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115-612: Limehouse Basin is a body of water 2 miles east of London Bridge that is also a navigable link between the River Thames and two of London's canals. First dug in 1820 as the eastern terminus of the new Regent's Canal , its wet area was less than 5 acres (2 hectares) originally, but it was gradually enlarged in the Victorian era, reaching a maximum of double that size, when it was given its characteristic oblique entrance lock , big enough to admit 2,000- ton ships. Throughout its working life

230-498: A pontoon type bridge at the site during the conquest period (AD   43). A bridge of any kind would have given a rapid overland shortcut to Camulodunum from the southern and Kentish ports, along the Roman roads of Stane Street and Watling Street (now the A2 ). The Roman roads leading to and from London were probably built around AD   50, and the river-crossing was possibly served by

345-562: A 'cross building' above the roadway, linking the houses either side and extending from the first floor upwards. All the houses were shops, and the bridge was one of the City of London's four or five main shopping streets. There seems to have been a deliberate attempt to attract the more prestigious trades. In the late fourteenth century more than four-fifths of the shopkeepers were haberdashers , glovers, cutlers , bowyers and fletchers or from related trades. By 1600 all of these had dwindled except

460-540: A 600-year-old stone-built medieval structure. In addition to the roadway, for much of its history, the broad medieval bridge supported an extensive built up area of homes and businesses, part of the City's Bridge ward, and its southern end in Southwark was guarded by a large stone City gateway. The medieval bridge was preceded by a succession of timber bridges, the first of which was built by the Roman founders of London ( Londinium ) around AD 50. The current bridge stands at

575-435: A Dutchman, Peter Morris, created a waterworks at the north end of the bridge. Water wheels under the two northernmost arches drove pumps that raised water to the top of a tower, from which wooden pipes conveyed it into the city. In 1591 water wheels were installed at the south end of the bridge to grind corn. In 1633 fire destroyed the houses on the northern part of the bridge. The gap was only partly filled by new houses, with

690-468: A bridge was built there, London did not exist. A few miles upstream , beyond the river's upper tidal reach, two ancient fords were in use. These were apparently aligned with the course of Watling Street , which led into the heartlands of the Catuvellauni , Britain's most powerful tribe at the time of Caesar's invasion of 54 BC . Some time before Claudius 's conquest of AD 43, power shifted to

805-437: A coal a day; more often, according to Henry Mayhew , they achieved double that amount — during which each rope man climbed a total distance of nearly 1 1 ⁄ 2 vertical miles — and sometimes more. The proprietors soon fixed the teething troubles about the jetties and mooring buoys and the project became a success. By 1830, twenty to fifty vessels were entering or leaving the basin on each tide, typical large users being

920-494: A fleet of small barges, called lighters , relieved her of her cargo. But these lighters were used as floating warehouses, perhaps taking a long time to unload. They attracted "River-Pirates, Night-Plunderers, Lightermen, Burgemen, Watermen, Bumboatmen, and Peter-Boatmen", to the point that rivermen rarely paid for their coals, or so said Patrick Colquhoun , founder of the Thames River Police. Some inland towns depended on

1035-433: A flock of sheep across the bridge, supposedly by ancient right. On 3 June 2017, three pedestrians were killed by a van in a terrorist attack . Altogether, eight people died and 48 were injured in the attack. Security barriers were installed on the bridge to help isolate the pedestrian pavement from the road. The nearest London Underground stations are Monument , at the northern end of the bridge, and London Bridge at

1150-692: A fuel source for energy production. One of the highest, at least in Western Europe , is in Loos-en-Gohelle in the former mining area of Pas-de-Calais , France . It comprises a range of five cones, of which two reach 180 metres (590 ft), surpassing the highest peak in Flanders , Mont Cassel . One of the regions of Europe most "littered" with (mountainous) spoil heaps is the Donbas , in Ukraine , especially around

1265-508: A later legend that London Bridge was built on wool packs . In 1202, before Colechurch's death, Isembert, a French monk who was renowned as a bridge builder, was appointed by King John to complete the project. Construction was not finished until 1209. There were houses on the bridge from the start; this was a normal way of paying for the maintenance of a bridge, though in this case it had to be supplemented by other rents and by tolls. From 1282 two bridge wardens were responsible for maintaining

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1380-480: A new life in being thus exploited; for example, the flattened pile of residue from the 11/19 site of Loos-en-Gohelle. Conversely, others are painstakingly preserved on account of their ecological wealth. With the passage of time, they become colonised with a variety of flora and fauna , sometimes foreign to the region. This diversity follows the mining exploitation. In South Wales some spoil tips are protected as Sites of Special Scientific Interest because they provide

1495-649: A new stone bridge in place of the old, with a chapel at its centre dedicated to Becket as martyr . The archbishop had been a native Londoner, born at Cheapside , and a popular figure. The Chapel of St Thomas on the Bridge became the official start of pilgrimage to his Canterbury shrine ; it was grander than some town parish churches, and had an additional river-level entrance for fishermen and ferrymen. Building work began in 1176, supervised by Peter of Colechurch. The costs would have been enormous; Henry's attempt to meet them with taxes on wool and sheepskins probably gave rise to

1610-572: A new, purpose-built hollow core steel-reinforced concrete structure, ensuring the bridge would support the weight of modern traffic. The bridge was reconstructed by Sundt Construction at Lake Havasu City, Arizona , and was re-dedicated on 10 October 1971 in a ceremony attended by London's Lord Mayor and celebrities. The bridge carries the McCulloch Boulevard and spans the Bridgewater Channel, an artificial, navigable waterway that leads from

