SECRETS OF ROMAN LONDON

ROMAN TOURS

9 Jan

A Mysterious Stone, Remarkable Stories of Survival and Some of the Rarest Artefacts Left from Londinium.

London is a city that owes its origins to the Romans. Prior to the Roman invasion in 43 AD the Thames was simply a barrier and a boundary between Tribes. And it was very different to the Thames of today. It was a wide, shallow and muddy tidal river that was bordered by extensive marshes, all of which presented many physical difficulties in conquering the site's endless trading potential. However this was of no consequence to the might of the Roman engineers who not only bridged the tricky river but built a prosperous trading hub on the northbank of the Thames. Londinium.

After a brief blip in Londinium’s history where the original settlement was razed to the ground by Boudica and her followers in 61 AD. The city that rose from the ashes came back much stronger than the trading town that existed before. It emerged as the official capital of the province. An international, political, financial and commercial metropolis. Much like it still is today.

It’s the largest Roman city in Britain and one that has seen constant occupation since its founding, it’s a mix mash of history and life all combined into one landscape. But fragments of Roman life that have been swallowed by the centuries passing are still being found on a regular basis in modern day London. So just what has survived to still be found to this day?

The City Wall at Vine Street

The most recent discovery that has just been opened to the public is The City Wall at Vine Street. An exhibition space and cafe that can be found at 12 Jewry Street in the basement area of this new building complex. But it’s not just an impressive piece of Roman masonry that is revealed inside, a story is woven through the blocks and mortar, a story of survival, revealing how this large section of the Roman City Wall has survived for so long.

The stone city walls were built around London at the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century enclosing an area of 330 acres. To this day it isn’t exactly known why most towns in Roman Britain are encircled by defensive walls. They could have been built to meet the needs of a specific threat, to control movement, or simply as a statement of power. What we do know is that they are often the more numerous and substantial fragments that get left behind. Originally they would have been 15 - 20 feet high and a solid 8 feet thick. Absolutely mighty structures whose removal would be a herculean and costly task. So time and time again throughout the centuries as London is developing when faced with such a might as the Roman City Wall the same question gets asked. Why waste a good wall?

So the post Roman city expands and the wall gets swallowed by development. A story that many surviving fragments of the City Wall share. This particular section found itself reduced to merely a party wall between warehouses by the 1800’s, long forgotten. Until 1905, when, during the construction of a new building here, the inner face of the wall got exposed, rediscovered and preserved in the basement. By 1979, with the Roman Wall known once again, the remaining Warehouse was pulled down by a team of archaeologists, exposing the outer face at last and revealing a surprise. A previously unknown Roman bastion that was added to the wall during the later centuries for defensive purposes, most likely in response to fears of Saxon Raiders.

The most poignant part of this new exhibition is the fact that this structure is made up of building material ranging from Roman to the 21st Century, bricks and plaster butting up right to the Roman ragstone. It’s also accompanied by the many finds discovered alongside the site, representing the whole period that the wall has stood here. It is a living monument of the entire history of London.

Coopers Row, The Leonardo Royal Hotel London City

From this new City Wall section at Vine Street it’s just a short walk around the corner towards Tower Hill and the next piece of our tour, a fragment of Roman life that is found on Coopers Row. The Leonardo Royal Hotel London City is a luxury 4 star hotel just a stone's throw from the Tower Hill Tube station, perfectly located for exploring London, only we haven’t come here to check in. No, we've come to check out a hidden ancient secret in the rear courtyard.

Accessed through the open forecourt of the hotel, is the rear courtyard that opens up onto a 35 foot high expanse of London City Wall, one of the largest fragments left in existence. But how can such a large fragment of a structure so old remain? Well, right up to the 18th Century London was still encircled by the 2 miles of City Wall almost in its entirety. Yet, the wall was being outgrown and development was causing the demolition of large sections. Thankfully when faced with these large sections many builders preferred to utilise portions of the wall rather than undertake the costly and difficult demolition work.

The story behind the survival of this large section takes us back to 1864 when Barber’s Bonded Warehouses and Vaults were being constructed. These were huge blocks of warehouses that were planned to take up a large section of this Tower Hill area, desperately needed to accommodate the ever expanding business of the Port of London. So of course during the construction when the builders came across the City Wall they simply added a few shallow windows, a couple of courses of brick on top and cast the warehouse roof directly off it. To them it was simply a wall they didn’t have to build. Instead of enclosing an entire city this mighty City Wall now guarded casks of wine and spirits.

