LONDINIUM
ARCHITECTURE AND THE CRAFTS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
+LONDINIUM+
ARCHITECTURE
AND THE CRAFTS
BY
W. R. LETHABY
WITH 175 FIGURES
[Illustration]
LONDON
+DUCKWORTH & CO.+
3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
First Published in 1923
All Rights Reserved
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
MORRISON AND GIBB LTD., TANFIELD, EDINBURGH
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. BUILDING MATERIALS AND METHODS 7
II. BUILDINGS AND STREETS 33
III. WALLS, GATES AND BRIDGE 57
IV. CEMETERIES AND TOMBS 84
V. SOME LARGER MONUMENTS 101
VI. SCULPTURE 120
VII. THE MOSAICS 142
VIII. WALL PAINTINGS AND MARBLE 162
LININGS
IX. LETTERING AND INSCRIPTIONS 176
X. THE CRAFTS 193
XI. EARLY CHRISTIAN LONDON 214
XII. THE ORIGIN OF LONDON 228
INDEX 247
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THESE chapters were first printed in “The
Builder” during the year 1921. For that
reason, and because the earlier records of
Roman discoveries in London given in this
Journal seemed to have been less worked
over than other sources, a large number of
references are given to its pages. The
account of Roman London in the “Victoria
County History,” C. Roach Smith’s
“Illustrations of Roman London,” and Mr.
T. Ward’s “Roman Era in Britain,” and
“Roman British Buildings,” may be
specially mentioned among the works
consulted. The first named is cited as
V.C.H. Mr. A. H. Lyell’s “Bibliographical
List of Romano-British Remains” (1912) is
indispensable to the student.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
+LONDINIUM+
+CHAPTER I+
BUILDING MATERIALS AND METHODS
IT is curious that Roman buildings and crafts in Britain have hardly
been studied as part of the story of our national art. The subject has
been neglected by architects and left aside for antiquaries. Yet when
this story is fully written, it will appear how important it is as
history, and how suggestive in the fields of practice. This provincial
Roman art was, in fact, very different from the “classical style” of
ordinary architectural treatises. M. Louis Gillet in the latest history
of French art considers this phenomenon. “It is very difficult to
measure exactly the part of the Gauls in the works of the Roman epoch
which cover the land, such, for instance, as the _Maison Carrée_ and the
Mausoleum at St. Remy. There is in these _chefs d’œuvre_ something not
of Rome. The elements are used with liberty and delicacy more like the
work of the Renaissance than of Vitruvius. In three centuries Gaul had
become educated: these Gallo-Roman works, like certain verses of
Ausonius, show little of Rome, they are already French.” We should
hesitate to say just this in Britain, although the Brito-Roman arts were
intimately allied to those of Gaul. In fuller truth and wider fact, they
were closely related to the provincial Roman art as practised in Spain,
North Africa, Syria, and Asia Minor. Alexandria was probably the chief
centre from which the new experimenting spirit radiated. We may agree,
however, that in the centuries of the Roman occupation, Britain like
Gaul became educated and absorbed the foreign culture with some national
difference. In attempting to give some account of Roman building and
minor arts in London, I wish to bring out and deepen our sense of the
antiquity and dignity of the City, so as to suggest an historical
background against which we may see our modern ways and works in proper
perspective and proportion.
_Tools, etc._—Roman building methods were remarkably like our own of a
century ago. The large number of tools which have been found and brought
together in our museums are one proof of this. We have adzes and axes,
hammers, chisels and gouges, saws, drills and files; also foot-rules,
plumb-bobs and a plane. The plane found at Silchester was an instrument
of precision; the plumb-bob of bronze, from Wroxeter, in the British
Museum, is quite a beautiful thing, and exactly like one figured by
Daremberg and Saglio under the word _Perpendicularum_. At the Guildhall
are masons’ chisels and trowels; the latter with long leaf-shaped
blades. At the British Museum is the model of a frame saw. Only last
year (1922) many tools were found at Colchester. (For the history of
tools in antiquity, see Prof. Flinders Petrie’s volume.)
A foot-rule found at Warrington gave a length of 11·54 in. The normal
Roman foot is said to be 11·6496 in. (also 0·2957 m.). This agrees
closely with the Greek foot and the Chaldean. (What is the history of
the English foot?) The length of the Roman foot, a little over 11½ of
our inches, is worth remembering, for measurements would have been set
out by this standard. For example, we may examine the ordinary building
“tile” used in Londinium. In the Lombard Street excavations of 1785 many
Roman bricks were found which are said to have measured about 18 in. by
12 in. I have found this measurement many times repeated, and also three
more precise estimates. Dr. Woodward said that bricks from London Wall
were 17-4/10 in. by 11-6/10 in., and he observed that this would be 1½
by 1 Roman foot. Mr. Loftus Brock gave the size of one found in London
Wall as 17 in. by 11⅝ in. Dr. P. Norman gave the size of another tile as
about 17½ in. by nearly 12 in. At the Guildhall are several flue and
roof tiles about 17½ in. long, and a large tile 23¼ in. long. We shall
see when we come to examine buildings that the dimensions in many cases
are likely to have been round numbers of Roman feet.
_Masonry._—Walling had three main origins in mud, timber and stone.
