2017 London Bridge attack

Several bridges named London Bridge have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark, in central London. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. It replaced a 19th-century stone-arched bridge, which in turn superseded a 600-year-old stone-built medieval structure. This was preceded by a succession of timber bridges, the first of which was built by the Roman founders of London. The current bridge stands at the western end of the Pool of London and is positioned 30 metres (98 ft) upstream from previous alignments. The approaches to the medieval bridge were marked by the church of St Magnus-the-Martyr on the northern bank and by Southwark Cathedral on the southern shore. Until Putney Bridge opened in 1729, London Bridge was the only road crossing of the Thames downstream of Kingston upon Thames. London Bridge has been depicted in its several forms, in art, literature, and songs, including the nursery rhyme "London Bridge Is Falling Down", and the epic poem The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot. The modern bridge is owned and maintained by Bridge House Estates, an independent charity of medieval origin overseen by the City of London Corporation. It carries the A3 road, which is maintained by the Greater London Authority. The crossing also delineates an area along the southern bank of the River Thames, between London Bridge and Tower Bridge, that has been designated as a business improvement district.

On Saturday 13 December 1884 two American-Irish Republicans carried out a dynamite attack on London Bridge as part of the Fenian dynamite campaign. The bomb went off prematurely while the men were in a boat attaching it to a bridge pier at 5.45 pm during the evening rush hour. There was little damage to the bridge, and no casualties other than the bombers. However, there was considerable collateral damage and "hundreds of windows were shattered" on both banks of the Thames. The men's boat was so completely destroyed the police initially thought the bombers had fled. The front-page of the Illustrated London News on 20 December 1884 featured a full-page illustration depicting the flash of the explosion from under the bridge as seen by witnesses. On 25 December the discovery was made of the mutilated remains of one of the bombers. The body of the other man was never recovered, but the police were later able to identify the dead men as two Americans, William Mackey Lomasney, and John Fleming. The men were identified after a landlord reported to police that dynamite had been found in the rented premises of two American gentlemen who had disappeared after 13 December, enabling police to piece together who was responsible for the attack. The men had already been under surveillance by the police in America and in Britain. While most accounts claim that there were three men killed, a Fenian History website reports only two deaths.

Nonsuch House was a four-storey house on London Bridge, completed in 1579. It is the earliest documented prefabricated building. Originally constructed in the Netherlands, it was taken apart and shipped to London in pieces in 1578, where it was reassembled, with each timber being marked so that it could be reconstructed correctly. It was assembled in the manner later typical of an American barn or modern prefab housing. The name Nonsuch may have referred to Henry VIII's now vanished Nonsuch Palace outside London; it meant there was "none such" anywhere else, that it was an unequalled paragon of its kind. All houses on London Bridge were pulled down in 1757.

The Chapel of St Thomas on the Bridge was a bridge chapel built near the centre of "Old" London Bridge in the City of London and was completed by 1209. In 1548, during the Reformation, it was dissolved as a place of worship and soon afterwards converted to secular use. The building survived as a dwelling and warehouse until 1747 when the upper storey at street level was removed; the lower storey, which was built into the structure of one of the piers, remained in use as a store until Old London Bridge was demolished in 1832.

On 29 November 2019, five people were stabbed, two fatally, in Central London. The attacker, Briton Usman Khan, had been released from prison in 2018 on licence after serving a sentence for terrorist offences. Khan was attending an offender rehabilitation conference in Fishmongers' Hall when he threatened to detonate what turned out to be a fake suicide vest and started attacking people with two knives taped to his wrists, killing two of the conference participants by stabbing them in the chest. Several people fought back, some attacking Khan with a fire extinguisher, a pike and a narwhal tusk as he fled the building and emerged on to London Bridge, where he was partially disarmed by a plain-clothes police officer. He was restrained by members of the public until additional police officers arrived, pulled away those restraining him, and shot him.

London Bridge Wharf was a wharf in the City of London located alongside London Bridge, just to the east of the north end of the bridge. It stood below the Adelaide Buildings and their 1925 replacement, Adelaide House. The wharf was constructed on the site of the London Bridge Waterworks, which had been demolished along with Old London Bridge in 1832. It originally handled general cargo and also passenger steamships, such as the vessels of the New Medway Steam Packet Company, which offered daily "sea cruises" along the North Kent and Essex coasts.In the 1930s it was taken over by the neighbouring Fresh Wharf, which built a ten-storey warehouse next to Adelaide House in 1953. Only 20 years later the warehouse was demolished and the area was redeveloped into office blocks. Adelaide House still stands but the area once occupied by London Bridge Wharf is now publicly accessible as part of the Thames Path.

