Fig. 31.
In Fig. [31] I give a sketch of this angle bastion made on July 5, 1909. Here is seen the City Wall curving round from the north to the west, and against it the bastion. The Roman wall was badly cracked and leaning outward (A); in the corner by the bastion the plinth and the foundation are seen, and below a sloping bank of wet clay (C), and farther out water (W). The bastion was built of rubble, and was hollow to the base; the form was different below and above (see B). In the sketch the tile courses are seen going through the thickness of the wall.
The bastions which have been most carefully examined are those on the site of the General Post Office, described in Archæologia, lxiii. (1912). One is said to have been built in “the usual manner of random rubble”; it was separate from the City Wall, and the foundation was deeper than that of the wall. A second was built in a very soft spot. “Why it should have been selected is not easy to see, as at a little distance either way the builders could have found firm soil.” Its site was an old stream bed, and the conditions might well be the cause of a settlement at the point. This, as suggested above, may have been the reason the bastion was erected just here. (For the bastion by Giltspur Street, see S. A. Proceedings, 2 S. xxii. 476.)
Fig. 32.
Nothing very definitely Roman was found in these bastions, but one at All Hallows was certainly Roman. This is described as (I condense) “built of stonework which, like the rest, so far as they have been observed, is of random rubble, built principally of irregular pieces and ragstone with portions of Roman tile (none complete) and other material; much of it appears to have done duty in some previous building. A base was formed of large square stones a uniform height of 2 ft.; they had been employed in some former building; several had lewis holes. This base rested on a table of large flat stones 9 in. thick. Most of these seem to have been portions of a cornice. Roman origin was shown by red mortar in which the joints had been set.” The foundation was about 3 ft. below that of the City Wall, and projected into the original Roman ditch. What is called the “table” above was a square-fronted lower base; the back of this base was set in advance of the City Wall; indeed, it was 3 ft. in front of it on the eastern side and “the gravel in this intervening space was undisturbed.” This gap is specially to be noted. The description of the masonry as random rubble must apply mainly to the core of the work, for the illustrations show an approximation to courses on the face; indeed, on the east side, thirteen courses may be counted in the photograph up to a line which seems to be the top of a sloping plinth; these courses averaged about 4½ in. high. The full significance of this account is only brought out on comparing it with Price’s description of what was found in excavating the Camomile Street bastion. This bastion was founded on two deep courses of heavy stones taken from Roman buildings, many sculptured, and having lewis holes in them. These masonry courses were set 1½ ft. in advance of the City Wall, one over the other, forming a straight joint, and leaving a gap “separated from the wall by an intervening space filled with rubble” (Price) which was filled with small stones. This curious and carefully-arranged construction in both bastions was clearly with the object of making the foundations of the bastions take their bearings away from the wall so that they would tend to lean inwards against the wall; it is analogous to the arches of the Constantinople towers. This bastion had a batter or slope at the bottom of about 4 ft. high. Price describes the masonry as “rag rubble walling faced with random courses. The size of the blocks of which the facing was composed varied from 3 in. to 8½ in. thick [high] and from 5 in. to 14 in. long.” This account is supported by the carefully-executed illustrations which show coursed facings of small stones which seem almost identical with the facings of the City Wall. Such masonry of small facing “blocks” with concreted rubble behind is certainly Roman. The masonry at the All Hallows bastion seems to have approximated to the same character; there it may be noticed the courses became narrower upwards. This was certainly not so regular as the masonry of the City Wall, but it may be said to have resembled it (Fig. [32]).
At the Guildhall Museum is “a group of architectural remains and fragments of sculptured stones from tombs, public buildings, etc., found in a bastion of London Wall, Duke Street, Aldgate, 1881.” This find is best described in The Athenæum for that year. Mr. Watkins, while excavating in Houndsditch and Duke Street, found the City Wall and a mass of masonry extending 18 ft. outward from the wall; the stones were dressed and weighed from 1 cwt. to 1½ tons. “In the structure he observed a channel 15 in. deep by 18 in. wide, which showed signs of use as a watercourse. It had been filled with concrete composed of chalk and flints. The site was the foundation of one of the bastions composed of sculptured stones in character similar to those previously recorded, upwards of twenty in number.” This was the second bastion east of Bishopsgate. The channel filled with concrete suggests a gap dividing the bastion from the City Wall as already described; but see also account in V.C.H.
In 1887 Mr. Loftus Brock reported to the British Archæological Association the removal of part of the City Wall on the east side of Wormwood Street. Nearly opposite Bevis Marks Synagogue the foundation of a circular-fronted bastion was found of worked freestones and not bonded into the main wall (The Builder, May 28, 1887). A paper by J. E. Price in 1884 (London and Middlesex Archæol. Soc.) referred to the discovery of a bastion containing several sculptured stones in St. Mary Axe (The Builder, November 22, 1884, and compare V.C.H.).
