between London and the sea would have afforded an excellent platform
for the crossing of the river. It is true that the Thames is somewhat
wider in its lower reaches than at the pool, but the difference was
not so considerable as to balk those who first instituted the ferry
and later the bridge of London. If one could cross the half-mile of
water which lay before one at extreme high tides under the earliest
conditions at Southwark, or bridge (as was done so long ago) the four
hundred yards of the mainstream, there would have been no difficulty in
dealing with the quarter of a mile at Deptford or at Greenhithe, nor
even with the rather broader stream opposite Woolwich.
Save perhaps by a bridge of boats, a permanent crossing could not have
been attempted at Erith or at Greenhithe, though the narrowing of the
stream at Gravesend might well have allowed a more stable structure to
be established. At any rate, a crossing even so broad as that opposite
Erith has nowhere in Europe interfered with the passage of commerce,
or of arms where both sides of a great stream lent themselves to such
a passage. But it is here that each one of the points I have mentioned
is at fault. Opposite Gravesend as opposite Greenhithe, opposite Erith
as opposite Woolwich, Greenwich, and Deptford, there lies upon the
northern bank a belt of marsh which forbids traffic. Tilbury Fort,
opposite Gravesend, stands upon a tiny circle of harder land, but
all around it are the Chadwell and the Tilbury marshes. Greenhithe
has right against it the projecting expanse of West Thurrock Marsh,
Erith the whole breadth of Wellington and Rainham marshes; and, as one
approaches London, and the river narrows, matters seem only to get
worse. Woolwich faces the expanse of originally flooded soil between
the Lea and the Roding, with the most of which even the economic forces
making for the expansion of London have been able to do nothing, and
of which so unpleasant a relic of its original condition is left in
Plaistow Marshes to-day; while opposite Greenwich and Deptford lay that
perfectly impossible morass, which, though turned into water meadows by
a river wall many centuries ago, is still perhaps the worst building
ground within the London area. We call it the Isle of Dogs.
The reader must not imagine this lack of any two opposing hards upon
London River below the City to be due to some coincidence. It has a
fairly obvious geographical cause. Those points where the gravels and
the chalk were touched by the scouring of the stream were naturally the
outer cusp of its curves. The river having first determined a bend to
the south or to the north, would eat away more and more on the outer
edge of those bends (which the stream always follows both in flood and
in ebb), and scour away the bank until it struck harder soils and was
there checked. Deptford and Greenwich lie on the outer edge of the
first great southern bend; Woolwich on that of the second; Erith on
that of the third; Greenhithe the fourth; Gravesend the fifth; while
both Grays and Purfleet represent similar checks to the bends towards
the north.
Now it is evident that the same process which makes a river extend
its curves outward more and more by the scouring the stream along the
exterior edge leaves on the inside of the curve an increasing tongue
or wedge of alluvial deposit. What we have, therefore, on the Lower
Thames, the continual opposition of marsh to the rare hards, is only
what we should expect from the geological history of the river, and the
crossing place which was at last found is much more of a coincidence
and accident than the absence of a crossing place below.
That crossing place was, of course, finally discovered opposite the
steep gravel bank upon which the oldest part of the City of London is
built.
The land has been so often turned and returned in at least twenty
centuries of building that it is not easy to-day to reconstruct the
original conditions of that crossing; and, unless we look at all the
evidence, slight as it is, it is easy to fall into errors upon it.
Thus several writers upon this subject have often spoken as though the
gravel-topped knoll upon which the original London stood was the sole
factor in establishing the crossing, and I have myself fallen into the
error of believing that the approach from the south could only be made
over a long artificial causeway.
A further consideration of the evidence, and especially of that
concerning surface soils to the south of the crossing, has convinced me
(subject to yet further evidence which may appear) that the opportunity
for a crossing near the site of London Bridge was almost as tempting
from the south side as it was from the north. It is true that no
considerable rise of land is to be discovered on the Southwark side
until we have gone some distance from the river, and the contour lines
do not, therefore, suggest an easy crossing at this spot. But much more
important than the lie of the land was the nature of the surface over
which travel must proceed. The rocks across which a road is driven are
not of the first importance in primitive times, though they become
important, of course, when the road is expected to bear very great
loads, or when it is so thoroughly metalled that the presence of good
stone in its neighbourhood has to be considered. What is important to
a primitive track is the immediate soil under foot, and if that be
fairly hard and dry it can be quite shallow and yet sufficient for the
purposes of travel.
