Londinium, Architecture and the Crafts

by W. R. Lethaby

Fig. 40.

The Roman ditch outside Aldersgate, with a foundation for a bridge pointing towards the gate, was found about thirty years ago, and this is evidence for a Roman gate on this site (Archæol. lii.). Ludgate is guaranteed as Roman by the antiquity of the Strand and Fleet Street. Stow says that in 1595 he observed on the north side of Fleet Street from Chancery Lane to St. Dunstan’s Church, 4 ft. below the surface, “a pavement of hard stone, more sufficient than the first, under which they found in the made ground piles of timber almost close together, the same being black as pitch and rotten, which proved that the ground there, as sundry other places of the City, had been a marsh.” Close piling was such a common Roman procedure that it may not be doubted that what Stow observed was the Roman road to Ludgate.

Mediæval Aldgate can be restored very fully by comparing the plan mentioned above with the view of the City given by Braun and Hogenberg (c. 1550). The gate is so accurately represented that two stair turrets appear over the positions where stairs are shown in the plan. If this gate is so accurately drawn, then the other indications may be accepted. In the Pepys collection, Cambridge, is an engraved view of a gate dated 1688; in the list of contents this is described as Cripplegate, but I believe it is rather Bishopsgate. It was an unaltered mediæval structure, with corbelled battlements and three statues in niches, one on each of the towers and one in the centre. Newgate is also represented in a woodcut view of about the same time, and in an engraving of considerable accuracy, from a book entitled Herba Parietis; here even Whittington’s coat-of-arms plainly appears. For a possible view of the Bridge gate, c. 1416, see an article by Mr. Weale in the Burlington Magazine, 1904.

A Roman road on piles has recently been found in Southwark (Archæol. lxiii.). Adding the Bridge gate, we now have evidence for the existence in Roman days of the six chief gates of Londinium. It has been suggested that there may have been an earth bank inside the walls, as at Silchester, but the different relation of the fronts of the gates to the walls in London are contrary arguments.

Ditches.—When the site of Newgate was excavated I saw the slope of the ditch clearly defined by the blacker earth lying above the clean yellow gravel. The latest and clearest account of the ditches is in Archæologia, lxiii. There was first a narrow V-shaped ditch dug when the wall was first built. A second wider ditch was excavated outside the other, which was at least partly filled when the bastions were built. There were similar double ditches at Silchester, and it has been pointed out that there the earlier V-shaped ditch probably supplied the gravel for building the wall; possibly this was the case at London too. The wide ditch was probably further expanded in front of the gates; it was about 75 ft. wide at the top of the bank outside Aldersgate.

The Original Port of London and the Bridge.—The space within the completed walls has been computed to have been about 330 acres by Dr. Philip Norman. Dr. Haverfield says: “At London, Silchester, Trier, Cologne, the walls seem to have enclosed the town at near its largest” (Romanization). Roach Smith first remarked that from the position of burials within the area of the City we might infer the position of an earlier Londinium. Loftus Brock also, following Woodward, in pointing out that the northern cemetery had come within the space enclosed by the City Wall at Bishopsgate, used the same argument. Mr. Reginald Smith plotted all the known burials on a plan. Mr. Lambert has also laid down the find spots of coins of different dates. In his recent paper in Archæology he suggests that a stratum of charred material between London Bridge and the Walbrook represents the early Londinium destroyed by Boadicea. A large number of rubbish pits have been found within the walls. Putting these facts together it is evident that the original site of Londinium must have been by the inlet of the Walbrook, and it is probable that this little tidal creek was the first port of London—the seaport of Celtic Verulam, to which an old road led by Aldersgate and Islington. It is likely that before the Roman walls were built some defensive bank would have been thrown up between the Fleet and the Walbrook; compare the earth banks at Colchester. Can Barbican represent such a defence?

London Bridge is mentioned in the tenth century. Stow tells us that it was first of timber. Then in 1067 a charter speaks of “Botolph’s Gate, with a wharf which was at the head of London Bridge.” He goes on: “About the year 1176 the stone bridge was begun near unto the bridge of timber, but towards the west, for Botolph’s wharf was, in the Conqueror’s time, at the head of London Bridge.”

Nothing was known of a Roman bridge until last century. Then when the old stone bridge was destroyed evidence was found which convinced observers of the time that a Roman bridge had preceded it on the same line. Recently some writers, while accepting the Roman bridge as proved, have preferred to put it back to Stow’s line. Haverfield says: “No traces of a Roman bridge have yet been found (Archæologia, lx.): the oldest mediæval bridge (eleventh century) is said by Stow to have been near Botolph’s wharf (see plan).” This plan shows the bridge “temp. William the Conqueror” far to the east of Fish Street Hill (see also V.C.H.). Exactly what Haverfield meant by saying that no traces of the bridge had been found is hard to say; it seems to have been as loose a statement as the one which seems to imply that the earliest mediæval bridge was of the eleventh century.

Roach Smith, a cautious observer, was entirely convinced by the evidence that the mediæval bridge followed the course of the Roman bridge. “Throughout the line of the old bridge many thousands of Roman coins, with abundance of Roman pottery, were discovered, and beneath some of the central piles brass medallions of Aurelius, Faustina and Commodus. The enormous quantity of Roman coins may be accounted for by the practice of the Romans ... they may have been deposited upon the building or repairs of the bridge, as well as upon the accession of a new emperor.... The beautiful works of art which were discovered alongside the foundations, the colossal bronze head of Hadrian, the bronze images of Apollo, Mercury, Atys ... and other relics were possibly thrown into the river by early Christians” (Archæol. Jour., vol. i.). This seems substantial evidence. The charter cited by Stow only speaks of a wharf as being at the head of London Bridge; it does not tell us that the bridge ran into the middle of the wharf. The Roman bridge was linked up with an approach from the south over a raised causeway; the bridge-ends would have required much consolidation, and the foundations in the great tidal river must have been extremely difficult to construct. We should need very clear demonstration before we could believe that the early Saxons did more than patch up the work of skilled Roman engineers. Altering of the bridge to the Gracechurch Street line on the City side in 1176 would have meant replanning on a big scale. The ancient line of approach on the south side is guaranteed by the area of Roman finds (see V.C.H. plan). Gracechurch Street is known to have existed before the Conquest, and the positions of the ancient churches of St. Magnus’s and St. Olaf’s at each end of the bridge are significant: the bridge, I believe, was in the parishes of these two churches.

Much more might be said, but I cannot think it is necessary. I conclude that the Roman bridge followed the line between the “Borough” and Gracechurch Street, and that the phrase in the charter was nothing more than a general indication of the position of the wharf.