III Roman London Ralph Merrifield The Origin of Londinium were unfamiliar with the ford they were obliged to swim, but some others got over by a bridge a little way upstream.4 It BRIDGE-BCILDI:--:G \vas a particular accomplishment of seems likely that this was a temporary military bridge hastily Roman military engineers, and the main roads that were soon thrown across the river by an army that had come prepared to to be centred on the first London Bridge were almost deal with this obstacle. Ifso, it is likely to have been a floating certainly laid out by the sun'eyors of the Roman army bridge, and it was not necessarily on the same site as the later primarily for a military purpose the subjugation and control permanent bridge, which was presumably a piled structure. of the new province. It was the army therefore that provided Recent work in Southwark suggests that the south bank the conditions from \\'hich London was born. Can \ve go opposite the Roman city was by no means an obvious place to further, and suggest that Londinium itself was a creation of select as a bridgehead. It is true that sandy gravels here rose a the Roman arm\) A.. centre of land communications that fnv feet above the less stable silts on either side, but they were could also be reached b\' large sea-going ships, taking intersected by creeks and river-channels, forming a series of advantage of the tides that probabh' then just reached the islets \vhich themselves had to be linked by small bridges. bridge, would haH been an ob\'ious site for a major supply ~IoreO\'er, no e\'idence of any occupation beside the ap­ base. \X'e have learnt that mam'-perhaps most-towns of proach roads of the southern bridgehead has been found that Roman Britain originated as military sites, and it would be is likely to be earlier than about AD 50.5 This raises the surprising if the most important strategic centre of all did not question whether the Roman London Bridge and Londinium fall into this category. Some support is given to the hypothe­ itself originated during the earlier phase of the conquest or sis of a military origin for London by the existence from the se\'eral years later. beginning of a planned street la\'-out, \\'ith an east-west street It is inconcei\'able that a regular crossing-place of the remarkably like the ria priJlcipalis of a fort underlying the Thames \vas not maintained by the Romans from the begin­ western end of Fenchurch Street, particularly now that we ning; indeed, the continued use of the Richborough base know there were open gra\'elled areas immediately to the implies also a regular use by the military of the land route north of this in the earliest phase of regular occupation.! through Kent, probably mainly for personnel travelling by Nevertheless, no military equipment has been found asso­ the short sea passage and for the imperial post. It is therefore ciated with the earliest occupation of the central nucleus of reasonable to assume that \\'atling Street south of the river Londinium on Cornhill, and the one undoubted early military was one of the first permanent roads to be constructed. The structure lay a\\'ay to the east on a completely different old argument based on the alignment of \\Tatling Street north alignment. This \\'as a \'-shaped ditch found near Aldgate in and south of the river on a putative crossing at Westminster is 1972. It contained a sword-grip in its till, and appears to ha\'e therefore revi\'ed, and is considerably strengthened by the been part of the northern defences of a short-lived fort,2 discovery in Southwark of a pre-Flavian roadway aligned as if which ma\' ha\'e ceased to exist before the construction of to link the London Bridge crossing with that of Westmin­ London Bridge ga\'e birth to Londinium. ster. (, The existence of a Roman crossing-place, perhaps a Precisely when this occurred it has so far been impossible ford, between Lambeth and \\'estminster, must therefore to determine. ,\rchaeolog\' cannot help \'en' much; pottery now be considered probable. \\'as this the first regular and coins from early contexts may suggest a Claudian date, crossing-place, which was supplanted by a permanent bridge but give no indication when in the first ten years or so after in Southwark only after se\'eral years had elapsed? Ifso, it can the innsion of AD 43 they are likely to ha\'e been deposited.' hardly have remained unprotected, and a garrisoned staging­ History is equally inconclusi\'e. Cassius Dio, writing more post at least would be expected in \\'estminster. \'(1e have as than 150 years after the e\'ent, informs us that the initial yet no e\'idence of this, though negative evidence means little crossing of the Thames by the Roman auxiliary canlry in hot in the City of \\'estminster, where archaeology has until pursuit of the enemy took place at a difficult ford, near where recently been sadly neglected. The other question arising the ri\'er empties into the ocean and at flood-tide forms a from this hypothesis is why Westminster did not develop into lake-presumably not far from the site of London. Since they the Roman cit\'. Gi\'en the normal human resistance to B . .r. Philp, Hri/illi/lla. R ([9'-). -: R. , Cassius Dio, HiS/Or), Loeb edn. (1914), \'ii. 419. H. Chapman and T. Johnson. FL\[ II l4 ([9-,),1 - ~ IOIl/hn-ark EWIIl'a/ions '9.