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"As fine as London Bridge" was formerly a proverb in the City; and many a serious, sensible tradesman used to believe it to be one of the seven wonders of the world, and next to Solomon's temple, the finest work of art ever produced.
The street was also home to many artists: here lived Peter Monamy, the marine painter, who was taught drawing by a sign and house painter on London Bridge. Dominic Serres once kept shop here; and Hogarth lived here when he engraved for old John Bowles, in Cornhill. Swift and Pope have left accounts of their visits to Crispin Tucker, a waggish bookseller and author-of-all-work, who lived under the southern gate.
There is a tale of a haberdasher called Baldwin who was born in the house over the Chapel, and at seventy-one he found it impossible to sleep in the countryside for want of the noise of the roaring and rushing of the tide beneath, which "he had always been used to hear."