A large stone, about two feet high, found fifty years ago below Clement’s Lane, Lombard Street, bearing “a few letters of the sounding words PROVINCIA BRITANNIAE,” was thought by the same authority to have stood above a civil basilica. This most important inscription was lodged at the Guildhall, but has disappeared. I have Roach Smith’s original sketch of it, and a letter asking Fairholt to go and draw it more carefully. But in his Roman London he complains that it could not be found. Fortunately, there is a second careful drawing of the stone in the Archer Collection at the British Museum, and from this my figure is made.[219]
Following the model of Silchester, it is quite probable that a Christian church stood in a main street on such a site as the present St. Peter’s upon Cornhill. The Forum, as has been said, probably lay north of London Stone, which may have been the golden milestone of London. Wren thought that the Prætorium occupied the ground between the two west gates; but the Tower site seems even more probable.
Bagford refers to the discovery of some Roman water-pipes in Creed Lane after the fire, which were “carried round a bath that was built in a round form with niches at an equal distance for seats.”
It has been noticed that the masonry of the walls of the Roman houses seems to have finished not far above ground as if in preparation for timbering; other indications of this have been found, and a rough scratching of a house on a tile shows timber construction. This has recently been confirmed by the discovery at Silchester of houses which had timbered framing covered with clay daubing over wattle work, the outside surface being ornamented with zigzag patterns like mediæval pargeting, all of brick-red colour.
Before the Roman forces were drawn back to the heart of the empire, London seems to have grown into the position of British Metropolis. Its position in regard to the arterial roads when the itinerary was compiled, shows how it tended to take precedence over the more military centres. Moreover, while the mint marks of one or two British cities appear on coins earlier than the mark of London, in Constantinian days London is the only British city where money seems to have been coined.[220] In the last days of the occupation the city had acquired the name of Augusta. We cannot doubt that the Roman soldiers drawn away to protect their lines of communication marched Romeward with the intention of returning again to the city by the Thames when the barbarian Germans and Goths had been thrust back into their woods and plains; yet the day of Rome was done, and their retreat was itself an incident in the advance of a new age.
APPENDIX
ON MATERIALS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF MAPS OF EARLY LONDON
In bringing this topographical essay to a conclusion, it may be desirable to note a few observations on the materials we possess for making a map of early London, the reconstruction of which, with considerable fulness and accuracy, is possible. We have in the Survey of Leeke, made directly after the great fire, and engraved on two sheets by Vertue from a parchment original, now in the MS. room of the British Museum (5415. E.I.), an admirable starting-point. Even the widths of the streets are figured on this plan, and the forms of St. Paul’s and the other old churches are given with fair precision. It is entitled “An Exact Survey of the Streets, Lanes, and Churches, comprehended within the Ruins of the City of London; first described in six platts in December, Anno Domini, 1666. By John Leeke.... And here reduced into one entire platt by John Leeke.” This parchment was engraved by Hollar to a smaller scale, with the unburnt portions of the city added in isometrical projection. On this plan the ward boundaries are carefully laid down. As to the ground-plan of the portions left uninjured by the fire, we can supplement Leeke’s Survey by the plan Wren made for reconstructing the city, now at Oxford, which shows the streets and churches of the uninjured areas; and from Ogilvie’s large map, made only a few years later, details, such as the block-plans of the churches in the unburnt part, can be filled in with greater accuracy. From Faithorne’s map, 1658, some additional facts, especially as to Southwark and the suburbs, can be obtained, as it is of large extent.[221] Putting all these together, we have an exact map of London as it existed at the moment of the fire. Afterwards a few modifications were made in the streets, but the plan of old London remained practically unchanged till Southwark Bridge was built and Queen Street made to lead to it.