“Gem of all Joy and Jasper of Jocundity, Strong be thy walls that about thee stand; London, thou art the flower of cities all.”

THE walls, gates and bastions of the City may be traced by the record of early maps such as that of Braun and Hogenberg. The bastions of the east side are particularly shown on a plan of Holy Trinity Priory made in the sixteenth century; the west side from Ludgate to Cripplegate plainly appears in Hollar’s plan after the fire, 1667. There were two bastions between Ludgate and Newgate, then an angle bastion to the north; three more on the straight length to Aldersgate, then one beyond that gate at the angle where the wall turned north again; two bastions occurred between this angle and the bastion at the corner where the wall again turned east, which now exists in Cripplegate Churchyard.

Several of the gates stood until 1760. In an old MS. book of notes I find under the heading “Remarkable Transactions in ye Mayoralty of Sir J. Chitty.”—“In July, ye gates of Aldgate, Cripplegate and Ludgate were sold by public auction in ye council chamber, Guildhall, and were accordingly taken down without obstructing either ye foot or cartway, and their sites laid into ye streets. Aldgate for £157, 10s.; Cripplegate, £93; and Ludgate for £148.” Many old drawings of parts of the wall are preserved in the Crace, the Archer and other collections. The exact line of the wall and positions of the bastions has been verified by modern excavations and discoveries. For full description and a plan, see the Victoria County History and Archæologia, lxii. (1912). A good description of what was visible in 1855 is given in The Builder for that year.

In September 1903 an important section of the Roman wall was found in excavating the site of Newgate Prison; in some parts it was about a dozen feet high. I saw it in October and noted—“The wall is about 8½ ft. wide. On the outside and inside one or two courses of facing stones were first raised and the core of rubble was then filled in to that height; first there was a thick couch of mortar, then a layer of rubble stones, then another liberal supply of mortar running down between the stones as grout; there were two or three such levellings-up in the heights between the tile bonding courses.” The wall had a rough rubble foundation, then a course of plinth stones on the outside, with three tile courses corresponding to it on the inside of the wall, then followed five courses of the fairly square facing stones on both sides of the wall, then two rows of tile, five courses more stone and two rows of tile, then five more stone courses; above this level the wall had been destroyed. The stones and tiles were set in mortar, and the latter, except for the three courses at the bottom on the inside, which served as a plinth, were carried right through the thickness of the wall; the “tiles” were Roman bricks about 18 in. by 12 in. and 1½ in. thick, laid in what we call Flemish bond. The stone facing courses were a little higher at the bottom than upwards, but all were comparatively small and square; there was a clear distinction between the wrought facings and the rubble filling, which was practically concrete. The “facings” were hard skins adhering to the filling and required by the method of building as described above (Fig. 30).

The mode of construction of the wall is likely to be misunderstood when we speak as we almost necessarily do of facings and filling and of bond tiles. The “facing” stones were small, roughly wrought, and set in much mortar; they formed outer skins to the concreted mass into which they tailed back. The whole was homogeneous. The method was analogous to the facing of concrete with triangular bricks notching back into the core.

The tile courses in the City Wall were doubtless bonds, but they also divided the wall into strata locking up the moisture of the mortar from too rapid absorption and evaporation. I have little doubt that the wall was carried up a stratum at a time over long lengths; it would thus have been available as a defence from an early stage, and scaffolding would not have been required. The building of this wall and casting the ditch about it required a great constructive effort. A strip of ground some 100 feet wide must have been cleared as a preliminary. Then the immense quantity of stone required would have been brought by ships and barges. It is often said that old material was not re-used in the wall, but I can hardly think that two miles of chamfered plinth had to be provided out of new stone at the very beginning of the work. And material from destroyed monuments was doubtless broken up for the small facing stones. The lime-burning, brick-making, stone-cutting, as well as the actual building, called for much labour. It would be interesting to have the quantities taken out and an estimate prepared.

