from throughout the London area for the bridge have returned to where they came, allowing so many people the chance to own a little of the city's patrimony.
Old London Bridge was designed in 1176 by a chantry priest of Cole Church and was a masterpiece of construction, certainly in its time and arguably of any time, for any human creation that withstands six centuries of daily use must be fundamentally sound. Designer Peter de Colechurch died four years before the bridge's completion after 33 years of construction, and the bridge served as his tomb one of many structural adornments that the bridge would acquire over the years (Elmer, 1973, p. 3).
Old London Bridge was in fact certainly not the first bridge in London, it was not even the first span to bear that name. The Romans may have been the first to lay a masonry-constructed span across the Thames River, for the Romans were excellent bridge builders (and could hardly help themselves from building bridges throughout their empire). Bridges themselves are one of the most ancient forms of human construction. As soon as people began to walk upright on their hind legs, they began making paths (and then roads) to go from one place to the next. And, inevitably, these pathways in time became long enough that they crossed over streams and rivers.
The Thames that flows through London is in several ways the archetypal site for a bridge. Humans have always placed their settlements near water whenever possible (anyone who has ever had to carry all their water from an even semi-distant stream will appreciate the wisdom in having to carry water only a short distance) and so early settlers were drawn to this reliable sourc
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