Thus, one can point out to many a path across the clay of the weald
which picks its way from one shallow patch of sand, gravel, or stone
to another, over country the main base of which is clay, and there is
a similar example (with which I have dealt in another volume)[2] in
the upper valley of the river Wey. There, once the primitive track has
left the chalk and come to the marshy alluvials of the lower levels, it
picks its way in this fashion from one long strip of gravel to another;
and though these strips of gravel are shallow--mere casual drifts in
many cases--they are sufficient for the purposes of the road. Now in
the case of the crossing of the Thames at London, the new Geological
Ordnance Survey, as it gives the drift as well as the rocks, shows us
that a spit of sandy gravel projected into the alluvial mud of the
Thames valley just opposite the “bluff” upon which the oldest part of
London stands, and indeed projected so far towards the stream that
the last traces of it are not lost until beyond Guy’s Hospital--that
is, until within little more than a furlong of the present high-water
mark. The causeway which might therefore be necessary to approach the
stream from the south in all states of the tide need only have been
such a hardening of the track over the mud as is necessary between the
high- and low-water mark of any tidal river where a ferry is to be
established, and we must believe that the river at high water washed
the gravel spit.
Upon the farther or northern bank traces of artificial embankment
(indicating the original limit of alluvial mud upon that side) have
been found upon the line of Thames Street, and the Roman wall ran just
to the north of it. The total width, then, which had to be negotiated
at this point was one at the very most of seven hundred yards, and
perhaps much less than that, and it was one which at high water was
flanked to the south, as to the north, by a hard surface across which
the river could be approached.
[Illustration: GREENHITHE]
No such conditions were to be discovered between this point and the
sea, and, far inland as this point was, it was therefore the lowest
practicable crossing of the Thames. Thus it was that the Thames
established London.
It has also been maintained that this crossing formed not only the
first practicable way to one coming up from the sea and seeking the
_lowest_ passage of the Thames, but also that no practicable passage
could be found for some considerable way _up_ the river either; in
other words, that the opportunity for going over the Thames near the
site of London Bridge was an isolated and all the more valuable one
from the absence of similar opportunities _above_ as well as _below_ it.
We must be very careful before we accept such an argument. It is as
certain as inference can make it that an original crossing, perhaps
older than that of London, passed the Thames in the neighbourhood of
Lambeth Bridge. The road which the Romans made or straightened from the
south-east, that is, the first great main road from the Straits of
Dover to the north, the Watling Street, points directly to this spot,
and the presence of good going on the south bank at least strengthens
the conjecture, coupled as it is with the antiquity of Westminster
as an inhabited site, and the long-established ferry which plied for
centuries from the neighbourhood of Lambeth Palace to the opposing
“Horseferry” Road.
The formation of the surface-soil in this neighbourhood is well worthy
of study.
Immediately in the bounds of Lambeth Church and Palace the superficial
hard gravels (which have been approaching the river for two miles and
leaving a belt of marsh to their right or north) touch the stream.
Not quite opposite, but nearly so--quite nearly enough for the
establishment of a ferry--the large isolated patch of gravel which
lay between the two mouths of the old brooks and which supported the
nucleus of Westminster affords a good landing-place. It is true that
there is (or was) a patch of bad ground immediately to the north of
this gravel, but very soon the rising ground which is now marked by
Constitution Hill and Grosvenor Gardens gave good going and led the
track up, nearly coincident with Park Lane, to “Tyburn,” whence the
Watling Street makes straight for the north and west along the line of
the modern Edgware Road.
For a mile or two farther up, until the gravel in Chelsea was reached,
opposite the steep land of Battersea crossing may have been difficult,
but between Battersea and Chelsea it was certainly as easy in early
times, or easier than at London Bridge, and after that, of course, as
one goes westward the passage of the river becomes easier and easier
until on the present western limits of London, at Brentford, you have
what is almost certainly an original ford across the river, at low tide
at least, and one which some authorities have regarded as the crossing
place of Julius Cæsar.
It is not, therefore, because the crossing at London is unique--it
is, on the contrary, but the last of a long series of crossings--it is
because it is the _lowest_ crossing of the Thames that it came to be of
such capital importance in the history of this island. Upon it converge
the great military road from Chichester and the Great Port, the still
more important road from the Kentish ports, and in particular from the
Straits of Dover, the road from Shoreham going directly northward, of
which such slight but such conclusive evidence has been discovered.
These from the south--while from the north the great eastern road
from Colchester and the corn-lands of Essex, the northern road with
its branches to the ports and to the corn-lands of East Anglia, the
north-western road from the garrison at Chester with its branch to the
arable lands of Lancashire, past the fortress of Manchester, and even
the western road from Bath and from the mines of the Mendip and from
the garrison of Caerleon, all converge.
Once this scheme of ways had been established (and they were certainly
all complete before the end of the fourth century), once London had
thus become the hub of a wheel of such spokes and the centre of such
a web, the Thames which had made it, making also its commerce from
the sea and its value as a point of transhipment between inland and
sea-borne traffic, assured its eminence over all the other towns of the
island.
