London Bridge Is Falling Down

1-2 min read
6 pages
3+

London Bridge is falling down — the full words of the rhyme, verse by verse, with the wood and clay, the bricks and the iron bars.

Read straight through, this is a rhyme about building materials, and it is a better one than it looks: each verse proposes something, the next verse says why it did not work, and the one after tries something stronger. Wood washes away, bricks will not hold, and by the end somebody has thought of iron. A five-year-old who is at the stage of building things and watching them fall over recognises this argument immediately. The bridge was real and it did keep falling down — the medieval one stood for six hundred years and was repaired constantly. Nobody knows who the fair lady is. The game that goes with it has two children making an arch with their arms while the others file underneath, and whoever is under the arch on «my fair lady» is caught, which is the part every child remembers and no adult ever forgets.

London Bridge is falling down, Falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down, My fair lady.

Build it up with wood and clay, Wood and clay, wood and clay. Build it up with wood and clay, My fair lady.

Wood and clay will wash away, Wash away, wash away. Wood and clay will wash away, My fair lady.

Build it up with bricks and mortar, Bricks and mortar, bricks and mortar. Build it up with bricks and mortar, My fair lady.

Bricks and mortar will not stay, Will not stay, will not stay. Bricks and mortar will not stay, My fair lady.

Build it up with iron and steel, Iron and steel, iron and steel. Build it up with iron and steel, My fair lady.

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Text source: Traditional English rhyme, known in this form since the seventeenth century. Public domain. Only the afterword is ours. www.gutenberg.org

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