Peter of Colechurch

Peter of Colechurch (fl. 1176 – d. 1205) was the chaplain of St. Mary Colechurch and the architect of the Old London Bridge.^[1]

Very little is known about Peter. He may have been a native of London,^[2] although he may have been from Colkirk.^[3] He is sometimes associated with the building of a bridge across the River Thames out of elm in 1163,^[1] although whether it was Peter of Colechurch or another architect is disputed.^[4]

Peter is definitively known to have participated in the construction of the first stone bridge across the River Thames as an architect and financier of the project.^[1] Specifically, he designed the arch structure and the Chapel of St Thomas on the Bridge, the latter of which was financed by Peter himself.^[2] By 1202, Peter was replaced with Isembert, a French monk, as architect of the bridge project. When Peter died in 1205, four years before the bridge's completion, he was interred in the chapel's crypt.^[1] Bones were found under the floor of the chapel when Old London Bridge was dismantled in 1832 which were presumed to be Peter's, but those bones have since been lost.^[1]