I will not here repeat the arguments which I have dealt with in other
studies, and which are advanced in defence of various hypothetical
dates for the first building of the bridge. Its establishment across
the river marked, of course, the completion of the process whereby
London was produced. For once the bridge was there it was a necessary
terminal to sea-borne traffic, and a convenient one to inland traffic;
it was the military communication between north and south, and the
commercial one as well. I will close by distinguishing between the very
few pieces of actual evidence and the presumption built upon them.
We have a line of Roman remains pointing to a place upon the northern
bank, somewhat to the east of London Bridge and almost coincident with
the opening of the subway. Opposite it we have the old landing place
near “Stoney Lane” which is supposed to indicate a southern causeway
meeting this identical causeway from the north. Between the two there
may have been in early Roman times a ferry. On the other hand, we have
the Stane Street pointing directly at the southern terminal of old
London Bridge (a trifle to the east of the modern bridge) and we have
the undoubted presence of that bridge through the Dark Ages, which did
not, as a rule, possess any considerable monument which they had not
inherited from Rome. We have, further, the fact that the earliest line
traceable for the Roman town puts London Bridge nearly at its centre;
and again the fact that on the line of the bridge certain Roman relics
have been unearthed or fished up.
In the absence of more positive evidence we may take it as sufficient
for history that in the natural course of things a ferry probably
preceded the bridge, yet the bridge existed, if not when the Romans
came, at any rate shortly after their occupation.[3]
Thus it was, then, that the River of London seems to have made London.
The Thames was so situated in the island that a crossing place of
a permanent sort had to be established as far down the stream as
possible. This place was found where the stream was still broad,
tidal, and a port. Once bridged the same spot would mark the terminal
of sea-borne traffic and the place of exchange between foreign and
domestic produce, while the roads radiating north and south from such a
crossing would further establish its pre-eminence.
But that pre-eminence was, from some very early period, _commercial_.
The first mention of London in recorded history, the phrase of
Tacitus, speaks of the town particularly as a _market_. As a market
London has grown, and as a market it is still chiefly eminent. But
London is a market only because it is a port, and it is the port of the
Thames. In that aspect I will next consider the connection between the
town and its river.
[Illustration: STRAND ON THE GREEN]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Warfare in England_, Williams & Norgate.
[2] _The Old Road_, Constable & Co.
[3] The arguments with regard to the age of the bridge and the earliest
position of the crossing will be found set out in their most recent
form and most fully by Mr. R. A. Smith, F.S.A., in the first volume of
_London_ in the Victoria County Histories.
IV
LONDON
THE PORT OF THE THAMES
That a town would group up on the lowest crossing of the Thames, once
that crossing with its bridge or ferry was definitely established,
is obvious enough. That this town would be important and large if
there were a sufficient development of population and culture in the
island is equally obvious. Both consequences would naturally follow
from the topography of Britain. But that this town should become of
such high importance in the European scheme and of such overwhelming
importance in the national scheme; further, that this town should soon
grow to be the second town in size of Western Europe, and at last
by far the first, is not so immediate a conclusion from the known
topographical conditions which brought it into being. That moral and
material growth of London is due, of course, to the supremacy which
London enjoyed and enjoys as a place of _commerce_. It is London as a
market, and as a market the port of which was the Thames, which we must
next consider, and we must ask ourselves upon what so considerable
and historical a phenomenon has been based. The matter is usually
dismissed by an affirmation lacking analysis and still more lacking
proof. Our text-books are too often satisfied with telling us that “the
exceptionally favourable position of London as a commercial centre” was
at the root of the town’s greatness. The affirmation is perfectly true,
but it does not provide its own explanation nor satisfy our curiosity
as to _why_ this position should have meant so much.
I think, indeed, that most observant people in reading this or similar
phrases must, if they had any knowledge of the map, have been struck
with the apparent disadvantages under which a site such as that of
London suffers. It has not behind it a vast hinterland from which it
should be able to gather raw material for export, nor is it a natural
outlet for the various products of several different regions as is, for
instance, the region surrounding the mouths of the Rhine. It is not
central to the European scheme as Lyons was for so many centuries, and
Paris for so many centuries more. It lies a long way up its stream from
the sea. No system of converging waterways unites in its neighbourhood.
There seems at first sight, therefore, no reason why London should have
obtained more than a local importance.
When we consider its advantages as a general meeting-place for varied
foreign commercial interests, a first view will profit us little.
