“It seemeth not to have been walled in the year of our Lord 296, because
in that year the Franks easily entered London.” He accepted the legend
that “Helen, the mother of Constantine, first enwalled this City.”
Camden held the same view, and has a note: “Coins of Helena often found
under the walls.”
It is now agreed that the walls were built around a late and extended
city, for rubbish pits and burials have been found within the walls. A
belt of the former occupied the site of St. Paul’s and the Post Office.
It was Roach Smith’s impression that the walls were probably built
“after the recovery of the province by Constantine, or even later, when
Theodosius restored the towns” (_Archæol. Jour._, 1844).
Mr. Lambert, from planning the find-spots of Roman coins, comes to the
conclusion that the wall was not in its later position until the fourth
century. The type of walling is especially characteristic of the fourth
century. Haverfield has pointed out some earlier cases of the use of
bonding tiles, but these seem to be exceptional. (See also what is said
of Colchester in _J.R.S._, 1919.) Daremberg and Saglio give 309 as the
date of the earliest wall of our kind in Rome. (They illustrate an
example from Timgad, in North Africa, which closely resembles the wall
of London.) I suggest that a point of evidence may be found in the
Constantinian coin, which has a city gate or fortification for device,
and the inscription PROVIDENTIAE CAESS, with the mint mark of London
(Fig. 37). This device was not invented for London, but I cannot think
that at such a time it could have been adopted if Londinium still
remained an open city—it would have invited too obvious irony after what
had happened in 296. This coin was issued between 320 and 324, and I
suggest that it may be accepted as a record of the walling of the City,
or, perhaps more probably, the beginning of the works. The coins of
Helen mentioned by Camden were issued about this time. In the later half
of the fourth-century London acquired the title of Augusta, and this
change of style probably followed on the change of status of its having
then been completely walled. (I find that Mr. Reg. Smith has already
made this same suggestion in _V.C.H._) Sir Arthur Evans has recently
called attention to a silver coin of Valentinian the Elder as having in
an abbreviated form the monetary stamp of _Londinensis Augusta_. “A
group of coins shows that the Mint at London, which had been closed
since the time of Constantine, was restored by Valentinian in A.D. 368”
(_Proceedings, S. A._, 1915, p. 105). I suggest that this is a probable
date for the completion of the river wall. Several of the cities of Gaul
were protected by walls at a still later time.
[Illustration:
FIG. 37.
]
Many of the carved fragments found in the bastions can be little earlier
than the year A.D. 300. The important monuments of which remnants have
been found must have been destroyed when the long, wide strip required
for the original wall and its ditch was cleared, for the bastions
themselves did not go beyond this ground. It seems possible that the big
stones were reserved for founding bastions; this is more likely than
that distant monuments were destroyed to provide foundation stones.
“To put an end to incessant pillage the Gallo-Roman towns sacrificed
their faubourgs, and, retrenching their extent, surrounded themselves
with strong walls, which were very often supported on sculptured blocks
taken from destroyed edifices. Le Mans, like the towns of Senlis, Tours,
Autun, Bourges, Fréjus, etc., girded itself with ramparts flanked with
round-fronted towers, of which important remains still exist, especially
along the river Sarthe. The _enceinte_ of Le Mans enclosed an area about
500 by 200 metres” (A. Ledru, 1900).
[Illustration:
FIG. 38.
]
_Gates._—The excavations of 1903 at the Old Bailey revealed some
remnants of the Roman gate on the site of Newgate. The most significant
of these was a portion of plinth on the City side, with a return at the
south end. This, as shown in _Archæologia_, lix., by Dr. P. Norman, when
linked up with earlier discoveries made in 1875, allowed of the recovery
of the plan of the gate (Fig. 38). The plinth had been removed from its
place before I saw it, but the stones were certainly shaped in Roman
days; they had a chamfer 8 in. wide, with a square face of similar width
below, and they had been strongly cramped together; one had a “return
end,” and clearly came from a corner (A and B). A portion of the western
plinth was discovered in 1909 (_Archæol._ lxiii.). The gate, with its
towers on either side, had a frontage of about 96 ft.—probably 100 Roman
feet, as a Roman foot was about 11·60 in. The space between the towers
appears to have been about 35 ft., which is not more than sufficient for
two large archways. The great gate at Colchester, which was about 107
ft. wide, had two carriage-ways 17 ft. wide, and two small side openings
6 ft. wide as well (see _J.R.S._, 1919). Enough of the walling was found
in 1875 to show that the London gate was of stone bonded with tiles; it
was erected on a thick platform of “clay and ragstone,” which raised the
plinth about 5 ft. above the plinth of the adjoining City Wall. Fig. 39
is a restoration of the front.
