I The Situation of London

Hugh Prince

FOR J()seph Conrad, nothing could more easily 'evoke the follows the crest of a causeway linking shoals of sand, and the great spirit of the past' than a yie\\' of the lower reaches of the foundations of a Roman house beneath the medieval walls of Thames. At Gravesend an interminable waterway had its Southwark Cathedral stand on a slight rise in the ground beginnings, but in an e\'ening light sea and sky were welded within a few metres of a river bank.s On the south bank, together without a join, 'the very mist on the Essex marshes house building was confined to a few islets of dry land. On was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded the north bank, broad expanses of gravel terraces came down rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds'. to the waterfront, offering a choice of bridgehead sites and A journey in imagination up the primeval Thames, like going ample space for future expansion of settlement. From the up the Congo in the late nineteenth century, was a journey beginning of settlement, the River Thames divided London 'back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation and its em,irons into two physically distinctive districts. rioted on the earth, and the big trees were kings'. Progress London lies at the centre of the drainage basin of the upstream 'seemed to lead into the heart of an immense middle and lower Thames, and it is also near the centre of the darkness,.1 The wooded interior of the London basin was structural London basin.6 The catchment area drained by the penetrated by the Thames and its tributaries, and it was upon Thames and its tributaries covers much of the south Midlands the great waterway itself that the light of settlement historY in addition to large areas of south-east England. The middle first dawned. Thames originates in the Coring Gap, \\'here the river passes "\ncient London was a riparian settlement, situated near between the Chiltern Hills and the Berkshire Downs. Bel Cl\\' the lowest point where the Thames could be forded or London, the estuarine course of the riYer is known as the crossed by a bridge. At the beginning of the Roman occupa­ I()\\er Thames. On the north, the limit of the middle and tion, the river was not only wider and shallower at the lower Thames catchment coincides almost exactly with the crossing point than at present, but also the level of the water base of the chalk, the boundary between the London basin apparently stood at least one metre above the In,el reached by and the Yale of Aylesbury. Of the Thames's north-bank Roman high tides. 2 Examination of peats and riverine muds tributaries, the Lea alone rises a short distance beyond the indicates that freshwater conditions then prevailed as far geological boundary, whereas no fewer than four south-bank downstream as Plumstead and Dagenham.' Although the tributaries, the \'<;ey, Mole, Darent, and Medway, have their future pool of London lay abo\'e the head of tides, sea-going sources far to the south of the chalk escarpment. 1\ large area, ships of shallow draught were able to sail up the channel on including the Yale of Holmsdale and the low \'('eald, is water ponded back by the tidal flood, and Kentish ragstone drained lw tributaries of the middle and lower Thames but \\'as carried in broad flat-bottomed barges from the Medway lies outside the London basin. to riverside wharves near Blackfriars." The London basin is an asymmetrical syncline, whose A traveller on foot, searching for a place to cross the major axis pitches north-eastward into the Korth Sea so that Thames, would follow the river upstream to a level above the the basin broadens out from an apex in the Vale of Kennet to high-tide mark. He would then seek a route across the a wide gulf between the North Foreland in Kent and the coast marshes and seasonalh' flooded lowlands on the south bank of East Anglia.~ 1\ crumpled mass of primary rocks, planed to a point from which spreads of dry gravel on the north bank down to a smooth surface, gently folded along \X'S\X' ENE could be reached most easilv. From higher ground the river lines, \\'as slowly buried under a succession of deposits of bank had to be approached by tracks mer firm dry sands and Secondary age, culminating in a deep bed of chalk. At the gravels. The south bank \vas approached lw islands of sand, beginning of the Tertiary era, the chalk surface was trimmed rising little more than a metre above the surounding marshes. by waves, and a new series of deposits began to be laid down. The present line of Borough High Street in Southwark Deposition was interrupted in mid-Tertiary times b\' earth