The south wall along the river front is well described in V.C.H. Roach Smith, in an article in vol. i. of the Archæological Journal, recorded the fact that it had “alternate layers of red and yellow plain and curve-edged (i.e. flanged) tiles”; the rest being of ragstone and flint. It was founded on piles. In The Builder (January 19, 1912) it is recorded that in digging for a foundation at No. 125 Lower Thames Street, between Fish Street Hill and Pudding Lane, there was found the base of the Roman wall resting upon long and thick timber balks laid crosswise, with piles beneath them; there were three courses of rough rag and sandstone capped with two courses of yellow bonding tiles, all in reddish mortar; what remained was about 3 ft. high and 10 ft. wide, and was at 24 ft. below the existing pavement. Full evidence of the course of the City Wall along the river front has been found (Archæol. xliii.). It may be noticed that in mediæval regulations foreign sailors might not go beyond Thames Street; that is, pass where the wall had been, into the City proper. This south wall, like the bastions, contained remnants of Roman monuments.

The south wall would have been interrupted at the outlet of the Walbrook, which must have been a tidal creek. This was doubtless the original harbour, and there would have been quays within the line of the wall. Daremberg and Saglio’s plan of Bordeaux shows a remarkable parallel to Londinium, standing on the bank of a great river, flanked by a little stream and with a port within the walls (Fig. 29). It seems probable that the strong wall which Roach Smith reports as having been found on the east side of the Walbrook may have been a quay wall. The Thames has been much encroached on where it passes the City. In making the approach to new London Bridge three successive embankments were found, one being of squared trunks of trees. A similar timber wall has just been found in Miles Lane. In Lower Thames Street the Roman house found on its north side was built on piles, “probably on the river bank” (Athen., 1848), and the south City Wall was wholly built on timbering. In earlier Londinium, Cannon Street must have been the southern thoroughfare.

Bastions.—In July 1909, when the angle bastion near Giltspur Street was excavated, I noted that close to it the City Wall was badly fractured, and inclined outwards; there had evidently been a serious settlement here, which was sufficiently accounted for by the nature of the ground—wet clay on the bank of a stream. The wall was taken lower than the ordinary level here, and the bastion was founded at a lower level still. The bastion was not bonded to the City Wall, but merely built against it with a straight joint; it was of horseshoe shape on plan and projected about 27 ft., the masonry was rubble in thin courses, and the whole looked mediæval to me. In the careful report in Archæologia it was said that some evidence for Roman date was discovered in the foundation. The facts suggested to me not only that the bastion had been built against the wall, but that it was probably built at a point of failure in the original wall. It is agreed that the bastions were built later than the wall, and with a straight joint between them and it, and I would suggest that they were built to cover cracks and form buttresses as well as for their additional defensive value, and this may very well have been the general procedure. It would have been impossible to build a wall measured by miles on inferior foundations without bad settlements; the Egyptians provided for them by building such walls in sections with inclined straight joints at intervals.

M. Blanchet, writing of the walls of the cities of Gaul, says: “Often the curtains are not bonded with the towers. This independence reminds one of a precept of Philo’s, which advises that the method should be followed so as to prevent the consequences of unequal settlement between the two. But there is a more simple explanation—the town under immediate danger ensures itself first with the curtain and adds the towers after. Most of the fortifications are those which the Romans built on the approach of the Barbarian invasions. To this period belong the walls of Rome and those of the cities of Gaul.” Choisy again has an interesting account of the towers of the walls of Constantinople, with a diagram of arches in the sides of the towers at the ground level, which were built so that the effective part of their foundations should be kept clear of the wall. Now, the foundations of the London bastions provide evidence of a similar way of thinking.