The warehouses were knocked down in 1961 re-exposing this length of wall where it now enjoys a new life as a feature of the hotel's courtyard. Within the section that remains 14.5 feet of the original Roman Wall survives to the height of the sentry walk, and is distinguished by its square blocks of Kentish ragstone that are separated at intervals by red ceramic tile courses that strengthened and levelled the wall, everything above is an example of later Medieval enhancements.

Tower Hill Station

Most of Roman Londinium exists between 10 and 20 feet below modern street level so it won’t shock you that in order to discover one of the missing links in the route of the Roman City Wall we have to travel Underground. On the London Underground specifically, to Platform 1 Westbound at Tower Hill Station.

Tower Hill Station has a rather fascinating and complex history behind its creation first called the Tower of London Station opening in 1882 as part of the Metropolitan Line. Yet this first station only survived for 2 years, as in 1884 at the opening of the Inner Circle Line the station was replaced with a new station 117 yards to the west called Mark Lane.

This short lived initial survival is quite a travesty when you discover just what was required for its construction. As during the construction of the railway line and the Tower of London station in 1882 there was one rather large obstacle in their way, the Roman City Wall, but that wasn’t much of a worry to the builders as they had the permission for its destruction. In total a stretch of 73 feet of the wall was lost. All for a station that shut after only two years.

However that isn’t the end of this station's story as in 1967 operational difficulties on the underground network and the poor passenger facilities offered at Mark Lane, which had now been called Tower Hill, led to its closure and the old Tower of London Station reopened again as replacement, under the same name, Tower Hill. It is during this reopening that a fragment of the City Wall was discovered in the wall of the westbound line, a piece missed by the Victorian builders. This small section is preserved to this day in an opening high in the tiled wall as a reminder to commuters catching the tubes that they are passing through the empty void that was once the boundary of the Roman City.

The Church of All Hallows by the Tower

The Tower Hill area is quite a rich area for Roman ruins as we will discover on the way to our next stop passing the Tower of London. Does it surprise you that Roman remains can be found inside the Tower’s grounds? We won’t be visiting today as you do have to pay the entrance fee to discover them, however if you do find yourself visiting the Tower of London then it’s worth grabbing the free map from the Visitor Centre and discovering the Roman Bastion and City Wall that can be found amongst the remains of the Wardrobe Tower.

In Roman times, Tower Hill largely served the wide range of trade that came from the nearby river and would have been a mix of buildings and warehouses that provided a home and workplace for the families and workers that lived here. So it won’t shock you to learn that if you visited the church opposite the Tower of London, the church that claims to be the oldest in London, you just might discover some fragments of this busy trade and life.

This is the Church of All Hallows by the Tower that was founded by the Saxons in 675AD, it has cared for numerous beheaded bodies brought for temporary burial following their executions on Tower Hill, survived the Great Fire of London that was started just a mere few hundred yards away and even after sustaining extensive bombing damage during the Blitz is still open for service to this very day. But all of the Church’s incredible history isn’t why we are here, for there is a much more ancient history if you dare enter down the steep stairs into the Church’s Crypt.

Back in the 1920’s the Church’s Tower began sinking. So an exploratory shaft was constructed to discover the cause, however it wasn’t alarming subsidence that they landed upon, instead they uncovered one of the most perfectly preserved red tessellated sections of Roman pavement in the City of London. This was the floor from a 2nd Century Roman house that would have provided a home for the local workers and their families. The house wouldn’t have been overly grand, just a simple plain and solid home with the floor laid directly onto the earth. Preserved in situ this Roman floor can be seen today from the Crypt Museum alongside artefacts discovered during reconstruction efforts and even an accurate model of Roman Londinium that was built in 1928.

This frankly little gem of a museum is the result of the enthusiasm of Reverend ‘Tubby’ Clayton who was vicar from 1922 - 1962 and oversaw the extensive rebuilding that was required at the Church after the Blitz damage as well as preserving this piece of Roman History for generations to come.

The Church of St Magnus the Martyr

It’s always worth visiting Church’s to discover ancient remains. As important buildings that have always meant a lot to the civilisations that visited them, they often gather pieces of history that are often forgotten. Our next site is the perfect example of just that, an important Church in the history of London that contains one of the rarest pieces of Roman remains on the tour. The Church of St Magnus the Martyr on Lower Thames Street.