JOSl'ph Conrad, }feart 0/ DarknfSJ ("P2} (short ston). P. \l.lrsc\cn. CI'«g. ,\fag 44 (19'2), S.tO I. ,\nnc \'..\kerO\·d, Phi/oJopIJica/ Fu/w,;cliMU ,J I{o)ai Societ) 0/ London, .\ 272 H. ()rmslw, London 011 tbe Tbatlll'J (I ')24). pro\'idcs a general \'icw of London's ICr2), I,l (") and refs, on Pl'· 1\4, III. n,lturai setting. D, Brunsdcn, C;to.~. ,I/cl(..IX 1.ler('), 2R2-9, summarizes recent \1. .\ildn etal., London Satllra/i.,/, Ie) Ile)4'!). ,()-41, Ihid. n (191;), 04 71; J. l':l'()!llorphoiogical studies. ::;hiilit()C, Ihid. ;8 (19\8), 23-4. For thl' classic description of the geo!llorphoiog, of S.L. England, see S. \X·.

I 1'. R. \'. \larsdcn, "I ROll/ail ShipJlw!l Il/[J(kjii'ili. I j,lIdoll (Cuildhall \[meum, \\e)(,idndl':l' and D. L. [.inton, Stm(/lIrt. alld Drail1a,ge inSolit/),East En,R/,mr/ 1')67)· (1')\ \); and for an introduction to irs gcologl sec R. I .. Sherlock, J,Dlldoll allii TballleJ [ '[J//n, ;cd cdn. British Regional Geolog,' (1960). HUGH PRl:-":CE