In Fig. 31 I give a sketch of this angle bastion made on July 5, 1909. Here is seen the City Wall curving round from the north to the west, and against it the bastion. The Roman wall was badly cracked and leaning outward (A); in the corner by the bastion the plinth and the foundation are seen, and below a sloping bank of wet clay (C), and farther out water (W). The bastion was built of rubble, and was hollow to the base; the form was different below and above (see B). In the sketch the tile courses are seen going through the thickness of the wall.

The bastions which have been most carefully examined are those on the site of the General Post Office, described in Archæologia, lxiii. (1912). One is said to have been built in “the usual manner of random rubble”; it was separate from the City Wall, and the foundation was deeper than that of the wall. A second was built in a very soft spot. “Why it should have been selected is not easy to see, as at a little distance either way the builders could have found firm soil.” Its site was an old stream bed, and the conditions might well be the cause of a settlement at the point. This, as suggested above, may have been the reason the bastion was erected just here. (For the bastion by Giltspur Street, see S. A. Proceedings, 2 S. xxii. 476.)

Nothing very definitely Roman was found in these bastions, but one at All Hallows was certainly Roman. This is described as (I condense) “built of stonework which, like the rest, so far as they have been observed, is of random rubble, built principally of irregular pieces and ragstone with portions of Roman tile (none complete) and other material; much of it appears to have done duty in some previous building. A base was formed of large square stones a uniform height of 2 ft.; they had been employed in some former building; several had lewis holes. This base rested on a table of large flat stones 9 in. thick. Most of these seem to have been portions of a cornice. Roman origin was shown by red mortar in which the joints had been set.” The foundation was about 3 ft. below that of the City Wall, and projected into the original Roman ditch. What is called the “table” above was a square-fronted lower base; the back of this base was set in advance of the City Wall; indeed, it was 3 ft. in front of it on the eastern side and “the gravel in this intervening space was undisturbed.” This gap is specially to be noted. The description of the masonry as random rubble must apply mainly to the core of the work, for the illustrations show an approximation to courses on the face; indeed, on the east side, thirteen courses may be counted in the photograph up to a line which seems to be the top of a sloping plinth; these courses averaged about 4½ in. high. The full significance of this account is only brought out on comparing it with Price’s description of what was found in excavating the Camomile Street bastion. This bastion was founded on two deep courses of heavy stones taken from Roman buildings, many sculptured, and having lewis holes in them. These masonry courses were set 1½ ft. in advance of the City Wall, one over the other, forming a straight joint, and leaving a gap “separated from the wall by an intervening space filled with rubble” (Price) which was filled with small stones. This curious and carefully-arranged construction in both bastions was clearly with the object of making the foundations of the bastions take their bearings away from the wall so that they would tend to lean inwards against the wall; it is analogous to the arches of the Constantinople towers. This bastion had a batter or slope at the bottom of about 4 ft. high. Price describes the masonry as “rag rubble walling faced with random courses. The size of the blocks of which the facing was composed varied from 3 in. to 8½ in. thick [high] and from 5 in. to 14 in. long.” This account is supported by the carefully-executed illustrations which show coursed facings of small stones which seem almost identical with the facings of the City Wall. Such masonry of small facing “blocks” with concreted rubble behind is certainly Roman. The masonry at the All Hallows bastion seems to have approximated to the same character; there it may be noticed the courses became narrower upwards. This was certainly not so regular as the masonry of the City Wall, but it may be said to have resembled it (Fig. 32).

At the Guildhall Museum is “a group of architectural remains and fragments of sculptured stones from tombs, public buildings, etc., found in a bastion of London Wall, Duke Street, Aldgate, 1881.” This find is best described in The Athenæum for that year. Mr. Watkins, while excavating in Houndsditch and Duke Street, found the City Wall and a mass of masonry extending 18 ft. outward from the wall; the stones were dressed and weighed from 1 cwt. to 1½ tons. “In the structure he observed a channel 15 in. deep by 18 in. wide, which showed signs of use as a watercourse. It had been filled with concrete composed of chalk and flints. The site was the foundation of one of the bastions composed of sculptured stones in character similar to those previously recorded, upwards of twenty in number.” This was the second bastion east of Bishopsgate. The channel filled with concrete suggests a gap dividing the bastion from the City Wall as already described; but see also account in V.C.H.