During the late 3rd and 4th Century a new threat had appeared on the horizon for the Roman city of Londinium. Marauding Saxon raiders were threatening the coastal settlements, and Londinium as a central port, with excellent links to the coast via the River Thames was of no exception. Prosperous Roman cities were rich pickings, so what better target than the provincial capital? In response the Romans extended their City Wall to completely enclose the circuit, building a wall entirely along the north bank of the Thames, defence taking priority over river trade. This construction was no mean feat and required thick wooden pilings to first be embedded into the Thames bank to provide a solid surface of support to be built upon. Of all of these wooden pilings, only one remains, discovered in 1931. Rather humbly, for what is actually an incredibly rare piece of Roman history it is housed outside the entrance to the Church of St Magnus the Martyr.

Not too much fuss is made about its presence at the base of the Church tower, just a simple plaque identifying it as Roman. But its placement is rather symbolic as this archway underneath the Church Tower is a historic passage. For the Church of St Magnus the Martyr stands at the head of the site of the Old London Bridge. This church built in the 11th Century just North of the Roman River Wall, was the first to be visited and passed through by all those crossing into the City. This once rather grand entrance and passage into the City of London is now hidden away into a small Courtyard passed by without notice, unless like us you know its secret.

Roman Amphitheatre, Guildhall Art Gallery

We are constantly learning and relearning what we know about Roman Londinium, what existed here, how they lived and in 1988 one of the most important archeological discoveries in the capital for over a century was made. This was found on the site of Guildhall Yard during the construction of the new Guildhall Art Gallery building and it solved a mystery that had been puzzling researchers and historians for years. Just why does the London road system that was established in the 11th Century, particularly Aldermanbury and Basinghall Street, swerve around some kind of an invisible obstacle?

This invisible obstacle turned out to be a major Roman public building that had been lost for centuries. London’s Roman Amphitheatre. And one of the largest amphitheatres discovered in Britain. It lies partly beneath the gallery where you can visit the ruins for free with a pre-booked time slot and partly to the south of it where the elliptical wall line is laid out in black paving stones in Guildhall Yard. It would have stood on the margins of the Roman City in an area that wasn’t quite prime real estate as here in the Upper Walbrook Valley it was a little bit boggy. But that didn’t stop the Roman engineers.

The Amphitheatre was originally built of wood in 70 AD, being rebuilt in stone during the early 2nd Century with tiled entrances, ragstone walls and a grand capacity of 6,000 - 10,000 spectators. Modest in comparison with the breadths of the Colosseum that could seat 50,000 to 80,000, but good for Roman Britain. It also did a lot to revamp this soggy area, wooden shops and houses soon sprung up around this grand public structure fighting for the best spot to grab the trade and a large area of industrial activity has been found, maybe like today evidence of the crafters and tradespeople making a living in the shadow of an arena that constantly drew the crowds. The sogginess of the area has done a lot for archaeology too as it has preserved many wooden, leather and organic Roman remains that would normally be lost to time. From wooden writing tablets, leather shoes and basketry, but most notably when exploring the Amphitheatre ruins are the presence of the timber lined drains in the floor, roman engineering that doesn’t often survive to the modern age.

Sadly, the amphitheatre was abandoned in 360 AD, robbed of much of its stone for use in the construction of other buildings and left as a ruin, used mainly as a rubbish tip before it was forgotten to the depths of time and became just a shapeless mound for roads to be built around.

St Alphage Garden, London Wall

Speaking of roads we aren’t too far from one here in Guildhall Yard that hides an ancient secret in pretty much plain sight. London Wall. Unsurprisingly this road follows the original route of the Roman City Wall and several remains can be seen along its length. We are making our way to St Alphage Garden, a popular oasis and escape from bustling city life.

Located on Wood Street, a turning off London Wall, St Alphage Garden is named after the Church of St Alphage which used to stand here. However incendiary bombs dropped during the blitz badly damaged this area leaving the remains of St Alphage due for demolition. But all of its history was not lost as during the demolition the Medieval remains of an earlier building that had been integrated within the Church structure itself were identified and preserved to this very day. This is what stands at the cut through from London Wall Road, the Medieval chapel of St Mary Elsing. A chapel that was part of a hospital and priory which had been founded early in the 14th century with the intention of providing care for the blind.

Yet we aren’t here for this Medieval Chapel as the history of this garden goes back much further than its namesake. In Roman London it was part of the 11 acre Cripplegate Fort which was built in the early 2nd century as part of defensive improvements in preparation for the visit of Emperor Hadrian. It housed a garrison that was drafted from the three main legions of the time alongside the Roman Governor's bodyguards and staff. At this time the military population of Londinium was the most dominant force even if the fort itself was only in use for a few decades. And a piece of this fort remains to this day as the fort wall was incorporated into the main circuit of the Roman City Wall during the late 2nd Century, a large piece of which stands as the main feature in this garden. The large reason that such a vast amount of wall is visible today is down to the dramatic reshaping in the landscape of this area caused by the Blitz as the Victorian buildings that used to occupy this space were badly damaged and torn down with the area dedicated as a garden.