movements associated with Alpine mountain building. All the London basin in the Bagshot plateau between Windsor, the sediments laid down since the previous mountain-build­ Farnham, and Esher. The subdued relief of much of the ing epoch were again folded into ridges and valleys following London basin is associated \\'ith widespread London clay the old trend lines. Then, the uplifted arch of the \\'t.~alden outcrops whose surfaces are characteristically moulded into dome was worn dO\\'n, thus exposing the whole succession of gentle slopes. \\'here summers are warm and annual rainfall rocks to further attacks b\' sea and rivers, and, later, to totals are low, retenti\'e cia:' soils support a I uxuriant growth erosion under cold, v;et, arctic conditions. The forces of of trees. Pedunculate oak, Quercus robur, forms an open erosion uncovered the oldest rocks at the edge of the London canopy, with hazel or, particularly in Essex and Hertford­ basin, preserving young rocks in the centre of the trough. SIre,h· h orn b eam torm111g_. an un d erstorey. ](I Outward-facing escarpments now form a rim to the north­ ;\bo\'C the flat clay lowlands rise 100\.' hills capped with west and to the south. The north-west facing Chiltern Hills sands and gravels. The alternation of permeable and imper­ reach a height of 260 metres 00 (Ordnance Datum, or mean meable strata is marked by the appearance and disappearance sea-level at Newlyn) in a wooded ridge abO\e \X'endover. On of surface streams, by changes in the form of slopes, apd by the south, the south-facing North Downs rise to 270 metres contrasts between densely wooded claylands and lightly 00 at Botley Hill near \\oldingham. The two ranges are wooded sands and gra\'ek Permeable materials of yaning similar in the heights of their summits and in the steepness of origins rest on the London clay. The summits of the northern their escarpment faces, but because the rocks dip more steeph' heights at Hampstead and at Highgate are crowned with on the southern limb of the syncline, the chalk outcrop is Bagshot sands. Outliers of Bagshot beds also co\'er an area narrower in the 0.:orth Downs than in the Chilterns..\t the around High Beech on the Epping Forest ridge and are found narrowest, between Guilford and Farnham, the chalk forms a on other hills rising above the clay plain of south Essex. The ridge, the Hog's Back, scarcely 300 metres across, whereas most widespread deposits are glacial drifts and terrace O\'er 25 kilometres separate the base of the chalk at Tottern­ gravels. In south Essex, in the \'icinity of Havering, on the hoe, north of Dunstable, from the edge of the Tertiaries northern slope of Brentwood Hill and at Billericay, boulder south of St Albans. clay O\'erlies Bagshot sands. With the exception of the The Chiltern Hills differ from the ~orth Downs not onl\' heayiest boulder clay, no superficial deposits in the London in the breadth of the chalk outcrop but in the character of basin are as tenacious as London clay. At the highest their surfaces and soils. The two areas are alike in having little altitudes, resting for the greater part on chalk uplands, are or no surface run-off and in ha\'ing smooth convex-conca\'e marine gra\'els and pebble beds containing flints and chert slopes formed by \'ery slow processes of erosion. Both areas fragments, Lower-Ieyel plateau gra\els contain, among other also have long deep dn' \'alleys which are occasionally materials, Triassic debris and fragments of erratics carried occupied by temporan streams, bourne flo\\s. \\'hilst the m-er long distances b\ ice-sheets from northern and eastern surface of the chalk uplands in Hertfordshire has been Britain. The lowest gra\els ha\'e been laid down b\ riYers. In modified by glaciation, no large ice-sheets reached the 0.:orth them, materials deri\ed from earlier deposits are