certain parts are those in black (A); the foundations (B) may be of a
different age; at the left (C) is the brick pier or wall against
Gracechurch Street.
A structure perhaps 110 ft. wide with a central avenue of 50 ft. would
have been exceptional; on the other hand, a Basilica 220 ft. to 250 ft.
long including the apse would have been rather short. One of the walls
found to the west of Gracechurch Street was bent in its line as if it
might have been against a stream. The nature of the site might have
dictated a rather short and very wide building. It should be noticed
that the line of Gracechurch Street is nearly or exactly at right angles
to the great building. Hodge’s drawings show that the walls of
Leadenhall Market were built directly on the Roman foundations, and
hence square with them.
The Basilica would have had ranges of Corinthian columns and perhaps a
transverse row on the foundation in front of the apse, as at the
Basilica Ulpia in Rome and at Pompeii: compare also the transverse walls
at the Basilicas of Cirencester and Caerwent. The roof would probably
have had trusses of low pitch exposed to the interior, like those of the
early Christian churches.
In 1908 a Roman wall, 3½ ft. wide, _parallel_ to Gracechurch Street, was
found at No. 85. In 1912 a fine Roman wall, 4½ ft. wide, running north
and south, was found just south of Corbet’s Court; turning at right
angles it passed under Gracechurch Street. It was of ragstone with
double courses of tiles; the base was 27 ft. below the present level; a
piece of thinner wall ran close and _parallel_ with the roadway
(_Archæologia_, lxiii.). Kelsey noted that in 1834 massive walls were
found in Gracechurch Street from Corbet’s Court to the head of the
street (_Archæologia_, lx.).
The discovery was announced in January 1922 of a wall 2¾ ft. thick of
ragstone and bond tiles “in the centre of Gracechurch Street a little
south of the Cornhill crossing (to the west or left of Fig. 22). A
length of about 10 ft. has been disclosed following the central line of
Gracechurch Street. The presence of this Roman building in the middle of
the highway proves that the mediæval street did not follow the line of
the Roman street. Close at hand is Leadenhall. When the present market
was reconstructed, excavations disclosed remains of an important Roman
building. It is probable that the remains now unearthed are associated
with the same group of buildings.” Another wall, 4½ ft. thick, was found
at right angles to the thinner wall; the finds were at a depth of about
13 ft. This building, which must have been part of the Basilica or
adjacent to it and square with it, was thus as far west as the middle of
the street, and doubtless farther, for the thinner wall in association
with a thicker one would not have been an external wall. Other walls
have recently been found under St. Peter’s, Cornhill, corresponding with
those under Leadenhall Market. “All these finds seem to be part of a
great building more than 400 ft. long, which crowned the eastern hill of
London” (_Antiquaries’ Journal_, vol. ii. p. 260; see also p. 225,
below).
The smaller inset plan on Fig. 22 is a very visionary reading of the
possibilities. A street in line with Fish Street Hill and the Bridge,
which I will call _Axis Street_, may not have pointed to the centre of
this great building, but rather by its west end as suggested (X). If
this is too far west for the _Axis Street_, then we must suppose that it
was directed towards some point in the south front of the Forum. (It is
desirable that all the walls found in this locality should be accurately
laid down on a plan.) A parallel street to the east, which I will call
_North Gate Street_ (Y), would not be in continuation with _Axis
Street_. The question whether Bishopsgate and Gracechurch Street
represent a Roman street from the Bridge to the Gate has been much
argued over (see _Archæologia_, 1906), and it seems to have been shown
that the line was interrupted in some way. The southern part, however,
must, I think, represent the Roman street from the Bridge, although it
may later have been bent aside to tend more directly to Bishopsgate. The
facts and the fault in the line may be reconciled in some such way as
suggested. (Hodge’s drawings are in the old Gardner collection, and it
would be interesting to know what other Roman records are included.)
