ROADS AND THE BRIDGE
Upon thy lusty brigge of pylers white
Been merchauntis full royall to behold:
Upon thy stretis goeth many a semely Knyght
Arrayit in velvet gownes and cheynes of gold.
WILLIAM DUNBAR.
_Roads._--The Roman roads of the Antonine Itinerary which affect London
are: Iter 2, the great road from Canterbury to London and St. Albans and
beyond (the Watling Street); Iter 5, London to Colchester, and from thence
to Lincoln; Iter 6, London to Lincoln, starting by the Watling Street;
Iter 7, from Chichester through Silchester and passing the river at
Staines (_Pontes_), through Brentford to London.[51]
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--LONDON AND THE ROMAN ROADS.]
In the (so-called) Laws of Edward the Confessor, a clause treats of the
King's peace on the four great roads, _Watlingestrete_, _Fosse_,
_Hekenildestrete_, and _Ermingestrete_, two of which are said to run
through the length of the realm and two across.[52] In the British legends
given by Geoffrey, the making of these roads is ascribed to Belinus, and
they are said to have been paved with stone and mortar; the four are
evidently the chief Roman roads in the island. The identification of the
Watling Street is certain, for Bede says that St. Albans was called
Watlingcester, and Saxon charters show that Hampstead and Paddington were
on it; it is the modern Edgware Road. Henry of Huntingdon tells us that
the Watling Street ran from the south-east to the north-west, and that
Erming Street ran from north to south. Higden, in the fourteenth century,
says that the Watling Street began at Dover and passed through Kent and
"over the Thames at London, west of Westminster," then to St. Albans,
Dunstable, Stratford, etc.[53] Camden says: "The Roman road commonly
called Watling Street leads straight to London over Hampstead Heath,
whence is a fine prospect of a beautiful city and cultivated country."
The best reasons that can be given for the position of the Watling Street
are that it was first formed before London became of much importance, that
it avoided the great Essex forest, and passed over the Thames at a point
convenient for a ferry on its way to and from Dover.
Such prehistoric traffic as there was, by a sort of commercial drainage,
gathering together in a stream directed on Dover, must have tended to pass
the river with the least possible deflection. Whether or not the great
Watling Street is entirely of Roman date, a ferry at Westminster may have
superseded the Brent-ford. The actual passage was probably from Tothill
Street to Stangate on the south side of the river: "Stangate" is still
used as the name of a Roman road in the North by Hadrian's Great Wall.
After the Palace of Westminster was built, the ferry must have been
diverted by the Horseferry Road, and Higden may refer to this position.
Clark suggests that "the Tothill" was a Saxon military mound, as such
mounds are sometimes called "toot-hills"; if so, it was a protection
overlooking the Watling Street, and may very well have been a mound
raised by Alfred in the Danish struggle.[54] "Le Tothull" is mentioned in
1250, when Henry III. granted the Abbey to hold a fair there. Hollar's
view shows a mound. The Tothill was common ground, and everything points
to its having been formerly a defensive work. The west gate of Westminster
was "towards Tothill" (1350), and Vincent Square now represents Tothill
Fields. The Lang ditch, which nearly surrounded Westminster, and which can
be traced back to the twelfth century, was probably a dyke of defence.
Stukeley, writing in 1722, when material evidence was not so hard to find,
says that the Watling Street crossed over another Roman road (now Oxford
Street), which passed by the back of Kensington into the great road to
Brentford and Staines, "a Roman road all the way." The Watling Street then
went across the end of Hyde Park, and by St. James's Park to the street
near Palace Yard called the Wool Staple, and crossed to Stangate on the
opposite side of the river. The southward continuation of the road then
passed over St. George's Fields to Deptford and Blackheath; "a small
portion of the ancient way pointing to (or from) Westminster Abbey is now
the common road: ... from the top of Shooters' Hill the direction of the
road is very plain both ways: ... beyond the hill it is very straight as
far as the ken reaches: on Blackheath is a tumulus."