well mixed Downs.8 Residual deposits of clay-with-flints and early Pleis­ with local debris. On the surface, the whole series of drifts tocene marine deposits are preserved on the ~()rth D()\\'ns appears as a succession of terrace stages resulting from the and on the western Chilterns, whereas in the northern and progressi\'e downcutting by the Thames and its antecedents, eastern parts of the London basin outwash debris and other modif1ed in a few localities 1-)\ glacial deposition. I I glacial drifts have been laid down. The superf1cial deposits on The freshest and most continuous gra\'el spreads lie on high-level plateau surfaces prO\ide a nriety of parent three or, abo\'e the confluence with the Colne at Staines, four materials from which soils differing in texture and acidity terraces. These terraces haye been formed by the Thames have been formed. Apart from heavy soils deri\-ed from cla\­ following its present course. In south Buckinghamshire, the with-flints, most soils, including those developed on chalk highest, the Bmn Hill Terrace, named after a site near I I • bedrock, are \\'ell drained, lightly wooded, and easih ,\laidenhead, reaches a height of oyer 50 metres 00. Kear worked.9 II'er, the Lynch Hill Terrace, is about 40 metres OD.12 The I On the flanks of the basin, Focene deposits rest on a \\~l\e­ Taplow Terrace, in its t\pe locality, stands iust O\'er')o cut surface. Eocene deposits consist of three formations: f1rst, metres 00. On the playing-f1elds of Eton, the l-Iood Plain the lower London Tertiaries, represented by Thanet sands, by Terrace, the lowest of the series, is a little cn'er 20 metres OD. sands and gra\'els of the Wooh\'ich and Reading beds, and by Down the \alley, in inner London, the highest terrace, of Blackheath pebble beds, nrying in lithology and thinning Boyn Hill age, rises to oyer 30 metres 00 on Tooting and towards the edges of the basin; second, London clay, the Clapham commons. The Taplow Terrace, extending from most widely exposed formation, remarkably consistent in its r,ensington Gardens through Bloomsbury to Hackney, plasticity and impermeabilin, attaining a thickness of J 30 scarcely reaches a height of I ) metres 00. The upper surfaces metres under London itself; third, the Bagshot sands and of the f'lood Plain Terrace in Fulham, Chelsea, the City of gravels, together \\'ith small patches of Barton sand and London, and Bethnal Green rise only a metre or so abm'e Bracklesham beds, extensively exposed in the south-west of present high tides. Further downstream, at Swanscombe, the

" r. E. Zeuner, ~j jJ/riJ/OCOlt POPJii", znd cdn. (19'9); R. C;. \\-c'-t, PitiJ/o((JlI information; and 'cc 0,11,,, .\. (;. T,lf1slel', The i3rilish I"land. (illd f/',Ir 1 (,~tlalion Ceola.!!,) and Biology (!()(,~. ('9-+9), i. z("-12+ " :\. D. Hall and L r. Ru"ell, ·1 F,tpllrlon i1>f ,'I..~ri(/lII/irfalld\odi')rl\."I!. I'IIn-n E. fl. Brown, In erllfOIe;!,., d, ia Soriil; C;;olo/!,ique tit Hd~iqll': L'/I'O/U/IMI alld S/lss!' ...... (191 I); E. C. \\dlm', 111 L. D. Stamp (ed.), Tbe LlIIri rei J3nlalll, qllaternaire des btlJ,·iIlJjllIl'illll.\ til iii .\f,r dll ,,'ord miridlolla/e (I (F'-1), 2-11-\', gi,'C" a Ixxix (1937), 1)2-40: Il. \\. \\TfI, Fh, Soilr alld Lalld ['.re o/Ibe nrC!ni! dl'llllfl{l comprehensi\'C s\nopsis of the Ilj(),r recent re,earch on the Thames terraces. [ am Ar/es!Jllrr and Homi fil'lJIp"/{tJri , 1')6-+): R ..\. Jan'i" Soils o/lbr [{,arilll!', [)ufn.! indebted to Professor Ilro\\n tor helpful comments on this ,eerion. (19 68 ). " F. r...:. Hare, l)r(h,ui;rI~J oleu,I!!,?!(a/ ,-lSJorialioll, 58 (194'::, 2(H' it). The n(lmc ,,, G . .\Ianln·, Climate alld Ibl' i3ntiJiJ .\(1-111' (1912), contain>" wealth of \'aluable 'Lmch' is derin'd from OL blillc, 0,,, ledge, or shelf, 1',\' in!.!. Dodgson, to whom I am LCLlteful for other notes on the origin, of place-n

