Part 7

II. For the accommodation of such persons as are desirous of being assured for a term of years, this Corporation will assure (on such buildings or goods as aforesaid) any sum not exceeding 1000l. at the rate of 12s. _per cent._ for seven years, and as far as 2000l. at the rate of 14s. _per cent._ for the like term of seven years, without subjecting the assured to any calls or contributions to make good losses.

III. Assurances on buildings and goods, are deemed distinct and separate adventures; so that the premium on goods is not advanced by reason of any assurance on the building wherein the goods are kept, nor the premium on the building by reason of any assurance on the goods.

IV. Timber or plaister buildings covered with slate, tile, or lead, wherein no hazardous trades are carried on, nor any hazardous goods deposited: and goods or merchandize not hazardous, in such buildings, are termed _Hazardous assurances_, and assured as follows; any sum not exceeding 200l. at 6s. _per annum_: any sum above 200l. and not exceeding 1000l. at 3s. _per cent. per annum_: any sum above 1000l. and not exceeding 2000l. at 4s. _per cent. per annum_: and any sum above 2000l. and not exceeding 3000l. at 5s. _per cent. per annum_.

V. Hazardous trades, such as apothecaries, bread and bisket bakers, colourmen, ship and tallow-chandlers, innholders and stable-keepers, carried on in brick or stone buildings, covered with slate, tile, or lead; and hazardous goods, such as hemp, flax, pitch, tar, tallow, and turpentine, deposited in such buildings, may be assured at the annual premiums, set down under the head of hazardous assurances, in the above article.

VI. Any of the above hazardous trades carried on, or hazardous goods deposited in timber or plaister buildings; earthen, glass, and china ware, in trade; and thatched buildings, or goods therein, are termed _Double hazardous assurances_, and may be assured upon the following conditions: any sum not exceeding 200l. at 10s. _per annum_: any sum above 200l. and not exceeding 1000l. at 5s. _per cent. per annum_: and any sum above 1000l. and not exceeding 2000l. at 7s. 6d. _per cent. per annum_.

VII. Deal yards, also chymists, distillers, sugar-bakers, maltsters, or any other assurances more than ordinarily hazardous, by reason of the trade, nature of the goods, narrowness of the place, or other dangerous circumstances, may be made by special agreement.

VIII. Two dwelling-houses, or any one dwelling-house, and the out-houses thereunto belonging, or any one dwelling-house and goods therein, may be included in the sum of 200l. But when several buildings, or buildings and goods, are assured in the same policy, the sum assured on each is to be particularly mentioned.

IX. To prevent frauds, if any buildings or goods assured with this Corporation, are, or shall be assured with any other corporation or society, the policy granted by this Corporation is to be null and void, unless such other assurance is allowed by endorsement on the policy.

X. No policy is to be of any force, till the premium for one year is paid. And for all subsequent annual premiums, the assured are to take receipts, stamped with the seal of the Corporation, no other being allowed of.

XI. No policy is to be extended, or construed to extend to the assurance of any hazardous buildings or goods, unless they are expressly mentioned in the policy, and the proper premium for such assurances be paid for the same.

XII. No loss or damage by fire happening by any invasion, foreign enemy, or any military or usurped power whatsoever, is to be made good.

XIII. All persons assured by this Corporation, are upon any loss or damage by fire, forthwith to give notice thereof, by letter, or otherwise, to the Directors or Secretary, at their house in London: and within fifteen days after such fire, deliver in as particular an account of their loss or damage, as the nature of the case will admit of, and make proof of the same, by the oath or affirmation of themselves, their domestics or servants, or by their books of accounts, or other proper vouchers, as shall be required; and also to procure a certificate under the hands of the Minister and Church-wardens, together with some other reputable inhabitants of the parish, not concerned in such loss; importing, that they are well acquainted with the character and circumstances of the sufferer or sufferers; and do know, or verily believe, that he, she, or they, have really, and by misfortune, sustained by such fire the loss and damage therein mentioned. And in case any difference shall arise between the Corporation and the assured, touching any loss or damage, such difference shall be submitted to the judgment and determination of arbitrators indifferently chosen, whose award in writing shall be conclusive and binding to all parties. And when any loss or damage is settled and adjusted, the sufferer or sufferers are to receive immediate satisfaction for the same.

XIV. In adjusting losses on houses, no wainscot, sculpture or carved-work, is to be valued at more than 3s. _per_ yard.

_N. B._ There is no average clause in the policies of this Corporation; but the assured, in case of loss, receive the full damage sustained, deducing only three _per cent._ according to the terms of the policy.