In 1887 Mr. Loftus Brock reported to the British Archæological Association the removal of part of the City Wall on the east side of Wormwood Street. Nearly opposite Bevis Marks Synagogue the foundation of a circular-fronted bastion was found of worked freestones and not bonded into the main wall (The Builder, May 28, 1887). A paper by J. E. Price in 1884 (London and Middlesex Archæol. Soc.) referred to the discovery of a bastion containing several sculptured stones in St. Mary Axe (The Builder, November 22, 1884, and compare V.C.H.).

In 1852 an excavation was made against the outside of the City Wall on Tower Hill, and a number of large wrought and carved stones were found (The Builder, September 4, 1852) (Fig. 33). In an account given in the Journal of the British Archæological Association the workmen are said to have discovered a “complete quarry of stones cut in various forms and evidently belonging to some important building ... 125 making 40 cart loads.” Fairholt made an etching of the place while the work was in progress, which shows that the “quarry” was heaped against the external face of the wall like the bases of the other bastions, and that, in fact, it was a ruined bastion Fig. 34 from Roach Smith’s Roman London, slightly modified). Another account is given in the Antiquarian Etching Club by A. H. Burkitt, with a plate: “These interesting remains were discovered during the excavations in June 1852, which laid bare the wall to its base. The various portions of stone, which amounted to about forty cart loads, bear evidence of having belonged to an important building. The inscription and band of laurel leaves, which probably formed an ornament above it, indicate a monument of considerable magnitude to the memory of a commander of the Roman Navy. There were found at the same time fragments of frescoes with inscriptions.” (In Fig. 33 the fragment with laurel leaves is represented upside down.)

The two stones specially mentioned are now in the British Museum. It appears from the accounts and illustrations that this bastion was built against the wall without being bonded to it in the lower part, that its foundation was formed of large carved and moulded stones, and was at a lower level than that of the wall. (The part below the plinth in Fig. 34 on the left is rough foundation.)

We thus have clear record that several of the bastions on the east and north sides of the City were constructed in a similar way. Those farther west near the Post Office were probably rebuilt in mediæval times. These were hollow at the base, not solid like the others.

The towers of the city wall of Carcassone, described by Viollet le Duc (Dict., vol. i.), were so similar in construction that it is plain our bastions were constructed according to general custom. In the illustration we see big stones at the base of the bastion only; large window-like openings closed with woodwork above; and an upper storey rising higher than the wall top. Fig. 35 is a suggested restoration of one of the London bastions, showing the foundation gap A, and an upper storey overlapping the City Wall.

It is probable that most, or all, of the bastions from Tower Hill to Cripplegate were built in the same way as those just described, and there is evidence to suggest that the western bastions were also similar. In 1806 fragments of Roman monuments were found near Ludgate; “these may have come from a later Roman gate or from the adjoining bastion” (V.C.H.). Allen says: “At the back of the London Coffee-house, Ludgate Hill, a circular tower and staircase was discovered; and about 3 ft. below the pavement some remains of Roman art were found.” An etching of the stones published by T. Fisher in 1807 describes them as “dug out of the foundations of the wall of the City, a few yards north of Ludgate.” Archer, speaking of an inscribed pedestal, says it was found “in extending the premises at the back of the London Coffee-house. It appeared in a bastion of the City Wall, and was built in with the masonry near some remains of a circular staircase” (Illust. Family Jour., c. 1850). Now, Horwood’s plan of 1799 shows the back of the Coffee-house adjoining the line of the old wall and extending a long way north—apparently much more than sufficient to overlap the bastion numbered 55 on Mr. Reader’s plan. The Post Office excavations recently made down Ludgate Hill show that the natural ground is here only about 10 ft. below the modern level.