1725-467: A permanent timber bridge. On the relatively high, dry ground at the northern end of the bridge, a small, opportunistic trading and shipping settlement took root and grew into the town of Londinium . A smaller settlement developed at the southern end of the bridge, in the area now known as Southwark . The bridge may have been destroyed along with the town in the Boudican revolt (AD 60), but Londinium

1840-525: A single iron arch span of 600 feet (180 m), with 65 feet (20 m) centre clearance beneath it for masted river traffic. His design was accepted as safe and practicable, following expert testimony. Preliminary surveys and works were begun, but Telford's design required exceptionally wide approaches and the extensive use of multiple, steeply inclined planes, which would have required the purchase and demolition of valuable adjacent properties. A more conventional design of five stone arches, by John Rennie ,

1955-553: A single wider span, the Great Arch, in 1759. Demolition of the houses was completed in 1761 and the last tenant departed after some 550 years of housing on the bridge. Under the supervision of Dance the Elder, the roadway was widened to 46 feet (14 m) and a balustrade was added "in the Gothic taste" together with 14 stone alcoves for pedestrians to shelter in. However, the creation of

2070-514: A spoil tip landslip caused the temporary closure of the Scunthorpe to Doncaster railway line in England. Landslides are rare in spoil tips after settling and vegetation growth act to stabilise the spoil. However, when heavy rain falls on spoil tips that are undergoing combustion, infiltrated water changes to steam ; increasing pressure that may lead to a landslide. In Herstal , Belgium, a landslide on

2185-445: A transshipment dock in 1969, though it continued to be visited by ships with scrap metal for Cohens as late as 1980. It became a bleak, derelict industrial zone. Planners wanted to fill it in "because they said children would fall in and drown". Also, the area was blighted by traffic congestion, access to the Isle of Dogs being poor. The Greater London Council proposed to demolish part of

2300-518: A two-compartment lock, and hence there were three lock gates, each formed by a pair of leaves. Each 80-ton gate leaf rested on a massive granite pivot stone. Most of those stones — with their telltale circular depressions — have been preserved, and today are laid out on display on the western side of the Basin. Limehouse Basin now had three entrances from the Thames. The old ship lock was closed off by 1880, but

2415-433: A unique habitat for 57 species of Lichen , several of which are at risk due to their limited environment being developed and by vegetation development. For example, because the miners threw their apple or pear cores into the wagons, the spoil tips became colonised with fruit trees. One can even observe the proliferation of buckler-leaved sorrel (French sorrel – Rumex scutatus ), the seeds of which have been carried within

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2530-509: A water column driven up a tower by a steam engine), a cutting edge technology at the time. It drove hydraulic cranes. By 1865, the Basin was overcrowded. The old ship canal was not wide enough for the big steam colliers that were winning the business. It was the only dock entrance in London too narrow to admit the Fire Brigade's floating engine (a paddle-wheeler ). A major scheme of improvements

2645-425: A wooden drawbridge. Above and below the water-level, the piers were enclosed and protected by ' starlings ', supported by deeper piles than the piers themselves. The bridge, including the part occupied by houses, was from 20 to 24 feet (6.1 to 7.3 metres) wide. The roadway was mostly around 15 feet (4.6 metres) wide, varying from about 14 feet to 16 feet, except that it was narrower at defensive features (the stone gate,

2760-536: Is distinct from tailings , which is the processed material that remains after the valuable components have been extracted from ore. The phrase originates from the French word espoilelier , a verb conveying the meaning: to seize by violence, to plunder, to take by force. Spoil tips may be conical in shape, and can appear as conspicuous features of the landscape , or they may be much flatter and eroded, especially if vegetation has established itself. In Loos-en-Gohelle , in

2875-458: Is generally ineffective and injecting water under pressure counter-productive, because it carries oxygen, bringing the risk of explosion. The perceived weak environmental and public health effects of these fires leads generally to waiting for their natural extinction, which can take a number of decades. The problem of landslides in spoil tips was first brought to public attention in October 1966 in

2990-480: Is now recognised as one of the oldest surviving accumulator towers in the world and is a Grade II listed building , being open every year during Open House Weekend . Alan H. Faulkner wrote that in 1907 Limehouse Basin employed (amongst others) a dock master, six policemen, thirteen crane drivers, and a diver and his mate. The Company made efforts to diversify the dock's trade beyond coal and timber and attracted miscellaneous shipping. Before mechanical refrigeration

3105-425: Is supported upon twenty piers of square stone, sixty feet high and thirty broad, joined by arches of about twenty feet diameter. The whole is covered on each side with houses so disposed as to have the appearance of a continued street, not at all of a bridge. Upon this is built a tower, on whose top the heads of such as have been executed for high treason are placed on iron spikes: we counted above thirty. The last head

3220-539: Is that of "El runam del Cogulló" (The Spoil Heap of El Cogulló), also known as "El runam de la democràcia" (The Slag Heap of Democracy) or "Montsalat" (Salty Mountain), in Sallent , which has already grown higher than the small mountain it was named after (El Cogulló, 474 meters above sea level). Richard Llewellyn 's novel How Green Was My Valley (1939) describes the social and environmental effects of coal mining in Wales at