Persons assured by this Corporation do not depend upon an uncertain fund or contribution, nor are they subject to any covenants or calls to make good losses which may happen to themselves or others. The capital stock of this Corporation being an unquestionable security to the assured in case of loss or damage by fire, and in case of such loss or damage the assured have as easy methods of recovery as can be had against any person or society whatsoever.

For the timely assistance of such as are assured by this Corporation, they have provided several engines and watermen, with proper instruments to extinguish fires, and porters for removing goods, all cloathed in green; and having every one a badge, with the figure of Britannia, holding a harp, and supported by the London arms, to distinguish them from servants belonging to other offices, and the badges are all numbered; of which all persons are desired to take notice, who intrust them with goods, or have any complaint to make.

The same figure as on the badges is affixed on buildings, &c. assured by this Corporation. _The proposals printed for the Corporation, in 1758._

LONDON BRIDGE, appears to have been originally built between the years 993, and 1016, since in the first-mentioned year, Anlaf, the Dane, sailed up the Thames, with a fleet of ninety-three ships, as far as Stanes; and in the last, Canute, King of Denmark, caused a canal to be formed on the south side of the Thames, for conveying his ships above the bridge.

If the traditionary account of the origin of the ancient wooden bridge, delivered by Bartholomew Linstead, alias Fowle, the last Prior of St. Mary Overy’s convent, is worthy of credit, we are indebted to the public spirit of that religious house for this structure: “A ferrie being kept, says he, in a place where now the bridge is builded; at length the ferrieman and his wife deceasing, left the same ferrie to their only daughter, a maiden, named Marie, which, with the goods left by her parents, as also from the profits arising from the ferrie, builded a house of sisters in a place where now standeth the east part of St. Mary Overie’s church, unto which house she gave the oversight and profits of the ferrie: but afterwards the said house of sisters being converted into a college of priests, they builded the bridge of timber, as all other the great bridges of this land were, and from time to time kept the same in good reparations; till at length, considering the great charges of repairing the same, there was, by aid of the citizens of London and others, a bridge builded with arches of stone.”

However, the continuators of Stow imagine, that Linstead, in this account, exceeds the truth, in ascribing all the praise of so public a work to a small house of religious, who might probably only consent to its being built, upon the monks receiving a sufficient recompence for the loss of the ferry, by which they had always been supported; the probability of this appears from there being lands appropriated for the repairs of the bridge so early as in the reign of Henry I. Besides, it can scarcely be supposed, that a petty convent could be able to erect and support such an edifice, which, besides other accidents, was burnt down in 1136, and was again so ruinous in 1163, that it was obliged to be new built, under the inspection of Peter, Curate of St. Mary Colechurch, in London; a person who had obtained great reputation for his skill in architecture.

At length, the continual and large expence in maintaining a wooden bridge becoming burthensome to the people, who, when the lands appropriated to that use fell short of their produce, were taxed to make up the deficiencies, it was resolved in 1176, to build one of stone, a little to the west of the other, which in the time of William the Conqueror began at Botolph’s wharf; and this structure was completed in 1209.

The foundation is, by the vulgar, generally believed to be laid upon woolpacks, which opinion probably arose from a tax being laid upon every pack of wool, towards its construction. Mr. Stow is of opinion, that before the bridge was erected, they were obliged to turn the Thames into a large canal made for that purpose, which began at Battersea, and returned into the bed of the river at Rotherhithe; but this supposition has not the least foundation. Mr. Maitland justly observes, that the purchase of the ground through which this spacious water course was to run; the expence of digging and raising the banks of sufficient strength; and the prodigious expence of damming off the river above and below the intended bridge, would have amounted to treble the sum of erecting the bridge itself; and that the space of thirty-three years, which the bridge took up in building, is sufficient to destroy so wild a notion; since if the people concerned in erecting it had dry ground to build upon, it might have been finished in a tenth part of the time, and in a much more durable manner.

The same gentleman observes, that having carefully surveyed the bridge in the year 1730, in company with Mr. Sparruck, the water carpenter thereof, he observed in many places where the stones were washed from the sterlings, the vast frames of piles, whereon the stone piers were founded. The exterior part of these piles were extremely large, and driven as close as art could effect, and on the top were laid long beams of timber of the thickness of ten inches, strongly bolted; whereon was placed the base of the stone piers, nine feet above the bed of the river, and three below the sterlings; and that on the outside of this foundation were driven the piles called the sterlings.

Mr. Sparruck informed him, that he and the bridge-mason had frequently taken out of the lowermost layers of stones in the piers, several of the original stones, which had been laid in pitch instead of mortar; and that this occasioned their being of opinion, that all the outside stones of the piers, as high as the sterlings, were originally laid in the same matter, to prevent the waters damaging the work. This Mr. Maitland naturally supposes, was done at every tide of ebb, till the work was raised above the high water mark.