[Illustration:
FIG. 39.
]
Several years ago a mass of masonry with a face to the south was found
under Bishopsgate Street a little within the line of the wall;
underlying it was “puddling of flint and clay” over a wide area. It was
suggested at the time (_Archæeol._ lx. p. 58) that this masonry and
foundation might have belonged to Roman Bishopsgate, and the finding of
what seems to have been a similar platform at Newgate strengthens the
hypothesis. It had long ago been pointed out by T. Wright that the gate
at Lymne was raised on a platform of big stones. At Lymne and Pevensey
entrance gates had round-fronted towers, and the great gate at
Colchester had quadrants.
Mediæval Aldgate had two round-fronted towers; these are shown in the
Survey of Holy Trinity Priory mentioned above, and they are so similar
to the bastions of the wall that I was led to suggest that the double
gateway and towers were probably substantially Roman work (Fig. 40).
Some confirmation of this is given in _V.C.H._, but compare
_Archæologia_, xliii. Fitzstephen, writing at the end of the twelfth
century, says that London had “double gates,” and this was doubtless so
from Roman days.
[Illustration:
FIG. 40.
]
The Roman ditch outside Aldersgate, with a foundation for a bridge
pointing towards the gate, was found about thirty years ago, and this is
evidence for a Roman gate on this site (_Archæol._ lii.). Ludgate is
guaranteed as Roman by the antiquity of the Strand and Fleet Street.
Stow says that in 1595 he observed on the north side of Fleet Street
from Chancery Lane to St. Dunstan’s Church, 4 ft. below the surface, “a
pavement of hard stone, more sufficient than the first, under which they
found in the made ground piles of timber almost close together, the same
being black as pitch and rotten, which proved that the ground there, as
sundry other places of the City, had been a marsh.” Close piling was
such a common Roman procedure that it may not be doubted that what Stow
observed was the Roman road to Ludgate.
Mediæval Aldgate can be restored very fully by comparing the plan
mentioned above with the view of the City given by Braun and Hogenberg
(_c._ 1550). The gate is so accurately represented that two stair
turrets appear over the positions where stairs are shown in the plan. If
this gate is so accurately drawn, then the other indications may be
accepted. In the Pepys collection, Cambridge, is an engraved view of a
gate dated 1688; in the list of contents this is described as
Cripplegate, but I believe it is rather Bishopsgate. It was an unaltered
mediæval structure, with corbelled battlements and three statues in
niches, one on each of the towers and one in the centre. Newgate is also
represented in a woodcut view of about the same time, and in an
engraving of considerable accuracy, from a book entitled _Herba
Parietis_; here even Whittington’s coat-of-arms plainly appears. For a
possible view of the Bridge gate, _c._ 1416, see an article by Mr. Weale
in the _Burlington Magazine_, 1904.
A Roman road on piles has recently been found in Southwark (_Archæol._
lxiii.). Adding the Bridge gate, we now have evidence for the existence
in Roman days of the six chief gates of Londinium. It has been suggested
that there may have been an earth bank inside the walls, as at
Silchester, but the different relation of the fronts of the gates to the
walls in London are contrary arguments.
_Ditches._—When the site of Newgate was excavated I saw the slope of the
ditch clearly defined by the blacker earth lying above the clean yellow
gravel. The latest and clearest account of the ditches is in
_Archæologia_, lxiii. There was first a narrow V-shaped ditch dug when
the wall was first built. A second wider ditch was excavated outside the
other, which was at least partly filled when the bastions were built.
There were similar double ditches at Silchester, and it has been pointed
out that there the earlier V-shaped ditch probably supplied the gravel
for building the wall; possibly this was the case at London too. The
wide ditch was probably further expanded in front of the gates; it was
about 75 ft. wide at the top of the bank outside Aldersgate.
_The Original Port of London and the Bridge._—The space within the
completed walls has been computed to have been about 330 acres by Dr.