Beyond the statement quoted from Brock no identification of the building
is offered in _Archæologia_, and Mr. Bushe-Fox thought that if the walls
were contemporary they could not belong to a Basilica. “If there were a
nave with two aisles and an apse there would be no reason for the cross
wall, nor for the excessive thickness of the side wall. The building had
perhaps been a bath; the wall which ended abruptly at the west end was
probably a flue for heating the apse, and the large drain would be
accounted for” (_Proceedings_, 1914-5). That the building was indeed the
civil Basilica of Londinium is proved to my mind by: A comparison of the
plan with those of other British Basilicas—notice the way that the apse
is within straight external walls, and compare Fig. 21; by the great
scale of the work; by its central position in the City; by the scale and
character of the construction; by the fact that the only possible
alternative seems to be the supposition that it was the great Bath of
the City, and for this neither the planning nor the situation seems
suitable; by the exceptional wall decorations described below; by the
fact that a tile bearing the official stamp PR-BRILON was found on the
site (Price). It is a remarkable fact that Leadenhall was the market,
and that the Crossing at Cornhill was the carfax of London during the
Middle Ages.
We have seen above that Brock said that fragments of painting were found
on the site. In the British Museum are four pieces of wall painting,
given by Mr. Hilton Price—1 and 2 in 1882, and 3 and 4 in 1883; the
first pair are said to be from Leadenhall, the second pair from
Leadenhall Market. One and 3 are fragments of large-scale scrolls of
ornamental foliage of a grey-green colour; 2 is a piece of large-scale
drapery, and 4 is part of a life-sized foot. These four remarkable
fragments evidently form one group and came from the Basilica. The large
scale of the ornament and figure work differentiates these pieces of
painted plaster from all others found in London. At Silchester and
Cirencester fragments of marble wall linings have been found on the
sites of the Basilicas, and some of the marble fragments in the British
Museum may have come from our Basilica, which must have been a handsome,
indeed splendid, civic centre. In the Forum would have been statues of
Emperors, and in the Basilica some impersonation of Londinium itself
(cf. the fragment of such a figure found at Silchester, now at Reading).
[Illustration:
FIG. 23.
]
_Houses._—In 1869 a mosaic pavement was discovered in Bucklersbury which
is now at the Guildhall (_Builder_, May 15 and 29). It was fully
described in a volume by Price. The floor was that of a small
round-ended chamber, and belonged to a building on the western bank of
the Walbrook, Around the apsidal end of the room which had the mosaic
was a wall of stone and chalk, built upon piling; this wall contained
the flues of the heating-system, and it terminated in piers at the ends
of the semicircle. From the fact that no more walling was found and the
evidence of an attached lobby which had a wooden sill around it, we may
suppose that the rest of the house was of timber work (Fig. 23). The
curved apse would be a strong form in which to build a mass of wall to
contain the vertical wall flues; and it is an interesting example of
building contrivance. We have already seen that timber and clay
construction was frequent in Londinium. Near this building a well was
found (built of square blocks of chalk, _The Builder_ says). This
building with the mosaic floor must have been a superior house on the
bank of the Walbrook. To the west, as we shall see, seems to have been a
street possibly of shops; we can thus imagine a little group of
buildings and streets, and a bridge over the Walbrook at the end of
Bucklersbury.
[Illustration:
FIG. 24.
]
The well mentioned above is one of a great number which have been
discovered; for instance, in excavating for Copthall Avenue “a pit or
well, boarded, and filled with earthenware vessels,” etc., was found
(_Builder_, October 5, 1889). Such wells with boarding like a long
barrel have been excavated at Silchester. Again to the south of Aldgate
High Street two wells were found (_Builder_, May 3, 1884).
The most complete Roman building which has been recovered and planned is
one excavated in Lower Thames Street in 1848 and again in 1859
(_Builder_, February 5, 1848, and June 11, 1859). A restored plan was
given in the _Journal of the British Archæological Association_, vol.
xxiv. (see Fig. 21). The two apsed chambers had hypocausts beneath their
floors, supported on little piers built of tiles 8½ in. square, and
broken materials. Fig. 25 is reproduced from the illustration of the
eastern chamber given in _The Builder_. Several sketches and some notes,
by Fairholt, of this building are in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
About 4 or 5 ft. of the walls remained in places, all of tiles with
mortar joints nearly as thick as themselves.
[Illustration:
FIG. 25.—(A, old masonry; B, brickwork with a flue tile; C,
foundations of chamber.)
Foundations discovered in Lower Thames Street in 1859.