The Camomile Street and All Hallows bastions were about 20 ft. wide and projected about 16 ft. In mediæval days the bastions rose above the parapet walk on the main wall, and each formed a round-ended chamber having loopholes. This is well shown on the Survey of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, 1592, which I published about 1900 in Middlesex Notes and Queries. (Several round-fronted bastions are planned as well as Aldgate itself.) The mediæval arrangement, I have no doubt, followed the Roman scheme. The openings in the original bastions would, we may suppose, have been wider than mediæval loops, and have had semicircular arches of brick over them. (See Viollet le Duc’s Dictionary, vol. i. p. 333.) The walls and bastions which still exist at Le Mans and Senlis more closely resemble those of Londinium than any others I have seen. At Le Mans a long portion fronting, but some way back from the river Sarthe, has three bastions 60 yds. to 70 yds. apart, round on the front about 20 ft. wide, and 15 in. or 16 in. projection. The curtain is about 30 ft. high, and the bastions rise higher—say, to 45 ft.; they rise sloping for some way from the ground (Fig. 36). The bastions at Senlis are very similar, but some of these have two storeys of large openings, three in each.

For a long time it was argued that the bastions of the Wall of London were mediæval; then very considerable difference of construction from the City Wall has been alleged. It has been said that their masonry was unlike the other, and that there were no tile bands. We only know with any certainty the lower parts of the bastions now recognised as Roman, and there is no reason for asserting that there were no tile bands in the upper parts. The bastion illustrated by Roach Smith from a sketch by Gough had bands of brick, but in the illustration this bastion appears as square, and this is unlikely (see Archæol. lxiii.). It is possible, however, that the form is a misreading of a rough sketch. This, I think, is more likely than the suggestion in V.C.H. that it was mediæval. An illustration of a round-fronted bastion near Falcon Square given by Thornbury (Old and New London), shows two bands of tile. This seems to be bastion 40 of V.C.H., which was about 40 ft. high; “in the upper part was a row of tile-brick, probably due to later patching.” There are also some other references to tiles in bastions, and on the whole I conclude that they probably had tile bands more or less like the wall. Both the bastion just mentioned and that of Gough’s sketch had openings below the upper storey, showing that in these bastions there were chambers below the level of the parapet. So there must have been at Le Mans (Fig. 36) and Senlis. Compare also V. le Duc’s Dictionary, vol. i. p. 333.

In an article on the City Walls in the Journal of the London Society (November 1922), Dr. Norman says: “Last summer the remains of another bastion were laid bare not far from the west end of the Church of St. Anne and St. Agnes.” This was “the inner angle bastion” near Aldersgate.

It is not exactly known when the City was protected by walls. Stow says: “It seemeth not to have been walled in the year of our Lord 296, because in that year the Franks easily entered London.” He accepted the legend that “Helen, the mother of Constantine, first enwalled this City.” Camden held the same view, and has a note: “Coins of Helena often found under the walls.”

It is now agreed that the walls were built around a late and extended city, for rubbish pits and burials have been found within the walls. A belt of the former occupied the site of St. Paul’s and the Post Office. It was Roach Smith’s impression that the walls were probably built “after the recovery of the province by Constantine, or even later, when Theodosius restored the towns” (Archæol. Jour., 1844).

