248 OLD BRIDGES. L'AHT IV. 



useful work by which his name should be held in kindly 

 remembrance by his countrymen, resolved upon the 

 erection of an arched stone bridge over the Medway, 

 and it was accordingly built at his charge and made 

 over by him to the public. It was completed in the 

 fifteenth year of the reign of Richard II., and was con- 

 sidered one of the finest bridges at that time in Eng- 

 land. It had eleven arches, resting on substantial piers, 

 the foundations of which were blown up, not many 

 years since, by the mines sprung by the Royal Engineers, 

 at a considerable expenditure of gunpowder. 1 A chapel 

 was afterwards erected by Sir John Cobham at its east 

 end, where collections were made in the usunl manner 

 for maintaining the structure. But it appears that the 

 monies thus collected had been insufficient, and the 

 bridge shortly fell into decay; for about a century after 

 its erection (in 1489) we find John Morton, Archbishop 

 of Canterbury, adopting the extraordinary expedient of 

 publishing a remission from purgatory for forty days, of 

 all manner of fines, to such persons as should give any- 

 thing towards the repairs, as the bridge had by that 

 time become very much broken. 



Bishop- Auckland Bridge over the Wear, and Newcastle 

 Bridge over the Tyne, were similar structures, maintained 

 by the voluntary offerings collected by the priests who 

 ministered in the chantries. The chapel was invariably 

 dedicated to some patron saint. That on old London 

 Bridge was dedicated to St. Thomas, on Bow Bridge 

 to St. Catherine, and others were dedicated to St. 

 Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors. Those chapels 

 were exceedingly picturesque objects, and were often 

 highly decorated. They were erected over one of the 

 piers, about the centre of the bridge, elongated for the - 



The foundations seem to have 

 been obtained in the then usual man- 

 ner, by throwing loose rubble and 



which occupied a very large part <>l 

 the water-way, and consequently pre- 

 sented a serious obstruct inn t<> the 



chalk into the river, and surrounding navigation of the Medway. 

 the several heaps with huge starlings, , 



