A BURIED LONDON

Evening Star, Issue 18094, 9 October 1922, Page 6

A BURIED LONDON

THE ROMAN CITY. STRONG, MASSIVE WALL. [By W. G. Bemj, in the London ‘ Daily Telegraph.’] It is a weird thought that our inconsequential messages should go whispering along the silent ways of an old, dead, buried city of our Roman conquerors—the few words spoken to close a business deal, to make a dinner appointment, or to fix up an evening at a theatre. It came to mo weirdly as I stood deep in the middle of Gracechurch street, in a dark trench scarcely of shoulders’ width, with the wall of a Roman dwelling exposed on one side. In the trough Post Office workmen were laying the earthenware conduits for carrying onr telephone cables—carrying them with unconcern through the very room onco given up, it may be, to feasting. True, the owner was not there to protest; ho died before the Christian era was four centuries old. Ho had left on this stump of wall the signs of his culture before the grave closed over him, and centuries’ accumulations covered up Roman London as if in one vast grave. Plaster was upon the wall face, with some painted ornament. Italy lay far away, and its quarried stone was too heavy to transport by galleys for the adornment of the distant Londinium ; but I fancied that in Iris scheme of painted plaster the exile in our midst had sought to recall the marble glories familiar in the Eternal City. It had been painted to look like marble.

In a dirty trench, earth stained, there it was—a pathetic thing. Ho had been proud of this decorated chamber, and of the house that contained it, all testifying to his refinement amongst the barbarous people of the land that ho colonised. The British barbarian stared at the dwelling’s magnificence, wondrously, open eyed. What a wonderful city! The world had no race so proud as'that of this Roman citizen. Long centuries ago the Romans, withdrawing from England, loft London to its fate. The pride of their city—how it was humbled, and by whom, none can toll. What remains of it lies buried from 12ft to 19ft below the highways whereon to-day the traffic roars, and the ground surface upon which huge blocks of offices are roared. Occasionally the telegraph and telephone departments, burrowing along, break into Roman London as they have been doing in Gracechurch. street, but the glimpses so afforded are little satisfying. Our messages go whispering through it. There is nothing so difficult to visualise as Roman London. THE GREAT CITY WALL.

One groat relic it has left, known by massive fragments that are familiar enough to those who search them out — the city wall. Beyond that, nothing which will enable us to plan the Roman city. Not a column stands. We do not know the site of a single public building, and there must have_ been many imposing public buildings in the important city. Forty-one years ago, when Leadenhall Market was being reconstructed, excavations were carried down, and disclosed strong, massive walls of a building obviously of considerable height and extent. There were foundations of an apse 33ft wide, fragments of fresco paintings, and inscribed tiles. From the plan it was thought to be a basilica. Sir Laurence Gomme, from considerations of the site and the extent of tho structure, believed we had there struck the Roman Forum. But none can toll. Still a few traces of Roman life in our midst are visible, undisturbed. Below tho Coal Exchange, opposite Billingsgate, are to be seen remains popularly known as “ the Roman Bath ” —relics which, with more probability, constituted part of a Roman citizen’s house, fitted with the usual hypocaust. At Bucklershury, beneath a small, ornate pavement, fortunately recovered entire and now in Guildhall Museum, were flues for heating an apartment, and portions of the house to which it belonged stretched away to tho west, with the remains of a verandah on the front overlooking the open Walbrook stream. Remains of buildings more fragmentary than those have been found, literally in hundreds; but, putting all together, they give no adequate idea of Roman London.

It must have had importance, for tho circuit of the wall is enormous for a Roman city. The altars found, the burials in decorated stone coffins, tho sculptured reliefs, the tesselated pavements. fragmentary statues, and tho pottery articles of personal adornment and effigies that hundreds of excavations have brought to light—and especially that wonderful brouzo bead of the Emperor Hadrian, recovered from tho Thames bed and now in the British Museum—bespeak it a city of high culture and luxury. Tacitus described Londinium as much frequented by numbers of merchants and trading vessels, and though it was reduced to ruins in Boadicea’s revolt, in the succeeding three centuries and more of tlie Roman occupation, it increased in splendor. It has been thought by many that tho first Roman city was small, tho occupied land bounded on the west by tho Walbrook and the groat extent of the area contained within the wall has been explained on tho theory that this was the latest Roman London, tho wall having been built by the conquerors shortly before their departure. NEWGATE’S MYSTERY. Throughout its two miles’ length the city wall was built with the same materials, construction, and plan. The only variation is that in a few places a yellow bonding-tile replaces tho familiar rod tile. That indicates that, once begun, the work was quickly finished, by slave labor, no doubt, probably, ns a defence against an impending emergency. Tho destruction of Newgate Gaol and clearances of tho ground brought to light some damaging evidence against any late origin of tho wall. The base of tho substantial gateway was found not to bo level with the base of tho adjoining city wall, but raised 6ft or 7ft above, with tho remains of guard chambers on either side. This was a second gate, raised because while the Romans still lingered tho level of the city itself was rising; and tho earlier gate no doubt held a normal placo in tho wall. By Newgate, concealed under the Post Office yard and carefully preserved, is a last survivor of tho formidable bastions that strengthened tho wall. Few to-day believe that London was walled later than the middle of the second century, if so late as that. On the surface Roman London lias wholly disappeared, leaving not a trace.' Even of tho wall tho Roman part is below ground, and what is seen above in the surviving fragments is mediaeval work, done by tho citizens who patched and repaired and heightened tho wall to keep pace with the rising town. In demolition the other day of the little clock and cutlery shop that for so many years leant against St. Peter Cornhill Church the excavators found this. A Roman wall lying at an angle partly upheld the wall of the modiiovnl church destroyed in London’s great fire, and upon that in turn Wren had built higher his own church wall. So London has gone on building itself up, one town upon another. No doubt the first City of London proved a lino quarry for later builders, raking among the mined houses for stone they needed. So it is impossible to reconstruct, or even to plan, tho Roman city; but enough survives in the smaller objects preserved in tho museums to enable ns to appreciate tho taste and luxury of its inhabitants. What went to make up the homo of this remote resident of Gracechurch street into which I plunged, none can say. Tho fragment tells no

more than that ho painted his chamber nicely, and built -walls to endure, and that assumes that this is not part of a public building, as it well may have boon. Others of his time we seem to know better. Full sixteen centuries ago and more an artistic people walked upon the tessclatod pavements preserved to us that still keep their fine color and craftsmanship. They made offerings at the Altar of Diana, recovered below the site of Goldsmiths’ Hall. The bronze statuettes of Apollo, Jupiter, Mercury, and other mythological figures found in the Roman soil of London, and richly represented in the British Museum- collections, were treasured possessions of a race faithful to their gods. Their art was lavished upon these. Handle with care that little oil-wick lamp of burnt clay. _ Ages ago i'oino gentle Roman lady lighted her way about the chambers of her London house with its flame. She looked into that bronze mirror, now dulled of its lustre, and the reflection given back pleased. The ornaments these people wore, the brooch that clasped the flowing garment, the pin to tin the hair, the crushed sandal, the cups of red clay from which they drank—we have them all. They died, were burnt, and their ashes were enclosed for burial in tho great glass vessels seen in Guildhall Museum. They were no shadows, but i'eal people. They, too, wore Londoners like ourselves. Tho dark centuries calne, blotting out their city, blotting out themselves, and wo look back _at them across an abyss—a break which none can fill in London’s two-thousand-ycars’ record.