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| In 1014, when the Danes held London, the
Saxons, under King Ethelred The Unready, were joined by a band
of Vikings from Norway led by their King Olaf. Together they
sailed up the Thames to attack the Bridge and divide the Danes.
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But the Danes stood on the bridge hurling
spears down on the open ships. Olaf and his men protected their
ships with the thatched roofs pulled from local cottages. |
They rowed up under the Bridge, put their cables around the piles which supported the Bridge, and rowed off, pulling the bridge down, hence the song "London Bridge is Falling/Broken Down".
Two other timber bridges followed, one being swept away entirely in a storm in 1091. A third was built in 1163. The man who built it, a priest named Peter de Colechurch, vowed that his next bridge would be of stone. |
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