Shooting Old London Bridge...

This is Old London Bridge. For centuries this the only way to cross the River Thames. Rather than go on about the history of the Bridge and who lived on it etc; how about we talk about something utterly fucked up and insane that people did for kicks?

Something that shows that human beings, no matter what age we live in, have never changed and tend to do dumb shit no matter what era they are to be found?

Alright, today I'm gonna talk about an absolutely sphincter-tightening terror inducing medieval/Elizabethan white knuckle thing called ‘Shooting the Bridge’ (or occasionally ‘Shooting the Moon’).
The deadly water ride of medieval/Tudor London.

OK so some fun facts about Old London Bridge and the river it's built over. The Thames was a serious river. The tides would see it rise or fall up to six feet on a normal day. But heavy rains or a strong tide would see water surge and make the river faster. Keep this in mind.

Now if you want to 'shoot the bridge' tradition dictates you fall into one of two categories. Category one would be brave (and dumb) river men who wished to show off their skills by daring to do this. But that takes years of training/experience to get that good and the experienced guys would not go full retard on this ride.

And to get it you have to go full retard.

The other category were drunks. See the bridge links London to Southwark and Southwark was famed as the 'party zone' of London. The red light district, the gambling dens, a place where folks went to let their hair down. So you would get a load of guys who would go to Southwark, get properly drunk and then get it into their heads to shoot the bridge.

And because they usually had been partying all day?
They often did this madness at night (where the 'shoot the moon' term came from I believe).

How drunk were they usually?

You know that level of drunk you get where someone suggests something really stupid (stuff you would never do when sober) and you all like, “Yeah man that’s a great idea”?

You need to be THAT drunk to get on this ride.

OK, so once that is sorted, you and your companions would get yourself a boat. A small one- preferably a rowing boat. You would row out into the middle of the river opposite St Paul’s, and then start rowing towards the bridge itself. Giggle lots. At least one should say “This is gonna be fuckin’ awesome” at this point.

Now you may have noticed that Old London Bridge was built upon a series of giant struts in the river. They were called 'starlings'. These made the river narrow and forces it through channels going at a fair speed. Added to that there were water wheels at both ends- these slow down the flow of water at the ends, speeding up the flow towards the centre.

What is rarely shown in pictures however is that the Thames contains quite a bit of shit in it. Branches from trees upstream, discarded furniture, general rubbish- the flotsam and jetsam of a major river running through a populated area. This rubbish is swept down towards the Bridge by the strong tides and quite a bit gets tangled in the struts below. This creates a debris field. In time this catches more junk. The crap stuck to the starlings of the bridge increases in size and as such?

It narrows the gap. The river flows even faster through the narrower gap. This draws more junk and…

You get the picture. Aside from a few channels kept specifically clear for the progress of boats up and down the river, most of the gaps were stupidly narrow. Filled will insanely fast white water, and strewn with debris that will tear the shit out of your boat. In some cases? It might as well be a weir. A weir with jagged bits.

Have I mentioned that the river Thames is an insanely powerful river and as well as the tides it's got some vicious undercurrents and hidden rip tides and if you fall in the chances of making it are virtually zero?

Oh. I should have. Because yes, this river is deadly. Falling in is fucking suicide. Especially near the bridge.

So by now you and your bros would have suddenly sobered up enough to realise that if you capsize, hit debris, get stuck in the gap or fall out for any reason? You’re gonna drown.

But hey- what’s life without a little risk eh?

So you would grab hold of the sides, scream for your mother and partake in the ritual of showing how fucking insane you are by shooting through one of the scary ass gaps in the Bridge supports. If it works? You will fly out the other side, having experienced a proper adrenaline high (and added a new piss stain to your leggings).
If you wipe out?

They’ll probably find your body in Deptford.

This was a thing. The sheer numbers registered as having 'drowned at the bridge' show it was a thing for a while. In 1700 Thomas Pennant said about London Bridge, that the people living in the houses built on it "soon grew deaf to the noise of the falling waters, the clamour of watermen, or the frequent shrieks of drowning wretches."

So when we sit there and lament young folks munching down in tide pods, or taking up BASE jumping, or bungee jumping or whatever weird hobby they do which could end in their deaths, do remember- we humans have always had the urge to shoot the moon. Whatever that moon may be. It's in our souls.

Hope you enjoyed.

This whole thing came from an previous post I did about Elizabethan London that was basically just too fricken long. So I decided to just extract fun parts.

(I have sources galore on this but every time I try and post this with the sources it marked it as spam- so will send sources for any who wish em)

Edit: FP and most viral award... it's a quiet day huh?
Sends boobs or pictures of couples blooooping. Be good to one another.