2

• THE SITlATIO::-.J 01' LOl':OO::-.J

highest terrace is little more than 20 metres OD and the floors much later times..\ few remains of neolithic tracks have been of the lower terraces descend eastward below the present sea discovered beyond the edge of the London basin on the level. 13 dry chalk outcrop. The route taken by the North Downs The terraces themselves are underlain by deep accumula­ Ridgeway and by the 'Pilgrims' Way' either strides across the tions of gravel. In London, Taplow gravel attains a thickness crest of the downs, ayoiding patches of clay-with-flints, or of 15 metres on top of \vhich lie 3 metres of fine-grained follows the face of the escarpment \\"here the line is not brick-earth. At Swanscombe, gravels, sand, and loam of Boyn broken by combes or by river gaps. A more or less continous Hill age reach a depth of I I metres. The terraces provide corridor may be traced from 'X'iltshire to east Kent. A similar attractive sites for settlement. Water held within the gravels is passageway may be traced from Wiltshire to north Norfolk. discharged from springs issuing from the junction with the Vestiges of an upper and a lower lcknield Way are identified London clay, and the local water table ma\' also be reached by along the scarp face and at the foot of the Chiltern escarpment shallow wells dug one or two metres below the surface. in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. Eastward from Hert­ North of the intersection of Queen Victoria Street and Queen fordshire, through Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, and Norfolk, the Street, more than twentv Roman wells have been discm"­ chalk ceases to form a bold escarpment and the name Icknield ered,14 TIle brick-earths f;)rmed friable stone-free soils which \X'a\ has been given to tracks and roads of no great antiquity, were eaS\' to cultivate. The light soils on the terraces were many of them evidently straightened and resurfaced by the also decidedly less heavily wooded than the claylands and Romans. ls were more easily cleared by burning or by grazing. The Little is known about early roads in the London basin. I'! minerals themselves were extensively exploited. The Romans To the south of the Thames we are unable to map e\'en dug gravels for road-making, made bricks and tiles from tentati\Tely the course of any pre-Roman trackway leading brick-earth, and pottery from the cla\'s of Highgate and from the Straits of Dcwer to London or Westminster. North Brockle\ Hill. of the river, lines of trackways leading from tribal capitals, From the estuary of the Thames, a boatman navigating a from the capital of the :\trebates at Silchester, from the tortuous course between shoals of mud and shifting sand­ capital of the Catuvellauni at Prae Wood near St Albans, and banks would seek the deepest channel to reach the head of from the capital of the Trinovantes at Colchester, appear to tides above Tilbury. In Roman times, the lower reaches of the converge upon the sandy islet of Westminster. Roman river passed through vast watery flats. IS On the south bank, Watling Street follows closely the line of a trackway from the from the inlet of the Darent between Stone and Frith, the Catuvellaunian capita1. 2o Its last straight stretch from Brock­ marshes broadened to m"er 3 kilometres at Plumstead. On the ley Hill (Sulloniacae) along present-day Edgware Road to north, they formed a border nowhere less than 2 kilometres ::\farble Arch points directly to \,\'estminster. The Roman wide, extending from West Thurrock, through Purfleet, road from Silchester first crosses the Thames at Staines, Rainham, Dagenham up to the mouth of Barking Creek. where a staging post, Pontes, was established. East of Between Barking and Blackwall an even broader expanse of Brentford, the road divided, a southern branch approaching marshland was intersected by numerous channels of the 'X"estminster by way of Chiswick, Hammersmith, Kensing­ Roding and the Lea. \\ithin the meander loop of the Thames, ton, and Knightsbridge, A northern branch lies beneath the Isle of Dogs was a watery mudflat. Crossing to the south Goldhawk Road. It climbs Notting Hill and at Marble Arch side of the river, upstream from Greenwich, marshes filled a is joined by a road striking eastwards towards Colchester, deep pocket receiving the waters of the Ravensbourne. following the lines of present-day Oxford Street and Old Between Deptford, Rotherhithe, and Bermondsey, marshes Street. Between Shoreditch and Old Ford this road was extended over 4 kilometres from the water's edge. In Lam­ supposed to have followed the line of the significanth named beth, \\"here the Effra discharged, and in \\andsworth, at the Roman Road, but in 1970 excantions failed to yield any mouth of the Wandie, water flowed sluggishly through broad evidence for its existence. 21 The origins and destinations of expanses of marsh. On the north bank of the Thames, from other west-to-east roadways are shrouded in uncertainty. Whitehall to Fulham, la\ a swamp reticulated with innumer­ Their early histon is obscured by the construction during able braided channels of the Tyburn, the \'\'estbourne, and Roman times of a street plan to sene London and its nearest Counter's Creek. The abbey, founded on the eyot of Thor­ neighbours. ney, formed a nucleus for a settlement that was to become the The cin' of I ~ondon was founded by the Romans and one City of Westminster. 16 To the west, beyond mudflats now of the t1r~t structures they built was London Bridge.22 The occupied by Pimlico, rose a gravel mound, the isle of Chelsea. bridge was parent to the city and the city was progenitor of a Above Hammersmith, the river meandered across its flood prm"incial road network. From a base established at the plain cutting bluffs into higher terraces on one side of the bridgehead, the Ninth Legion marched north on a line to be valley or the other. The marshes of the middle Thames were followed by the present Kingsland Road, through Edmonton neither as extensi\"e, nor as difficult to cross as those border­ and Braughing to York. \,\'hen London's wall was built, this ing the estuary. road, Ermine Street, entered the city through Bishopsgate. From palaeolithic times the River Thames itself served as One of the earliest Roman highways must have connected the the major highway crossing the London basin from east to new city with the chief tribal capital at Colchester. Its course west. 17 Traces of overland tracks are not to be found until east of the river Lea probably originated as a broad pre-

