254 OLD LONDON BIMIK;K. 



John Overy, the father of the foundress of St. Marv's 

 church in South wark. The property in the ferry, with 

 its revenues, having become the possession of the adjoin- 

 ing college of priests of St. Mary's, they determined 011 

 the hold enterprise of erecting a bridge of timber across 

 the river. The first mention of this structure is contained 

 in the laws of Ethelred, where the tolls of vessels coming 

 to Billingsgate ad pontein are fixed and defined. William 

 of Malmesbury states that, in 994, Sweyn, the Danish 

 king, when sailing up the river to the attack of London, 

 ran foul of the bridge with his ships, and in the contest 

 which subsequently ensued between the Londoners on 

 the north and the Danes on the south of the river, the 

 bridge was destroyed. It seems, however, to have been 

 repaired by the time that Canute sailed up the Thames 

 with his fleet several years later ; for, finding the bridge 

 to be an obstacle in his way, he adopted the bold expe- 

 dient of cutting a wide ditch or canal from near Dock- 

 head, at Eedriff, through the marshes on the south side 

 of the river, westward to the lower end of Chelsea Reach, 

 through which he drew his ships and completed the 

 blockade of the city. Not long after, in 1091, the 

 timber-bridge was entirely swept away by a flood ; but 

 the provision of so great a convenience was found indis- 

 pensable, and William Rufus levied a heavy tax for its 

 rebuilding. Again, in 1097, a new timber-bridge rose 

 upon the ruins of the old one; but fifty years later we 

 find it destroyed by a fire which broke out in a tenement 



ing John of the Ferry, and that the j Lane, now shrunk into Gutter Lane. 



church of St. Mary Overy was ori- 

 ginally St. Mary of the Ferry fer- 

 ries, like bridges, being invariably 

 placed under the protection of some 

 patron saint, that at London being 

 dedicated to St. Mary. The odd ab- 



But probably the largest abbreviation 



IKIS been that ell'ected in the name <.!' 

 Saint Bartholomew's Town, in Lin- 

 colnshire, which afterwards became 

 known as Botolph's Tmvn, and 1ms 

 finally shrunk into Bo'ston ! There 



breviations to which old names have j are various towns called Overy at 



become subject are sufficiently illus- j other old ferries in England, the name 



trated by the adjoining St. Olave's doubtless originating in similar cir- 



Street, now become Tooley Street, cmnstanees; tor instance, P.nrnliani 



and by another street in the City, Overy, in Norfolk, 

 originally called Saint Guthurum 