Walling stones were at first, and for long, packed together without
mortar. Mud and stone were then combined; later, lime mortar took the
place of mud, being a sort of mud which will set harder. In concrete,
again, the mortar became the principal element. Stone walling was at
first formed of irregular lumps. When hewn blocks came to be used a
practice arose of linking them with wood or metal cramps. There are also
three main types of wall construction—aggregation of mud, framing of
timber, and association of blocks of stone. A later development of mud
walling was to break up the material, by analogy with hewn stone, into
regular lumps separately dried before they were used; thus crude bricks,
the commonest building material in antiquity, were formed. Roofing tiles
were developed from pottery, and such tiles came to be used for covering
the tops of crude brick walls. Then, later, whole walls were formed of
baked material, and thus the tile or brick wall was obtained. An
alternative method of using mud was to daub it over timber or wattle
(basket work) of sticks; and this seems to have been a common procedure
in Celtic Britain.
Interesting varieties of concrete walling were developed by Roman
builders. One of these was the use of little stones for the faces of a
wall, tailing back into the concrete mass and forming a hard skin or
mail on the surfaces, very like modern paving. Triangular tiles with
their points toothed into the concrete mass were also used. Then tile
courses were set in stone and concrete walls at every few feet of
height.
I have been speaking of general principles and history, not limiting
myself to Britain and Londinium, but the evolution of the wall is an
interesting introduction to our proper subject.
[Illustration:
FIG. 1.
]
In Londinium wrought stonework must have been very sparingly used
because of the difficulty and cost of transit. There were columns,
pilasters, plinths, cornices, etc., but it may be doubted whether there
were any buildings other than small monuments wholly of such masonry.
Even in the first century the “details” of masonry were far from being
“correctly classical,” and ornaments were very redundant and inventive.
Provincial Roman building was something very different from the grammars
propounded by architects. As we may study it in the fine museums of
Trèves, Lyons, and London, it seems more like proto-Romanesque than a
late form of “classic.” The Corinthian capitals of Cirencester are very
fine works indeed; the acanthus is treated freshly, the points of the
leaves being sharp and arranged as in Byzantine work; a sculptured
pediment and ornamental frieze at Bath are also free and fine. On the
other hand, moulded work is usually coarse and poor. An interesting
architectural fragment found in London was the upper drum of a column
which had several bands of leafage around the shaft and was a remote
descendant of the acanthus column at Delphi (Fig. 1). Parts of small
columns and their bases have been found, the latter with crude
mouldings. I mention them because small circular work was usually turned
in a lathe like Saxon baluster-shafts. A small capital from Silchester
in the Reading Museum is of the bowl form so characteristic of
Romanesque art.
[Illustration:
FIG. 2.
]
A few fragments of mouldings and other stones are in our museums (Fig.
2), and a considerable number of semicircular stones have been found
which must have been copings. Large wrought stones were usually cramped
together; lewis holes show how they were hoisted; smaller wall-facings
were, I think, cut with an axe instead of a chisel. We find mention of
one stone arch (a small niche?) in a Minute of the Society of
Antiquaries: “Mar. 8, 1732: Mr. Sam Gale acquainted the Society, yt in
digging up some old foundations near ye new Fabric erected Anno 1732 for
ye Bank of England Mr. Sampson ye architect discovered a large old wall,
eight foot under ye surface of ye ground, consisting of chalk stone and
rubble, next to Threadneedle Street, in which was an arch of stone and a
Busto of a man placed in it standing upon ye plinth, which he carefully
covered up again: there was no inscription but he believed it to be
Roman.”
_Mortar and Concrete._—Roman builders early learnt how to make good
mortar and concrete, being careful to use clean coarse gravel and finely
divided lime. They also found that an addition of crushed tiles and
pottery was an improvement, and for their good work used so much of this
that the mortar became quite red. “Roman mortar was generally composed
of lime, pounded tiles, sand and gravel, more or less coarse, and even
small pebbles. At Richborough the mortar used in the interior of the
walls is composed of lime and sand and pebbles or sea-beach, but the
facing stones throughout are cemented with a much finer mortar in which
powdered tile is introduced” (T. Wright).
One of the advantages of coarsely-crushed tiles is that it absorbs and
holds water so that the mortar made with it dries very slowly and thus
hardens perfectly. In _Archæologia_ (lx.) an analysis is given of
“mortar made with crushed tiles as grit in place of, or in conjunction
with, sand.” In Rochester Museum a dishful of the crushed tile is shown
which was taken from a heap found ready for use at the Roman villa at
Darenth. I may say here that I have found mortar prepared in this way
wonderfully tenacious, and suitable for special purposes like stopping
holes in ancient walls. A strong cement made of finely powdered tiles,
lime and oil was used by Byzantine and mediæval builders and probably by
the Romans also. Villars de Honnecourt (thirteenth century) gives a
recipe: “Take lime and pounded pagan tile in equal quantities until its
colour predominates; moisten this with oil and with it you can make a
tank hold water.” The use of crushed pottery in cement goes back to
Minoan days in Crete.
In London a long, thick wall of concrete formed between timbering was
recently found between Knightrider and Friday Streets; it showed prints
of half-round upright posts and horizontal planking; it bent in its
course and may have been the boundary of a stream. On the site of the
old Post Office a Roman rubbish pit was found, about 50 ft. by 35 ft. in
size. “In late Roman times the whole pit had been covered with concrete
about a foot thick and a building had been erected on the spot”
(_Archæol._ lxvi.). At Newgate the Roman structure was erected on a
“raft” of rubble in clay finished with a layer of concrete. Rubble in
clay formed the foundation of the City Wall.