13 P. F,',ms. The Phanerozoic '{lim-Scale: A SUPP/I!JItll!. Special Publicat10n oj tbe D. Collins, The Ar{btlef)/().~) o(the London Art·a: Current Knowled,ge alld Problems, Geol. Soc of London, 5 (I ~r 1), Ii. 123-356; .\1. p, herne,' in I Ceol. \oc, LOlldrm L.\I\S, Special Paper I (1,)76), 1-18, 127 (1971),69-86, :, L D, .\\argaf\, Roman Roads ill Britain, i (1955), 231. 14 Marsden, Ceo,R ..\1a.R' 44, 844-5; .\lerriticld, 146'48, :" R, .\lerritield. The Archaeology 0/ the London Area (above, n. 17), j 5-6.

15 Ormsby, op. cit. 17-2 I, 33, 211 ~largary, Roman Roads, 47. 16 G. C. Dunning,-ln/!. 98 (1961), 123lH, esp, 12'-4. " .\\errificld, .·1 rcbaeolo,~y, 56. \lcrritidd. A Handbook!o Roman Londoll, Guildl1.l1l Museum (1,)7;:). \.

3

a ------HUGH PRINCE

Roman tracbvay, but from Old Ford a narrower Roman road ing as the built-up area of London edged into its expanding was constructed, leading directly to the city, entering by what flood plain. Within the city, the tiny Walbrook became more is nO\\' Aldgate and thence crossing to London Bridge.23 The troublesome. In attempting to raise buildings above its Colchester road was probably joined somewhere to the east of floods, large quantities of earth and rubbish were dumped on Old Ford by a road from Great Dunmow, but archaeologists the flood plain, particularly in the lower reaches of the valley, have not yet found an\, evidence for this road west of the where the earliest settlements were sited. The accumulation River Roding.2+ \,\'estward from the city, a Roman road of this material impeded the flow of water and caused through Newgate connected with earlier roads leading to waterlogging to spread upstream. A further impediment was Colchester and Silchester and also with the new trunk road, London Wall. Culverts had been placed in the Roman wall to \X'atling Street, leading to Verulamium and Viroconium drain water from Moorfields, but as the level of waterlogging (\'\'roxeter). Another road, which the Saxons called Akeman within the city rose, the culverts were rendered ineffective. In Street, left the City by way of Ludgate, crossed the river the earl y thirteenth century a 24-metre-wide drain, Hounds­ Fleet, and proceeded along the Strand to join the southern ditch, was dug to carry Moorfields water around the outside branch of the old road to Silchester. of the wall into the Tower moat. London was not inundated On the south side of the Thames, a Roman road bearing to the extent of becoming another Venice of the North, like the same Saxon name, \'\'atling Street, as its counterpart north Bruges or Amsterdam or Stockholm, but the problem of of the river, makes a bee-line from Canterbury O\'er hill and controlling floodwaters came to demand more and more dale, crossing the ~led\\'a\ at Rochester, the Darent at energy and attention. Dartford, the Cra;: at Cra\'ford, then vaulting oyer the top of No account of the formation of London's surface and Blackheath Hill. There, it yanishes. A continuation of the drainage would be complete without acknowledging the straight line points directly towards \X'estminster, but a geological work performed by generations of Londoners. deviation southwards would be necessary to avoid marshy Immense quantities of earth have been moved in the course of ground between Deptford and New Cross. The trail is picked sinking wells, working gravel-pits, digging foundations, up by a Roman road following the line of the Old Kent Road. tunnelling, assembling building materials, and, above all, in This leads to Borough I Iigh Street, thence to London Bridge the vast daily accumulation of household rubbish and the where other roads from the south appear to converge. A road debris falling from ruined buildings. unlike a geologist, from Le\\'es joins \'\?atling Street at Asylum Road, Peckham. however, an archaeologist attempting to decipher the results The exact course of this road has been traced from \'(,'est of two thousand years of urban decay and renewal is unable \X'ickham, O\er the top of Blyth I Iill, past Nunhead station to simply to rely on the law of superposition. In London, Peckham.2s From Chichester, Stane Street passes straight deposits from succeeding periods ofoccupation are not neatly through Merton, Tooting, and Balham to be followed b\' the stratified in chronological order. Alternating processes of line of Clapham Road and kennington Road. An ancient deposition and excavation have been at work through all road surface found beneath 0:ewington Cause\\'ay, signitlc­ time. It has been observed that medieyal pits, \vhich are often antly named, suggests that Stane Street may ha\'e swung a of considerable size, mav have been dug from high In'els little west of a straight line before joining Borough Iligh which have now disappeared and penetrate to depths below Street. Even in Southwark, we must be prepared to re\'ise our the deepest Roman deposits; post-medieval \valls and cesspits \'iews about its course in the light of recent evidence.26 behave in the same way; and even quite modern disturbances Another road, from Brighton, maybe traced through old for foundations, drains, and the like may in some circum­ Croydon, through Streatham, whose name commemorates stances lead to confusion and difficulty. 27 The net effect of the Roman street, down Brixton Hill, formerly Brixton man's geological activities has been to raise the level of the Causeway, along Brixton Road, to its junction with Kenn­ surface. The city has been built on an artificial mound, in ington Road where it meets Stane Street. Recent excayations places more than 6 metres above Roman ground le\'el. Man­ in Southwark indicate a line of road connecting the southern made deposits, or made earth, are unevenly spread, filling end of London Bridge with the Thames bank in Lambeth valleys and hollows to greater depths than slopes or hill­ opposite the presumed fording-point in \X'estminster. It nO\\' tops.28 The accumulation of man-made detritus has enabled becomes plausible to coniecture a line of road linking that the lowest parts of the City, along the river front and in the point with a section of Watling Street, aligned along the Old valleys of the Walbrook and the Fleet, to remain above water. Kent Road south of the Bricklayers "\rms. Indeed, from the early Middle Ages the rise in the level of The crossing of the marshes, particularly on the south side made earth has exceeded the rise in the level of tides. of the Thames, became increasingly difficult as sea-leyel rose between 2 and 3 metres abo\'e pre-Roman le\els. Efforts to The accumulation of made earth, although it proceeded embank and drain 100\',lying lands had the effect of confining intermittently and une\'enly, deposited a larger \Tolume of the river to a narrower channel. ,\s a result, flood\\'aters were material than was rem(wed by the excavation of brick-earth raised higher and higher and unprotected areas on the Hood and ballast from the Thames terraces. The city imported more plain were flooded to greater depths. Flood hazards increased building materials, food, fuel, and other bulky commodities in tributary \'alleys as \\'ell as in the Thames \'alley. Streams than it exported. Being hemmed in by marshes and dense on the north bank, including the Brent, the \X'estbourne, the woods, and being dependent on resources from surrounding T\burn, and the Fleet ri\er flooded \\'ith greater frequenC\ farms and villages, London developed into a city with and drowned larger areas. The Fleet was increasingh' menac­ extensi\'e links with other European ports and \vith provin­

