In 1968 the worlds largest antique went to America.

But how do you transport a 130-year-old bridge 3,000 miles?

And why did Robert P. McCulloch, a multimillionaire oil baron and chainsaw-manufacturing king, buy it?

Why did he ship it to a waterless patch of the Arizonan desert?

Did he even get the right bridge?

To answer these questions, its necessary to meet a peculiar cast.

Fleet Street shysters · Revolutionary Radicals · Frock-coated industrialists · Disneyland designers · Thames dockers · Guinness Book of Records officials · The odd Lord Mayor · Bridge-building priests · Gun-toting U.S. sheriffs · An Apache Indian or two

And a fraudster whose greatest trick was to convince the world he ever existed

Roll up, then, for the story of one of the strangest events in Anglo-American relations. Curious, clever and sharp, this is history to delight in.

Travis Elborough is the author of four acclaimed books,The Bus We Loved, a history of the Routemaster bus;The Long Player Goodbye, a hymn to vinyl records;Wish You Were Here, a history of the British beside the seaside; andLondon Bridge in America, which tells the transatlantic story of the sale of the world's largest antique. Travis regularly appears on Radio 4 and writes for theGuardian.

A brilliantly entertaining look at just what happened when London Bridge was sold and shipped to America.