Tickets Alert: See the City of London’s bridge archive documents

Next month, you will have a rare chance to see some of the earliest archive documents relating to some of the bridges over the Thames — many on display for the first time.

Amy Proctor and Natasha Luck with the contract drawings for the rebuilding of Southwark Bridge from 1912 (c) City of London

The items on display form part of a vast collection amassed by the the 900-year-old charity City Bridge Foundation, custodian of the Tower, London, Southwark, Millennium, and Blackfriars bridges.

Archivists at The London Archives are currently working with City Bridge Foundation to collect and consolidate a definitive record of the historic charity. This will bring together in one place records previously held in various locations due to its complex history and governance.

Items on display include the foundation’s original Royal Charter, from 1282, in which King Edward I confers on the City of London various properties and rents deriving from them to them and to their heirs for ever, for the support of the… Bridge’.

Also viewable will be a volume of Bridgemasters’ Annual Accounts and Rental, 1484-1509; contract drawings for the reconstruction of Southwark Bridge from 1912 and a rarely seen 1968 educational film about Tower Bridge which was shown in schools.

Detail by John Normanvyle within the Bridgemasters’ Annual Account and Rental, 1484-1509 (c) City of London

The documents will be on view at The London Archives in Clerkenwell, on Friday 11th October 2024.

There will be three one-hour sessions at 11am, noon and 2pm.

Entry is free, but places must be booked in advance from here.