:'>LHgan', RO!JJ(III Fo,u/" \~. of H, L Sheldon,\, 11, Craham, and the Southwark and Lambeth Arch, ~,~ \[argary, l{O!l/{lli l\O{/{/I, 2l<); .\ICT"rlticld, _-lr(/iafo/u,s)" ~(). E~ca\'ati()n Crree" sec C, I. Da\\soI1, 'Roads, Bridges and the Origin of R()man C' H. F. Da\'ls in .llIIT': 11\/;. Col/" (;';111' +, (19,\), ('I. London', .I11rrf), _-I r,i;. (0//,,/1011 -'l +' (1977), c" L D, :'>largan, 1\Mlilli II" ':11 (/'1 II"rl//d (19+8), +\'-92 ,-:IH" the (ullc,t C Grimes, y, 1\1 ,; \1crntield, Irrhaf%J!J', 84 6. account ()f St;lIle Street; for recent tindlngs 1n South\\:lrk I acknowledge the help > :'>larsdcn, (,eog .\fa,g, 44, 841-3; :\1crritield, .-1rrht1(olo,!!)', 84-6.

4

= THE SIT L' A T ION 0 FLO ~ DON

cial towns in Britain. Roads and watenva\'s leading to the The Lea \vas navigated to Ware, and the Wey to Guildford. capital brought increasing numbers of travellers, emissaries, As London's population increased, larger quantities of corn, pilgrims, lawyers, tax-collectors, soldiers and, above all, hay, wood, timber, and other provisions had to be trans­ throngs of chapmen and merchants.29 ported either by river or road. The Gough map of c. I 360 The expansion of overseas commerce from the eighth indicates that the main roads from the west and from the centun' onwards benefited London more than other towns in north of England converged upon London.3o Accounts of England. English and foreign ships plied between the building and repairing bridges bear witness to the importance Thames and the Gironde, the Seine, the Rhine, and the coasts of roads leading to London. At places more than a day's of northern Europe. Twelfth-century merchants brought journey from the capital roads are named 'London road', such money, goods, and nnvs from places as far away as Con­ as the ['ia Londiniemis in ~Iissenden in Buckinghamshire and stantinople and Bergen. Londenestret in Gamlingay in Cambridgeshire.31 The approach Communications with the interior were extended both by to London is heralded from afar, from high in the Chiltern land and by water. Vessels of shallow draught sailed up the Hills and from low-lying vales in the Midlands. Thames to Henley and occasionally reached as far as Oxford.

") G. C. Dunning in D, B. lIarden (ed.), Dark .·1~1' Britain (1956),218 ;; ," F. J. S, Parsons, The ,Hap o( (,rea! Britain (Irca ,l.n, 1360 knou/fl aJ tIN C;o«gh ,\fap (19581 with facsimile.

J) F. \\. Stcnton el aI., .\'Ortl/rlr! Londor!, Historical ,\SSOc. (1934), 21 .

•