Philip Norman. Dr. Haverfield says: “At London, Silchester, Trier,
Cologne, the walls seem to have enclosed the town at near its largest”
(_Romanization_). Roach Smith first remarked that from the position of
burials within the area of the City we might infer the position of an
earlier Londinium. Loftus Brock also, following Woodward, in pointing
out that the northern cemetery had come within the space enclosed by the
City Wall at Bishopsgate, used the same argument. Mr. Reginald Smith
plotted all the known burials on a plan. Mr. Lambert has also laid down
the find spots of coins of different dates. In his recent paper in
_Archæology_ he suggests that a stratum of charred material between
London Bridge and the Walbrook represents the early Londinium destroyed
by Boadicea. A large number of rubbish pits have been found within the
walls. Putting these facts together it is evident that the original site
of Londinium must have been by the inlet of the Walbrook, and it is
probable that this little tidal creek was the first port of London—the
seaport of Celtic Verulam, to which an old road led by Aldersgate and
Islington. It is likely that before the Roman walls were built some
defensive bank would have been thrown up between the Fleet and the
Walbrook; compare the earth banks at Colchester. Can Barbican represent
such a defence?
London Bridge is mentioned in the tenth century. Stow tells us that it
was first of timber. Then in 1067 a charter speaks of “Botolph’s Gate,
with a wharf which was at the head of London Bridge.” He goes on: “About
the year 1176 the stone bridge was begun near unto the bridge of timber,
but towards the west, for Botolph’s wharf was, in the Conqueror’s time,
at the head of London Bridge.”
Nothing was known of a Roman bridge until last century. Then when the
old stone bridge was destroyed evidence was found which convinced
observers of the time that a Roman bridge had preceded it on the same
line. Recently some writers, while accepting the Roman bridge as proved,
have preferred to put it back to Stow’s line. Haverfield says: “No
traces of a Roman bridge have yet been found (_Archæologia_, lx.): the
oldest mediæval bridge (eleventh century) is said by Stow to have been
near Botolph’s wharf (see plan).” This plan shows the bridge “temp.
William the Conqueror” far to the east of Fish Street Hill (see also
_V.C.H._). Exactly what Haverfield meant by saying that no traces of the
bridge had been found is hard to say; it seems to have been as loose a
statement as the one which seems to imply that the earliest mediæval
bridge was of the eleventh century.
Roach Smith, a cautious observer, was entirely convinced by the evidence
that the mediæval bridge followed the course of the Roman bridge.
“Throughout the line of the old bridge many thousands of Roman coins,
with abundance of Roman pottery, were discovered, and beneath some of
the central piles brass medallions of Aurelius, Faustina and Commodus.
The enormous quantity of Roman coins may be accounted for by the
practice of the Romans ... they may have been deposited upon the
building or repairs of the bridge, as well as upon the accession of a
new emperor.... The beautiful works of art which were discovered
alongside the foundations, the colossal bronze head of Hadrian, the
bronze images of Apollo, Mercury, Atys ... and other relics were
possibly thrown into the river by early Christians” (_Archæol. Jour._,
vol. i.). This seems substantial evidence. The charter cited by Stow
only speaks of a wharf as being at the head of London Bridge; it does
not tell us that the bridge ran into the middle of the wharf. The Roman
bridge was linked up with an approach from the south over a raised
causeway; the bridge-ends would have required much consolidation, and
the foundations in the great tidal river must have been extremely
difficult to construct. We should need very clear demonstration before
we could believe that the early Saxons did more than patch up the work
of skilled Roman engineers. Altering of the bridge to the Gracechurch
Street line on the City side in 1176 would have meant replanning on a
big scale. The ancient line of approach on the south side is guaranteed
by the area of Roman finds (see _V.C.H._ plan). Gracechurch Street is
known to have existed before the Conquest, and the positions of the
ancient churches of St. Magnus’s and St. Olaf’s at each end of the
bridge are significant: the bridge, I believe, was in the parishes of
these two churches.
Much more might be said, but I cannot think it is necessary. I conclude
that the Roman bridge followed the line between the “Borough” and
Gracechurch Street, and that the phrase in the charter was nothing more
than a general indication of the position of the wharf.
After the building of the Roman bridge, Billingsgate may have succeeded
the Walbrook creek as the chief port of London.