3335-568: The Aberfan disaster ; for example, it was discussed in a paper by Professor George Knox in 1927, but received little serious consideration by professional engineers and geologists — even to those directly concerned with mining. Also Aberfan disaster was not the first landslide with casualties: for example, in 1955 two successive landslides killed 73 people in Sasebo, Nagasaki in Japan. [ja] In February 2013,

3450-630: The Attlee government invoked emergency powers and ordered troops to unload food vessels. The swing bridge that carries Narrow Street over the Thames lock is a 1961 replacement. Built on Teesside , to get it to London it was made into a seaworthy pontoon and towed down the North Sea. Burning coal in London was made illegal. The last commercial barge traffic in Limehouse Basin was in April 1968. It closed as

3565-523: The English speaking world when a spoil tip at Aberfan in Glamorgan , Wales , gave way, killing 144 people, 116 of them children. The tip was built over a spring, increasing its instability, and its height exceeded guidelines. Water from heavy rainfall had built up inside the tip, weakening the structure, until it suddenly collapsed onto a school below. The wider issue of stability had been known about prior to

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3680-590: The Great Northern Railway , but the North London Railway opened a line to the West India Docks , whose Poplar Dock could handle the latest large, efficient twin-screw steam colliers. In Limehouse Basin, human muscle could not unload coal fast enough; electrical power was not yet practical; so in 1853 hydraulic power was fitted. Energy was stored in hydraulic accumulators (a heavy weight on

3795-652: The Roman Empire . With the end of Roman rule in Britain in the early 5th century, Londinium was gradually abandoned and the bridge fell into disrepair. In the Anglo-Saxon period , the river became a boundary between the emergent, mutually hostile kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex . By the late 9th century, Danish invasions prompted at least a partial reoccupation of the site by the Saxons. The bridge may have been rebuilt by Alfred

3910-648: The Trinovantes , who held the region northeast of the Thames Estuary from a capital at Camulodunum , nowadays Colchester in Essex. Claudius imposed a major colonia at Camulodunum, and made it the capital city of the new Roman province of Britannia . The first London Bridge was built by the Romans as part of their road-building programme, to help consolidate their conquest. It is possible that Roman military engineers built

4025-609: The basin was better known as the Regent's Canal Dock, and was used to transship goods between the old Port of London and the English canal system . Cargoes handled were chiefly coal and timber, but also ice, and even circus animals, Russian oil and First World War submarines. Sailing ships delivered cargoes there until the Second World War , and can be seen in surviving films and paintings. The dock closed for transshipment in 1969 and eventually passed into disuse. Following closure of

4140-414: The garrets as a storey); three houses had six storeys. Two-thirds of the houses were rebuilt from 1477 to 1548. In the seventeenth century, the usual plan was a shop on the ground floor, a hall and often a chamber on the first floor, a kitchen and usually a chamber and a waterhouse (for hauling up water in buckets) on the second floor, and chambers and garrets above. Approximately every other house shared in

4255-570: The nursery rhyme " London Bridge Is Falling Down ", and the epic poem The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot . The modern bridge is owned and maintained by Bridge House Estates , an independent charity of medieval origin overseen by the City of London Corporation . It carries the A3 road , which is maintained by the Greater London Authority . The crossing also delineates an area along the southern bank of

4370-428: The 150-year old brick viaduct. London Bridge The name " London Bridge " refers to several historic crossings that have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark in central London since Roman times . The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. It replaced a 19th-century stone-arched bridge, which in turn superseded

4485-479: The 1920s were electric cranes for handling fruit cargoes from Spain. The use of sailing ships to deliver timber at Limehouse Basin continued up to WW2. Labour-intensive, it was financially viable because most crewmen were youths who were paid no wages. The ships can be seen in films of the silent era; a painting at the National Maritime Museum by Norman Janes shows three 3-masted sailing vessels there at

4600-477: The Basin to be filled in to provide 100,000 square feet of offices and 400 luxury houses. It was strongly opposed by local residents, including David Owen , and was refused by the planning inspector who, however, was overruled by the Secretary of State . The architectural controversy attracted Prince Charles , who made a surprise visit to the Basin. The scheme was never fulfilled, except for Goodhart Place. Instead,

4715-613: The Basin was developed in phases, as and when the financial climate permitted. The answer to traffic congestion, said the London Docklands Development Corporation , was to run the Limehouse Link tunnel under the northern arc of the Basin. No precedent existed for such a large scale underground structure in those conditions. Since it was close to the DLR, precautions were needed to stop ground movements from collapsing

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4830-461: The City from London Bridge Station (south to north). An example of this is actor Hugh Grant crossing the bridge north to south during the morning rush hour, in the 2002 film About a Boy . On 11 July 2008, as part of the annual Lord Mayor 's charity appeal and to mark the 800th anniversary of Old London Bridge's completion in the reign of King John, the Lord Mayor and Freemen of the City drove

4945-522: The Docklands Light Railway. The dock was enlarged several times (by 1848 the water area was 8 1 ⁄ 2 or 9 acres) and, in 1849, to cope with increasing congestion, a second outlet to the river was made for barge traffic. In 1851 severe competition arrived: the railway companies penetrated the coal trade. Not only was coal from Yorkshire and the Midlands carried direct to King's Cross by

