There is an internet tradition of capturing photos of windows error messages in unusual and very public locations.

Today I finally saw my first one in real life, and as a value added bonus, the screen was displaying an advert for Microsoft products.

Thank you London Bridge train station.

It seems the two London Bridges, the current and the later are on Twitter and have been having a bit of a childish spat! For clarity, Tower Bridge has its own Twitter account as well, although it has maintained a dignified silence so far.

London Bridge is the one in Arizona, and I’m London Bridge is the current resident of the spot on the Thames

–

I’m London Bridge – Yaaaaawn. That was a good sleep. What did I miss? Did @TowerBridge do something interesting? No, I expect not.

London Bridge – It seems my kid sister @ImLondonBridge is being beastly about our cousin @TowerBridge. Grow up, you two, this isn’t Myspace.

London Bridge – And you, @ImLondonBridge, when was the last time you did anything? You’ve never even moved. Unlike some of us.

I’m London Bridge – @London_Bridge Hey bro, I do move. A little. The geniuses who designed me allowed me to expand and contract according to the weather.

Bizarre!

I wonder if the original London Bridge will start Tweeting from wherever it is that bridges go to when they die?

Tomorrow (Sat) will mark either the laying of the foundation stone, or the completion of the construction of the first London Bridge – the date seems a bit confused. Now, a new study at the University of Leicester has uncovered a tale of corruption, mismanagement, financial crisis and a property crash that resulted in the downfall of the Old London Bridge- the capital’s last ‘living bridge’.

Obviously, the University of Leicester is the most suitable place to study a bridge in London.

However, that slight quibble aside, the study (due to be published shortly) does make for some interesting reading of a bit of the old bridge’s history that I wasn’t aware of. While it is well known that the bridge was lined with shops and a couple of churches, it seems that there was a tradition of incompetence and downright fraud in maintaining the bridge.

© English Heritage

According to Mark Latham at the University of Leicester’s Centre for Urban History: “What I discovered was that the organisation that managed the bridge at that time was plagued with incompetent management and corruption. Both workmen and their managers charged inflated prices for materials and labour, the management left rents uncollected, and on several occasions the workmen were found to have deliberately and almost fatally damaged the Bridge in order to charge for its repair.

“Furthermore, managers often paid for improvements to their own houses out of the coffers of the Trust running the Bridge.”

To try and boost the income, the managers decided to pull down some shops and replace them with posh houses, thinking that the river view would make them desirable. A river view is indeed today a very desirable sight, but at the time, with all the river trade going on, it would have been the equivalent of living next to a motorway service station. Hardly the most luxurious of locations, and it is not surprising that the project failed.

Haemorrhaging cash, the members of the Trust petitioned Parliament in 1755 for the funds to demolish all the properties on the bridge and in 1756 the whole lot came down – and in turn changing the concept of a river bridge from a normal street that just happened to be over a river – to being a “transport only” thoroughfare that we are familiar with now.

Bridges are now a transition from one side to the other, and not a place to linger unless you are a tourist.

© Peter Jackson FSA

Considering that the Trust managing the bridge was evidently almost bankrupt in 1755, it is impressive that the Trust, still operating today is so rich that it had to seek a change to its charter to allow its annual surplus to be spent on something other than maintaining London’s Bridges.

As part of the 800th Anniversary celebrations, the Bridge will be closed to traffic tomorrow and a trades fair will be set up, along with several attempts to drive the infamous sheep over the bridge.

A museum of the history of the London Bridge is being built at the moment, and will open in the arches under London Bridge on the Southern side, which is technically a part of the City of London.

Fancy acting like a Freeman of the City of London and drive some sheep over London Bridge? Well, you can as it happens as London Bridge’s 800th Anniversary celebrations will include a sheep driving event – and even “ordinary” folk can apply to join in.

As the festival is part of the Lord Mayor’s Appeal – a charity – they are naturally expecting people to pay for the privilege. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound cheap – being a traditional groat, which is the old name for four silver pennies. Four ordinary pennies I could afford, but silver ones sound a bit out of my budget.

Apart from the sheep driving, the whole bridge will be pedestrianised for the day, and a whole range of livery guilds will be there displaying their wares. If it is similar (and it sounds like it) to the street market held last year in Cheapside, then it should be a good bit of fun to wander along to watch the festivities.

Sheep drives will happen at 10:30am, 1pm and 2:30pm on Saturday 11th July.

Frustratingly, according to Diamond Geezer’s chart, the Jubilee Line to London Bridge, won’t be working that weekend.

The Lord Mayor’s Appeal has a range of other events occurring this year, and while some of them do appeal to my tastes, they tend to scare my somewhat depleted wallet. Which is a shame.

Somewhat cheaper though is a rather nice idea – a collection of Trump Cards featuring “London’s Greatest Buildings”, and five packs will contain, Willy Wonka style, Golden Tickets to enjoy tea at Mansion House.

Slightly more bizarrely though, they are also offering jars of Mansion House Kumquat Preserve, stirred by the Lord Mayor himself. Being of a mischievous bent, I had evil thoughts to persuade a major supermarket to buy a few thousand jars. The Rumpelstiltskin-esque vision of the Lord Mayor having to stir every jar brings a smile to my perverted mind.

As a final comment, the story that you had to be a Freeman of the City to drive sheep across London Bridge is not entirely true. Like most stories though, it has a kernel of truth.

As it happened, anyone was able to drive sheep, or any animal (excepting fire breathing dragons) across London Bridge. However, London Bridge was a toll bridge and you had to pay a fee to take your animals across – unless you were a Freeman, in which case it was, self-evidently, free.

This made a big difference, as a Freeman would be able to sell his (or occasionally, her) cattle at the same price, but as they hadn’t paid the bridge toll, their profit margin would be higher. The commercial benefit was also one of the reasons why a person granted a Freedom had to pay a sizeable fine to the City Commissioners for the title.

Over time, the story built up that only Freemen could drive sheep over the Bridge – mainly as they were probably the only people to bother.

The tolls raised by that early London Bridge are still in use – as part of the Bridge House Trust, which to this very day continues to fund the maintenance of the Bridges across the river within the City boundries at no cost to the taxpayer.

The Shard, a super-tall skyscraper which will start rising up over London will be very visible from my flat when finished – to the point of being the dominant item on the skyline.

I have wanted for some time to mock-up an image of what I will see when I look up from my computer and gaze outwards – and thanks to a new image over on Skyscraper News and a bit of rudimentary fiddling with graphics software – I present the following:

I’d expect the colours to be less vibrant when it is built as I am trying to overlay a summers evening picture onto a photo of the skyline I took this afternoon and don’t have the skills to fiddle with such things.

Thanks to optical thingymajigs which make a camera photo of landscapes seem different to how humans see it – I expect the building to be more dominant in my human skyline, as the Guys Hospital building seems at least a third larger from my desk than shown here.

Incidentally, SkyscraperNews (yes, them again) have also mocked up a map of what parts of the South-East will be visible from the top of The Shard. Yes to Windsor Castle and Cambridge – but also yes to Croydon and Southampton.