From the Watling Street, on Blackheath, was obtained the first prospect of
London, where travellers during the Middle Age paused, as visitors to Rome
paused on their way only half a century agone. The mayor with all the
crafts of the city, in 1415, rode out thus far to meet Henry V. returning
from France.
The King from Eltham sone he cam,
Hys prisenors with hym dede brynge,
And to the Blak-heth ful sone he cam.
He saw London withoughte lesynge;
Heil, ryall London, seyde our Kyng,
Crist the Kepe evere from care.--LYDGATE.
In his letter to Wren Dr. Woodward says that in several places lying near
by in a line, particularly on this side of Shooters' Hill, where the
country is low, there remained a raised highway 40 feet wide and 4 feet
high. According to Allen's history a portion of the Roman way leading to
Stangate was found just north of Newington Church in 1824.
Stukeley thought that the west-to-east road, over the present Oxford
Street, originally passed to the north of London into Essex (by Old
Street), "because London was not then considerable, but in a little time
Holborn was struck out from it, entering the city at Newgate, and so to
London-Stone, the _Lapis Milliaris_, and hence the reason why the name of
Watling Street is still preserved in the city."
There can be no doubt that Stukeley's account of the Roman roads is
generally true, but the theory of the great road by Old Street seems
unlikely, although the latter is quite certainly a Roman way, and was
called Ealde Street in the twelfth century.[55] The Roman road has been
found 11 feet below the surface, together with Roman coins.[56] There
cannot be a doubt that, in late Roman days at least, the great
west-to-east road passed through the city and by the Mile End Road through
Stratford and the other places named from "street" to Chelmsford and
Colchester. Besides the great Roman roads there were of course many local
ways. The High Street from Aldersgate to Islington, also mentioned in the
twelfth century,[57] is probably, like the gate through which it passed,
Roman too. Stow's hypothesis that Old Street branched away from the top of
Aldersgate Street seems best to meet the case. Stukeley's suggestion about
the naming of "Watling Street" in the city, which has been so embroidered
upon by recent writers, seems, as we shall show (p. 150), to be a mistake.
It is asserted in a fourteenth-century document quoted by Lysons that the
great east road passed the Lea by Old Ford before Matilda built Bow
Bridge; but this has no weight in excluding the road by Aldgate against
the evidence of the great road itself. The name Stratford is mentioned as
Strachford in a charter of the Conqueror.[58] In the life of St. Erkenwald
given in the Golden Legend, it is said that his body was brought to London
from Barking through Stratford after a miraculous passage of the Lea.
There _may_ have been a road by Old Street and Old Ford, but there _must_
have been a road by Holborn and Whitechapel through Newgate and
Aldgate.[59]
The branch from the great Watling Street to the city, by Tyburn and St.
Andrew's Holborn, is described in a charter giving in Saxon the boundaries
of Westminster, dated 951, but not original. This charter, even if forged,
can hardly be later than the era of the Conquest, when the coterminous
manor of Eya was given to the Abbey by Geoffrey de Mandeville; and the
names found in it must then have been of immemorial antiquity. Mr.
Stevenson, in a recent criticism of the document, accepts it as genuine
and proposes the date 971.[60] It reads: "First up from the Thames along
Merfleet to Pollenstock, so to Bulinga Fen, and along the old ditch to
Cuforde. From Cuforde along the Tyburn to the _Here Straet_, and by it to
the Stock of St. Andrew's Church, then in London Fen south to Midstream of
Thames, and by land and strand to the Merfleet." _Here Street_ is the
usual Saxon name for a Roman road, but it will be convenient to use it in
this case as a proper name.
