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Title: Early London Prehistoric, Roman, Saxon and Norman Author: Walter Besant Release Date: March 28, 2018 [EBook #56865] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY LONDON *** Produced by Chris Curnow, Les Galloway and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME PRICE 30/ NET EACH LONDON IN THE TIME OF THE TUDORS With 146 Illustrations and a Reproduction of Agas’ Map of London in 1560. “For the student, as well as for those desultory readers who are drawn by the rare fascination of London to peruse its pages, this book will have a value and a charm which are unsurpassed by any of its predecessors.”—Pall Mall Gazette. “A vivid and fascinating picture of London life in the sixteenth century—a novelist’s picture, full of life and movement, yet with the accurate detail of an antiquarian treatise.”—Contemporary Review. LONDON IN THE TIME OF THE STUARTS With 116 Illustrations and a Reproduction of Ogilby’s Map of London in 1677. “It is a mine in which the student, alike of topography and of manners and customs, may dig and dig again with the certainty of finding something new and interesting.”—The Times. “The pen of the ready writer here is fluent; the picture wants nothing in completeness. The records of the city and the kingdom have been ransacked for facts and documents, and they are marshalled with consummate skill.”—Pall Mall Gazette. LONDON IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY With 104 Illustrations and a Reproduction of Rocque’s Map of London in 1741-5. “The book is engrossing, and its manner delightful.”—The Times. “Of facts and figures such as these this valuable book will be found full to overflowing, and it is calculated therefore to interest all kinds of readers, from the student to the dilettante, from the romancer in search of matter to the most voracious student of ‘Tit- Bits.’”—The Athenæum. MEDIÆVAL LONDON VOL. I. HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL With 108 Illustrations, mostly from contemporary prints. VOL. II. ECCLESIASTICAL With 108 Illustrations, mostly from contemporary prints. “The book is at once exact and lively in its statements; there is no slovenly page in it—everywhere there is the sense of movement and colour, and the charm which belongs to a living picture.”—Standard. “One is struck by the admirable grouping, the consistency and order of the work throughout, and in none more than in this latest instalment.”—Pall Mall Gazette. The Survey of London EARLY LONDON AGENTS America The Macmillan Company 64 & 66 Fifth Avenue, New York AustralasiaThe Oxford University Press, Melbourne Canada The Macmillan Company of Canada, Ltd. 27 Richmond Street West, Toronto India Macmillan & Company, Ltd. Macmillan Building, Bombay 309 Bow Bazaar Street, Calcutta KING EDGAR ADORING THE SAVIOUR Vespas. MS. A VIII. EARLY LONDON PREHISTORIC, ROMAN, SAXON AND NORMAN BY SIR WALTER BESANT LONDON ADAM & CHARLES BLACK 1908 CONTENTS BOOK I PREHISTORIC LONDON CHAP. PAGE 1. The Geology 3 2. The Site 17 3. The Earliest Inhabitants 33 BOOK II ROMAN LONDON 1. The Coming of the Romans 53 2. The Roman Rule 57 3. The Aspect of the City 79 4. Remains of Roman London 95 5. The Building of the Wall 112 6. London Bridge 128 7. London Stone 133 8. The Desolation of the City 135 BOOK III SAXON LONDON 1. The Coming of the Saxons 153 2. Early History 161 3. The Danes in London 169 4. The Second Saxon Occupation 176 5. The Second Danish Occupation 190 6. Town and People 196 7. Thorney Island 231 8. Saxon Remains 243 BOOK IV NORMAN LONDON 1. William the Conqueror 249 2. Domesday Book 262 3. William Rufus 272 4. Henry I. 275 5. The Charter of Henry I. 279 6. Stephen 289 7. FitzStephen the Chronicler 301 8. The Streets and the People 321 9. Social Life 337 10. A Norman Family 345 APPENDICES 1. The River Embankment 351 2. The Riverside Discoveries 353 3. Strype on Roman Remains 356 4. The Clapton Sarcophagus 361 5. 363 INDEX 365 v vi ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE King Edgar adoring the Saviour Frontispiece Geological Map of the Site 7 Statues of King Lud and his two Sons, Androgeus and Theomantius 19 The Marshes of Early London 25 Side of Font, East Meon Church, Hampshire 36 Side of Font, East Meon Church, Hampshire 37 Offa being invested with Spurs 39 An Archer 42 Figures reconstructed from Ancient Clothes and Remains found in a Bog 43 Figures in Wood at Wooburn in Buckinghamshire, supposed to represent Itinerant Masons 45 Pavement before the Altar of the Prior’s Chapel at Ely 49 Statue of a Roman Warrior found in a Bastion of the London Wall 58 Roman Knife-handle—Figure of Charioteer, Bronze 60 Carausius 61 A Sea Fight 66 Tomb of Valerius Amandinus (A Roman General) 67 Coffin Lids found in London 71 Bronze Roman Lamp found in Cannon Street 75 Method of Swathing the Dead 77 Dow Gate 79 Tessellated Pavement 81 Roman Sandals taken from the Bed of the Thames 89 The Laconicum, or Sweating Bath 90 Tessellated Pavement 91 Roman Roads radiating from London 93 Roman Altar to Diana found in St. Martin’s-le-Grand 95 Roman Bath, Strand