[Illustration:
FIG. 3.
]
Many walls, described as of chalk, rubble or rag-masonry, have been
found in London—one instance at the Bank has been quoted above. Chalk
and flints were the most accessible material after local gravel, clay
and wood. Mr. F. W. Troup tells me that “in the foundations for the
Blackfriars House, New Bridge Street, we exposed a remarkable foundation
(possibly not Roman). It consisted of rammed chalk, fine white material
about 4 ft. wide and high, laid on great planks of elm 6 in. thick,
which appeared to be sawn. These were laid side by side in the direction
of the length of the wall, which ran along the west bank of the Fleet
River.” I mention this, although it was probably a mediæval wall, as an
example of a record; we ought to have every excavation registered. The
walls of a room found in Leadenhall Street in 1830 were of rubble
forming a hard concretion, with a single row of bond tiles through the
thickness of the wall at about every 2 ft. in height. A sketch of this
wall at the Society of Antiquaries shows it plastered outside and in.
This was one of the common types of walling. Better stone walls were
formed with face casings of roughly-squared little stones—what the
French call _petit appareil_—as described above. An immense amount of
piling was used in wet ground under streets and wharves, as well as
walls. Foundations have been discovered of three rows of piles close
together with a wall coming directly on their heads (Fig. 3). A wall
found on the site of the Mansion House seems to have had only one row of
piles; it was plastered outside.
_Tile Walling._—The brick commonly used in Rome was a crude or unbaked
block; the burnt walling tile was, as said above, developed from
pottery, and it always remained pottery-like in texture and thin in
substance. As Mr. T. May has said of bricks: “They were made of heavy
clay, well tempered and long exposed; the modern practice is to use the
lightest possible clay right off without tempering.” Walling tiles were
used in Londinium not only as bonding courses, but for the entire
substance of walls. It is usual to write “Roman tiles or bricks”
interchangeably, but in origin and character the thing was a tile, and,
indeed, roofing tiles with flanged edges were used as a walling material
occasionally. Tiles were of various sizes and shapes, but an oblong, 1½
ft. by 1 ft. and about 1½ in. thick, was most usual. In the Guildhall
Museum are several triangular tiles which must, I think, have been used
for facing walls with concrete cores. Solid tile walling was used in
Londinium so extensively that it was evidently a common material for
better buildings. The Lombard Street excavations of 1785 exposed “a wall
which consisted of the smaller-sized Roman bricks, in which were two
perpendicular flues, one semicircular and the other rectangular; the
height of the wall was 10 ft. and the depth to the top from the surface
was also 10 ft.” Here we have evidence of a brick wall rising the full
height of one story at least (_Archæol._ viii.). Roach Smith noticed a
wall in Scott’s Yard “8 ft. thick, entirely composed of oblong tiles in
mortar.” Mr. Lambert has recently described some walls of brick 3¼ ft.
thick found at Miles Lane. A building in Lower Thames Street had walls
of _red_ and _yellow_ tiles in alternate layers. This fact I learn from
a sketch by Fairholt at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and such use of
bricks of two colours was a common practice. In Hodge’s sketches of the
tile walls of a great building discovered at Leadenhall Market it is
noted that some of the courses were red and buff. Price recorded of
walls, 2½ ft. thick, found in the Bucklersbury excavations, that “the
tiles were the usual kind of red and yellow brick.”
More recently a bath chamber has been found in Cannon Street built of
tiles which on the illustration are indicated in alternate courses of
red and yellow. In the description in _Archæologia_, it is remarked: “It
would appear that the yellow was preferred, the red being employed where
they were not visible.” Years ago Charles Knight observed that the tiles
used in the City Wall at America Square varied from “bright red to
palish yellow.” This has been confirmed by more recent accounts in
_Archæologia_. Finally, Roach Smith, describing the discovery of a part
of the South or River Wall of the City (_Archæological Journal_, vol.
i.), says that the tiles used as bonding bands were straight and
curved-edged (that is, flanged roof tiles), red and yellow in colour. At
the Guildhall there are a roof tile and a flue tile of yellow colour.
Building with tiles may for long have been customary, but the use of red
and yellow tiles in the way described would probably have been a fashion
during a limited time only, and in that case it follows that the
buildings erected with red and yellow tiles are likely to be nearly
contemporary; the date would, I suppose, be the fourth century.
Specially made tiles were used for columns. At the Guildhall are several
round tiles 8 in. diameter, suitable for the piers of a hypocaust. Also
some semicircular tiles 12 in. in diameter. In Rochester Museum are some
quadrants making up a circle about 1½ ft. in diameter. Tiles, eight of
which made up a circle, have lately been found at Colchester, and in the
Guildhall Museum is a course of a round column made up of twelve tiles
around a small central circle. A large number of columns were evidently
of such bricks plastered.
[Illustration:
FIG. 4.
]
_Arches and Vaults._—The arches in the City Wall, where it passed across
the Walbrook, described by Roach Smith, were of no great span (3¼ ft.).
They were constructed of ordinary tiles and were of a roughly-pointed
shape. Arches of this form were not infrequently used in Roman works;
they were not the result of inaccurate building. About a dozen years ago
a well-built pointed arch of alternate tile and tufa, found at Naples,
was described in _Archæologia_. The tiles, although thin, were sometimes
made slightly wedge-shaped, and the city gates at Silchester seem to
have had arches of such bricks.
