Interessant artikel over London Bridge:

In 1176, it became obvious to just about everybody that no more Vikings were going to come sailing up the Thames to tear down bridges, and the time had come to build a permanent bridge in stone. The good brothers appointed Peter of Colechurch as the builder, and Henry II thought well enough of the idea to levy a tax on wool products to help pay for it. (This tax led to the legend that the foundations of the bridge were laid on bales of wool).

The bridge was actually built on nineteen piers in the river. Each pier was formed by driving a ring of elm piles into the riverbed, filling the area inside with rubble, and then laying a floor of oak beams over the result. Additional piles were driven in to surround the pier with a protective structure called a “starling” or “sterling.”

The bridge was possibly the strangest major bridge to be built in medieval times. It was completely asymmetrical. Of its twenty arches, no two were identical. Nobody knows why. It could be that Peter had to locate the bridges piers where the riverbed was firmest, and ended up shifting each pier a few feet this way or that to build on the firmest ground. Or perhaps he designed each arch based on how much building material he had at the time. [Dragonwing]

Voor de rest op die website: tientallen artikels over tenten, en paviljoenen, en accessoires voor in tenten. Middeleeuwse tenten. Yep.