A Roman map of Londinium in the 16th Century shows only one bridge across the river. Only two copper plates of the original bridge remain, one of which is in the Museum of London.
In the beginning of the 17th Century, Southwark was the center of things. Here were the churches, the fairs, the inns, the playhouses, the prisons, and the brothels. In the right hand corner of the old map and across the Thames River sits the Tower of London.
An engraving was done in 1708 showing the most famous residence of Sir Thomas More. The French view of St. James showed the state apartments of the royal family. Queen Victoria established a precedent and moved into Buckingham Palace.
The first palace was built by Henry the Eighth on the site of a lepers’ hospital. All that is left of it is the Tudor gate tower that faces St. James’ Street. In the latter half of the 19th Century, there was a scientific argument about the use of balloons. Were they for making meteorological observations or for seeing how high you could go without becoming asphyxiated?
In 1875, four Frenchmen got up to 28,000 feet, from which only one of them came back alive. In the 1880s London luxuriated in its smog even before that word was invented and was considered a sign of the energy and prosperity of the world’s first port and the capital of the Empire.
St. Paul’s Cathedral was intended by Sir Cristopher Wren to be the central jewel of a baroque park. Merchant greed and the high price of land defeated him. During the Second World War, it was just one tall tree in a jungle of brick and stone. During the Blitz, the nightly courage of the firewardens saved St. Paul’s from destruction.
From its wide tidal mouth on the North Sea, the Thames flows past long sand flats and such ancient shore points as Deadman’s Point, Mucking Flats and Coalhouse Point. About 25 miles up the estuary the river comes to life as a commercial waterway and we know we are approaching a great city port. In 1953 the year of Elizabeth the Second’s coronation, a flood in the Thames estuary drowned 300 individuals. London is sinking on its clay bed and the tide levels are rising.
Close by Epping Forest is a reservoir and trout breeding ground that provides the city with its biggest heron and cormorant sanctuary. Plans had been formulated to convert St. Katherine Dock into a world trade center overlooking amarina, complete with various antique craft, a naval museum, a Dickens tavern, and several restored dockmaster’s houses.
Throughout its nine centuries, the Tower of London has been a formidable complex of royal palace, arsenal, state prison and always a fortress, never captured to this day. Many of The Crown Jewels, most of them dating to 1660, were melted down by Cromwell and the others still glitter here. Ancient walls are scarred with graffiti by royal prisoners awaiting execution. Sir William Wallace was beheaded here in 1305 and Rudolf Hess was imprisoned in 1941. It is a fortress of 22 towers. The moat was drained and overlaid with a lawn in Victoria’s day and most of the battle and hunting weapons are still on show and so are the mediaeval devices of torture.
William the Conqueror’s intention had been to impress the people of London that he would defend them against all enemies. Then we read the Duke of Wellington’s passing thought that, “They may not frighten the enemy but, by God, sir, they frighten me.”