Mr. Lambert, from planning the find-spots of Roman coins, comes to the conclusion that the wall was not in its later position until the fourth century. The type of walling is especially characteristic of the fourth century. Haverfield has pointed out some earlier cases of the use of bonding tiles, but these seem to be exceptional. (See also what is said of Colchester in J.R.S., 1919.) Daremberg and Saglio give 309 as the date of the earliest wall of our kind in Rome. (They illustrate an example from Timgad, in North Africa, which closely resembles the wall of London.) I suggest that a point of evidence may be found in the Constantinian coin, which has a city gate or fortification for device, and the inscription PROVIDENTIAE CAESS, with the mint mark of London (Fig. 37). This device was not invented for London, but I cannot think that at such a time it could have been adopted if Londinium still remained an open city—it would have invited too obvious irony after what had happened in 296. This coin was issued between 320 and 324, and I suggest that it may be accepted as a record of the walling of the City, or, perhaps more probably, the beginning of the works. The coins of Helen mentioned by Camden were issued about this time. In the later half of the fourth-century London acquired the title of Augusta, and this change of style probably followed on the change of status of its having then been completely walled. (I find that Mr. Reg. Smith has already made this same suggestion in V.C.H.) Sir Arthur Evans has recently called attention to a silver coin of Valentinian the Elder as having in an abbreviated form the monetary stamp of Londinensis Augusta. “A group of coins shows that the Mint at London, which had been closed since the time of Constantine, was restored by Valentinian in A.D. 368” (Proceedings, S. A., 1915, p. 105). I suggest that this is a probable date for the completion of the river wall. Several of the cities of Gaul were protected by walls at a still later time.

Many of the carved fragments found in the bastions can be little earlier than the year A.D. 300. The important monuments of which remnants have been found must have been destroyed when the long, wide strip required for the original wall and its ditch was cleared, for the bastions themselves did not go beyond this ground. It seems possible that the big stones were reserved for founding bastions; this is more likely than that distant monuments were destroyed to provide foundation stones.

“To put an end to incessant pillage the Gallo-Roman towns sacrificed their faubourgs, and, retrenching their extent, surrounded themselves with strong walls, which were very often supported on sculptured blocks taken from destroyed edifices. Le Mans, like the towns of Senlis, Tours, Autun, Bourges, Fréjus, etc., girded itself with ramparts flanked with round-fronted towers, of which important remains still exist, especially along the river Sarthe. The enceinte of Le Mans enclosed an area about 500 by 200 metres” (A. Ledru, 1900).

Gates.—The excavations of 1903 at the Old Bailey revealed some remnants of the Roman gate on the site of Newgate. The most significant of these was a portion of plinth on the City side, with a return at the south end. This, as shown in Archæologia, lix., by Dr. P. Norman, when linked up with earlier discoveries made in 1875, allowed of the recovery of the plan of the gate (Fig. 38). The plinth had been removed from its place before I saw it, but the stones were certainly shaped in Roman days; they had a chamfer 8 in. wide, with a square face of similar width below, and they had been strongly cramped together; one had a “return end,” and clearly came from a corner (A and B). A portion of the western plinth was discovered in 1909 (Archæol. lxiii.). The gate, with its towers on either side, had a frontage of about 96 ft.—probably 100 Roman feet, as a Roman foot was about 11·60 in. The space between the towers appears to have been about 35 ft., which is not more than sufficient for two large archways. The great gate at Colchester, which was about 107 ft. wide, had two carriage-ways 17 ft. wide, and two small side openings 6 ft. wide as well (see J.R.S., 1919). Enough of the walling was found in 1875 to show that the London gate was of stone bonded with tiles; it was erected on a thick platform of “clay and ragstone,” which raised the plinth about 5 ft. above the plinth of the adjoining City Wall. Fig. 39 is a restoration of the front.

Several years ago a mass of masonry with a face to the south was found under Bishopsgate Street a little within the line of the wall; underlying it was “puddling of flint and clay” over a wide area. It was suggested at the time (Archæeol. lx. p. 58) that this masonry and foundation might have belonged to Roman Bishopsgate, and the finding of what seems to have been a similar platform at Newgate strengthens the hypothesis. It had long ago been pointed out by T. Wright that the gate at Lymne was raised on a platform of big stones. At Lymne and Pevensey entrance gates had round-fronted towers, and the great gate at Colchester had quadrants.

