leaves all his houses in Colecherche, purchased from the Bishop of Carlisle, for the maintenance of London Bridge, on condition that the Wardens of the same provide a chantry for the good of his soul. One lady left her gold wedding ring, while Robert Colebrooke, Ironmonger, in 1433, left " To London Bridge Five Pounds, desiring that the Mayor of the City of London may receive for his labours in this business five marks, and the Recorder for superintending the sale, Forty Shillings." Frequently also the Bridge was given a reversionary interest. John de Coggeshell, in 1385, makes dispositions of a certain kind-in default "the same lands and tenements are to go to the Mayor and Commonalty of London and the Wardens of London Bridge and their successors, for the maintenance of the said Bridge and of two Chantry priests in the Chapel of St. Thomas thereon."

Edward I appointed a Commission on the Bridge House Estates, and it was found that the revenues had always belonged to the City and to the citizens of London, who had no power of sale, but could lease in practical perpetuity. The lordship of Southwark came under the jurisdiction of the City, by purchase out of the Bridge Exchequer in 1550 for £980 8s. 9d. An income from tenements in London and Southwark, which in 1533 was £840, had risen in 1624 to £2054. In 1726 the whole charge is given by the Bridge Masters as £8907 14s. 3d. In 1799 a Select Committee reported that for the previous thirty years the Wardens' receipts had varied from £9772 to £27,848. In 1820 the annual rental was £25,800, and the stock £112,000.

In 1893 a Royal Commission reported that the Bridge House Estate was managed by a committee of the Court of Common Council consisting of six Aldermen and 31 Common Councillors. The report describes the ancient title and the character of the property. This, then, was the nest-egg from which a further brood of bridges could be hatched. The millions disposed of by the Bridge Estates Committee were an increment from early benefactions. They had been carefully nursed, faithfully applied, and were in themselves a speaking witness to London's outstanding characteristic. City churches, charities and schools illustrate the same very unique principle, which is, to preserve and extend old-standing foundations, watchful always to suit amendment to continuity—no institution so old that its machinery cannot be braced to meet advancing need; and none so new that

it is not rooted in reverence and experience of the past. Elsewhere such a fund would assuredly have been confiscated or nationalized. With us, it ministers to history and civic respon

sibility.

Blackfriars and Waterloo, Southwark and Lambeth, Hungerford and Westminster, Tower Bridge and the rest came duly into being when called for. They had their varying financial history and, with differing success, have satisfied æsthetic and commercial demands. Blackfriars Bridge, begun in 1760, was formerly named "William Pitt." Southwark Bridge, built by John Rennie under the toll system, in 1819, is said to have cost £800,000. It was sold for a quarter of that sum, since, owing to difficult gradients, it carried but one-fortieth of the traffic which passed over London Bridge. Canova said of Waterloo Bridge, the work of a private company, that John Rennie's arches were attractive enough to make a journey from Rome to see them worth while; but in 1826, when a dividend of 1 per cent. was declared, the shareholders met at the "Crown and Anchor to discuss a proposition to dispose of the bridge by lottery. Nor until 1878 was it, or Charing Cross Bridge, made toll-free. Metropolitan areas could look for no help from the Bridge Estates fund, which concerned the City alone.

To visitors from the mainland it appears even now that, as noted in Count Grammont's memoirs :

London is before anything else a port, and a sea port. It is the Thames with its docks and boats which gives the first and the truest impression of London. Until little more than a century ago the Thames was not only the way along which one started to see the world, it was unique in European capitals as the principal highway within the town itself.... One saw on the river a sight which London alone of all cities could provide. The Thames washes the foundations of that huge and disappointing Palace of English Kings (Whitehall). Down the steps of this Palace the Court might be seen descending to embark on the River at the end of Summer days, when heat and dust made walking in the Park impossible. An endless number of open boats, carrying all the attractions of Court and Town, surrounded the barges of the Royal Family. Then followed banquets, music and fireworks.

The eighteenth century engravings of M. Plantin depict very clearly that majesty of a river way which could give delight to thousands as they trafficked along it. Nor should this river aspect of traffic improvement be neglected by our rulers. If our island fogs can never be conquered; if never can the promise be assured

of Italian skies in which to enjoy Somerset House, Temple Gardens and the Tower, from the best view-point; it still remains true that opaque and fleecy mistiness, blueish-steel and violet-hued, vests with a charm, that is their own, our river monuments. Is it utterly impracticable that fleets of fast motor launches should daily ply from Hampton Court to Swan's Pier, from Greenwich to Billingsgate ? Many are those who would gladly barter a halfhour's longer transit from their homes for amenities of space and air, and for the chance of viewing the Capital in the only satisfactory way.