The stream of Tyburn crossed Oxford Street just west of Stratford Place,
and ran through the Green Park, and so to the west of Westminster. Cufford
I find again, _temp._ Edward I., as in, or near, the _Campis de Eya_--now
Hyde Park and St. James's.[61] This Cowford was probably where Piccadilly
"dip" crosses the Tyburn valley. A bridge is shown here in Faithorne's
map. The Here Street or military road is of course Oxford Street and
Holborn, and London-Fen is the Fleet valley.[62]
The manor of Tyburn appears in Domesday. There can be no doubt as to the
identification of the Here Street, for a document of 1222 gives as the
boundaries of St. Margaret's, Westminster, the water of Tyburn running to
the Thames and the _Strata Regia_ extending to London past the garden of
St. Giles [in-the-Fields], and Roman remains have been found in Holborn.
The Here Street has been traced between Silchester and Staines through
Egham, and on this side of Staines, not far from Ashford, it has been
found.[63] An under road to Kensington, etc., by Knightsbridge must also
have been ancient. Knightsbridge is named in a twelfth-century charter,
and it seems to be the same as the Kingsbridge in a charter of the
Confessor.[64]
From the fact that the Antonine Itinerary gives two routes to
Lincoln,--one round to the west by the Watling Street, and one to the east
by Colchester,--it seems probable that the direct Erming Street was made
in the later Roman era.
The best critical account of the four Roman ways is in _Origines Celticæ_
and the _Archæological Journal_ for 1857, in which Dr. Guest, working from
charters, verifies their position. He considers that the portion of the
Erming Street between London and Huntingdon was not a Roman paved road,
although "it must have existed in the days of Edgar, and perhaps as early
as the times of Offa." "Tracks of an ancient causey may still be found
alongside the turnpike road which leads from London to Royston," beyond
which the road passes straight on over the fens to a place called
Ermingford in Domesday and Earmingaford in a charter of Edgar. To the
south of London he lays down a "Stone Street" from Chichester through
Bignor (Roman villa) and Dorking. In vol. ix. of _Archæologia_, Bray, the
co-author of the _History of Surrey_, traces this "Roman road through
Sussex and Surrey to London." "That there was a great road from Arundel
which ran north and north-east to London is very certain, considerable
remains of it being now (1788) visible in many places." Another road from
the south seems to have passed through Croydon and Streatham, which in a
charter of the Confessor is called Stratham.[65] Near Ockley the former
was called "Stone Street Causeway," and Camden speaks of it as "the old
military road of the Romans called Stone Street." It was "some 30 feet
broad and some 4 or 5 feet thick of stones." Considerable vestiges of this
Roman road may even now be traced on the Ordnance Survey; approaching
London it evidently passed through Epsom, Ewell, Merton, Tooting, and
Clapham. Here then we have a great road from Chichester through Surrey
over London Bridge and by Stamford Hill to Lincoln--the Erming Street. It
seems impossible that such a work could have been undertaken in the time
of the "Heptarchy," and it must be a Roman road made subsequently to the
Antonine Itinerary.
When London Bridge was built, or when a regular ferry over the Thames was
established on this line, a new connection with the Canterbury Road
(Watling Street) was evidently called for, and this link was provided by
Kent Street (now Great Dover Street). Bagford, in his letter to Hearne,
says that the Roman approach and military way led along Kent Street on the
left-hand side, "and pointed directly to Dowgate by the Bishop of
Winchester's stairs, which to this day is called Stone Street." I cannot,
however, accept the inference as to the name Stone Street in this place,
as it ran directly through what was Winchester Palace, where, as old views
show, there cannot have been a street in the Middle Ages. The highway from
the bridge going southwards really ran straight through the borough (Burh
or South-work), and deflected on to Kent Street at St. George's Church,
which stood here early in the twelfth century (see Southwark, below, p.
110).