5060-638: The English canal system for their coals, yet access from the Pool of London was difficult, the nearest Thames link being at Brentford . The Regent's Canal Company proposed to tackle this problem by digging their canal to skirt round existing London to the north. Horse-towed barges would convey goods from Limehouse to the Paddington Branch of the Grand Union Canal (opened 1801), and onwards. "The Regent's Canal

5175-665: The Great soon after the Battle of Edington as part of Alfred's redevelopment of the area in his system of burhs , or it may have been rebuilt around 990 under the Saxon king Æthelred the Unready to hasten his troop movements against Sweyn Forkbeard , father of Cnut the Great . A skaldic tradition describes the bridge's destruction in 1014 by Æthelred's ally Olaf , to divide the Danish forces who held both

5290-403: The Great Arch had weakened the rest of the structure and constant expensive repairs were required in the following decades; this, combined with congestion both on and under bridge, often leading to fatal accidents, resulted in public pressure for a modern replacement. In 1799, a competition was opened to design a replacement for the medieval bridge. Entrants included Thomas Telford ; he proposed

5405-614: The Limehouse Basin in 1886. One was the innovative oil-fired Russian steamer Sviet with petroleum from the Baku oilfields; another was the American Crusader a wooden sailing tanker. The ships were designed to pump out their cargo quickly, saving valuable docking time, but could not do so at Limehouse Basin, because there were no bulk storage facilities. It had to be piped overland to barges in Limehouse Cut. The Limehouse Basin between

5520-403: The London gasworks companies. To cope with the currents a timber structure was erected to protect vessels being driven sideways (illustration). Nevertheless, wrote engineer John Baldry Redman in 1848, the entrance bore "a very bad character". The London and Blackwall Railway arrived in 1840. Built on a viaduct , its arches skirted the northern edge of the dock, sometimes actually crossing

5635-462: The Petite Bacnure spoil tip in April 1999 closed off a street for many years. Several techniques of re-utilising the spoil tips exist, usually including either geotechnics or recycling . Most commonly, old spoil tips are partially revegetated to provide valuable green spaces since they are inappropriate for building purposes. At Nœux-les-Mines , an artificial ski slope has been constructed on

5750-551: The Regent's Canal. In 1854, however, there was talk of a takeover and a link was dug to Limehouse Basin. The takeover was opposed by bargemen on the rivers Lea and Stort who did not like being under Regent's Canal regulations. The proposal was defeated and in 1864 the link was filled in. Apart from that brief interlude there was no connection between Limehouse Basin and the Cut for another hundred years, although some old maps may suggest otherwise. In 1968 Limehouse Cut's old Thames exit

5865-478: The River Thames, between London Bridge and Tower Bridge , that has been designated as a business improvement district . The abutments of modern London Bridge rest several metres above natural embankments of gravel, sand and clay. From the late Neolithic era the southern embankment formed a natural causeway above the surrounding swamp and marsh of the river's estuary ; the northern ascended to higher ground at

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5980-486: The Uptown area of Lake Havasu City. The current London Bridge was designed by architect Lord Holford and engineers Mott, Hay and Anderson . It was constructed by contractors John Mowlem and Co from 1967 to 1972, and opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 16 March 1973. It comprises three spans of prestressed-concrete box girders , a total of 833 feet (254 m) long. The cost of £4 million (£71.4 million in 2023),

6095-424: The barge lock continued to exist until about 1924. To work the heavy lock gates, hydraulic power was used; it also worked the swing bridge over Narrow Street, and continued to power the hydraulic cranes. For this purpose a new hydraulic accumulator was built with an unusual octagonal brick tower. In 1973, investigators found the remains of the tower and at first mistook it for a railway signalling installation. It

6210-662: The basin and much of the wider London docks, the surroundings were redeveloped for housing and leisure in the late 20th century. Sometimes now referred to as the Limehouse Marina , the Basin lies between the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) line and historic Narrow Street ; the Limehouse Link tunnel passes beneath. Directly to the east is Ropemaker's Fields, a small park. To warm their homes and cook their food Londoners at one time burned wood, but local woodlands, though managed as renewable resources, could not keep up with

6325-412: The basket should be full, ran up a crude ladder and jumped down onto the deck simultaneously, each throwing his weight onto a rope passing over a pulley: this jerked (or whipped ) the basket out of the hold. Keeping up the momentum, a ninth man tipped the contents into a weighing machine which shot them into a barge. The whole thing was done in silence. A nine-man gang was expected to unload 49 tons of

6440-518: The bridge itself. The total costs, around £2.5 million (£287 million in 2023), were shared by the British Government and the Corporation of London . Rennie's bridge was 928 feet (283 m) long and 49 feet (15 m) wide, constructed from Haytor granite. The official opening took place on 1 August 1831; King William IV and Queen Adelaide attended a banquet in a pavilion erected on

6555-464: The bridge on the market and began to look for potential buyers. On 18 April 1968, Rennie's bridge was purchased by the Missourian entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch of McCulloch Oil for US$ 2,460,000. The claim that McCulloch believed mistakenly that he was buying the more impressive Tower Bridge was denied by Luckin in a newspaper interview. Before the bridge was taken apart, each granite facing block

6670-494: The bridge was sinking an inch (about 2.5 cm) every eight years, and by 1924 the east side had sunk some three to four inches (about 9 cm) lower than the west side. The bridge would have to be removed and replaced. Common Council of the City of London member Ivan Luckin put forward the idea of selling the bridge, and recalled: "They all thought I was completely crazy when I suggested we should sell London Bridge when it needed replacing." Subsequently, in 1968, Council placed

