London Before the Conquest

y more churches there [in London] than the

skri

n of fires slowly raising the surface with layers of debris, gradual encroachments, and the obliteration of open spaces, have modified the old lines in some cases considerably, but still it is certain, I believe, that the general "squareness" and more or less symmetrical alignment of the Roman city can be traced in the existing streets. A line from the bridge to the north gate must always have formed a great main street, and standing at the bottom of Bridge Street (Fish Street Hill) we may still gain some idea of what the entrance to the city by the Roman bridge was like. Mr. Price says of Gracechurch Street: "Recent investigations have

rom the Thames. One of these was formed of squared oaks. As the excavation came to Eastcheap it crossed a raised bank of gravel 6 feet deep and 18 wide, the crest of which was 5 feet under the present surface; it ran in the direction of London Stone. On reaching the north-east corner of

ce to the property of Odo of Bayeux carries Cheapside right back to Conquest days. It is not unlikely, indeed, that the east end of the "Great Street" was the site of the Roman Forum or part of it. The "Forum" of Canterbury is mentioned in 762.[162] Although the word Forum doubtless stands only for the Saxon market-place, it was the proper place of assembly. According to the Acta Stephani the Empress Maud was accl

r "upon the very Roman causeway." He was of the opinion that this highway ran along the north boundary of the Roman city, the breadth of which was from this "causeway" to the Thames, and "the principal middle street or Pr?torian way" being Watling Street; north of the "causeway" the ground was a morass, so that he had to pile for buildin

et [Watling Street] to the Roman causeway [Cheapside], and this street, which was taken away to make room for the new Quire [of 1256] came so near to the old [Norman] Presbyterium that the church could not extend farther that way at first" (p. 272). There is nothing in this about "a Watling Street running from Newgate to London Stone." What is described is a way across the churchyard from the west end of the High or Atheling Street issuing by Canon Row or Ivy Lane. There is no evidence at all, then, for a diagonal Watling Street which Stukeley suggested, and more recent writers have accepted as quite proven. On the other hand, we have Wren's great authority for thinking that Watling Street was in it

of the city. A property in London between Tiddberti Street and Savin Street (? Seething Lane) is mentioned as a gift of Ethelbald's.[168] The Watmund's Stone named above may have been a house. A curious piece of topographical embroidery has been wrought round about it, for no less an authority than Mr. John Earle accepted the suggestion that the name m

n Brooch foun

p, and Newgate Street. The secondary crossing at Lombard Street, Stow calls the "Four ways." At the meeting of Cheap, Cornhill, and Lombard Street was the Stocks Market, which Stow says was the centre of the city; here stood the stocks and pillory. The names Cheap, and Cornhill or "Up-Cornhill," can be traced back to about 1100. Several other streets are named in documents of the twelfth century, as Milk Street and Broad Street (1181), Fridaie Street, Mukenwelle or Muchwella (Monkwell) Street, Candelwrich (Cannon) Street, Godrun Lane, East Cheap, The Jewry, Alsies (Ivy) Lane, Vico Piscaro (1130), Lom

Coin of A

of London

t as "celebrated for the resort of merchants with their stores." "London," says Beda, speaking of the

r place. The coins of Alfred struck in the city form a large series. The monogram of London which fills the rever

ity, and this would agree best with Stukeley's site.[174] It is possible that it may have extended along by the east bank of the Walbrook as far as Cannon Street. The assumption of old writers, that Roman London would be symmetrically planned, with streets crossing at right angles, is not necessarily true. The streets of medi?val Lon

ot exist or were useless. He (why he?) made a road diagonally from the bridge to Westgate. The old Bishopsgate was to the east of the present one, and opened on the road to Essex, etc. My view of Alfred's London is that the Roman city to a large degree continued to exist, and the streets were still maintained, by the new population. Here a Roman mansion with its mosaic floors would still be inhabited. There a portico would be patched with gathered bricks and covered with shingles, while by its side stood a house of wattle and daub.

s, Aldgate and Ludgate being others, and that the crossing of East Cheap with Gracechurch Street was probably the centre of an earlier and smaller city. Quantities of Roman bricks, he says, have been found re-used in the walls of early houses and churches

ilors, cobblers, tanners. They held offices and owned land, and the only other class at once large numerically and important in position seems to have been the cl

k was always, I believe, formally conferred by an organised gild. Even at this time the members of crafts were grouped together, as witness Candlewright Street, Milk Street, and the Shambles. We hear o