Mediæval Aldgate had two round-fronted towers; these are shown in the Survey of Holy Trinity Priory mentioned above, and they are so similar to the bastions of the wall that I was led to suggest that the double gateway and towers were probably substantially Roman work (Fig. 40). Some confirmation of this is given in V.C.H., but compare Archæologia, xliii. Fitzstephen, writing at the end of the twelfth century, says that London had “double gates,” and this was doubtless so from Roman days.

The Roman ditch outside Aldersgate, with a foundation for a bridge pointing towards the gate, was found about thirty years ago, and this is evidence for a Roman gate on this site (Archæol. lii.). Ludgate is guaranteed as Roman by the antiquity of the Strand and Fleet Street. Stow says that in 1595 he observed on the north side of Fleet Street from Chancery Lane to St. Dunstan’s Church, 4 ft. below the surface, “a pavement of hard stone, more sufficient than the first, under which they found in the made ground piles of timber almost close together, the same being black as pitch and rotten, which proved that the ground there, as sundry other places of the City, had been a marsh.” Close piling was such a common Roman procedure that it may not be doubted that what Stow observed was the Roman road to Ludgate.

Mediæval Aldgate can be restored very fully by comparing the plan mentioned above with the view of the City given by Braun and Hogenberg (c. 1550). The gate is so accurately represented that two stair turrets appear over the positions where stairs are shown in the plan. If this gate is so accurately drawn, then the other indications may be accepted. In the Pepys collection, Cambridge, is an engraved view of a gate dated 1688; in the list of contents this is described as Cripplegate, but I believe it is rather Bishopsgate. It was an unaltered mediæval structure, with corbelled battlements and three statues in niches, one on each of the towers and one in the centre. Newgate is also represented in a woodcut view of about the same time, and in an engraving of considerable accuracy, from a book entitled Herba Parietis; here even Whittington’s coat-of-arms plainly appears. For a possible view of the Bridge gate, c. 1416, see an article by Mr. Weale in the Burlington Magazine, 1904.

A Roman road on piles has recently been found in Southwark (Archæol. lxiii.). Adding the Bridge gate, we now have evidence for the existence in Roman days of the six chief gates of Londinium. It has been suggested that there may have been an earth bank inside the walls, as at Silchester, but the different relation of the fronts of the gates to the walls in London are contrary arguments.

Ditches.—When the site of Newgate was excavated I saw the slope of the ditch clearly defined by the blacker earth lying above the clean yellow gravel. The latest and clearest account of the ditches is in Archæologia, lxiii. There was first a narrow V-shaped ditch dug when the wall was first built. A second wider ditch was excavated outside the other, which was at least partly filled when the bastions were built. There were similar double ditches at Silchester, and it has been pointed out that there the earlier V-shaped ditch probably supplied the gravel for building the wall; possibly this was the case at London too. The wide ditch was probably further expanded in front of the gates; it was about 75 ft. wide at the top of the bank outside Aldersgate.

The Original Port of London and the Bridge.—The space within the completed walls has been computed to have been about 330 acres by Dr. Philip Norman. Dr. Haverfield says: “At London, Silchester, Trier, Cologne, the walls seem to have enclosed the town at near its largest” (Romanization). Roach Smith first remarked that from the position of burials within the area of the City we might infer the position of an earlier Londinium. Loftus Brock also, following Woodward, in pointing out that the northern cemetery had come within the space enclosed by the City Wall at Bishopsgate, used the same argument. Mr. Reginald Smith plotted all the known burials on a plan. Mr. Lambert has also laid down the find spots of coins of different dates. In his recent paper in Archæology he suggests that a stratum of charred material between London Bridge and the Walbrook represents the early Londinium destroyed by Boadicea. A large number of rubbish pits have been found within the walls. Putting these facts together it is evident that the original site of Londinium must have been by the inlet of the Walbrook, and it is probable that this little tidal creek was the first port of London—the seaport of Celtic Verulam, to which an old road led by Aldersgate and Islington. It is likely that before the Roman walls were built some defensive bank would have been thrown up between the Fleet and the Walbrook; compare the earth banks at Colchester. Can Barbican represent such a defence?

