Near the Southwark end of the bridge, on the eleventh pier, was a tower, which Stow tells us was begun in 1426. On the top of this tower the heads of persons who had been executed were "stuck up for public gaze." When it was removed in 1577, the exposed heads were taken to the Southwark end of the bridge, and the gate there received the name of Traitor's Gate.
When William Wallace resisted Edward I., his heart was plucked out, and his head placed aloft on this old tower. This was in 1305. There was displayed, in 1408, the head of the Earl of Northumberland, the father of the gallant Hotspur. There also were placed here, in 1535, the heads of Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and his friend Sir Thomas More. That of the former was first shown to Queen Anne Boleyn, and the next day "parboiled and placed upon the pole." It is related:--
In spite of the parboiling, it grew fresher and fresher, so that in his lifetime he never looked so well, for his cheeks being beautified with a comely red, the face looked as though it had beholden the people passing by, and would have spoken to them; wherefore the people coming daily to see the strange sight, the passage, even the bridge, was so stopped with their going and coming, that almost neither cart nor horse could pass; therefore at the end of fourteen days the executioner was commanded to throw down the head in the night time into the river of Thames, and in place thereof was set the head of the most blessed and constant martyr, Sir Thomas More, his companion in all his troubles.
The German traveller Hentuner, who was here in 1597, records, that he saw above thirty heads at one time; and some old prints of the tower show its roof nearly covered by spiked skulls.
The bridge remained till the year 1832 when the present structure was built. During the long interval it was often endangered by fire,--once in 1212, as Stow relates:--
A great fire enveloped the church of St. Mary Overy's, which extended to the bridge, and, sweeping into it, struck a vast crowd of people who were collected upon it, who were hemmed in thus between two advancing masses of flame, and thus perished miserably above 3,000 persons, whose bodies were found in part or half burned, beside those that were wholly burned to ashes and could not be found.