It is remarkable, that the master mason of this great work erected at his own expence a chapel on the east side of the ninth pier from the north end, and endowed it for two priests, four clerks, &c. This chapel, which was dedicated to St. Thomas, was a beautiful arched Gothic structure, sixty-five feet long, twenty feet and a half broad, and fourteen in height. Great part of this edifice lately remained very perfect; it was paved with black and white marble, and in the middle was a sepulchral monument in which was probably interred Peter, curate of Colechurch, the architect, or master mason, who began the work, but died before it was completed. Clusters of small pillars arise at equal distances on the sides, and bending over the roof, meet in the center of the arch, where they are bound together by large flowers cut in the same stone: between these pillars were the windows, which afforded a view of the Thames on each side, and were arched, and far from being unhandsome: but these have long been closed up with brick-work. It had an entrance from the river as well as the street, from which last there was a descent to it by a winding pair of stone steps twisting round a pillar. These stairs opened into a short passage, on the right hand of which was a cavity in the wall for holding the bason of holy water. On the 30th of September 1758, when we had the pleasure of seeing it, this edifice existed in the above form, only a part of the arch was obliged to make way for a shop floor, and some of the body was divided into an upper and lower story for the convenience of warehouse room, it then belonging to an eminent stationer.

But notwithstanding all this art and expence in building the bridge with stone, it was soon in great want of repairs: for about four years after it was finished, a fire broke out in Southwark, which taking hold of the church of our Lady of the Canons, or St. Mary Overy’s, a south wind communicated the flames to the houses on the north side of the bridge, which interrupted the passage, and stopped the return of a multitude of people who had run from London to help to extinguish the fire in Southwark: and while the amazed croud were endeavouring to force a passage back to the city through the flames on the north end of the bridge, the fire broke out at the south end also; so that being inclosed between two great fires, above three thousand people perished in the flames, or were drowned by overloading the vessels that ventured to come to their assistance.

By this dreadful accident, and other circumstances, this new stone bridge was in so ruinous a condition, that King Edward I. granted the bridgekeeper a brief to ask and receive the charity of his subjects throughout the kingdom, towards repairing it: besides which, he caused letters to be wrote to the clergy of all degrees, earnestly pressing them to contribute to so laudable a work; but these methods proving ineffectual, he granted a toll, by which every foot passenger carrying merchandize over the bridge, was to pay one farthing; every horseman with merchandize, 1d. and every saleable pack carried and palling over, a halfpenny.

But while these affairs were in agitation, the ruin of the bridge was completed, by five arches being borne down and destroyed by the ice and floods, after a great frost and deep snow in the year 1282.

However, the drawbridge, which had at first a tower on the north side, and was contrived to afford a passage for ships with provisions to Queenhithe, as well as to prevent the attempts of an enemy, was begun to be built in the year 1426; but about ten years after two of the arches at the south end, together with the bridgegate, fell down; and the ruins of the latter still remaining, one of the locks or passages for the water, was almost rendered useless; whence it received the name of the rock lock, which has occasioned the citizens to take it for a natural rock; and indeed though these ruins have lain in the water for above three centuries, they are still as impenetrable as a solid rock.

From that time the buildings on the bridge increased slowly; for in 1471, when Thomas Fauconbridge the Bastard, besieged the bridge, there were no more than thirteen houses besides the gate, and a few other buildings erected upon it.

However, in Stow’s time, both sides were built up, and it had the appearance of a regular street, there being only left three openings, with stone walls and iron rails over them, to afford a prospect east and west of the Thames. These were over three of the widest arches, usually called the navigable locks.

Thus we see that the bridge in Stow’s time nearly resembled what it was before the houses were lately pulled down: and the continuator of Mr. Stow observes, that it continued in the same state till the year 1632; when on the 13th of February, the buildings on the north end of the bridge to the vacancy on both sides, containing forty-two houses, were burnt down by a maid servant’s carelessness, in setting a tub of hot sea-coal ashes under a pair of stairs, at a needle-maker’s near St. Magnus’s church: this fire burnt very furiously, and there being a scarcity of water, occasioned by the Thames being almost frozen over, these buildings were all consumed within eight hours.

In this condition the bridge continued for several years; the confusions in the state interrupting the government of the city, and putting a stop to all farther improvements. However, some of the houses next the city were rebuilt of timber in the years 1645 and 1646; these edifices were three stories high; they had flat roofs adorned with balustrades, and had cellars contrived within and between the piers.

The bridge had not indeed intirely recovered from its ruinous condition in 1666, when it again suffered in the general conflagration of the city, most of the buildings being totally consumed, except a few at the south end, erected in the reign of King John; and the very stone work of the bridge was so injured and weakened by this melancholy event, that it cost the bridge-house 1500l. to make good the damage of the piers and arches.