The only London vault which I can find mentioned is one found exactly
two hundred years since at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. A Minute of the
Society of Antiquaries reads: “May 2, 1722: Mr. Stukely related that the
Roman building in St. Martin’s Church was an arch built of Roman brick
and at the bottom laid with a most strong cement of an unusual
composition, of which he has got a lump. There was a square duct in each
wall its whole length, of 9 in. breadth; there were several of these
side by side: this building is below the springs on the gravel.” This
building that was an arch, with its many flues, and cement
floor—doubtless _opus signinum_—was obviously a Roman bath chamber, but
probably it was quite small.
[Illustration:
FIG. 5.
]
Evidence of the existence of fairly large vaults has been found at the
Baths of Silchester, Wroxeter and Bath. These were all constructed in a
most interesting and suggestive way of voussoirs made as hollow boxes in
the tile material. Similar box voussoirs have been discovered at
Chedworth and elsewhere.
[Illustration:
FIG. 6.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 7.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 8.
]
I have found two such box voussoirs in the Rochester Museum, each about
9 in. by 6 in. on the face and 5 in. on the soffit (Fig. 4). The
surfaces are roughly scored across with parallel lines forming an X.
These two tiles together show an obvious curvature; they came from a
villa at Darenth. In the Guildhall Museum I have also found a box
voussoir which is almost identical with those at Rochester. It is thus
described: “74, Flue (?) tile, red brick, the front decorated with
incised cross lines; in the centre both front and back is a circular
perforation: 9½ in. long, 6¾ in. high, 6½ in. wide.” The longest
dimension is not in the direction of the tube, and the height is greater
at one end than the other, so that the wedge form is quite apparent. The
small holes in both the larger sides were doubtless to give better hold
to the mortar in which they were set (Fig. 5). Roach Smith recorded what
must have been broken parts of similar voussoirs as found in Thames
Street in 1848 (_Journ. Brit. Archæol. Assoc._, vol. iv.), but here they
seem to have been used as waste material in building the little piers of
hypocausts. Roman builders also constructed vaults of pipes and pots set
in mortar concrete as were our box voussoirs, but I know of no British
examples. Vaults of wide span seem to have covered large chambers in the
Basilica at Verulam (see _Victoria County History_). The method of using
the box voussoirs has been well explained from the Silchester examples
by the late Mr. Fox in _Archæologia_ (cf. Fig. 6). A fragment at
Westminster Abbey is either part of a voussoir or of a short flue tile
(Fig.7).
Some notes made at Bath further explain the interesting methods of
building vaults with box voussoirs. There are several such voussoirs in
the ruins of the Great Bath, 12 in. to 13 in. deep by 6 in. and 6½ in.;
6¾ in. and 7½ in.; 8¼ in. and 10 in.; 8 in. and 11 in. at the top and
bottom. Fig. 9 is a sketch of the third; it is scored on the face. The
notches cut in the sides take the place of the holes in the London
examples, and doubtless were for the mortar to get a better key; Fig. 10
is from a vault of this construction which was further strengthened by a
series of curved tiles set in the outer concrete mass, which was 6 in.
thick; Fig. 11 shows the ridge of such a vault—this may be an
imagination of my own. One of the fragments showed six or eight flat
tiles set longitudinally crossing the lines of the box-tiles (Fig. 12).
The ridge termination (Fig. 16) is also from Bath.
[Illustration:
FIG. 9.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 10.
]
Some large voussoir box-tiles from Gaul are shown in the British Museum,
No. 394, in the section of Greek and Roman life.
[Illustration:
FIG. 11.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 12.
]
Well-constructed arched sewers have been found in the City (see
_Victoria County History_).
Many socketed water-pipes are in our museums. Such pipes were
occasionally used in Rome as down-pipes, and we might do worse than
revert to the custom and get rid of the iron rust nuisance. In the
British Museum there are some larger socketed pipes with small holes cut
in them along a line. These must, I think, have been for draining
surface water, for which purpose flue tiles were also used. Larger
sewers were of brick or stone.
_Carpentry._—In mediæval days the carpenter was the chief house builder,
and much timber would have been used in Roman London. In 1901-2 remains
of piling was found in the bed of the Walbrook at London Wall. These
piles had served as supports for dwellings. “The large quantities of
loose nails indicated that the superimposed dwellings were of timber”
(_Builder_, December 13, 1902). Timber piling has also been found at St.
Martin’s le Grand and other sites. There was clearly much soft wet
ground in the City. The better-class dwelling in Bucklersbury, to which
belonged the fine mosaic floor now at the Guildhall, seems to have been
largely of timber. In December last (1921) Mr. Lambert described at the
Society of Antiquaries a remarkable piece of wharfing on the river bank
at Miles Lane. This was a solid wall of squared balks of timber about 2
ft. square, laid one over the other and having ties into the ground
behind. The construction showed an interesting set of tenons, halvings
and housings. A bored wood pipe was also found. In Thames Street a house
found in 1848 had a well-made drain made with 2 in. planks forming
bottom and sides, which is said to have been covered in with tiles.
