London Bridge has existed in some form since the Romans first forded the Thames here around AD 50. The present, fairly unremarkable concrete bridge dates from 1972. Its predecessor — a Victorian structure built in 1831 — was sold and shipped, stone by stone, to Arizona, where it was reassembled in Lake Havasu City.
The Medieval Bridge
Old London Bridge, completed in 1209, was one of the wonders of the medieval world. It was covered in houses and shops — some seven storeys high — and carried a chapel dedicated to Thomas Becket. It stood for 600 years. Traitors’ heads were displayed on spikes at the southern gate, a practice that continued into the 17th century.
The Bridge That Went to Arizona
In 1968, the City of London auctioned the 1831 bridge to American entrepreneur Robert McCulloch for $2.46 million. McCulloch reportedly thought he was buying Tower Bridge — a story that is almost certainly apocryphal but impossible to resist. The stones were shipped to the Mojave Desert and reassembled over a channel dug from Lake Havasu.
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