6785-514: The bridge, heading the organization known as the Bridge House. The only two collapses occurred when maintenance had been neglected, in 1281 (five arches) and 1437 (two arches). In 1212, perhaps the greatest of the early fires of London broke out, spreading as far as the chapel and trapping many people. The bridge was about 926 feet (282 metres) long, and had nineteen piers, supported by timber piles. The piers were linked above by nineteen arches and

6900-420: The bridge. The northern approach road, King William Street, was renamed after the monarch and statue of the king subsequently installed. In 1896 the bridge was the busiest point in London, and one of its most congested; 8,000 pedestrians and 900 vehicles crossed every hour. To designs by engineer Edward Cruttwell , it was widened by 13 feet (4.0 m), using granite corbels. Subsequent surveys showed that

7015-431: The case of Spoil Tip No. 7 of the coal-mining region of Mariemont-Bascoup near Chapelle-lez-Herlaimont ( province of Hainaut ). It produces some 3,000 litres of wine each year from a vineyard on its slopes. Some spoil tips are used for various sporting activities. The slopes of the spoil tips of 11/19 at Loos-en-Gohelle , or again, at Nœux-les-Mines , are used for winter sports , for example ski and luge . A piste

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7130-587: The city of Donetsk , which alone boasts about 130 of them. In Ukrainian , they are called terykony ( терикони ; singular терикон , terykon , 'soil cone') because of their shape. In Heringen , Hesse , Germany , is the popularly called " Monte Kali ", made of spoil from potash mining and rising some 200 meters above the surrounding terrain. "La Muntanya de Sal" (The Salt Mountain), another potash mine spoil heap, lies in Cardona , Catalonia , at about 120 meters in height. A larger and higher pile

7245-462: The contractor was Hugh McIntosh ; the basin's wet area was 4 1 ⁄ 2 acres. The basin formally opened on 1 August 1820. The Regent's Canal entered the basin through the Commercial Road Lock , which is still in use. The original basin was rudimentary. It was not faced with stone or brick but, to save disposal of spoil , had earthen banks gradually sloping down to the bottom, which

7360-420: The courage to withstand, that great mound has borne down upon these walls, this roof. And for those months the great bully has been beaten, for in my father’s day men built well for they were craftsmen. Stout beams, honest blocks, good work, and love for the job, all that is in this house. But the slag heap moves, pressing on, down and down, over and all round this house which was my father’s and my mother’s and now

7475-413: The cracks in the pine timber used in the mines. Furthermore, on account of its dark colour, the south face of the spoil tip is significantly warmer than its surroundings, which contributes to the diverse ecology of the area. In this way, the spoil tip of Pinchonvalles, at Avion , hosts 522 different varieties of higher plants. Some sixty species of birds nest there. Some are used to cultivate vines, as in

7590-481: The drawbridge and the drawbridge tower) and wider south of the stone gate. The houses occupied only a few feet on each side of the bridge. They received their main support either from the piers, which extended well beyond the bridge itself from west to east, or from 'hammer beams' laid from pier to pier parallel to the bridge. It was the length of the piers which made it possible to build quite large houses, up to 34 feet (10 metres) deep. The numerous starlings restricted

7705-513: The earth materials from excavations be removed in such a fashion that they can be replaced after the mining operations cease in a process called mine reclamation , with oversight of mining corporations. This requires adequate reserves of monetary bonds to guarantee a completion of the reclamation process when mining becomes unprofitable or stops. (See for example, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 .) In some spoil tips,

7820-472: The former mining area of Pas-de-Calais , France , are a series of five very perfect cones, of which two rise 100 metres (330 ft) from the plain. Most commonly the term is used for the piles of waste earth materials removed during an excavation process. Spoil banks can also refer to refuse heaps formed from removal of excess surface materials. For example, alongside livestock lots, spoil banks are formed of manure and other slurry periodically removed from

7935-417: The haberdashers, and the spaces were filled by additional haberdashers, by traders selling textiles and by grocers. From the late seventeenth century there was a greater variety of trades, including metalworkers such as pinmakers and needle makers, sellers of durable goods such as trunks and brushes, booksellers and stationers. The three major buildings on the bridge were the chapel, the drawbridge tower and

8050-464: The parish of Ratcliff , not Limehouse. Hence throughout its working life it was better known as the Regent's Canal Dock; its "RCD" flag can be seen in the 1826 artist's impression. Coal was unloaded in the Basin from ships to barges. Until 1853 it was done entirely by human muscle power in a method called whipping . Four men down in the ship's hold put lumps of coal into a basket as fast as they could. Up on deck, another four men, when they guessed

8165-522: The practice of traffic in Britain driving on the left . A fire in September 1725 destroyed all the houses south of the stone gate; they were rebuilt. The last houses to be built on the bridge were designed by George Dance the Elder in 1745, but these buildings had begun to subside within a decade. The London Bridge Act 1756 ( 29 Geo. 2 . c. 40) gave the City Corporation the power to purchase all

8280-503: The present site of Cornhill . Between the embankments, the River Thames could have been crossed by ford when the tide was low, or ferry when it was high. Both embankments, particularly the northern, would have offered stable beachheads for boat traffic up and downstream – the Thames and its estuary were a major inland and Continental trade route from at least the 9th century BC. There is archaeological evidence for scattered Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age settlement nearby, but until