. St. Paul's School, almost certainly, was already established at the Conquest, and the schools of S

ndon and the suburbs thirteen larger conventual churches, besides lesser parish churches one hundred and twenty-six. In other words, practically all the parish churches in Lond

ly in the seventh century by Mellitus, sent from Rome in 60

t, and once, when a wheel fell off, the cart went forward without falling, "which was against reason and a fair miracle." He died at Barking, and the monks claimed his body, but "a chapter of Paul's and the people" said it should be brought to London. As they carried him to his own church there was a flood, but the waters of the Yla (Lea) were divided and a dry path given to the people of London, "and so they came to Stratford and set down the bier in a fair m

King Ethelred i

f it for a mission church. Like the church which Augustine built at Canterbury, it would have been "planned in imitation of the Great Basilica of Blessed Peter." Such a basilica of considerable size is

g. 30). Next to it was the similar tomb of Sebba, king of the East Saxons, who was buried at the end of the seventh century. The only material memorial of the Saxon minster now existing is a tombstone inscribed in runes, "Kina let this stone be set to Tuki." It was found in 1852 in the south churchyard, 20 feet below the surfa

h or Tenth Ce

Paul's Ch

s ground had been very anciently a great burying-place was manifest, for in digging the foundations of St. Paul's he found under the graves of later ages, in a row below them, the burial-places of Saxon times-some in graves lined

temples or some of the old churches, as Augustine is known to have done at Canterbury. In Gregory's letter of directions to Mellitus he says that the temples of idols ought not to be pulled down, but be consecrated and converted from the worship of devils. The Church of St. Peter must have been very ancient, as the legend in regard to it appears in Jocelyn of Furness, a writer of the twelfth century. Bishop

omb from St. Ben

church under it (Ludgate) in honour of St. Martin, in which divine ceremonies are celebrated for him" (Cadwa

st, for in 1067 the Conqueror confirmed the possession of the Church of St. Mary called Newchurch to Westminster, and it is evident that the title Aldermary is a comparison with this New

charter of 1067 are St. Magnus, described as the "stone church S. Ma

litus from Rome is probably very ancient, and St. Augustine's near by on the east side of the churchyard may be as ancient. St. Alban, Wood Street, was said to have been a chapel of King Offa's, and is mentioned about 1077-

Head of C

n's, Wa

e hands of the Barking Nuns.[184] All Hallows, Lombard Street, was given to Canterbury in 1053 by Brithmer, a citizen (Newco

least as early as the Conqueror's time, and its

ong before the Conquest, and that it was only refounded just before by Ingelram. T

at the former was a parish church before it was attached to a house of nuns late in the twelfth century. It is mentioned in the St. Paul's document

nity, Aldgate, in the Lansdowne MSS. (No. 448), St. Augustine on the Wall, St. Edmund in "Longboard" Street, Ecclesia de Fanchurch (which it is said had belonged to the Soc of the

offin-lid from W

f London Antiquities, No. 571, is the head of a Saxon cross ("of the tenth or eleventh century") which was found in the old burial-ground of St. John-upon-Walbrook. I am able to identify this with the cross-head in the Sax

n be traced back so far as to make it probab

onqueror's (see p. 85). According to M. of Westminster the body of Harold I., buried at Westminster, was dug up in 1040 and thrown into the Thames, "but it was found and buried by the Danish people in the cemetery of the Danes"-"at S. Clement's," says R. Diceto, the London historian who wrote in th

reet, was also of early foundation (Stow). St. Sepulchre's is mentioned in the twelfth century.[189] Of the monasteries in the neighbourhood, Barking was founded in the seventh century, Westminster not later than the tenth,

day. Stepney Church is said to have been rebuilt by Dunstan. It still contains a small sculpture of the Crucifixion, which is probably eleventh-century work. What these little churches wer

e asked the folk of the city to tell him where was Olaf's church. But they answered and said that there were many more churches there than they might wot to what man they were hallowed. But a little thereafter came a man to him who asked whither he was bound, and the cripple told him, and sithence said that man, "We twain shall fare both to the chur