_Wattle and Daub._—It was ever a problem in London how to build without
stone. Wood, gravel and mud were plentiful, and these were the common
walling materials during the Middle Ages. As lately as the eighteenth
century some of the suburban churches were described by Hatton as being
of “boulder work,” that is, a concrete of coarse gravel; and the walls
of the Temple Church, before the falsifying restorations, were of some
sort of concreted rubble skinned over with plaster on the face. Hearne
reports that Wren said that there were few masons in London when he was
young. Mud walls are mentioned in mediæval records, and “daubers” were,
I suppose, primarily those who did the filling in of post and pan work.
The smaller houses of Londinium were largely of wattle and daub, and
doubtless others were of crude brick. For the use of wattle and daub we
have plentiful direct evidence. In the account of the excavations in and
about Lombard Street in 1785 (_Archæol._ viii.) curious fragments were
found which are thus described: “About this spot and in many other
places large pieces of porous brick were met with of a very loose
texture, seeming as if mixed with straw before they were burnt. They are
commonly channelled on the surface; their size is quite uncertain, being
mere fragments, their thickness about 1½ in. or 2 in.” Again,
chalk-stone foundations and “channelled brick” are mentioned together.
The “brick” fragments were of daubing, and the channels were the marks
of laths, as has been shown by other finds. Similar remnants have
recently been discovered on the Post Office site and in King William
Street. “Débris of a wood and daub house which had been destroyed by
fire.... In several cases the plaster was still adhering to the daub”
(_Archæol._ lxvi.). Other fragments are preserved in the Silchester
collection at Reading. The London fragments were found under conditions
which showed that they had belonged to first-century dwellings. This
method of building had been practised by the Celts, and we may imagine
that the “populace” of Londinium was housed in small huts of wattle and
clay roofed with reed thatch. In the country, old garden walls are
occasionally found, I believe, built of mud daubing on both sides of
wattle work, and sheep shelters of wattle-hurdles and dry fern are, I
suppose, direct descendants of the old British manner of building.
Mr. Bushe-Fox has remarked that one of the earliest houses at Silchester
and the earliest houses at Wroxeter were of wattle and daub
construction. See also Mr. Lambert’s paper in _Archæologia_, December
1921.
_Hypocausts and Flue Tiles and Wall Linings._—Several examples have been
found in London of the Roman system of heating buildings by hypocausts.
These were low under-floor spaces a foot or two high connected with an
external stoke-hole in one direction and having a flue or flues in the
other. When the hypocaust, as was frequently the case, occupied the
whole space below a chamber the floor was supported on a large number of
roughly-built little piers with a row or two of flat tiles above
spanning the intervals, and over them a layer of concrete and a mosaic
or other floor. The flues were usually box-tiles, and in the case of the
hot chambers of a bath one side of a wall or even more might be lined
with them. A hypocaust with its stoke-hole and flue or flues was really
a kiln of low power, in which people were warmed on a similar principle
to the baking of pottery. The box-tiles were much the shape of a modern
brick, and about twice as big; they were hollow and usually had scorings
or impressed patterns on the surface to make mortar or plaster adhere
(Figs. 6 and 7). Frequently they had a hole or two holes in their narrow
sides, so that the mortar might better hold them in place. In the
British Museum there is a long and large pipe with ornamental
scratchings on the surface which may possibly be a chimney.
The system of central heating by the hypocaust seems to have been an
admirable contrivance. Lysons illustrated an example at Littlecote where
flue tiles ran up in the angles of a room like Tobin tubes, being cased
round only by the plaster. The two best known London hypocausts were
found in Lower Thames Street and in Bucklersbury. The former extended
under the floors of two adjoining apartments. The Bucklersbury example
had channels under the floor spreading to several wall flues, each being
of two box-tiles placed side by side. (See Price’s account and _V.C.H._)
Occasionally flue tiles had two smaller channels; there is a broken
example of such a tile in the British Museum. Flue tiles were sometimes
of a rounded form ∩, and in this case the wall itself must have served
to enclose the flue. In the excavations in Lombard Street in 1785
(_Archæol._ viii.) a brick wall is described which had two flues, one
being “semicircular.” A long and well-made ∩-shaped flue in the British
Museum, with an impressed lozenge pattern on the surface, is described
as a ridge-tile. There is also a fragment of still larger diameter at
the Guildhall. Similar flues found at Woodchester were used as
horizontal heating channels under the floor.
Here also one of the walls was found to be lined with flanged tiles, set
thus, │__││__│, with the flanges against the walls. This may have been a
provision against a damp wall. I have seen a similar wall in Rome—I
believe subterranean—also another very similar where large flat tiles,
having four projections at the back like short legs to a low stool, were
used as linings. Each of the four studs was pierced for a nail.
Fragments of tiles found at Newgate in 1877 were about 1½ ft. square and
1¼ in. thick, “with rough clay stubs for attachment”; they were scored
over the surface with wavy lines, and were probably used internally. (In
_V.C.H._ it is said that these may have been mediæval, but the examples
just given show that they were Roman.) In the British Museum and at the
Guildhall are some flat tiles, scored on one side to receive plastering,
and with four notches in the sides to allow of nails being driven
between two adjoining tiles. These, too, must have been for wall
linings.