8395-446: The properties on the bridge so that they could be demolished and the bridge improved. While this work was underway, a temporary wooden bridge was constructed to the west of London Bridge. It opened in October 1757 but caught fire and collapsed in the following April. The old bridge was reopened until a new wooden construction could be completed a year later. To help improve navigation under the bridge, its two centre arches were replaced by

8510-494: The railway viaduct and replace it by a 4-lane dual carriageway; an alternative route was between the Thames and the Basin, which would have cut through the exit lock. The redevelopment of the Basin for housing started in 1981 when the British Waterways Board organised an architectural competition . The winner was a £70 million scheme by the controversial architects Richard Seifert and Partners. It called for half of

8625-410: The reign of Stephen . Henry II created a monastic guild, the "Brethren of the Bridge", to oversee all work on London Bridge. In 1163, Peter of Colechurch , chaplain and warden of the bridge and its brethren, supervised the bridge's last rebuilding in timber. After the murder of his former friend and later opponent Thomas Becket , Archbishop of Canterbury , the penitent King Henry II commissioned

8740-461: The result that there was a firebreak that prevented the Great Fire of London (1666) spreading to the rest of the bridge and to Southwark. The Great Fire destroyed the bridge's waterwheels, preventing them from pumping water to fight the fire. For nearly 20 years, only sheds replaced the burnt buildings. They were replaced In the 1680s, when almost all the houses on the bridge were rebuilt. The roadway

8855-452: The right state of the tide to go over. The Regent's Canal Company, short of capital, thought it would be enough to provide a small 1 1 ⁄ 2 acre basin of that sort at Limehouse. However, they were converted to a bolder idea: making it big enough to receive the Newcastle sailing colliers themselves, which could then unload at their convenience. The chief engineer was James Morgan and

8970-425: The rising demand. Thus by the 18th century the town's fuel was chiefly coal, imported from Newcastle upon Tyne by sea — hence, sea coal . It was transported in colliers , typically small brigs . Because voyages could be extremely hazardous, these were built for strength, "certainly not for looks". Arriving in the Thames, a collier tried to find a mooring in the highly congested Pool of London . Once moored,

9085-489: The river upstream was more susceptible to freezing. The number of houses on the bridge reached its maximum in the late fourteenth century, when there were 140. Subsequently, many of the houses, originally only 10 to 11 feet wide, were merged, so that by 1605 there were 91. Originally they are likely to have had only two storeys , but they were gradually enlarged. In the seventeenth century, when there are detailed descriptions of them, almost all had four or five storeys (counting

9200-481: The river's tidal ebb and flow. The difference in water levels on the two sides of the bridge could be as much as 6 feet (1.8 m), producing ferocious rapids between the piers resembling a weir . Only the brave or foolhardy attempted to "shoot the bridge" – steer a boat between the starlings when in flood – and some were drowned in the attempt. The bridge was "for wise men to pass over, and for fools to pass under." The restricted flow also meant that in hard winters

9315-562: The round trip could be booked as a holiday cruise. Leaving on Saturday mornings, ships steamed round the west coast calling at Plymouth and Falmouth arriving in the Mersey on Wednesdays. The fare was £1 plus meals. One who had tried it said it was not recommendable during the equinoctial gales. Another said there were cabins but a passenger might have to sleep in the lifeboat. Some of the earliest practical oil tankers — before those evolved, ships routinely transported oil in barrels — docked in

9430-457: The same time. The Regent's Canal dock had its own customs house . The latest was built around 1905-10, and stood on the river side of the Thames lock. Today, it is a listed building, and is used as a Gordon Ramsay gastropub. Limehouse Cut to the east — an older canal that conveyed grain traffic from the River Lea and had its own basin and exit to the Thames — had no historic connection with

9545-437: The ship and the bridge. On Remembrance Day 2004, several bridges in London were furnished with red lighting as part of a night-time flight along the river by wartime aircraft. London Bridge was the one bridge not subsequently stripped of the illuminations, which are regularly switched on at night. The current London Bridge is often shown in films, news and documentaries showing the throng of commuters journeying to work into

9660-529: The site is resoiled and simple vegetation such as grass is seeded on the slope. The piles also create acid rock drainage , which pollutes streams and rivers. Environmental problems have included surface runoff of silt , and leaching of noxious chemical compounds from spoil banks exposed to weathering . These cause contamination of ground water , and other problems. In the United States, current state and federal coal mining regulations require that

9775-644: The southern end. London Bridge station is also served by National Rail . Listed clockwise from the West 51°30′29″N 0°05′16″W  /  51.50806°N 0.08778°W  / 51.50806; -0.08778 Spoil tip The term "spoil" is also used to refer to material removed when digging a foundation, tunnel, or other large excavation. Such material may be ordinary soil and rocks (after separation of coal from waste ), or may be heavily contaminated with chemical waste, determining how it may be disposed of. Clean spoil may be used for land reclamation . Spoil

9890-452: The stone gate, all of which seem to have been present soon after the bridge's construction. The chapel was last rebuilt in 1387–1396, by Henry Yevele , master mason to the king. Following the Reformation , it was converted into a house in 1553. The drawbridge tower was where the severed heads of traitors were exhibited. The drawbridge ceased to be opened in the 1470s and in 1577–1579 the tower