London Bridge is mentioned in the tenth century. Stow tells us that it was first of timber. Then in 1067 a charter speaks of “Botolph’s Gate, with a wharf which was at the head of London Bridge.” He goes on: “About the year 1176 the stone bridge was begun near unto the bridge of timber, but towards the west, for Botolph’s wharf was, in the Conqueror’s time, at the head of London Bridge.”

Nothing was known of a Roman bridge until last century. Then when the old stone bridge was destroyed evidence was found which convinced observers of the time that a Roman bridge had preceded it on the same line. Recently some writers, while accepting the Roman bridge as proved, have preferred to put it back to Stow’s line. Haverfield says: “No traces of a Roman bridge have yet been found (Archæologia, lx.): the oldest mediæval bridge (eleventh century) is said by Stow to have been near Botolph’s wharf (see plan).” This plan shows the bridge “temp. William the Conqueror” far to the east of Fish Street Hill (see also V.C.H.). Exactly what Haverfield meant by saying that no traces of the bridge had been found is hard to say; it seems to have been as loose a statement as the one which seems to imply that the earliest mediæval bridge was of the eleventh century.

Roach Smith, a cautious observer, was entirely convinced by the evidence that the mediæval bridge followed the course of the Roman bridge. “Throughout the line of the old bridge many thousands of Roman coins, with abundance of Roman pottery, were discovered, and beneath some of the central piles brass medallions of Aurelius, Faustina and Commodus. The enormous quantity of Roman coins may be accounted for by the practice of the Romans ... they may have been deposited upon the building or repairs of the bridge, as well as upon the accession of a new emperor.... The beautiful works of art which were discovered alongside the foundations, the colossal bronze head of Hadrian, the bronze images of Apollo, Mercury, Atys ... and other relics were possibly thrown into the river by early Christians” (Archæol. Jour., vol. i.). This seems substantial evidence. The charter cited by Stow only speaks of a wharf as being at the head of London Bridge; it does not tell us that the bridge ran into the middle of the wharf. The Roman bridge was linked up with an approach from the south over a raised causeway; the bridge-ends would have required much consolidation, and the foundations in the great tidal river must have been extremely difficult to construct. We should need very clear demonstration before we could believe that the early Saxons did more than patch up the work of skilled Roman engineers. Altering of the bridge to the Gracechurch Street line on the City side in 1176 would have meant replanning on a big scale. The ancient line of approach on the south side is guaranteed by the area of Roman finds (see V.C.H. plan). Gracechurch Street is known to have existed before the Conquest, and the positions of the ancient churches of St. Magnus’s and St. Olaf’s at each end of the bridge are significant: the bridge, I believe, was in the parishes of these two churches.

Much more might be said, but I cannot think it is necessary. I conclude that the Roman bridge followed the line between the “Borough” and Gracechurch Street, and that the phrase in the charter was nothing more than a general indication of the position of the wharf.

After the building of the Roman bridge, Billingsgate may have succeeded the Walbrook creek as the chief port of London.

One of the sights of Londinium which may best be imagined is the approach over the bridge. Or we may think of the ring of turreted walls of the City by the river as seen from the northern heights. Or, again, we may think of the sights from the walk on the City Walls; the Kent hills beyond the Thames estuary, with ships coming up to make fast at Dowgate; then, turning to look inward over the City, we may imagine the narrow streets and plastered, red-tiled, houses. It must have been grim and grey when the roofs were covered with snow, and we may wonder what dwellers from the south thought of our fogs. Yet Londinium was a romantic city, a little Rome in the west, and we want some good story about it which shall bring it out of archæology into the minds of the citizens and the hearts of the children.