The impressed patterns on the surfaces of some of these flue tiles are
quite neat and pretty, and they are interesting in the history of design
as being “all-over patterns.” In some cases at least, they seem to have
been produced by a roller having a unit of the design cut on it in the
style of a butter print. A tile found in Kent, illustrated by Haverfield
(_Romanization_, p. 33), has the inscription: “Cabriabanus made this
wall-tile” (_parietalam_)—“The man who made the tiles apparently incised
the legend on a wooden cylinder and rolled it over the tiles, producing
a recurrent inscription.” The patterns superseded the scorings and seem
to have been for the same purpose—to afford a better hold for the
plaster than a plain face. Fig. 13 is of tiles found in Thames Street.
Fig. 14 is a fragment illustrated in Roach Smith’s Catalogue.
[Illustration:
FIG. 13.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 14.
]
Inscriptions roughly scratched on tiles led the late Dr. Haverfield to
the conclusion that ordinary workers in Britain wrote Latin. At the
Guildhall a tile has a humorous note about a workman who went off “on
his own” too often. In the British Museum a tile has _Primus_, and one
from Silchester has _Satis_.
_Floors._—The floors which have been found were most generally of
concrete, tiles and mosaic. In Rochester Museum are some lumps of
material from concrete floors. There were also floors of “rough stones”
and of “chalk stones.” A better kind of concrete floor was that known as
_opus signinum_, made of lime and broken pottery polished on the
surface; this made an admirable floor. Another excellent and much used
surface was obtained by coarse tesseræ of tile from 1 in. to 2 in.
square; sometimes pieces of yellow, black and white were intermixed. In
Rochester Museum is a tile fragment subdivided by indented lines
imitating this coarse kind of mosaic, also a square of light buff tile.
At the Guildhall is a tile a Roman foot square, having incised squares.
Tiles were of various forms and sizes. In the Reading Museum are round
and polygonal tiles, and a very pretty floor formed of such tiles with
coarse tesseræ intermixed. Some small paving tiles have been found (not
in London) with patterns impressed on the surface (Fowler’s engravings).
In the British Museum is a tile 7 in. square, and a large tile about 18
by 14 in. is scored on the surface neatly, like the crosses of a Union
Jack (cf. Fig. 7); it seems to be abraded on the surface, and may be a
paving tile—if so, it must have made an excellent floor. Roach Smith
mentions large tiles about 2 ft. square and 3 in. thick, and some of
these are in the British Museum. Such tiles, as large as paving slabs,
were useful in covering hypocausts, spanning the intervals between the
little piers on which the corners rested.
In the British Museum and at the Guildhall are portions of paving of
small tiles set on edge in a herring-bone pattern. The former is
described as having been found at Bush Lane, the latter near Dowgate
Hill on the Walbrook. “Near by was piling and the cill of a bridge which
crossed the brook from E. to W.” This seems to be the same pavement as
that described in _The Builder_, 1884, as being on the west bank facing
the brook; there was a second landing-stage in Trinity Square Gardens,
on “the edge of a haven,” with a pavement over oak piling. (The haven at
the tidal inlet to Walbrook was doubtless the original port of London.)
I have seen similar herring-bone pavement of tiles on edge in Rome. I
doubt there having been a bridge here.
_Plastering._—External walls would mostly have been plastered. C. Knight
mentioned the discovery near the Bank of traces of a Roman building, and
of what was “apparently the basis of a Roman pillar (circular?) built of
large flat bricks incrusted with a very hard cement, in which the
mouldings were formed exactly as is done in the present day.”
Rome itself must have been a city of plastered walls; the Pantheon, the
great Basilica of Constantine in the Forum, and the splendid Baths were
all, as may be seen to-day, plastered. The tile walls of the Basilica at
Trèves were covered with red plastering. The Baths at Silchester were
plastered externally. Of the great villa at Woodchester we are told the
walls were “plastered on the outside and painted a dull red colour” (T.
Wright). At Caerwent the Basilica was plastered a reddish-brown colour.
The best description I have found of such plastering is that in
_Archæologia_ of a round temple or tomb building found at Holmwood Hill,
which was covered outside with “a mixture of lime and gravel and coarse
fragments of broken tile. On this was laid a coat of stucco composed of
lime and tile more minutely broken, the latter being rendered very
smooth was covered with a dark pigment ... a sort of ochre.” It is clear
that external plastering was generally finished with a red surface.
Of internal plastering we have many fragments covered with painted
decoration in the museums; it was generally very thick and smoothly
finished on the surface; against the floor there was usually a
projecting quarter-round fillet about 3 in. high, of hard cement. Such a
skirting was found around the Bucklersbury mosaic pavement (Price).
Sometimes a similar fillet ran up the angles of a room, as at a bath at
Hartlip Villa, illustrated by T. Wright. I have seen a similar treatment
in Rome, also a hollow curve.
_Roofs, Windows, etc._—Roofs were generally covered with tiles,
stone-slates, and doubtless thatch. Examples of the two former are in
our museums. The flat tiles had turned-up edges; these were removed near
the top for the next tile to lap over. The flanges were covered by
half-round tiles, larger below than above, so that one lapped over the
other. The flat tiles were frequently if not always of a key-stone
shape, so that the bottom of the upper one set into the wider top of the
lower one. (See one figured in Allen’s _London_.) Some have a single
nail-hole near the top; but others, I suppose, can only have been nailed
against the slanting sides. (See V. le Duc’s article “Tuille” for the
Romanesque system.) In better work ante-fix tiles covered the
terminations of the round tiles at the eaves. “Part of an ante-fix of
red terra-cotta in the form of a lion’s mask” was found in the Strand
(_V.C.H._). There are several in Reading Museum and one in the British
Museum from Chester. The slates were thick and of a pointed shape below,
forming diagonal lines when laid. Both the stones and tiles were very
heavy, and must have required strong roof timbering.
