NEW PALACE YARD.

IN the area now denominated New Palace Yard were anciently situated the buildings called Le Wolstaple; because the wool staple, or mart, was held there. This mart had been held for many years in Flanders, to the great detriment of the English merchants, when, in 1353, Edward III. caused the wool trade to be confined to his own dominions, and to be carried on at Westminster and other considerable towns. By this measure he brought wealth into the country, and considerably increased the royal revenue; for parliament granted him a certain sum on every sack of wool exported. Henry VI. had no fewer than six wool-houses here, which he gave to the dean and canons of St. Stephen's; and the concourse of persons to

this wool mart produced a corresponding increase of inhabitants, so that the royal village of Westminster attained the importance of a town.

Opposite to the gate of Westminster Hall stood a clock-house, or bell-tower, which is said to have owed its erection to the following circumstance. In the reign of Henry III. a poor man having been fined, in an action for debt, the sum of thirteen shillings and four pence, Radulphus de Ingham, chief justice of the King's Bench, pitying his case, caused the court-roll to be altered, and the fine to be reduced to six shillings and eight-pence. This alteration being soon discovered, Ingham was fined eight hundred marks; and that sum was expended in the erection of the bell-tower, in which were placed a bell and a clock, which, striking hourly, was intended to remind the judges in the hall of the fate of their colleague.

On the demolition of this tower in 1715, the great bell was given for the clock of the new cathedral of St. Paul, whither it was removed.

On the south side of New Palace Yard was situated the apartment called the Star Chamber, said to have been so denominated from the Jewish bonds, starra, deposited there by Richard I. Here met the Star Chamber commissioners, whose arbitrary decrees, in the time of Charles I. contributed not a little to produce the popular discontents which led to the civil war between that king and the parlia

ment.

WESTMINSTER BRIDGE.

IT is a remarkable fact, that, till the middle of the last century, the British metropolis had but a single bridge across the Thames. West

minster Bridge was the second. The architect employed to erect it was M. Labelye, a Frenchman. The work was begun in 1739, and finished in 1750, at an expense of 389,500l.; about one-half of which sum was raised by three successive lotteries, and the other granted by parliament.

This bridge is built of Portland stone. It is 1223 feet long, and 44 wide; supported by fourteen piers, and thirteen large and two small semicircular arches. On the top of each pier, on either side of the pathway for pedestrians, is a semi-octangular recess; twelve of these recesses are covered with half-cupolas. The piers are built inside and outside of solid blocks of not less than a ton weight, and many of from two to five tons; each of the two middle piers containing 200 tons. The middle arch is 76 feet wide, the two others on each

side decrease in width by four feet, and, the same proportion being observed in the rest, the width of the last two is 52 feet; the two smaller ones, close to the abutments, being each about 25 feet in width. The free water-way between the piers is about 870 feet.

During the erection of this bridge, one of the piers, by sinking, damaged the arch to which it belonged so much, that the commissioners had determined to pull it down; but by laying twelve thousand tons of cannon and leaden weights on the lower part of the pier, the foundation was settled and set to rights in such a manner as to render it secure from any future accident of the kind.