Canaletto drew St Magnus and old London Bridge as they appeared in the late 1740s. Between 1756 and 1762, under the London Bridge Improvement Act of 1756 (c. 40), the Corporation of London demolished the buildings on London Bridge to widen the roadway, ease traffic congestion and improve safety for pedestrians. The churchwardens’ accounts of St Magnus list many payments to those injured on the Bridge and record that in 1752 a man was crushed to death between two carts. In the summer of 1724 the churchwardens had been obliged to spend 1/6 on "Expenses with the churchwardens of Woodford about taking away their pentioner Jane Taverner killed a cart on the Bridge"