The Royal Commission has said nothing on this head. Its terms of reference were " to consider the whole problem of crossriver traffic in London; to report what provision should be made to meet future requirements; and, in particular, to consider the proposals, made in connection with Waterloo and St. Paul's Bridges." The promptitude with which in four months the Commission met, took exhaustive evidence, and issued a report is entirely commendable. It points to the pressing gravity of the situation. For though, as not infrequently happens to us in our quaintly illogical way, the appointment of the Commission was finally actuated by the agitation for the retention of Waterloo Bridge that is to say by æsthetic and non-commercial considerations-a solution of the traffic and transport problem was long overdue. The convenience and daily needs of eight and a quarter millions of people, ranging over 1800 square miles, cannot be any longer neglected; a population which, with the help of motor-cars, is enlarging its borders so widely that, within a measurable period, the metropolitan area will be an uninterrupted stretch from Bedford to Brighton, has paramount rights. The transport problem for half of England hangs, as for 1000 years past, upon the river. The recommendations made are bold, farreaching, prescient. They entail the setting up of a new central authority which, for finance, will supersede the City Corporation, the London County Council, and the 170 odd local bodies concerned. They entail also a total expenditure of 27 millions of money.

Much public opinion rallied at once to the Commission's view that "the existing Waterloo Bridge should not be demolished; its roadway should be widened to 35 feet, while not diminishing the present width of the footways; piers 3, 4, 5, 6, and the

arches supported by them should be taken down and rebuilt; the remainder supplied with new foundations." It is gratifying that the public now feel a healthy growing interest in what they are told is beautiful and important. Very striking signs of this growth have been lately seen in the agitation for the preservation of City churches, in the refusal to allow Whitgift's Almshouses at Croydon to disappear, and the like. And the artistic merits of Waterloo Bridge are certainly great. It is probable that many thousands had never realised how great they were, until the defenders exhausted their vocabulary in its praise. Sober minds will prefer to agree with Sir Herbert Baker" that it is a supremely good example of the simple, gentlemanlike and classical architecture of the beginning of the last century," but this does not give it the title to be styled "the most beautiful bridge or "the most beautiful building " in the world. The truth is that the chorus of praise rather overshot the mark, neglecting to point out that its site, quite as much as its architectural lines, create the value. The Commissioners are therefore right in suggesting to the Royal Fine Art Commission-whose verdict as to details they wish to have consulted—“ that in the last resort the pressing requirements of both road and rail traffic must be given the first place."

On similar grounds the St. Paul's Bridge scheme, sanctioned by Parliament at the instance of the Corporation as long ago as 1911, is now rejected. The possible danger to the foundations of the Cathedral, which such a bridge might aggravate, is a consideration which had its weight. But other likely results were of equal importance in the view of the Commissioners. It would impede the great and growing volume of river navigation. It would further clog the north and south road traffic at Cannon Street and Cheapside, by throwing additional east and west traffic across it. Much preferable is the new Ludgate Bridge, which they propose should run alongside the high-level railway to Holborn Viaduct, thus carrying traffic clear of a main artery.

For Charing Cross, the proposal is larger and bolder. Much ink has been spilled in vilifying the railway bridge, which will by this suggestion disappear. The Southern Railway Company may on this account have shown greater willingness than otherwise they would have done to place their property, here and at Ludgate, at the disposition of a central authority. What is pro

posed is " A double-decked steel bridge with space for six railway tracks on the present level, and a 60-foot roadway above, with footways of 15-feet breadth, to be built immediately alongside and to the east of the present Hungerford Bridge."

Not readily does the eye of imagination grasp the effect. The trajectory is from Waterloo Station to the Cavell Statue. The roadway northwards is to pass behind the Church of St. Martinin-the-Fields, at a height of 18-feet over the Strand. A new Charing Cross Station, near Buckingham Street, is by this plan envisaged. But there is much to be said for taking the new station to the south of the river altogether. The bridge would pass the main entrance to Waterloo Station at platform level and, descending in part by the present viaduct, branch down Oakley and Webber Streets. It would connect with a circular road designed to by-pass St. George's Circus and the Elephant. This last nodal point, the centre of most traffic going south, needs easement, perhaps more than even Cheapside or King William Street. It may well be that this is the securest way of achieving it. The transport experts should know. The mere layman in these matters is, however, fain to ask whether temporary relief, at all events, could not more frequently be attained by sub-ways for wheeled vehicles, unless the articulation of drainage and gas mains and electric cables be too intricate.

The hay market, still held by right of long use in Whitechapel High Street, has excited the wrath of hansom cabmen and taxicab men and omnibus drivers for many a long year. It is a picturesque survival from days when Bishops of London drove from their Palace in Stepney to their Palace in the precincts. But it must go. It blocks the northern approach to Tower Bridge. Conservatism has been stretched to undue limits in allowing it to remain so long. Other recommendations show the resolute thoroughness with which the whole vast problem has been examined. The report recommends that there should be a circus at the Grosvenor Road end of the new Lambeth Bridge, and improved approaches to Victoria Station; additional roadways on Vauxhall Bridge; rebuilding and widening to carry four lines of traffic at Chelsea, Wandsworth and Albert Bridges; that the approaches at Putney and Hammersmith should be improved, and Putney Bridge widened to 74-feet; a new bridge built at Hampton Court; a new Chertsey Road to feed a new bridge at