If you consider the site of London once more you will realise—I have already called attention to the point—that the cliff on the north side closes in and overhangs the river in two little hillocks beside the Walbrook. Between the feet of the two hills there is no marsh; the stream running down between the hills forms a natural port; either hillock is fit for the construction of a fort, such as forts were then. Hunters in the forest discovered these two hill-tops, with the moorland and the woods behind, and the river and the marsh in front. They came; they built their fort, protected partly by the steeply sloping sides to south and east, partly by stockade and trench; and they called the place Llyn Din, the Lake-Fortress. Why they came, when they came, how they dispossessed the lake-dwellers, against what real or imaginary foe they constructed their fort, I know not.
Nor do I know how long the people continued to occupy peacefully the fortress they had constructed. It may have been a period of many hundreds of years. The fort may have been besieged and taken a hundred times. Meantime there began, either before or after the construction of this fort or settlement of Llyn Din, some communication between the people of the island and those of the Continent. Trade was opened up; the islanders learned that there were many things which they could exchange and sell. There were Phœnicians who came for tin; there were Germans and Gauls who came for iron, skins, and slaves.
Trade began, but not yet in London, where the fisherman’s coracle was the only boat upon the river, and the cry of the wild duck, the song of the lark, and the swish of the water or the whistle of the wind among the reeds were the only sounds.
Higher up the Thames, as we know, there was an island, named, long afterwards, Thorney. It was a very large island, considering its position, being about a quarter of a mile in length and rather less in breadth. On the west side of this island was a branch of the great marsh already described; on the east side the river was broad and shallow and could be forded at low water, the ford conducting the traveller to another low island, afterwards called Lamb Hythe, probably meaning the Place of Mud. This was the lowest ford on the river, and the most convenient for those desirous of passing from Dover or the districts of Kent and Surrey to the north, or from the north and midland to Dover, then the principal, perhaps—unless Southampton had been founded already—the only trading port. So that the great highway which ran right through the country from Dover to Chester, with branches or affluents on either side, crossed the Thames at this point, passing straight through the marsh and ford. In other words, before the Port of London came into existence at all, Thorney was a stage or station on the highway up and down which flowed the whole trade of the island. Again, in other words, while London was as yet only a rude hill fortress, perhaps while it was only a village of lake-dwellers in the marsh, perhaps before it came into existence at all, Thorney was a place thronged with those who daily went across the ford and marsh, a busy and a populous place. This statement may not be readily accepted. Let us therefore examine more closely into the reasons which support it.
Archæological conclusions of every kind rest upon evidences which may be classified under five heads: (1) the evidence of situation; (2) the evidence of excavation; (3) the evidence of ancient monuments; (4) the evidence of tradition; and (5) the evidence of history, to which may be added the evidence of coins.
1. The Evidence of Situation.—This we have seen already. Thorney was a stepping-stone lying between a marsh and a tidal river fordable at low tide. It was on the great highway of trade from the north to the south. At high tide the marsh was covered with water and extended from the site of the future Abbey to the site of the future Buckingham Palace; it covered the sites of St. James’s Park, Tothill Fields, the Five Fields, part of Chelsea, Earl’s Court, and Victoria. At low tide it was a broad expanse of mud, relieved by patches of sedge and rush. One could wade across the marsh either at high or low tide. The way was marked by stakes, and by large stones laid in the mud. On the other side, the river, here much broader than below, was fordable at low water. The way, also marked by stakes, conducted the traveller from Thorney to Lamb Hythe, afterwards called Lambeth.
2. Evidence of Excavation.—Excavation has shown, what nothing else could have disclosed, the presence on this spot of the Romans. In 1869, a date at which the Roman occupation of Thorney had not been surmised, a very fine sarcophagus was found in the nave of the Abbey with the name of Valerius Amandinus upon it. A cross is cut upon the cover, so that the occupant—perhaps not the first—was a Christian. Probably he was a Christian of the third or fourth century. The sarcophagus is now placed at the entrance of the Chapter-House (see p. [67)]. Ten years ago another discovery was made: in digging a grave under the pavement of the nave a fine mosaic pavement was discovered. There was therefore a Roman villa on this spot. And during the last few years, which have witnessed a great deal of digging at Thorney, Roman fragments have been found in great quantities. There was therefore, most certainly, a Roman settlement upon this island.
3. Evidence of Ancient Monuments.—The evidence of monuments is simply this. The great high road through the Midlands to Chester and to York, found here as a beaten track by the Romans, converted by them into a Roman road after the customary fashion, named afterwards by the Saxons Watling Street, ran formerly straight along what is now the Edgware Road; when it reached the spot now covered by the Marble Arch it continued down Park Lane, or, as it was once called, Tyburn Lane, till it reached the end of the marsh already described. There it broke off abruptly. At this point the traveller began to wade through the marsh. Arrived at Thorney, he made of it a resting-place for the night. In the morning, when he proceeded with his journey, he forded the river at low tide, and presently found himself once more upon a solid road, the memory of which is still preserved in Stangate Street, Lambeth.
SIDE OF FONT, EAST MEON CHURCH, HAMPSHIRE
From Archæologia, vol. x.