10005-554: The streets of Marylebone. He built ice wells in Cumberland Market and Camden Market , also supplied by the Regent's Canal from Limehouse Basin, One, the deepest ever dug, survives to this day. Ice cream was a luxury for the well-to-do until Carlo Gatti introduced it to Londoners as street food — his penny ices. He built two ice wells at Kings Cross; one of them can be visited at the London Canal Museum . Gatti's depot

10120-413: The surface of the livestock lot areas. Spoil tips sometimes increased to millions of tons, and, having been abandoned, remain as huge piles today. They trap solar heat, making it difficult (although not impossible) for vegetation to take root; this encourages erosion and creates dangerous, unstable slopes. Existing techniques for regreening spoil tips include the use of geotextiles to control erosion as

10235-455: The tip. If spoil tips are considered to contain sufficient amounts of residual material, various methods are employed to remove the spoil from the site for subsequent processing. The oldest coal-based spoil tips may still contain enough coal to begin spontaneous slow combustion . This results in a form of vitrification of the shale, which then acquires sufficient mechanical strength to be of use in road construction. Some can therefore have

10350-428: The turn of the 20th century. The local mine's spoil tip, which he calls a slag heap, is the central figure of devastation. Eventually the pile overtakes the entire valley and crushes Huw Morgan's house: The slagheap is moving again. I can hear it whispering to itself, and as it whispers, the walls of this brave little house are girding themselves to withstand the assault. For months, more than I ever thought it would have

10465-473: The walled City of London and Southwark. The earliest contemporary written reference to a Saxon bridge is c.  1016 , when chroniclers mention how Cnut 's ships bypassed the crossing during his war to regain the throne from Edmund Ironside . Following the Norman conquest in 1066, King William I rebuilt the bridge. It was repaired or replaced by King William II , destroyed by fire in 1136, and rebuilt in

10580-500: The wars was used to import animals — including lions, tigers, elephants, polar bears and sea lions — on their way to the London and provincial circuses. Once, 14 tigers arrived in one batch. After the First World War 25 German submarines were towed into Limehouse Basin and broken up by scrap merchants George Cohen & Sons , whose business was located between Commercial Road lock and the station. Near present-day Medland House in

10695-534: The waste resulting from industries such as coal or oil shale production can contain a relatively high proportion of hydrocarbons or coal dust. Spontaneous subterranean combustion may result, which can be followed by surface fires. In some coal mining districts, such fires were considered normal and no attempt was made to extinguish them. Such fires can follow slow combustion of residual hydrocarbons. Their extinction can require complete encasement, which can prove impossible for technical and financial reasons. Sprinkling

10810-419: The water, they passed. Reportedly these boats saved upwards of 12,000 lives. On 1 January 1948 the Regent's Canal was nationalised . On 27 May 1948 eleven dockers were ordered to load bags of a chemical onto a ship docked in Limehouse Basin. Because the chemical stained their skin and clothing they felt it was a dangerous cargo and refused to handle it, unless for extra payment of their own specifying. This

10925-408: The water. Thus the dock included a small basin on the other side of the railway line where barges could enter; it was not filled in until 1926. The railway continued to carry passengers until 1922 and goods until 1964, when it was abandoned, and was in danger of demolition, but its "fine" arches (by Robert Stephenson and George Bidder ) were preserved as a listed building ; today, they are used by

11040-550: The western end of the Pool of London and is positioned 30 metres (98 ft) upstream from previous alignments. The approaches to the medieval bridge were marked by the church of St Magnus-the-Martyr on the northern bank and by Southwark Cathedral on the southern shore. Until Putney Bridge opened in 1729, London Bridge was the only road crossing of the Thames downstream of Kingston upon Thames . London Bridge has been depicted in its several forms, in art, literature, and songs, including

11155-423: Was 18 feet (5.5 m) below Trinity High Water . Since ships could not get alongside to moor there were wooden jetties for discharging goods to local merchants, but they had been built too high. There were not enough mooring buoys. The Basin was gradually enlarged in the 19th century by digging east and southeast (see below). At the century's end parts of the west and north banks were sloping still. The Basin

11270-498: Was a direct challenge to the National Dock Labour Scheme instituted by the newly elected Labour government, which had replaced the old system of casual employment by a legal right to minimum work, holidays, sick pay and pensions, but under a regime where dockers had to obey orders or face disciplinary action (although they could appeal). The dispute escalated to a London-wide dock strike, spreading to Liverpool, whereupon

11385-527: Was built on the flank of the heap. In Belgium , a long distance footpath along the spoil tips (GR-412, Sentier des terrils ) was opened in 2005. It leads from Bernissart in western Hainaut to Blegny in the province of Liège . In the United States , coal mining companies have not been allowed to leave behind abandoned piles since the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act was passed in 1977. The Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center uses coal gob as

11500-509: Was carried out. The work was done by the Company's own employees under their chief engineer, Edwin Thomas. The wet area was increased to 10 acres, the most it ever attained. A new river wall was erected. Meanwhile, it was business as usual, for the shipping traffic continued to come and go, floating in the old basin while protected by an earthen dam (see illustration). The most important innovation

11615-475: Was chosen instead. It was built 100 feet (30 m) west (upstream) of the original site by Jolliffe and Banks of Merstham , Surrey , under the supervision of Rennie's son . Work began in 1824 and the foundation stone was laid, in the southern coffer dam , on 15 June 1825. The old bridge continued in use while the new bridge was being built, and was demolished after the latter opened in 1831. New approach roads had to be built, which cost three times as much as