The English invaders came up the Watling Street and were unsuccessfully
met at Crayford. At Ockley on the Stone Street there was a great battle
with the Danes. William the Conqueror, after the battle of Hastings, took
Dover and Canterbury and came to London by the Watling Street; then
burning Southwark, but not venturing to assault the walled city, he moved
down the Stone Street and across to Farnham and Wallingford, and then
north-east, by the Icknield Way, and so commanded the northern Watling
Street and Erming Street and cut off retreat. A recent study of his route
made from Domesday Book makes him pass through Camberwell, Merton,
Guildford, and Farnham. Then crossing the river by both Wallingford and
Streatley, he approached London by Little Berkhamstead, Enfield, and
Tottenham.[66]
A final consideration of the roads in relation to the city shows two great
routes: (1) from west to east, through Staines to Colchester; and (2) from
south to north, from Chichester to Lincoln. These roads, entering the city
by Holborn and the bridge, and issuing by Aldgate and Bishopsgate, were
throughout the Middle Ages the great market streets, and their
intersection at Leadenhall formed the "Carfax" of London.
The best elucidation of the names of the roads we have been concerned with
is given by Dr. Guest. One is the street of the Ermings or Fenmen, who
gave their name to places on its course. The Icknield Way, which he gives
good reasons for thinking was a British road, led to the district of the
Iceni (compare Dr. Rhys, _Celtic Folklore_, p. 676). The Watling Street he
supposes to be the Irishmen's road, from Welsh
_Gwythel_--_Goidel_--Irishman. These derivations seem to be a little over
symmetrical. Other roads than that through St. Albans were called Watling
Street, which almost seems to be a generic term, just as in Wales the
Roman ways are called Sarn Helen. In the story of Maxen Wledig (Maximus
Emperor) we are told that the Empress Helen made the roads. It is probably
a similar legend where Florence says that old tradition had it that London
was walled by Helen. Florence says that the Watling Street was called so
from the sons of King Weatla: Can this be a corruption of Wledig, or can
the reference be to the British prince Guithlin, who seems to have been in
power about the time of the coming of the Saxons?[67]
Horsley and others have thought that these roads were laid down for the
most part immediately after the Roman conquest by Claudius, and there can
hardly be a doubt of their early existence when we consider the great
works of Agricola as far off as the Roman Wall.[68] Moreover, one or two
milestones which have been found bear the name of Hadrian. The antiquity
of our place-names, roads, and bridges is well brought out in a
seventh-century charter to Chertsey Abbey. The land boundary, beginning at
the mouth of the Wey, passed by Weybridge, then by the mill-stream to the
old Here Street and along it to Woburn Bridge, etc. This Here Street is
doubtless the present road on the south bank of the Thames; it probably
led from Southwark, through Clapham--called Cloppaham in the ninth
century--by Wandsworth, where was a church in the tenth century, and by
Kingston, the royal town and crowning place of the later Saxon kings.[69]
* * * * *
_The Bridge._--We hear of the existence of the bridge about seventy years
after Alfred's time in connection with the punishment of a woman who was
to be taken and "a-drownded at Lundene-brigce."[70] In a poem on Holy Olaf
the King of Norway, by a contemporary, he is said to have broken down
London Bridge in an attack on the Danes in the interest of Ethelred about
1014.[71] It is curious that the English Chronicles do not speak of this,
and it is difficult to fit in, but in any case the story is almost
contemporary.
An extended but later account of the incident is given in the
_Heimskringla_: "Now first they made for London and went up the Thames
with the host of the ships, but the Danes held the city. On the other side
of the river there is a great Cheaping-town called Southwark (Sudurvirke);
there the Danes had great arrayal; they had dug great dykes, on the inner
side whereof they had built a wall of turf and stone.... A bridge was
there across the river betwixt the city and Southwark, so broad that
waggons might be driven past each other thereover. On the bridge were made
strongholds, both castles and bulwarks, looking down stream, so high that
they reached a man above his waist; but under the bridge were pales stuck
into the bottom of the river. And when an onset was made the host stood on
the bridge all along it and warded it. King Ethelred was mickle mind-sick
how he was to win the bridge." King Olaf made wooden shelters over his
boats, "and the host of the Northmen rowed right up under the bridge and
lashed cables round the pales which upheld the bridge, and they fell to
their oars and rowed down stream as hard as they might, ... and the pales
having broken from under it, the bridge broke down by reason thereof; ...