The stone work was, however, no sooner secured, than a sufficient number of tenants offered, who agreed with the bridge-house for building leases of sixty-one years, paying to the city the annual rent of ten shillings per foot running, and to build in such a form and manner as was prescribed. This was carried into execution with such dispatch, that within five years the north end was completely finished, with houses four stories high, and a street twenty feet broad between side and side: after which all the old buildings at the south end were rebuilt in the same manner.

In the year 1722, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council, being sensible of the great inconveniences and mischiefs which happened by the disorderly driving of coaches, carts, and other carriages, over the bridge, published an order, that all carriages coming out of Southwark into the city, should keep all along on the west side of the bridge, and those going out of the city on the east side; appointing three persons at each end to see this order executed: and this method is still observed.

Three years after this order, the gate at the south end being greatly damaged by a fire which broke out at a brush-maker’s, and destroyed several of the adjacent houses, it was built with stone, with two posterns for the convenience of foot passengers. This gate was finished at the expence of the city in the year 1728.

At length the building leases being expired, the city was sensible of the inconvenience of not having a footway, which had occasioned the loss of many lives, from the number of carriages continually passing and repassing, projected a plan for rebuilding the street over the bridge with colonades on each side, by which foot passengers might be both secured from the horses and carriages, and sheltered from the weather. Part of this plan was a few years ago carried into execution, from the first opening on the north-east end, and its advantages were so obvious, that every body was desirous of seeing it completed.

However, in 1746 the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council, considering the many lives that were lost thro’ the streightness of the arches, and the enormous size of the sterlings, which took up one fourth of the water way, and occasioned the fall at low water to be no less than five feet; as well as the great expence of repairing the bridge, which for several years had annually amounted to 2000l. came to the resolution of taking down all the houses, and to widen and enlarge one or more of the arches. Accordingly the Court ordered their surveyor to draw a plan, and make an estimate of the expence; which having done, the total amounted to 95,000l. when it was immediately agreed not to grant or renew any lease or leases of the houses, but to let those unexpired run out, and consequently the houses run to ruin. _Stow._ _Maitland._

Indeed this scheme was in part proposed immediately after the fire of London, by both Sir Christopher Wren and Sir John Evelyn; these ingenious gentlemen proposing, instead of houses, to have a substantial balustrade on each side; and after them, the author of the _Review of the public buildings_ had the following remarks, “As some people are ignorant enough to admire the bridge merely because it is encumbered with houses from end to end; it will not be amiss to observe, that nothing can be more ridiculous than this invention; nothing can possibly offend the eye more, or extinguish so many beauties as might take place, in case this popular nuisance was removed: suppose the present structure of the bridge was still to continue as it is, there would, at least, be room for a magnificent breast-work and balustrade above, and the top would afford one of the finest prospects in the world: on one hand a fleet of merchant ships, equal in value and importance to half a nation; on the other, two of the most considerable cities in Europe, stretching along the banks of a beautiful river, and ending with a distant view of the adjacent landscape.”

At length the leaning houses on each side seemed ready to fall into the river, and the passenger could scarcely forbear shuddering, when he observed that any of them was inhabited. At the same time, the structure of the noble bridge at Westminster, with the magnitude, safety, and convenience of the arches, convinced the citizens more and more of the advantages that would arise from the resolution of pulling down the houses; and in the year 1756, every one was pleased, that the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Common Council, had applied to parliament to enable them to put this resolution in practice. In short, an act was obtained, and they were enabled to provide for the expence, by collecting a toll for every horse and carriage that passed over it, except those used for tillage, till the principal and interest of the money that should be borrowed and laid out upon it, should be repaid.

These measures being taken, orders were soon given for taking down the houses on both sides of the way, for a considerable distance north of the gate. This not only pleased every inhabitant of the city of London and the borough of Southwark, but every one who had occasion to pass and repass over this useful bridge; and all whose business leads them to pass in any kind of craft thro’ the arches, began to please themselves with the thought, that their lives would hereafter be secure in the exercise of their lawful employments.

The houses and arches that extended across the bridge being taken down, in all the middle part of that structure a strong temporary bridge, made of wood, was with amazing expedition erected upon the western sterlings of the old structure, for the passage of carriages, horsemen, and foot passengers, till the intended alterations should be completed; and this edifice, which was rendered as safe and convenient as possible, was opened in October 1757.

But when the pavement was dug up, and an opening made into the cavities of all the piers; when some of them were demolished almost to the water’s edge, and the whole space where the houses had been taken down was a confused heap of ruins, that had not the least resemblance of a bridge, the temporary structure burst into a flame, and was intirely consumed.