11730-453: Was commonplace, Limehouse Basin was a centre for the importation of high grade ice, in demand by caterers, confectioners and hospitals. Ice, pure enough for human consumption, was cut in blocks from frozen Norwegian lakes, shipped to Limehouse Basin, and stored in ice wells located near the Regent's Canal. The first to do this was William Leftwich. His enormous Park Crescent West ice well near Regent's Park has been rediscovered recently under

11845-512: Was dug some distance inland, since the riverfront was built up. It was connected to the Thames by a short canal that was crossed by two streets. It had a pound lock , and could admit ships of about 10 metres beam . (This canal outlet ran more or less where Horseferry Road does today as it joins Narrow Street.) Traffic on Narrow Street crossed the canal by a swing bridge , which could pivot out to let vessels pass, driven by labourers who worked capstans (see artist's impression). The canal outlet

11960-434: Was installed in 1661; subsequently heads were placed on Temple Bar instead, until the practice ceased. There were two multi-seated public latrines , but they seem to have been at the two ends of the bridge, possibly on the riverbank. The one at the north end had two entrances in 1306. In 1481, one of the latrines fell into the Thames and five men were drowned. Neither of the latrines is recorded after 1591. In 1578–1582

12075-437: Was intended to and still does bring the Thames into watery contact with, say, Birmingham". Later, it was sometimes found cheaper to import coal in the opposite direction. The Newcastle mine owners were in a cartel to keep up prices and, when they went too far, midland coalfields sent their produce to London down the Regent's Canal. Where a canal joined a tidal river there was usually a small basin where barges could wait for

12190-439: Was made nearly square-on to the river, but it turned out to be a bad choice. When ships were trying to dock or undock, the local set of the tide flowed crossways, making it very difficult. In the first five months' service only 15 loaded ships entered the dock. Not only ships, but already-laden barges entered the Basin from the Thames. Limehouse Basin was the third structure of that name in London. In any case half of it lay in

12305-573: Was marked for later reassembly. The blocks were taken to Merrivale Quarry at Princetown in Devon , where 15 to 20 cm (6 to 8 in) were sliced off the inner faces of many, to facilitate their fixing. (Stones left behind were sold in an online auction when the quarry was abandoned and flooded in 2003. ) 10,000 tons of granite blocks were shipped via the Panama Canal to California , then trucked from Long Beach to Arizona . They were used to face

12420-603: Was met entirely by the Bridge House Estates charity. The current bridge was built in the same location as Rennie's bridge, with the previous bridge remaining in use while the first two girders were constructed upstream and downstream. Traffic was then transferred onto the two new girders, and the previous bridge demolished to allow the final two central girders to be added. In 1984, the British warship HMS Jupiter collided with London Bridge, causing significant damage to both

12535-499: Was on the north-east side of Limehouse Basin for many years. At least 15 ice ships a year were still arriving there in 1912. Ice had six different medical uses at the East End 's London Hospital wrote their Matron , Eva Luckes . At one time it was commended as a safer anaesthetic than chloroform for "minor" amputations e.g. finger removals. In the Victorian era there was a weekly passenger service from Limehouse Basin to Liverpool;

12650-408: Was rebuilt and eventually, became the administrative and mercantile capital of Roman Britain. The bridge offered uninterrupted, mass movement of foot, horse, and wheeled traffic across the Thames, linking four major arterial road systems north of the Thames with four to the south. Just downstream of the bridge were substantial quays and depots, convenient to seagoing trade between Britain and the rest of

12765-566: Was replaced by Nonsuch House —a pair of magnificent houses. Its architect was Lewis Stockett, Surveyor of the Queen's Works, who gave it the second classical facade in London (after Somerset House in the Strand). The stone gate was last rebuilt in the 1470s, and later took over the function of displaying the heads of traitors. The heads were dipped in tar and boiled to preserve them against the elements, and were impaled on pikes. The head of William Wallace

12880-634: Was stopped up and, by cutting a 200 foot (60 metre) channel, it was made to discharge directly into Limehouse Basin. (The new link ran north of what is now Victory Place. The old link had run to the south of the site.) The Victorian era's lifeboats, sponsored by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution , were built nearby on the Limehouse Cut at Forrestt's boatyard , but for publicity were often given their harbour trials in Limehouse Basin. They were tipped upside down and allowed to fill with water: if they self-righted, spontaneously ejecting

12995-412: Was the first recorded as appearing, in 1305, starting a long tradition. Other famous heads on pikes included those of Jack Cade in 1450, Thomas More in 1535, Bishop John Fisher in the same year, and Thomas Cromwell in 1540. In 1598, a German visitor to London, Paul Hentzner , counted over 30 heads on the bridge: On the south is a bridge of stone eight hundred feet in length, of wonderful work; it

13110-399: Was the new ship lock, which was 18.5 metres (61 ft) wide, and built slantwise to avoid the previous troubles. It was 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 metres deep over the sills . Major parts were made of Bramley Fall stone or Cornish granite. It could admit sea-going vessels of 2,000 tons net register , far more than would be possible now (today's lock is built inside the 1869 original). It was

13225-459: Was widened to 20 feet (6.1 metres) by setting the houses further back, and was increased in height from one storey to two. The new houses extended further back over the river, which would cause trouble later. In 1695, the bridge had 551 inhabitants. From 1670, attempts were made to keep traffic in each direction to one side, at first through a keep-right policy and from 1722, through a keep-left policy. This has been suggested as one possible origin for

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