and after this they made an onset on Southwark and won it. And when the
townsfolk [of London] saw that the river Thames was won, so that they
might not hinder ships from faring up into the land, they were afeared,
and gave up the town and took King Ethelred in. So says Ottar the Swart:--
O battle-bold, the cunning
Of Yggs storm! Yet thou brakest
Down London Bridge: it happed thee
To win the land of snakes there."
This verse is sometimes translated so as to read "London Bridge is broken
down" in the first line, like the well-known children's song; but there
have been many breakings down since the time of Olaf, and it is
unnecessary to force such a remote origin for the ditty. As to the bridge
itself, the account just given as to its being of wood agrees with the
fact that no piers seem to have been preserved when it was rebuilt in the
twelfth century. That it should have been fortified agrees with
contemporary events, for Charles the Bald had built a fortified bridge at
Paris to stop the pirates going up the river.
The bridge, as we have seen, was required by the Roman roads, and must
have been of Roman origin. Roach Smith, indeed, even considered that it
might have been the bridge by which Claudius is said to have crossed the
river, and points out that the Itinerary shows that bridges were not
uncommon in Britain.[72] "This presumptive evidence" [as to London Bridge
being of early Roman origin] "is supported by recent discoveries.
Throughout the entire line of the old bridge, the bed of the river was
found to contain ancient wooden piles; and when these piles, subsequently
to the erection of the new bridge (about 1835), were pulled up to deepen
the channel of the river, _many thousands_ of Roman coins, with abundance
of Roman tiles and pottery, were discovered; and immediately beneath some
of the central piles, brass medallions of Aurelius, Faustina, and
Commodus. All these remains are indicative of a bridge. The enormous
quantity of Roman coins may be accounted for by the well-known practice of
the Romans to use them to perpetuate the memory of their conquests and
public works. They may have been deposited either upon the building or
repair of the bridge. The great rarity of the medallions is corroborative
of this opinion." Many bronzes and other works of art were also found.[73]
I incline to the view that the bridge may with greatest probability be
assigned to the century when the Romans were consolidating their work in
Britain, from the arrival of Agricola in A.D. 78. Within this period falls
the date of the earliest medals found and the great building age of
Hadrian, who reared the "Roman Wall." It is tempting to suggest that the
fine head of Hadrian, in 1863 found in the Thames, may have formed a part
of a statue placed on the bridge to commemorate his visit. Bronze has
always been too valuable a material for the head to have been wilfully
cast away. Moreover, we have evidences of two bridges by the Roman Wall
which were the work of Hadrian. That at Newcastle, called after him, Pons
Ælii, had a history curiously parallel with London Bridge, for it gave way
to a mediæval bridge in 1248, which was destroyed in the flood of 1771.
During the rebuilding parts of the Roman structure were found. Near
Hexham, where the line of the wall crosses the North Tyne, there are still
vestiges of a bridge which seems to have lasted down to 1771; it has three
piers of masonry, having angular cut-waters up-stream. The spans were 35
feet, the piers about 16 feet transversely; the roadway was about 20 feet
wide; at the ends, standing over the masonry abutments, were towers
through which the roadway passed. "The platform of this bridge was
undoubtedly of timber. Several of the stones which lie on the ground have
grooves in them for admitting the spars. No arch-stones have been
found."[74]
Old London Bridge crossed the river just east of the existing bridge. Stow
thought that the original bridge was still farther east, because St.
Botolph's Port is mentioned in connection with the bridge in a charter of
the Conqueror. Notwithstanding that this conjecture was disproved so fully
when the old bridge was destroyed, the theory still appears in standard
books and on maps which profess to represent Old London.