St. Paul’s has lost its
spire, fatally injured by lightning in 1561.
There is no space to describe bridge in detail. Before removal of
houses under Act of Parliament 1756, it was most picturesque, but with
its many arches, several blocked by mills and waterworks, it checked
flow of water, hence freezing of Thames above bridge, frost fairs,
and danger of passing through in boat, or “shooting the bridge.” On
central pier, projecting to east, was chapel of St. Thomas-à-Becket,
with crypt beneath. In foreground is Southwark gatehouse (afterwards
rebuilt), with heads of traitors above parapet, a display originally
over building farther north, destroyed in 1577.
This picture is clearly not contemporary. It looks like eighteenth
century work, founded on an earlier painting, or on such engraved
views as Visscher’s (1616) and the small one in Howell’s “Londinopolis”
(1657).
_Lent by the Bank of England._