London Before the Conquest

by W. R. Lethaby

Fig. 17.—London and the Roman Roads.

In the (so-called) Laws of Edward the Confessor, a clause treats of the King’s peace on the four great roads, Watlingestrete, Fosse, Hekenildestrete, and Ermingestrete, two of which are said to run through the length of the realm and two across.[52] In the British legends given by Geoffrey, the making of these roads is ascribed to Belinus, and they are said to have been paved with stone and mortar; the four are evidently the chief Roman roads in the island. The identification of the Watling Street is certain, for Bede says that St. Albans was called Watlingcester, and Saxon charters show that Hampstead and Paddington were on it; it is the modern Edgware Road. Henry of Huntingdon tells us that the Watling Street ran from the south-east to the north-west, and that Erming Street ran from north to south. Higden, in the fourteenth century, says that the Watling Street began at Dover and passed through Kent and “over the Thames at London, west of Westminster,” then to St. Albans, Dunstable, Stratford, etc.[53] Camden says: “The Roman road commonly called Watling Street leads straight to London over Hampstead Heath, whence is a fine prospect of a beautiful city and cultivated country.”

The best reasons that can be given for the position of the Watling Street are that it was first formed before London became of much importance, that it avoided the great Essex forest, and passed over the Thames at a point convenient for a ferry on its way to and from Dover.

Such prehistoric traffic as there was, by a sort of commercial drainage, gathering together in a stream directed on Dover, must have tended to pass the river with the least possible deflection. Whether or not the great Watling Street is entirely of Roman date, a ferry at Westminster may have superseded the Brent-ford. The actual passage was probably from Tothill Street to Stangate on the south side of the river: “Stangate” is still used as the name of a Roman road in the North by Hadrian’s Great Wall. After the Palace of Westminster was built, the ferry must have been diverted by the Horseferry Road, and Higden may refer to this position.

Clark suggests that “the Tothill” was a Saxon military mound, as such mounds are sometimes called “toot-hills”; if so, it was a protection overlooking the Watling Street, and may very well have been a mound raised by Alfred in the Danish struggle.[54] “Le Tothull” is mentioned in 1250, when Henry III. granted the Abbey to hold a fair there. Hollar’s view shows a mound. The Tothill was common ground, and everything points to its having been formerly a defensive work. The west gate of Westminster was “towards Tothill” (1350), and Vincent Square now represents Tothill Fields. The Lang ditch, which nearly surrounded Westminster, and which can be traced back to the twelfth century, was probably a dyke of defence.

Stukeley, writing in 1722, when material evidence was not so hard to find, says that the Watling Street crossed over another Roman road (now Oxford Street), which passed by the back of Kensington into the great road to Brentford and Staines, “a Roman road all the way.” The Watling Street then went across the end of Hyde Park, and by St. James’s Park to the street near Palace Yard called the Wool Staple, and crossed to Stangate on the opposite side of the river. The southward continuation of the road then passed over St. George’s Fields to Deptford and Blackheath; “a small portion of the ancient way pointing to (or from) Westminster Abbey is now the common road: ... from the top of Shooters’ Hill the direction of the road is very plain both ways: ... beyond the hill it is very straight as far as the ken reaches: on Blackheath is a tumulus.”

From the Watling Street, on Blackheath, was obtained the first prospect of London, where travellers during the Middle Age paused, as visitors to Rome paused on their way only half a century agone. The mayor with all the crafts of the city, in 1415, rode out thus far to meet Henry V. returning from France.

The King from Eltham sone he cam,
Hys prisenors with hym dede brynge,
And to the Blak-heth ful sone he cam.
He saw London withoughte lesynge;
Heil, ryall London, seyde our Kyng,
Crist the Kepe evere from care.—Lydgate.