]
“The walls were of red and yellow brick in alternate layers composed of
18 in. tiles.” Outside the walls was “a drain of wooden planks, 18 in.
deep by 10 wide, running towards the river” (see plan). The walls were
erected on piles. The sketches show some of the box-flue tiles which had
impressed patterns (see Fig. 25). Some additional information is given
on a lithograph by A. J. Stothard (1848). The walls were 3 ft. thick.
Above the floor of the south room, which was of coarse red and yellow
tesseræ, was a second, about a foot higher in level; this was “a layer
of red concrete 2½ in. thick, hard, and the upper surface almost glazed”
(compare a floor found in Eastcheap, “concrete stuccoed over and painted
red.”—_V.C.H._). This building was doubtless a house; at the time it was
found it was called a bath, but it seems too small to have been even a
secondary public bath. As Thos. Wright says: “Many writers have
concluded hastily that every house with a hypocaust was a public bath”
(cf. the plan of a house at Lymne, _The Roman, etc._, p. 160). The
stoke-hole of the hypocaust was at F, and there were flues up the middle
wall and the western apse. The large room was 23 ft. square; some tiles
of 2 ft. square were found here, also window glass and an iron key. The
plan lay square with the south City Wall (Fig. 24), and the building can
hardly be earlier than this wall. It may thus be accepted as a late
fourth-century house, and we may further infer that box-tiles with
impressed patterns were a characteristic of this century. On two sides
of the house were lanes about 10 ft. wide. As in so many cases modern
walls seem to have been laid out on the same alignment as the Roman
building.
The house just described had two apses, and the Bucklersbury house also
had an apse. This was in agreement with general custom. As Thos. Wright
remarked: “One peculiarity which is observed almost invariably in Roman
houses in Britain is that one room has a semicircular alcove, and in
some instances more than one room possesses this adjunct.” In the plan
given in _Archæologia_ of the Roman walls and floors found in and about
Lombard Street in 1785 two apses seem to be indicated; thus we have
evidence for five in the scanty records; altogether there must have been
scores in the city.
Within the walls of the City were many large houses of the villa type as
well as minor dwellings and streets of shops. Roach Smith speaks of such
great houses about Crosby Square; he also describes a mosaic floor under
Paternoster Row which extended 40 ft.; a second important floor on the
site of India House, Leadenhall Street, was at least 22 ft. square, and
may have been considerably more; a third large floor which was found
under the Excise Office, Broad Street, was about 28 ft. square (probably
30 Roman ft.). All these must have been the floors of the chief central
rooms of large houses of the villa type. Tite saw this of the Broad
Street floor as his speaking of the “triclinium, other rooms, and the
garden” shows. This Broad Street pavement was lying square with more
modern walls surrounding it, and it may not be doubted that buildings
continuously occupied the site.
The supposition that there were important houses of the villa type
within the walls of the City has been fully confirmed by the excavations
at Silchester, and I may here quote Dr. Haverfield’s general conclusions
as to Roman towns in Britain. “Roman British towns were of fair size,
Roman London, perhaps even Roman Cirencester were larger than Roman
Cologne or Bordeaux. They possessed, too, the buildings proper to a
Roman town—town hall, market-place, public baths, chess-board
street-plan, all of Roman fashion; they had also shops and temples and
here and there a hotel.... The dwelling-houses in them were not town
houses fitted to stand side by side to form regular streets; they were
country houses, dotted about like cottages in a village. But in one way
or another and to a real amount, Britain shared in that expansion of
town life which formed a special achievement of the Roman Empire.” The
evidence as to the isolation of the houses is here a little overstated,
but in the main the passage gives a true impression. Fragments of wall
decorations and mosaics found in Southwark suggest that there were big
houses on that side of the river, and doubtless others occupied sites
along the Strand and Holborn.
[Illustration:
FIG. 26.
]
I give here a little sketch plan (Fig. 26) of a house found about a
century since at Worplesdon, Surrey, from a survey at the Society of
Antiquaries. This house is interesting as its unaltered plan gives an
example of a simple “Corridor House.” It was 62 ft. long by 22½ ft. wide
within the foundations, and faced west. The slight foundations of flint,
not much more than a foot wide, show that the walls must have been of
timbering or wattle work. The rooms and passage had floors of plain
coarse tesseræ, except that the outer side of the passage had a simple
twist border in mosaic. Possibly there had been some pattern in the
central room as the floor was there missing, and a note reads: “Near
this place was found the lozenge-shaped tessellated pavement.”
