ROMAN REMAINS

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 June 1938, Page 4

ROMAN REMAINS

• DISCOVERED IN LONDON. Two recent discoveries of note from the early City of London were described to the Society of Antiquaries at Burlington House recently by Mr. F. Cottrill, the society’s investigator, says the “Daily Telegraph and Morning Post.” Tower Hill has yielded the first and most ancient, a'fine fragment of the Roman town wall. Below a demolished house, No. 6 TJie Crescent, the wall was revealed by excavation, the Roman work standing lift, in height, with the facing in perfect condition for 61ft. It happens that, immediately adjoining stands a tall piece of the medieval structure built upon the Roman courses, so that together the full majest- of this important work is visualised. Tho Wakefield Trust, which has acquired the site, is arranging for the preservation of the wall here and its permanent exhibition to the public. The second discovery consists of remains of the medieval church of the Priory of St. Mary Spital. This was one of the greatest of the monastic churches of London. All trace of it was thought to have been destroyed soon after the Reformation. Bases of piers and parts of walls found in excavations at the south-east corner of Spital Square enable a conjectural plan of the church to be made. It appears to have been second in size only to the vast church of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield, a fragment of which survives to-day. Concern was expressed in the debate at the large destruction which the extension of the Overseas Telephone Exchange now threatens among the City’s few surviving houses erected before the Great Fire of London, and the disappearance of the quiot close of St. Paul’s Bakehouse.