[Illustration:
FIG. 15.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 16.
]
Ridges were of tile or stone. A fragment in the Reading Museum from
Silchester has a knob rising from the saddle-back of a ridge-tile
strangely mediæval in appearance (Fig. 8). Probably one came at each end
of the ridge only (cf. V. le Duc’s “Faîtière”). Ridges were frequently
terminated by stone gable knobs, which have been found in many places
(see Ward’s _Roman Buildings_), and occasionally in such a position as
to show that a gable end fronted a street. A ridge termination in Exeter
Museum is shown upside down as if it were a corbel (Fig. 15 is a memory
sketch, and compare Fig. 16 from Bath). These terminations are late
derivations from acroteria and prototypes of gable crosses; they are
links in a continuous chain from Greek to Gothic.
[Illustration:
FIG. 17.
]
Little joiner’s work has survived to our day. Doors would not have been
very different from our own, as is shown by many examples of framed
panel work from foreign sites in museums. A bronze pivot in the Museum
at Westminster Abbey must have been a hinge of a door (Fig. 17). Iron
strap-hinges in the museums are very similar to our own. There are two
in the British Museum (Fig. 18). The plane found at Silchester is
evidence for joiner’s work. In Leicester Museum is a fragment of a
lion’s head and leg from a piece of furniture—probably a table. Turning
in a lathe was practised, as some wooden dishes at the Guildhall show.
There are many excellent locks and keys and hinges and handles in our
museums.
[Illustration:
FIG. 18.
]
The use of window glass was very general. It was cast in small panes, as
is shown by the large proportion of existing fragments which have edges
and corners. Practically a whole pane, about 12 in. by 12 in., is in the
Rochester Museum. Near Warrington, on a Roman site, was found a stone
slab with a shallow recess 12 in. by 8 in., which Mr. May regarded as a
mould for glass (Ward). The average size of panes would have been about
one Roman foot long. Glassware seems to have been made in London,
Silchester and elsewhere, doubtless from imported “metal.” Some windows,
possibly unglazed, were protected by iron gratings. An iron star X in
the Guildhall Museum came from such a window guard as is shown by a
complete example I sketched many years ago in the Strasbourg Museum (see
_Arch. Rev._, May 1913) (Fig. 19). It had been suggested that such
X-pieces were “holdfasts,” to keep the glass panes in position (Ward);
but this is not the case; moreover, the pane at Rochester shows that it
was “cemented” into place.
[Illustration:
FIG. 19.
]
Lead must have been largely used; there are a dozen large “pigs” in the
British Museum. Melted lead was found at Verulam in a position which
suggested that it had been used on an important building. In the
Guildhall Museum are some sections of lead water-pipes found in London,
and at Westminster Abbey is a piece 4 in. in diameter, which must, I
think, be Roman (Fig. 18, C).
A study of Roman building methods may suggest to us many points for our
consideration and emulation. I would especially mention their excellent
mortar made of crushed tile, _opus signinum_, and coarse tesseræ floors,
cement skirtings, red external plastering, the tile-shaped brick, tile
wall linings and down-pipes, hip and gable knobs, vaults of box-tiles
and pipes, the hypocaust system of heating, turning of stonework,
painted decorations, marble linings, cast leadwork. Some day I hope our
sterile histories of “architectural styles” will make way for accounts
of practical building methods.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
+CHAPTER II+
BUILDINGS AND STREETS
“Set we forward friendly together, so through Lud’s-town march;
And in the temple of great Jupiter
Our peace we’ll ratify; seal it with feasts,
Set on there!”
CYMBELINE.
_BASILICA._—In 1880 the extensive foundations of an important building
with massive walls were found on the site of Leadenhall Market, and a
survey of the ruins made by Henry Hodge was published in _Archæologia_
(vol. lxvi.). This great building was exceptional, not only in its scale
but in its manner of workmanship. I know no other case where the walls
of a building had wrought and coursed facings like the City Wall (Fig.
20).
[Illustration:
FIG. 20.
]
In 1881 Mr. E. P. L. Brock exhibited at a meeting of the British
Archæological Association “plans of excavations recently carried out in
Leadenhall Market, showing the foundations of an apse 33 ft. wide and
indications of four different conflagrations. He also exhibited
fragments of fresco painting with ornamental patterns.... The building
appears to have had the form of a Basilica in some respects, with
eastern apse, western nave, and two chambers like transepts on the south
side” (_Archæol._ lxvi.). From the wording of this it appears that Brock
meant that the building had a general resemblance to an early Christian
church. Mr. Lambert in publishing Hodge’s drawings in _Archæologia_
seems to have understood Brock to mean that it was the Civil Basilica of
Londinium. This, indeed, I have no doubt it was, but at the time Brock
wrote such buildings in Britain were hardly known.
[Illustration:
FIG. 21.