_Baths, Temples, etc._—Remnants of important buildings have been found
in Cannon Street from time to time, and London Stone is probably a
fragment of one of them. Wren was of the opinion “by reason of its large
foundations that it was some more considerable monument in the Forum;
for in the adjoining ground to the south were discovered some
tessellated pavements, and other extensive remains of Roman workmanship
and buildings.” Under Cannon Street a building with one apartment 40 ft.
by 50 ft., and many other chambers, is mentioned in _V.C.H._ At Dowgate
Hill the foundations of large edifices are listed in _V.C.H._, and of
Bush Lane it is remarked: “That there must have been extensive buildings
here seems clear.” At Trinity Lane, Great Queen Street, “great portions
of immense walls with bonding tiles” have been found (_V.C.H._). There
was a house on the south side of St. Paul’s known as _Camera_ or _Domus
Dianæ_ which may have taken its name from some Roman monument. In a St.
Paul’s deed of 1220 it appears as a messuage or inn, _domum que fuit
Diane_.
In December 1921 Mr. Lambert described the foundations of a building by
Miles Lane. The plan of this suggested a house of the corridor type
facing east. The site seems to have been levelled up by timber walling
or wharfing against the river and running back into the sloping ground.
One of the most important public buildings in the City would have been
the Public Baths, as those of Silchester and Wroxeter show. At Trèves
the great Baths cover acres of ground by the river. Bagford says that
after the fire of London some Roman water-pipes were found in Creed Lane
“which had been carried round a Bath that was built in a round form with
niches at equal intervals for seats.” This suggests a part of important
Baths, and Creed Lane does not seem an unlikely situation for the Public
Baths. (In _V.C.H._ the site is said to have been in Ludgate Square.)
[Illustration:
FIG. 27.
]
The only certain evidence we have for Temples are some inscriptions and
sculptures. For the most part they would, like those found at Silchester
and elsewhere, have been small square and polygonal structures set on a
rather high podium approached by steps. Fig. 27 is a restored plan of
the little Temple found at Caerwent. Doubtless here and in most cases,
the roof of the cella ran on to cover the podium. At the foot of the
steps an external altar would have stood. The column illustrated before
(Fig. 1) seems suitable for a temple. Roach Smith, speaking of the group
of Mother Goddesses found in Crutched Friars (see _Builder_, October 30,
1847), says: “It is the only instance with the exception of the
discovery made in Nicholas Lane in which the site of a temple can with
reason be identified” (_Ill. Rom. Lon._, p. 33). The find in Nicholas
Lane was part of an important and early inscription which may have been
on the chief temple in Londinium. Some sculptures found on the bank of
the Walbrook suggest that a cell of Mithras occupied the site. In the
fourth century a Christian church would, as at Silchester, have occupied
an important site in the City.
A large Theatre or Amphitheatre, or both, would have been necessary in
such a town. Roach Smith, who had a wonderful instinct of insight,
thought that such a building probably occupied a site against the bank
of the Fleet, called “Breakneck Steps.” Lately it has been suggested
that the drawing-in of the line of the City Walls at the north-west
angle was done to avoid an amphitheatre; more probably, I think, it was
to avoid wet ground. There is evidence that gladiator contests and
chariot races were popular. For gladiators, compare two small bone
figures at the British Museum, evidently from one shop, with the
fragment of a little statuette at the Guildhall. The bronze
trident-head, also at the Guildhall, really does seem to be a
gladiator’s weapon as suggested in the catalogue. For chariot races, see
the fragments of glass bowls, which may have been made in London, in the
British Museum. I have found an additional little point of evidence on
chariot races. Amongst Fairholt’s sketches at the Victoria and Albert
Museum, is one of an enigmatical little fragment of a Castor vase, found
in Bishopsgate Street, which seems to represent four heads of dogs
running neck and neck. Now there is a whole vase in the British Museum
(found in Colchester) which was practically a replica of the other, and
this shows that the four running animals of the fragment were chariot
horses, and the whole represented a race. Above the horses of the
fragment is scratched ITALVS, which, I suggest, must have been the name
of some favourite “winner” in Londinium.