-:2 --I (1978), i. 24-7. Philp (Ioe. cit.) R. \!errificld and H. Sheldon, The London Archae%,gist, 2, :\0. 8 (1974), 187 f. 10 RO'-.fAN LONDON unnecessary change, why was the permanent bridge not built of the clay walls had been decorated and redecorated with in Lambeth, and why did \'Vestminster not become the centre painted wall-plaster no fewer than four times.'! This suggests of the Roman road system? Answers can probably be found a life-span of at least five years, and ten would perhaps be a to this question in the relatiye instabilitv of the Lambeth and more likely estimate. The earlier phase, which might be \X'estminster banks, and in the need to de\-elop a port further militan, is itself likely to haH lasted for some time, so that a downstream at the tidal limit. date not later than about AD ) ° for the origin of London In our present state of knowledge we must therefore seems likely. resenT judgement concerning the exact date of the building The only historical evidence we have of the nature of pre­ of the first London Bridge and the beginning of London. Boudican London is a brief and ambiguous phrase from Although events at the south end of the bridge may be Tacitus, whose father-in-law, Agricola, was sen'ing in Britain expected to mirror those at the north end, \ve clearly need at the time. He tells us that the governor, Suetonius Paul­ much more dating and other evidence of the first phases of linus, learning of the revolt while campaigning in l\orth Londinium from the City itself. Moreover, it is necessary to \'V'ales, pressed on with his cayalry to Londinium-'a place be wary of all attempts at precision from purely archaeolo­ not indeed distinguished by the title of colonia sed copia gical dating; it is always subject to revision. ne/!,otiatorNIJ/ et commeatuum JJuz).:ime celebre. ,1n The last phrase is often translated 'crowded \\ith merchants and filled with merchandise', evoking an image of retail trading that may be Londinium before AD 60 misleading. Tacitus significanth- does not use the commoner \\ord mercator, cut negotiator, \\'hich primarily means a banker Fortunately we have in the City of London one early or wholesale dealer. In London the negotiatoreJ were probably archaeological horizon that does seem to be gi \'en a fixed date mainly concerned with the financing of import and export by history. East of the stream of Walbrook, which bisects the business on a large scale. Certainly goods from O\'erseas, such later Roman city, is a fairly concentrated area south of as -fine pottery from southern Gaul, were already coming into Cornhill in which a laver of burnt daub datable to the mid­ the port of Londinium, and were reaching inland towns such flrst centurY is found. It also occurs in scattered areas to the as \'erulamium, no doubt by road traffic along \X'atling west of the \X/albrook, especially in the neighbourhood of the Street.!! main Roman roadwa\' to the west. There is little doubt that The need for such a port may well have been the reason for this was produced by the first great fire of London-a the creation of Londinium and the centring of the road deliberate act of arson perpetrated in AD Go by the rebel Iceni system upon it, subsequent to the building of the first and Trinovantes under the leadership of Queen Boudica. It London Bridge. This can now be located with fair confidence has been shown that immediately east of Gracechurch Street at the foot of Fish Street Hill, where a rectangular timber pier and north of Fenchurch Street there were two distinct phases found in 198 I may be part of an early bridge. 12 Adjacent to of settled occupation before the destruction. The first in­ the north side of this, and of later construction, was the cluded the major east-west granlled road underlying Fen­ western end of a substantial wooden quay, which had been church Street, to which reference has already been made: a built about AD 90 on the site of an earlier quay or landing­ minor north-south grayelled road: a gravelled area in the stage, which had been erected in the open riYer, well to the west part of the site: traces of two wooden buildings and a south of its original north bank (marked by a double row of partition wall.