]
The Civil Basilica or Public Hall was generally the “complement of the
Forum; it was, in fact, a covered Forum used for commerce, exchange, and
administration, or simply as a promenade” (Daremberg and Saglio). At
Silchester the Forum and Basilica filled an “island” site, about 315 ft.
by 280 ft., at the centre of the city. The Forum was a quadrangle
included within a single row of buildings on three sides, having a
colonnaded walk on the inside, while the Basilica occupied the fourth
side facing the central avenue of the town. It was 233 ft. long by 58
ft. wide, and was divided into a “nave” and “aisles,” the former being
terminated at _each end_ by a large apse. In the interior were two
ranges of Corinthian columns about 3 ft. in diameter, some capitals from
which are now in Reading Museum. Cirencester Basilica was still larger,
being about 77 ft. wide, divided into nave and aisles by fine Corinthian
columns; at one end a great Hemicycle embraced both nave and aisles. It
must have been a noble building (Fig. 21 is a restored plan of one end).
At Wroxeter the Basilica was 67 ft. wide, divided into nave and aisles
by ranges of Corinthian columns.
The columns in the interior of the Basilica at Caerwent were also of
Corinthian fashion: the shafts were 3 ft. in diameter and decorated with
a leaf pattern. Under the floor were wide sleeper walls, one of which
ran across the front of the Tribune. The exterior was covered with
reddish-brown plastering, and the interior had painted decorations of
large scale.
The Basilica at Verulam had a very long hall, 26 ft. wide and about 360
ft. in length. From it three great chambers opened at right angles. The
central chamber was 40 ft. wide. The others were 34½ ft. wide, having
apses at the farther ends included within square outer walls. There was
evidence that these side chambers had been vaulted. Some painted wall
plaster was found, and it was clear that the whole of the interior walls
and vaults had been painted, mostly in floral designs, in dark olive
green and other colours. Fragments of drapery indicated that there had
been figures also. In front of the Basilica was a great quadrangle
court, with a block of masonry on the central axis, which can hardly
have been other than a pedestal for a statue (see _V.C.H._).
The Basilica at Trèves is built wholly of tile-bricks, and was once
covered with red plaster, of which some fragments remain in the window
jambs. It is about 240 ft. long, the flank wall having six bays recessed
between pilasters each containing an upper and a lower window. A large
apse exists at one end, about 40 ft. wide. It has been restored to serve
as a church, and is a noble building, big and bare. The British
Basilicas, so far as they are now known, were of the following
dimensions in width. The English measures may probably be equated with
Roman feet as suggested: Silchester, 58 (60); Caerwent, 62 (65);
Wroxeter, 67 (70); Cirencester, 78 (80); Chester, 76 (?).
The foundations discovered on the site of Leadenhall Market represented
some very large and exceptional structures. The following account is
condensed from Mr. Lambert’s description in _Archæologia_: “The plans
show at the eastern end a quarter-circle of 27 ft. 7 in. radius, which
seems to represent the eastern apse mentioned by Brock; and in
continuation of its southern line, a wall about 150 ft. long, having the
extraordinary breadth of 12 ft. 7 in., runs to the line of and
apparently underneath Gracechurch Street.... From the south side at the
east end, spring at right angles three walls, which doubtless enclosed
the ‘two chambers like transepts’ mentioned by Brock.... It is probable
that work of different periods is included in this plan.... The northern
half of the great wall appears to be brick, the rest stone or rubble, as
though one wall had been built along the face of another.... It is clear
from the drawings that the bulk of the eastern portions of the remains
is homogeneous in structure. The extra thickness of the great wall and
the fragments of solid brick walls at either end of the site represent
perhaps later additions.... These remains form the most extensive
fragment of a Roman building recorded within the Walls of London.” From
the thick mortar joints of the brick walls, Mr. Lambert concludes that
they were probably built in the third or fourth century. The more or
less alternating use of red and buff bricks, as I have already
suggested, is also evidence that this part of the work should be
assigned to the fourth century. Concrete, tessellated and herring-bone
floors were found, also flue tiles (Price, _Athen._, 1881).
Some of the bricks used were of larger size than the ordinary, being 20
in. by 12½ in., and the drawings show that they were carefully laid with
alternate headers and stretchers (Fig. 17). They were 1¾ in. thick, and
four courses made 10-12 in.; the joints were thus about 1¼ in. thick. At
the Guildhall is a fragment of brickwork from Leadenhall Market, with
bricks and joints both 1½ in. thick. The stone walling was of concreted
rubble, with facings on each side in small, roughly wrought but
carefully-coursed stones; the layers of bonding tiles passed through the
thickness of these walls (Fig. 20). A large drain ran parallel to the
outer south wall about 4 ft. wide, including its brick sides.
The general plan shows a total length from the apse at the east to the
broken wall at the west against Gracechurch Street of about 210 ft.
About 44 ft. to the north of the Great Wall a parallel wall is shown on
the plan, but no details are given, and it may not have been Roman.
The interior curve of the _upper wall_ of the apse had a radius of about
22 ft., and the width of a central “nave” agreeing with this can hardly
have been less than 50 ft.; the total internal width, supposing there
were “aisles” in line with the “chambers” at the end, would have been
about 110 ft. There were thick transverse walls across the front of the
apse, and again about 20 ft. to the west. I give (Fig. 22) a plan
adapted from _Archæologia_; the walls shown black were not necessarily
all above the floor level, although they are thinner than the lowest
foundations. (Note that in the plan in _Archæologia_ the scale is given
in divisions of 12 ft., and not of 10 ft. as usual.)
[Illustration:
FIG. 22.
]