_Streets._—In his account of the Bucklersbury pavement, Price describes
also some walls which were found “about 30 yds. westerly from the
pavement” (the position is shown on his plan). “Two Roman walls running
nearly in line with Bucklersbury directly towards the Walbrook.” In the
space between them had been laid a drain to fall towards the brook with
a tile pavement above, and mortar fillets against the walls. The walls
were 2¾ ft. thick, and built on three rows of piles, and the space
between was 2¼ ft. The tiles are of the usual kind of red and yellow
brick. Above these walls were others of chalk and stone 3 ft. apart, of
later date. This is one of a great number of instances where we find
that mediæval buildings were founded directly on Roman walls. The space
Price suggested was “an open passage-way, or it may be of an alley
between two buildings.” Comparison makes it certain that the walls were
those of neighbouring houses in a street; similar conditions have been
found at Caerwent, Silchester, etc. At the former “the shops along the
main street were probably roofed with gables; this is substantiated by
the finding of a finial in front of a house. The narrow space between
the houses would serve to carry away the water which would drop from the
eaves” (_Archæol._, 1906). The walls are shown in Fig. 28.
The Bucklersbury paved passage, only just wide enough for a man to get
at it, with the underlying drain, is obviously a similar space. The
tradition of dividing houses in streets from one another in this way
lasted into the Middle Ages (see V. le Duc’s _Dict._, “Maison”) and, of
course, occasionally to modern times. By this means party walls and
difficult roof gutters are avoided. From the two parallel walls we are
justified in inferring a row of houses—possibly shops—and a street
running to the west of them; moreover, the example suggests to some
extent what continuous streets of houses must have been like. In
Southwark a passage-way between houses was found 3 ft. 8 in. wide. A
wall with tile paving against the outside, found under the Mansion
House, suggests a similar passage.
[Illustration:
FIG. 28.
]
It has been mentioned above how in several cases, as is clear even from
our imperfect records, that later walls were founded directly on Roman
walls. Modern buildings were thus in direct and unbroken succession to
Roman ones and maintained the same alignment. In the Archer collection
at the British Museum is a drawing of “a Roman pavement and foundations,
supposed to be remains of Tower Royal” in Cannon Street; this again was
square with modern work. Roman remains have been found under several
churches. Massive walls of chalk were found under St. Benet’s,
Gracechurch. Roach Smith, speaking of a floor found at the corner of
Clement’s Lane, says: “This adds another to the numerous instances of
churches in London standing on foundations of Roman buildings.” In 1724
Roman foundations were found under St. Mary, Woolnoth, and “three
foundations of churches in the same place” (_Minutes Soc. Ant._, June
17). Even Westminster Abbey and St. Martin’s in the Fields were built on
Roman sites, and so probably was St. Andrew’s, Holborn.
This continuity of the buildings from the Roman Age is not only an
interesting fact, but it is a strong argument for the general continuity
of the street lines as well. The plan of the extensive finds in and
about Lombard Street in 1785 shows the building to have conformed very
much to lines parallel with, and at right angles to St. Swithin,
Sherborne, Abchurch, Nicholas, Birchin and Clement’s Lanes, and I cannot
doubt that these lanes are in some degree the successors of Roman
streets. In “Lombard Street and Birchin Lane the discoveries are said to
have indicated a row of houses” (_V.C.H._). If all the evidence as to
the “orientation” of buildings and walls was laid down on a plan, merely
marking the direction of the minor ones with a cross, we might build up
further results in regard to the direction of the streets. At the same
time it would be vain to expect any large and simple scheme of lay-out
of the chess-board type, the Walbrook and other streams, and probably
the persistence of some earlier lines (Watling Street to St. Albans?)
would have interfered with that. The Walbrook seems to have been crossed
by two chief bridges, which must have been governing facts in the
lay-out. One was at Bucklersbury, the other, Horseshoe Bridge farther
south, is recorded from the thirteenth century. Cannon Street, I cannot
doubt, represents one east to west street. Thames Street must have been
formed when the south City Wall was built. I have spoken of the
north-south lines above. Saint Benet “Gerschereche” is mentioned in a
charter of 1053 (_Athen._, February 3, 1906).