London is on no general European highway but lies ex-centric to Europe
far upon the north and west of the general area which European culture
covers; nor does its more central position since the discovery of the
New World avail the argument, for the greatness of London was planted
and its future continuance assured long before Europeans had known and
developed the Western Continent. London, again, does not seem to invite
commerce by lying upon the frontier common to two civilisations; it
does not lie upon any economic boundary line as do the cities of the
Levant and notably the cities of Palestine. It is, if we consider the
economics of commerce during at any rate the first 1500 years of our
era, almost at the edge of the world.
To explain the supremacy of London as a market more than one thesis is
put forward for general acceptance which must, I think, be condemned.
Thus we have the thesis that London occupies the position it does
_because it is almost in the centre of the land hemisphere_. As a
matter of fact the actual centre of that hemisphere is not far from
the neighbourhood of Falmouth, and is at any rate within the limits
of Britain. If we trace upon a globe a great circle or “equator” so
as to include the greatest mass of land surface possible, we find
our southern ports, and London amongst them, to lie near the Pole
of such an Equator, and this argument has been of some weight with
those who have not paused to consider what that “land hemisphere”
means. If the climate of the world were everywhere equal and most
of its soil equally productive, then the fact that the great estuary
of the Thames lay almost central to the greatest mass of land would
have its importance--though the mouths both of the Seine and of the
Scheldt, of the Rhine, and for that matter of the Elbe, would not be
so far distant as to explain the peculiar supremacy of London. But
in the first place the most part of that mass of land did not enter
into the commercial scheme until quite modern times, and secondly,
the variations of its climate and of its productivity destroy the
theory. Not far to the north of our port (relatively to so great a
thing as the planet) lies that vast circle of uninhabited or hardly
habitable frozen land which is not only almost useless for the purposes
of exchange, but which also bars any passage of commerce across it.
Not so very far to the south, again, runs the belt of desert east and
west across Africa and Asia, the worst part of which, the widest, is
also the nearest to us and is called the Sahara. It is of little use
to have a central position between, say, Japan upon the one side and
Cape Town upon the other, if the Greek Circle which connects us with
Japan passes, as it does, through the Polar Ice. There are certain
central positions which explain the supremacy of some particular site,
but these positions are nearly always central to limited areas over
which travel is uninterrupted. The great market of Nijni Novgorod in
Russia is an example of this sort. Chicago in the United States of
America is another. But London is no parallel to such cases as these,
so far as the world or even Europe is concerned. It is fairly central
(as we shall see) to what was once the chief wealth of England: it is
ex-centric to all else.
[Illustration: THE THAMES FROM GREENWICH PARK]
Still less will the many arguments based upon fairly modern conditions
solve the problem which confronts us. Thus the great export trade of
modern England is mainly based upon coal. But the estuary of the Thames
is not a natural place of export for coal. The political relations
which necessarily bind this country to-day to other countries of the
same speech throughout the New World have a vast effect in continuing
and expanding our oversea exchanges, but all the ports natural to such
ties lie upon our south or west. London does not face the New World. It
looks away from it.
The truth is that the singular position of the Lower Thames as
a terminal for international commerce, and of its port as an
international market, must be sought in a medley of causes, the chief
of which fall into two clear categories. We have first the causes which
made London what it was before the transformation of commerce through
the discoveries of the Renaissance and the later gigantic expansion
which reposes upon modern facilities of communication. Once London is
thus established as the second great city of the West, we have the
later causes which permit it to continue in the enjoyment of that
position, and to nourish it until the city whose port was the Thames
became not the second but by far the first of all the great markets in
wealth, population, and shipping.
I will take these two sets of causes separately.
As to the first, what made the greatness of the Thames as a port for
London, and of London, therefore, as a market before the modern era of
geographical discovery?
A natural market exists only where two natural conditions are present:
ease of approach from without, and what may be called _draining power_
from within.
I mean by ease of approach from without a natural facility for the
arrival of goods from areas of production foreign to those of the
market. And I mean by “draining power from within” some topographical
or other condition which makes domestic produce run naturally towards
the one centre of this market.
To these two natural conditions must be added two further political
ones: first, one must have such a society connected with that market as
gives it security, and, secondly, such a society as is organised by
its activity and adventure for production or for exchange, or for both.
Now all these four conditions London enjoyed from a very early time. I
have pointed out elsewhere, and shall point out again in these pages,
the nature of the political security which London has enjoyed for so
many centuries. It did not lie in any particularly peaceful character
peculiar to the country as a whole, for while London was growing to
greatness England was a continual theatre of domestic war. It lay in
the great size which the city had attained, coupled with the breadth of
its stream, and in its numerical proportion to the general population
of which it was the capital. The fact that London was never besieged
or sacked depended upon these characters, and they in turn, therefore,
guaranteed that local security which is the first political necessity
of a great and continuous market.