London Bridge today is not the same London Bridge that crossed the Thames when it was first built. Peter, a priest and chaplain of St. Mary's of Colechurch, began the foundation of the original bridge in 1176 to replace a wooden bridge (expensive to maintain and repeatedly burned down) that had first been built by the Romans.
The original London Bridge consisted of nineteen pointed arches, each with a span averaging 7 meters, and built on 6-metre-wide piers. A twentieth opening in the bridge was spanned by a wooden drawbridge. With the building of this bridge, a peculiar effect was discovered the tide roared through the narrow arches every day with great force; in fact, it was so dramatically affected that it created temporary 5-foot-high cataracts every day as it went in and out..
A new sport based on this nifty effect was "shooting the bridge" or slipping through the arches in a small boat when the tide was turning.
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