One of the sights of Londinium which may best be imagined is the
approach over the bridge. Or we may think of the ring of turreted walls
of the City by the river as seen from the northern heights. Or, again,
we may think of the sights from the walk on the City Walls; the Kent
hills beyond the Thames estuary, with ships coming up to make fast at
Dowgate; then, turning to look inward over the City, we may imagine the
narrow streets and plastered, red-tiled, houses. It must have been grim
and grey when the roofs were covered with snow, and we may wonder what
dwellers from the south thought of our fogs. Yet Londinium was a
romantic city, a little Rome in the west, and we want some good story
about it which shall bring it out of archæology into the minds of the
citizens and the hearts of the children.
[Illustration:
FROM A CARVING ON AN ALTAR AT RISINGHAM.
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
+CHAPTER IV+
CEMETERIES AND TOMBS
“O more than mortal man that did this town begin, Whose knowledge
found the plot so fit to set it in. Built on a rising bank within a
vale to stand, And for thy healthful soil chose gravel mixed with
sand.”
DRAYTON’S _Polyolbion_.
CEMETERIES
THE site of London by a noble tidal river, or rather at the head of a
long estuary, on clean gravel ground intersected with streams, was well
chosen. The ground was open heath with scrubby vegetation, except for
woods here and there where the soil was suitable. Sir Thomas More
planned his “Utopia” on a site similar to that of London. The buildings
of London have spoilt an excellent golf course! The walled city set down
in the fair land must have been beautiful indeed, as seen from the
Hampstead or Surrey hills. On approaching the turreted walls by the
straight and narrow roads, the traveller would have had to pass through
a wide belt of cemeteries. Around Londinium in its later state, the
gardens of the dead would have come right up to the city ditch, just as
at Constantinople the beautiful Turkish cemeteries, with their noble
cypresses, lie close beside the walls of the city.
“Around Rome was a great belt of cemeteries; the sides of the main roads
issuing from the gates were especially favoured sites; the chief region
of all was that crossed by the Via Appia and Via Latina” (Lanciani).
“An immense field of the dead had extended all along the north-eastern
quarter of ancient London, from Wapping Marsh to the fen beyond
Moorfields” (C. Knight).
Goodman’s Fields, Moorfields, Spitalfields, were all cemeteries, and it
is curious that they all have in common the name of fields. In the
valley of the Fleet River by Ludgate and Blackfriars on the west were
also cemeteries; and others lay beyond Southwark (Battersea Fields and
St. George’s Fields?). The city of the dead must have been impressive on
account of its extent and the number of its population, and doubtless it
was beautiful. The harsh horror of modern cemeteries is a new thing on
the earth. In antiquity, cemeteries had beauty, poetry, history.
The monuments of Londinium would have been of many kinds, small and
big—columns, sculptures, mausolea, altar-tombs, tomb-houses, and steles
or slabs. These tombs were not cold and pale, but profusely carved, and,
doubtless, in most cases, coloured. The monuments in the museum at
Trèves show many traces of colour—red, green and yellow, if I remember
aright. Dr. Ashby recently described a huge Roman necropolis at Syracuse
in words which might apply to Londinium. “Fragments of memorials were
found, varying from simple steles and columns to the chapel with rich
architectural forms, the decorative portions being in soft limestone
with considerable traces of polychromy.” Painting over coarse soft stone
was a general tradition, and bright colour liberally applied would
greatly change the aspect of rather crude carvings. At Bath an
inscription mentions the repair and repainting of a building. This might
be internal painting, but it was an external inscription and probably
included outside work. The Corinthian temple at Bath was decorated with
colour on the exterior. Mr. Irvine says of a piece of the cornice:
“Considerable portions of the red paint with which it had been covered
remained among the carving.”
Finds of burials are still not infrequent in London; as specimen cases I
quote two recent newspaper clippings: “A workman excavating in Cannon
Street Road, Stepney, has unearthed an urn containing bones at a depth
of 2 ft. below the road level; Sir C. H. Read observed that it provided
a link in the track of the Roman road eastward, as the custom was to
deposit these urns at the sides of the roads” (December 19, 1919). “The
discovery of two Roman urns in Mansell Street, Goodman’s Fields, is of
considerable importance. The urns were found about 10 ft. below the
garden of a house. Both contained inner cinerary urns with calcined
remains. The perfect one resembles an ordinary jar with a cover; the
outer urn is perfectly round, and has handles on each side by the mouth.
