Observations on the Primitive Site, Extent, and Circttmvallation of Roman London
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II.—Observations on the Primitive Site, Extent, and Circttmvallation of Roman London. By WILLIAM HENKT BLACK, Esq., F.S.A. Read November 26th, 1863. WITHOUT at present attempting to discuss the question whether a city, town, or village occupied the present site of the city of London before the Roman invasion of this country, it is enough for the purpose of this paper to assume as a fixed fact, resting on irresistible evidence and which all parties admit, that the existing area of the city proper, that is, the space between the walls and gates which stood a little more than a century ago, was (with the exception of the Blackfriars' precinct) occupied by the Romans up to the time when their legions were recalled to the continent, and the Roman government ceased in this island. But. that the whole of this area was originally the city, is not, I believe, asserted by any antiquaries or historians ; it is evidently too large to have been originally selected or laid out for a city, being capable of containing several of the cities and towns which were built and walled in by the Romans in this country. Unless the nature of the spot were inconsistent with the plan of a square city, the Romans never departed from a quadrangular form. Here, then, why do we find an obvious and needless irregularity of figure ? The city within the walls is an irregular polygon, but not such a polygon as presents sides and angles fitted only to the exigencies of the place and the necessities of defence; it presents evident appearances of enlargement or extension, in the directions of its irregu- larity of figure. When the physical features of the place are considered, such as they must have been at the first occupation of this country by the Romans, it will appear most unlikely that they should have laid out the whole extent of soil which reaches from Ludgate to Aldgate, intersected as it then was by a stream large enough to form a little harbour at its mouth, namely, at Dowgate. Nor is it likely that they would, (as conjectured and strongly urged by a learned Eellowof this Society, Mr. Arthur Taylor,) have selected the portion lying to the east of that stream, but destitute of any natural defence on its own eastern and northern boundary; when on the other VOL. XL. G 42 Observations on the Primitive Site, 8fc, side of the same stream lay a higher piece of ground, naturally defended by water on three sides, and capable of easy defence on the northern or land side. Even as a camp, the quadrangular space between the river Thames and the Fleet and the Dour or Walbrook, its tributary streams, might have been chosen, and perhaps was chosen by the Romans, as a place which in a few hours might be rendered perfectly secure. Nothing was needed but a dyke or artificial barrier from the one stream to the other, at a sufficient distance from the Thames; and in this spot they might readily obtain supplies of water, fuel, forage, and other provisions, especially if they had a fleet at command : nor could there be a surer basis of operations against the inhabitants of the country lying northward of the Thames. The opposite bank of the river did not then exist as we now have it. For, before the construction of those vast banks, or river-walls, which reach on both sides of the Thames, (excepting some few intervals where high ground is contiguous to the line of ebb,) from the sea to the Tower of London, on the northern side, and from the sea to Battersea town on the southern side, there must have been a vast expan- sion of water at every tide, extending from the high grounds of Greenwich, Peckham, Camberwell, Brixton, and Clapham, to the Middlesex shore, and forming a lake, which included Wapping, the Isle of Dogs, the Stratford, Plaistow, and other Essex Marshes, as far as Purfleet, and the Kentish marshes from Erith to Greenwich. Even at the present day, nothing but artificial banks and erections prevents those parts of the Thames Valley from being inundated at every spring tide j and within my own memory there were numerous ponds, dikes, and tidal water- courses or pools on the Surrey side of the river, which were daily filled with water, within a few inches of the general level of the land. These considerations at once dispel the notion, fondly entertained and advocated by such learned and ingenious writers as Dean Gale and Mr. Salmon, that London originally stood on the south side of the Thames. They relied chiefly on the passage in Ptolemy's Geography, written early in the second century, when London was little known, wherein that valuable and generally trustworthy author, enumerating the tribes that inhabited the southern coast of Britain, from west to east, namely, the Demetae, Silures, Dobuni, and Atrebatii, says—" After these, the most eastern, the Cantii (Koin-wt), among whom are the cities Aov&lviov, Aapovevov (Daruernum ?), VovTovtnai" or, as we call them, London, Canterbury, and Sandwich or Richborough. But, unless it can be proved that Kent extended so far westward as to include Southwark, this passage must be deemed erroneous; especially as Ptolemy places Nceomagus among the Megni, the situation of which town (as I hope to be able to prove in another paper) is inconsistent with this testimony. The strength of their of Romem London. 43 opinion further rests on the supposed remains of a Roman camp in St. George's Fields, which Maitland has long ago shown to have been nothing more than a portion of the military lines thrown up for the defence of London and Southwark in the last civil wars. Nor is there any argument derivable from the direction of the second route, in the Imperial Itinerary, that can for a moment hold good, in favour of a London south of the Thames, against the reasons and measurements which make to the contrary. Returning, therefore, to the Middlesex side of the Thames, I observe that with such an eligible spot existing, as that which I have described between the two streams now reduced to the condition of covered sewers, but formerly navigable and navigated, and draining a large extent of ground from Hampstead to Islington and Kingsland;—I may assume that we possess, within so much of the city as is contained between those streams, the original area and primitive site of the first Roman London. It is as incredible that any part of the original city should have been abandoned, and not have been inclosed within Constantine's walls, as that the original Rome should have been excluded from the space surrounded by the walls of Aurelian. As, therefore, we find the Roma Quadrata of the Palatine Mount in the midst of the imperial capital, so ought we to find a Londinbwm Quadratwm within the walls of the British metropolis. I propose to find it, by taking the western limit of the city, before the wall was disturbed there by King Edward I. for the accommodation of the Black Friars, Near the centre of that limit was Ludgate, and a considerable portion of the wall is yet preserved behind (that is, eastward of) the Old Bailey prison buildings, in the direction denoted in the old map, or bird's-eye-view, of London, published in the reign of Elizabeth, and re-engraved by George Vertue a century ago, which is commonly known in various forms and sizes as " Aggas's Map." I then take the line of the wall which turned eastward to Aldersgate; and, in the stead of making an angle northward, as the wall did, and still in part does, toward Cripplegate, I continue it eastward, to a point where it would meet an eastern wall coming from Dowgate along the western bank of the Dour or Walbrook. Mr. Pennant, in his ingenious and interesting "Account of London," supposes that the Britons had selected this very spot before the arrival of Julius Caesar. " There is not," says he, " the least reason to doubt but that London existed at that period, and was a place of much resort. It stood in such a situation as the Britons would select, according to the rule they established," namely, the adoption of woodland fastnesses for their towns; and he alleges on the authority of Fitz-Stephen (whose words he has misunderstood and overstrained), that "an G2 44 Observations on the Primitive Site, 8fC, immense forest originally extended to the river-side, and even as late as the reign of Henry II. covered the northern neighbourhood of the city, and was filled with various species of beasts of chase. It was defended naturally by fosses, one formed by the creek which ran along Fleet-ditch, the other afterwards known by that of Walbrook. The south side was guarded by the Thames. The north they might think sufficiently protected by the adjacent forest."a But Fitz-Stephen says, "Item a borea sunt agri pascui, et pratorum grata planities, aquis fluvialibus interfluis; ad quas molinorum versatiles rotee citantur cum murmure jocoso. Proxime patet foresta ingens, saltus nemorosi ferarum, latebrse cervorum, damarum, caprorum, et taurorum sylvestrium." By proxime he meant next to the spacious fields and well-watered meadows on the north of the city, extending to the Middlesex hills, and to the edge of the Essex forest; because water-mills in the fields are mentioned, which could only be on the larger streams, such as the branches of the Lee.