Only the very lower section of the wall that is seen today remains of Roman construction, distinguishable at the rear once again by those distinctive red tile courses that break up the blocks of Kentish ragstone. But at the top of this City Wall is something that can’t be seen anywhere else. It might not be Roman, but the top brick section with its decorative diamond brickwork pattern dates from 1477 when the City Wall was strengthened during the Wars of the Roses. This is the only section displaying these reinforcements left in the whole of the City of London.

The London Stone, Cannon Street

From London Wall Road we are heading to another one of London’s streets which contains a connection back to Roman London. This is Cannon Street, one of London’s longest streets and the location of one of its most ancient and symbolic artefacts that is surrounded in legend and mystery. The London Stone.

Made entirely of oolitic limestone, this stone found enclosed into the wall at 111 Cannon Street, is possibly older than even London itself. The first historical reference to it is found in 1189 AD and it appears on the first map of the city in 1550 AD standing opposite St Swithins Church, a Church that sadly no longer exists after being destroyed by the Blitz. The Stone of course survived, and surrounded in superstition and myths, was rehoused as close to its original location as possible.

There are a few things that are known for certain about the London Stone, it has always been a part of the landscape here at Cannon Street, it’s survived the Great Fire of London and the Blitz and it’s not a stone that is native to London. The myths that encircle it’s mysterious history vary from being a druidic altar used for sacrifice, a stone that’s so important that if it is moved from London the city will fall, apparently a long line of guardians have protected it’s presence here and it even gave Medieval Kings and Queens the power to ceremonially take control of London. But there’s one key myth in particular that has brought us here today, one that involves Cannon Street Station.

You see, Roman Britain was an Imperial Roman Province, and of course the Emperor couldn’t rule all of his Provinces and the Capital of the Empire directly, so he would put one man in charge of each Province. A man known as the Provincial Governor. Such a prestigious title and role required the accommodation to suit. A building known as the Governor’s Palace. In 1868, as Cannon Street Station was being first built, massive Roman foundations were discovered on an immense scale. This was of course the Governor’s Palace, a building so huge that Cannon Street Station only lies over the Western Portion of this grand complex. But how does this relate to the London Stone?

Well the stone is made out of oolitic limestone, a type of stone that was first brought here for building and sculptural purposes in the Roman period. The London Stone’s original location in front of St Swithins Church would have placed it in the middle of the bustling traffic of modern Cannon Street, directly in front of Cannon Street Station or as we should call it the Governor’s Palace. Such a palace would have been elaborately decorated and it has been suggested that the Stone was originally some sort of monument erected in the palace forecourt. But what do you think is the real reason behind this stone’s existence? There must be a reason it has survived and been protected in the same location for centuries.

Unknown young girl from Roman London, St Mary Axe

Our final stop in today’s tour has our eyes on the skyline on the lookout for one of London’s most iconic skyscrapers in particular. The Gherkin. This distinctive building stands in a landscape that in 1922 was severely and drastically changed as an IRA bomb destroyed the Baltic Exchange and took the lives of three people. The tragedy left this area in a state of damage that hadn’t been seen since the Blitz. An awful devastation that affected many lives, including one that had lain here peacefully for 1,600 years.

She is known as the unknown young girl from Roman London. Her body was discovered in the archaeological investigations that followed upon the site during the rebuilding and the construction of the new building called St Mary Axe, better known as the Gherkin. She was buried alone, just outside of the boundary ditch that marked the edge of the Roman City, as it was customary for the Romans to bury their dead outside of the City Limits. It is estimated that she would have been between 13 and 17 and died in the later 4th Century towards the end of Roman Occupation here in Britain.

In April 2007, a service for the Roman Girl was held in St Botolph’s Church in Aldgate, followed by a procession through the streets to this spot here on Bury Street at the foot of the Gherkin. Here she was re-buried to the best estimation of the same funerary rites she would have received in Roman London. Marked by a small plaque and inscription in both Latin and English that reads “To the spirits of the dead, the unknown young girl from Roman London lies buried here”. She continues her eternal rest walked past by hundreds of Londoners every single day.

Ending the tour at this powerful and emotional site, it’s given us a chance to reflect upon the Romans who built the London that we know today. From their city defences, public buildings and powerful monuments that remain in our streets Roman London is still very much a part of our modern world.

Watch Here

Lucilla Gray