Fishmongers' Hall (sometimes shortened in common parlance to Fish Hall) is a Grade II* listed building adjacent to London Bridge. It is the headquarters of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers, one of the 110 livery companies of the City of London. The Hall is situated in Bridge Ward.

Adelaide House is a Grade II listed office building in London's primary financial district, the City of London.

The London Bridge Experience is a tourist attraction in Southwark, London, England, on the south bank of the River Thames. Guests are led by actors on a tour through moments in London's history, including Boudicca's battles with the Romans, and The Great Fire of London.

King William Street is a street in the City of London, the historic nucleus and modern financial centre of London. It is a two-way street linking Lombard Street, at its northern end, with London Bridge, which marks the start of the start of the A3 route to Portsmouth.

The Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass is one of the livery companies of the City of London. The Guild of Glaziers, or makers of Glass, the company's forerunner, existed as early as 1328. It received a royal charter of incorporation in 1638. It is no longer a trade association of glass craftsmen, instead existing, along with a majority of livery companies, as a charitable body. The original Glaziers Hall was burnt down during the Great Fire of London in 1666. The current Hall was acquired and refurbished in 1977. It is located on the south side of London Bridge on Montague Close in the London Borough of Southwark and has views over the River Thames towards the City of London. The company ranks fifty-third in the order of precedence for livery companies. Its motto is Lucem Tuam Da Nobis Deo, Latin for O God, Give Us Your Light. The charitable activities of the Glaziers’ Company are mainly, but not exclusively, focused on stained glass, and are managed by the Glaziers' Foundation, a registered Charity, No 1143700. The foundation has four committees that were previously self-standing charities: the Glaziers' Trust, the London Stained Glass Repository, the Charity for Relief in Need and the Cutter Trust. The Glaziers’ Trust has the largest budget and has three principal objects: assisting with the restoration and conservation of historic and important stained glass, supporting the education and training of glass artists and conservators and fostering public information and awareness. The board of the trust sits four times a year to consider applications for stained glass conservation and restoration grants. To maintain the highest professional standards it is a condition of grant that remedial work is carried out by an accredited glazier or glass conservator. The trust is usually unable to fund the cost of an entire restoration project and normally provides only partial funding. However, such is the depth of knowledge and experience on the board that its approval for a project, even if it results in only a modest award, is regularly used by applicants to help raise funds from other organisations. The trust also supports other organisations within the stained glass community such as the British Society of Master Glass Painters and the Stained Glass Museum in Ely, Cambridgeshire. Both of these receive an annual grant to help them continue their work. The trust also supports the much-respected publication, “Vidimus”, the only online journal devoted to stained glass. Through the foundation's Craft and Competitions Committee, the trust funds several educational initiatives such as the Stevens Competition. This is a nationwide competition for architectural glass design and we believe it to be the only national competition of its kind. It attracts entries from young artists, which are judged by a panel of prominent craftsmen. Sponsors of the competition regularly commission work from among the entries and the careers of many young artists have been launched by participation in the competition. The Award for Excellence and the Ashton Hill Awards provide opportunities for those wishing to pursue a practical career in stained glass. They provide the funds for placements in working studios where mentored and supervised work experience takes place. The Award for Excellence provides 40 weeks of placements and the Ashton Hill Awards 10 weeks. The Arthur and Helen Davis Travelling Scholarships provide opportunities for the study of glass outside the UK. Recent awardees have studied in the United States, Iceland, France, Germany and the Czech Republic. Continuing Professional Development Awards are available for practitioners wishing to broaden their skills either artistically or by attaining accredited conservator status.The London Stained Glass Repository (LSGR) rescues and relocates good quality stained glass, principally from redundant churches. In addition to building closure, glass may need to be rescued and protected from the threat of vandalism. Rescued glass is available free of charge for installation in any suitable building to which the public has access. Once vulnerable glass has been identified the Management Committee of the LSGR assesses its artistic merit, state of repair and general condition. When this work has been done negotiations for the release and storage of the glass begin. Once in store, the glass is photographed, catalogued and all relevant information recorded. Only then can a new home be sought with most of the glass going to religious buildings. The LSGR does not limit its activities to the UK, and glass has been relocated in the United States, Australia, the Falkland Islands, and Croatia. Glass can be lent to museums or included in educational projects at home and abroad. The company awards grants to churches and other public buildings for restoring and conserving stained glass.

Thames Street, divided into Lower and Upper Thames Street, is a road in the City of London, the historic and financial centre of London. It forms part of the busy A3211 route (prior to being rebuilt as a major thoroughfare in the late 1960s, it was the B132) from Tower Hill to Westminster. The London Bridge underpass marks the divide between Upper and Lower Thames Street, with Lower to the east and Upper to the west.