London Before the Conquest

by W. R. Lethaby

CHAPTER VII

STREETS—CRAFT GILDS AND SCHOOLS—CHURCHES

They answered and said that there were many more churches there [in London] than they might wot to what man they were hallowed.

Heimskringla.

Streets.—As has been said, a large number, probably most, of the streets of London as they existed before the fire can be traced in records back to the thirteenth century. It is evident that the extra-mural approaches and the gates necessitated the existence of some of these at a still earlier time; the sites of ancient churches and the formation of the wards to which the streets serve as midribs, as above said, account for others. That some are of Roman date positive evidence has been found. On reviewing this cumulative evidence it seems possible that the main streets given in Stow’s Survey represent ways in the Roman city. A succession of fires slowly raising the surface with layers of debris, gradual encroachments, and the obliteration of open spaces, have modified the old lines in some cases considerably, but still it is certain, I believe, that the general “squareness” and more or less symmetrical alignment of the Roman city can be traced in the existing streets. A line from the bridge to the north gate must always have formed a great main street, and standing at the bottom of Bridge Street (Fish Street Hill) we may still gain some idea of what the entrance to the city by the Roman bridge was like. Mr. Price says of Gracechurch Street: “Recent investigations have shown ... that no structural remains of the Roman period can have occurred throughout its course; on either side of the street, debris of buildings with fragments of tessellated pavements have been seen, but nothing has existed along the actual line of road.”[158] Roach Smith also testifies that no wall has been found crossing Gracechurch Street, “a fact that would support the opinion of its occupying the route of one of the Roman roads.”[159] The idea of J. R. Green, that the north and south street was considerably to the east of the present line, was probably founded on Stow’s mistaken view that the bridge was of old far to the east.

Again, for the two great longitudinal ways through the city we have evidence. In forming the entrance into the city from New London Bridge a section was made of the ground north of Thames Street, and three ancient lines of embankment were found, by which ground was by degrees regained from the Thames. One of these was formed of squared oaks. As the excavation came to Eastcheap it crossed a raised bank of gravel 6 feet deep and 18 wide, the crest of which was 5 feet under the present surface; it ran in the direction of London Stone. On reaching the north-east corner of Eastcheap the foundations of a Roman building were found, and here, having reached the line of Gracechurch Street, the discoveries ended.[160] Roach Smith speaks of walls having been found in Eastcheap and Little Eastcheap, but Cannon Street, like Gracechurch Street, was free from them.

It has been conjectured that Cheapside was not a street, that it was a muddy marsh, an open space for market booths, and that a stream ran from it into Walbrook, etc.[161] Two deeds, however, given in Dugdale under Barnstaple, record the gift of a new house and land in “Foro” or “Magno Vico Londoniæ quam habuit Odone Bajocensi” by William Gifford, Bishop of Winchester, to S. Martin Paris, 1110-15, and this reference to the property of Odo of Bayeux carries Cheapside right back to Conquest days. It is not unlikely, indeed, that the east end of the “Great Street” was the site of the Roman Forum or part of it. The “Forum” of Canterbury is mentioned in 762.[162] Although the word Forum doubtless stands only for the Saxon market-place, it was the proper place of assembly. According to the Acta Stephani the Empress Maud was acclaimed Lady of England in the Forum of Winchester. There is no doubt Cheap was the Saxon High Street and the official meeting-place of the citizens from the earliest days of the English settlement. Early in the twelfth century Thomas à Becket was born in his father’s house in Cheap, on a site we can still identify, and Eudo, Dapifer to the Conqueror, also appears to have had a stone house in West Cheap, by Newchurch.

When Wren rebuilt St. Mary le Bow, in excavating for the foundation of the campanile, when he had sunk about 18 feet, he came to a Roman causeway of rough stone, close and well rammed, with Roman brick and rubbish for a foundation, all firmly cemented. This causeway was 4 feet thick, and underneath was the natural clay. He built the tower “upon the very Roman causeway.” He was of the opinion that this highway ran along the north boundary of the Roman city, the breadth of which was from this “causeway” to the Thames, and “the principal middle street or Prætorian way” being Watling Street; north of the “causeway” the ground was a morass, so that he had to pile for building the new east front to St. Lawrence by the Guildhall.[163] Too much has been made of this morass, for remains of Roman buildings have been found on this very ground north of Cheap 17 feet below the surface,[164] and St. Lawrence itself had been a church from Norman times at least. Other Roman buildings have been found in Wood Street.[165]

It is impossible to go behind Wren’s testimony as to the Roman way through Cheap. It has been claimed, however, that some foundations discovered by him on the site of St. Paul’s showed that Watling Street ran obliquely from London Stone to Newgate. It was not, as we see, the opinion of Wren himself, and it must fall. The exact words in Parentalia cited for the discovery of an oblique street are themselves enough to abolish the theory built on them. They are as follows: “Upon demolishing the ruins [of St. Paul’s] and searching the foundations of the Quire, the Surveyor [Wren] discovered nine wells in a row, which no doubt had anciently belonged to a street of houses that lay aslope from the High Street [Watling Street] to the Roman causeway [Cheapside], and this street, which was taken away to make room for the new Quire [of 1256] came so near to the old [Norman] Presbyterium that the church could not extend farther that way at first” (p. 272). There is nothing in this about “a Watling Street running from Newgate to London Stone.” What is described is a way across the churchyard from the west end of the High or Atheling Street issuing by Canon Row or Ivy Lane. There is no evidence at all, then, for a diagonal Watling Street which Stukeley suggested, and more recent writers have accepted as quite proven. On the other hand, we have Wren’s great authority for thinking that Watling Street was in its present direction the “High Street” of the ancient city. In calling it this he must have followed Leland, who says that it was formerly called Ætheling Street, and it is so named in thirteenth-century documents.[166] In 1212 I find ad viam que vocatur Athelingestrate. The name is one of a class of which Athelney (Athelingey—Noble’s Island) is an instance. Addle Hill, which Stow calls Adle Street, seems to be allied to Atheling. In 1334 I find “Athele Street in Castle Baynard Ward.”[167] The earliest instance of “Watling” I can find is at least a century later. I am speaking, of course, of the city street; for the great Watling Street we have evidence which goes up to the eighth century (see [p. 54]).