It is believed that the site was that of a Roman villa; bricks and tiles
having been discovered in other parts of the site” (1913). The urns are
now in the London Museum.
The actual monuments once on the east of the City are represented by the
fragments found in the Tower Hill bastion; those to the north, by the
stones found in the Camomile Street and other bastions; those on the
west, by the soldier’s monument found at Ludgate Hill by Wren, by later
discoveries near Ludgate Hill, in 1806, and the fragment of the monument
of Celsus found on the Blackfriars site.
_Steles._—A memorial slab in the Guildhall Museum is particularly
interesting, as it is obviously in the tradition of Hellenistic art. It
is a true stele of the usual small scale, about 2 ft. wide and 2½ ft.
high; it bears a relief sculpture of a soldier in a panel bordered by
pilasters and finished with a pedimental top (Fig. 41). This broken slab
is in the reserve collection and is not usually visible, nor is it in
the catalogue; the supposition is that it was found in one of the
bastions with so many other remnants of tombs. It must, I think, be one
of the earliest Roman monuments discovered in London.
[Illustration:
FIG. 41.
]
At the Guildhall is shown a sculptured slab thus described: “Monumental
tablet, marble, bearing in relief the figure of a man armed with a
trident and sword (?), and having a shield-like protection to the upper
portion of his left arm; above is a fragmentary inscription; Greek; 21¾
× 15½ × 3½ in.: Tottenham Court Road.” It was illustrated in an early
volume of _Archæologia_ (xi. p. 48). On the original drawing at the
Society of Antiquaries is written: “This white marble slab was found by
Mr. Miller among the ruins of a house at Islington. It is now fixed up
on the front of a warehouse in High Timber Street, near Labour-in-Vain
Hill.” (This was south of Thames Street in the City.) The inscription is
given by Hübner. With the writer in _V.C.H._, we may doubt whether this
slab is not an importation like the Arundel Marbles; but other works in
white marble will be described in this section, and gladiators were well
known in Londinium (Fig. 42).
[Illustration:
FIG. 42.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 43.
]
In the British Museum is a small stele with a well-carved relief of a
man heavily draped in a dignified pose and classical taste, and also
having a Greek inscription. This stone slab is little more than 1 ft.
wide by about 2½ ft. high (Fig. 43). It was obtained in 1911, but it was
drawn by Archer about eighty years ago. It was found in White’s Conduit
Fields, that is, near Lamb’s Conduit Street. This, too, has a Greek
inscription of which I can only make out the last word and a few other
letters:
. . . . . ΟC
. . . . . ΟΥ
. . Ε ΧΑΙΡΕ
The last word is Farewell. I have felt some doubt as to this really
pretty little work being a London antiquity. My sketch is given from
Archer’s drawing. Although he may have restored it to some degree, it is
probable that it has suffered from decay since he drew it. Other Greek
inscriptions have been found in Britain.
There is another stele at the Guildhall which is so similar in several
respects to the one just described that it might have been carved in the
same shop. It is described in the catalogue as a “Monumental slab,
limestone, on which is represented a figure of a man and child; the
former is clothed in a toga, the folds of which he is holding in his
left hand; 26 × 13½ × 2¼ in.” That two slabs so much alike should be
discovered in one city, is a strong argument in favour of their having
originated there. Notice, further, how the little pediment over the
British Museum slab resembles that of the slab of the soldier first
described. Again, the wide, plain margins are like those of the
Gladiator slab. The evidence seems to be in favour of our accepting all
the four slabs described as truly London works.
In the British Museum (the Roman corridor) is a tall inscribed slab of
the headstone type, about 6½ ft. high (Fig. 44). We may see clearly that
it is a descendant of the steles by noting a few little points. It has
the side pilasters and a pediment on which some lumps carry on the
tradition of acroteria. An inscription occupies the field where the
steles have sculptured reliefs, and a lower space is occupied by a
festoon. From the inscription, NA ATIENI, it seems that it commemorated
a man born in Athens. This slab is especially like a large stele at
Cirencester which had two panels, the upper one having a relief and the
lower an inscription. Proportions, pilasters, pediment are all like our
London slab. Haverfield assigned the Cirencester slab to the end of the
first century, and the London one can only be a little later. The
inscription terminates with the early formula: H[IC] S[ITUS] EST.
[Illustration:
FIG. 44.
]