I incline to the view that the bridge may with greatest probability be assigned to the century when the Romans were consolidating their work in Britain, from the arrival of Agricola in A.D. 78. Within this period falls the date of the earliest medals found and the great building age of Hadrian, who reared the “Roman Wall.” It is tempting to suggest that the fine head of Hadrian, in 1863 found in the Thames, may have formed a part of a statue placed on the bridge to commemorate his visit. Bronze has always been too valuable a material for the head to have been wilfully cast away. Moreover, we have evidences of two bridges by the Roman Wall which were the work of Hadrian. That at Newcastle, called after him, Pons Ælii, had a history curiously parallel with London Bridge, for it gave way to a mediæval bridge in 1248, which was destroyed in the flood of 1771. During the rebuilding parts of the Roman structure were found. Near Hexham, where the line of the wall crosses the North Tyne, there are still vestiges of a bridge which seems to have lasted down to 1771; it has three piers of masonry, having angular cut-waters up-stream. The spans were 35 feet, the piers about 16 feet transversely; the roadway was about 20 feet wide; at the ends, standing over the masonry abutments, were towers through which the roadway passed. “The platform of this bridge was undoubtedly of timber. Several of the stones which lie on the ground have grooves in them for admitting the spars. No arch-stones have been found.”[74]
Old London Bridge crossed the river just east of the existing bridge. Stow thought that the original bridge was still farther east, because St. Botolph’s Port is mentioned in connection with the bridge in a charter of the Conqueror. Notwithstanding that this conjecture was disproved so fully when the old bridge was destroyed, the theory still appears in standard books and on maps which profess to represent Old London.
CHAPTER IV
THE WALLS, GATES, AND QUAYS
On board his bark he goes straight to London, beneath the bridge; his merchandise he there shows, his cloths of silk smoothes and opens out.—Roman de Tristan.
Walls.—The walls and gates of London are frequently mentioned incidentally by the chroniclers of the Saxon period. In the charter given by William the Conqueror to St. Martin’s le Grand, the city guarded by them is called the Burh, and the defences themselves are called Burhwealles. Their complete circuit can be accurately traced from existing remnants, old plans and records. Some years ago a fragment of the east wall of Roman date was found, which still exists a few yards east of the south-east angle of the Keep of the Tower, at a point which must be very near to the original junction with the south or river wall, which probably ran in the line of the present south wall of the inner ward of the Tower. The city wall passed north by Aldgate to the N.E. angle; then on the north by Bishopsgate and Cripplegate to the N.W. angle, and, after making an inset by Aldersgate, it formed another N.W. angle; thence it passed straight south by Ludgate to the river. It was only at the end of the thirteenth century that the south-west angle of the city was extended to take in Blackfriars. Ample evidence of Roman workmanship has been found for the whole extent of the north and east sides, but until recently some have doubted whether any remains of Roman date had been found on the west; a portion, however, was discovered between Warwick Square and Old Bailey some twenty years ago, and in 1900 other portions were found at Newgate Prison. Still earlier in 1843, as Roach Smith pointed out in Collectanea Antiqua (vol. i.), a portion of the city wall was found near Apothecaries’ Hall in Playhouse Yard. It was 10 feet thick, and the stones were bedded in mortar mixed with powdered brick. In the walls of some part of the old Blackfriars buildings found in 1900, I noticed that a considerable quantity of the small cubical Roman stones had been re-used in the Friary after the destruction of the south portion of the western wall of the city. Roach Smith pointed out that the steep fall in the ground just south of the Times office and St. Andrew’s Church showed that the river wall passed along here. There is no doubt that Alfred’s London included the whole of the Roman city with the exception of the Blackfriars extension.
Fig. 18.—Roman Wall of London.