Fig. 23.—The Common Seal of London, 1224.
Ealdredesgate and Cripelegate are both named about the year 1000 in Ethelred’s Laws (Thorpe). The first is evidently called after one Ealdred. As we have seen above, in [p. 79], an excavation outside Aldersgate exposed a section of the old Roman ditch, and gave evidence of a trestle bridge which crossed it from the ancient gate, which consequently must itself have been Roman.[82] Stow says that Cripplesgate is mentioned in a life of St. Edmund, which tells that the Saint’s body was brought through this gate about 1010; but see Aldgate above. It is named the postern of Cripplesgata in the Conqueror’s charter to St. Martin’s. In a slightly later charter it is called Porta Contractorum (Stow).[83] These six, with the South or Bridge Gate, make up the seven historic gates of London, and the conclusion cannot be resisted that they all date back at least to the time when Alfred repaired the walls of the city, and most, if not all of them, to Roman days. Roach Smith held that the principal gates were then Ludgate, Aldgate, and Bishopsgate. Referring to the finding of inscribed stones near to Ludgate, he says that they doubtless belonged to a cemetery which stood outside the gate. Hatton says that some Roman coins were found at Aldgate on its destruction in 1606. Price says that no evidence of the ancient wall having crossed Bishopsgate Street was found when a deep sewer was carried along the street, and hence we may infer a Roman opening in the wall at this point. Direct evidence has been found of Aldersgate, as just said, and Newgate is implied by the evidence of the Roman road found by Wren at St. Mary le Bow. FitzStephen says the city gates were double, and a rough drawing of the city in the MS. Matthew of Paris represents each gate as having two arches ([Fig. 22]). Stow also says that Aldgate was double. The Roman gates at Chesters and other important posts on Hadrian’s Wall have coupled openings between towers containing guard chambers; the great West Gate at Silchester was similar,[84] and we may take this gate as a type for Roman London.
We may thus form a very clear idea of what London must have looked like when the Norman Conqueror came and viewed the city walls from the other side of the river, as described by Guy of Amiens.
The assertions and contradictions in recent books, and maps founded on them,[85] are difficult to follow. According to Mr. Loftie, the north road from Bishopsgate “joined the road to Colchester and Lincoln afterwards called Erming Street” (Erming Street to Colchester); “We find both Watling and the Erming Streets going off at a tangent when they have passed out” (on plan both shown perfectly straight);[86] “Aldgate—properly Algate—was opened about the beginning of Henry’s [I.] reign”; “Aldgate has nothing to do with ‘Old’ or Eald, for the simple reason that the eastern road ran not from Aldgate but from Bishopsgate, and not to Stratford but to Old Ford”; “Whitechapel Road—the Vicenal Way ... answered to the street of tombs without the gate at Pompeii” (in the plan a road going east from Bishopsgate is named Vicenal Way). It is impossible to say what such roads were, or where they went, or how the author knew. In the other plans mentioned above, London Bridge is shown near Billingsgate, with the north and south street east of St. Magnus and the north gate much to the east of Bishopsgate. Watling Street is shown on a diagonal line from Bridge end to Newgate, and Leadenhall Street and Aldgate are omitted.
Quays.—FitzStephen, as we have seen, says that London “was walled and towered” to the south against the river. And there cannot be a doubt that the citizens were protected in this way, when we read that they shut themselves within their walls against the Danes, for land walls alone would little have availed against the water-borne hordes. Stow, Wren, and other authorities have accepted these river walls, and indeed analogy with other water-side towns calls for them. It is evident on referring to a map that Thames Street, Upper and Lower (above Bridge and below), must follow the course of this wall, and that the street was outside the wall, forming a “strand” giving access to the quays, as does the way along the Golden Horn at Constantinople. When in 1863 Thames Street was excavated, the Roman level appeared at 20 to 25 feet below the modern surface; the whole was found to have been piled and cross-timbered right across the street; this “doubtless formed the old water line and embankment fronting the south portion of Roman London.” The piling turned up the course of the Walbrook towards Cannon Street.[87] Similar embankments were found when the approach to new London Bridge was made, and still further east; it is said as many as five lines were found when the present Custom House was built. Roach Smith describes the foundations of a part of the river wall which was found extending from Lambeth Hill to Queenhythe, and again by Queen Street, along the north side of the street.[88] And we have seen that the south-east and south-west angles of the wall were just on this line. Several quay basins were formed along the river shore outside the wall. The most famous of these was Billingsgate, which in the traditions of Geoffrey of Monmouth took its name from Belinus, the British Apollo. In the Laws of Ethelred (979-1015)[89] there is an item “concerning the Tolls given at Bilingesgate.” It is probably the Lundentuneshythe named in a charter of 749[90] and the Roman Wharf of London.
Fig. 24.—Fragment found
in the South Wall.
The next most important quay is Queenhythe, otherwise, as Stow says, “called Edredshithe because it at first belonged to one called Edred.” This is confirmed by the name of the Church of St. Michael “Ædredeshuda” found about 1148 in the St. Paul’s documents; about 1220 it appears as St. Michael’s de Hutha Regina in the same. The queen who gave her name to this quay was Matilda, wife of Stephen; in the Cotton Charters (xvi. 35) is a grant from her of the hospital by the Tower and rents from Edredshythe to Holy Trinity Aldgate. In the Close Rolls of 21 Henry III. (1237) are two entries in regard to the Necessary House formerly built by Matilda, late Queen, at Queenhythe for the common use of the city; it was to be made as long as the quay of Alan Balun, so that it might have a free course of water. Dugdale cites a grant (temp. Henry II.) of a rent-charge on Ripa Reginæ called “Aldershithe” [?] to St. Giles. In 1247 the wharf was granted to the city at a farm of £50 a year.[91] From a charter of King Alfred himself, dated 899, we find that the Edred who gave his name to this wharf was none other than Ethered, Alfred’s son-in-law and his lieutenant in London (died 912).[92] In a second version of the charter given in Birch’s collection it is called Rethereshythe, but the Peterborough Chronicle again names it correctly and gives the further interesting fact that Harold held land near this quay: “Comes Harold dedit terram in London juxta monaster. S. Pauli juxta Portum qui vocatur Etheredishithe”.[93] In a survey of the quays and approaches given in the Liber Custumarum a Retheresgate appears, and in a will of 1279 Retheresgate and the lane of St. Margaret near it are mentioned. The lane was later Rethers Lane and then Pudding Lane. I cannot explain the confusion as to the two sites and names. Edredshythe was walled, and the public way leading to it is mentioned. It is of great interest that its actual basin yet remains to us. If the city were not given over to all the horrors of “riches,” we might hope to see a statue of the great king erected at this quay. It is of romantic interest that we can associate with this site the names of the husband of Alfred’s daughter Ethelfleda, Lady of Mercia and of London, and Harold, last of the English.