London Bridge

Several bridges named London Bridge have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark, in central London. 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It replaced a 19th-century stone-arched bridge, which in turn superseded a 600-year-old stone-built medieval structure. This was preceded by a succession of timber bridges, the first of which was built by the Roman founders of London. The current bridge stands at 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 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 the River Thames, between London Bridge and Tower Bridge, that has been designated as a business improvement district.

The nearest London Underground stations are Monument, at the northern end of the bridge, and London Bridge at the southern end. London Bridge station is also served by National Rail.

The nursery rhyme and folk song "London Bridge Is Falling Down" has been speculatively connected to several of the bridge's historic collapses. Rennie's New London Bridge is a prominent landmark in T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land, wherein he compares the shuffling commuters across London Bridge to the hell-bound souls of Dante's Inferno. Also in that poem is a reference to the "inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold" of the church of St Magnus-the-Martyr, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, which marks the northern approach to the bridge, and the poem also ends with the lines "I sat upon the shore/fishing, with the arid plain behind me./Shall I at least set my lands in order?/London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down". In Charles Dickens' Sketches by Boz, in the story entitled Scotland-yard there is much discussion by coal-heavers on the replacement of London Bridge in 1832, including a portent that the event will dry up the Thames. Gary P. Nunn's song "London Homesick Blues" includes the lyrics, "Even London Bridge has fallen down, and moved to Arizona, now I know why." English composer Eric Coates wrote a march about London Bridge in 1934. London Bridge is named in the World War II song "The King is Still in London" by Roma Campbell-Hunter & Hugh Charles. Fergie released a song titled "London Bridge" in 2006 as the lead single of her first solo album, The Dutchess. The music video for the track features the singer on a boat near London's Tower Bridge, which is not London Bridge, but this error didn't stop the song from reaching number one on Billboard's Hot 100.