Lane 97 Roman Antiquities found in London, 1786 101 Roman London 102 Statuettes of Roman Deities 103 Roman Sepulchral Stone found at Ludgate by Sir Christopher Wren 107 Roman Statue discovered at Bevis Marks 108 Roman Antiquities found in London in 1786 109 Roman Remains found in a Bastion of London Wall 113 Roman Arch, London Wall 122 A Ship 126 An Anglo-Saxon Warrior Facing 136 Ancient Copper Bowl found in Lothbury 138 The Ark 142 King and Courtiers 146 A Group of Anglo-Saxon Spearmen 154 Gregory the Great, St. Benedict, and St. Cuthbert 156 Lady in a Chariot 157 Family Life 159 Aelfwine 161 The Coronation of a King 162 Aldhelm presenting “De Virginitate” to Hildelida, Abbess of Barking, and her Nuns Facing 162 King Ethelbald 164 King in Bed 166 The Perils of the Deep 167 Slaves waiting on a Household 171 vii viii Guthlac carried away by Devils 172 Saxon Minstrels 174 Playing Draughts 175 The Alfred Jewel (Reverse) The Alfred Jewel (Obverse) 177 Page from Gospel Book given by Otho I. to Athelstan, Grandson of Alfred the Great; on it the Anglo-Saxon Kings took the Coronation Oath 178 From King Alfred’s “Orosius” 179 King Cnut and his Queen, Emma, presenting a Cross upon the Altar of Newminster (Winchester) 181 The King receiving a Deputation 183 Anglo-Saxon Warriors approaching a Fort 185 A Fight 186 Diagram of Canal 188 King Edward the Confessor’s Palace at Borstal (Brill) 193 A Solar 196 Building a House 197 October. Hawking 198 A Banquet 199 Saxon Ladies 201 Saxon Horn 202 Merchantmen with Horses and Camels 203 A Banquet 205 Glastonbury Abbey 206 Anglo-Saxon Nuns 207 Conferring the Tonsure 208 A Burial 209 Saxon Church at Greenstead 211 St. Dunstan 213 The Last Day Facing 214 Anglo-Saxon Modes of Punishment 216 The Flogging of a Slave 216 Three Men in Bed 218 Mother and Child 219 Drawing Water 220 St. Luke, from St. Chad’s Gospel Book, date about 700 a.d. 221 Anglo-Saxon Husbandman and his Wife 223 Feeding the Hungry 225 Going to the Chase 226 The Hawk Strikes 226 Feasting 227 Anglo-Saxon House 229 The Situation of Westminster 231 St. Dunstan at the Feet of Christ 233 Monks 235 The Famous “Book of Kells” MS. of the Gospels in Latin, written in Ireland (a.d. 650-690) 237 Rood over the South Door of Stepney Church 239 Edward the Confessor’s Chapel 241 Ancient Enamelled Ouche in Gold discovered near Dowgate Hill; probably Ninth Century 243 An Ancient Comb found in the Ruins of Ickleton Nunnery 244 Duke William comes to Pevensey 249 King Harold shown in a Mêlée of Fighting-Men 251 Charter of the City of London given by William the Conqueror 252 A Norman Knight 253 Norman Horsemen 255 Harold trying to pull the Arrow from his Eye 255 ix Norman Archers 255 William the Conqueror and his Knights (from the Bayeux Tapestry) 257 Bishops 258 The Seal of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, Half-brother of William I. 259 Part of a Page of Domesday Book 263 William I. and II., Henry I. and Stephen Facing 264 Norman Soldiers 267 Norman London 269 Norman Capitals from Westminster Hall 273 Seal of St. Anselm 275 Norman Arch, in the Cloisters, Westminster Abbey Facing 276 Coronation of Henry I. 279 An Ancient Seal of Robert, Fifth Baron FitzWalter 281 The Temple Church 283 A Fight 291 Costume of English Kings of the Eleventh Century. Anglo-Norman Ladies of High Degree Facing 292 St. John’s Chapel, Tower of London, Norman Architecture 295 March. Field Work. September. Boar-Hunting 303 Matron and Maid 305 A Horseman 308 Tilting 313 Tilting in Boats 314 Dancing 315 The Chase 317 The White Tower 319 Representation of Orion 322 Craftsman at work on a House 323 London Wall 325 A Norman Hall 327 Three Bishops 329 Building a House Facing 338 A Family Group 339 Lady saving a Stag from the Hunters 341 Saxon Doorway, Temple Church 343 x BOOK I PREHISTORIC LONDON CHAPTER I THE GEOLOGY By Prof. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S. The buildings of a town often succeed in masking the minor physical features of its site—irregularities are levelled, brooks are hidden beneath arches and find ignominious ends in sewers; canals, quays, and terrace walls may be wholly artificial. To realise completely the original contours of the ground is often a laborious process, demanding inductive reasoning on the evidence obtained in sinking wells, in digging the foundations of the larger buildings, or in making cuttings and tunnels. Still the broader and bolder features cannot be obscured, however thick the encrusting layer of masonry may be. What, then, are these in the case of Greater London? Its site is a broad valley, along the bed of which a tidal river winds in serpentine curves as its channel widens and deepens towards the sea. On either side of this valley the ground slopes upwards, though for a while very gently, towards a hilly district, which rises, sometimes rather steeply, to a height of about 400 feet above sea-level. Towards the north this district passes into an undulating plateau, the chalky uplands of Hertfordshire; on the south it ends in a more sharply defined range, which occasionally reaches an elevation of about 800 feet above the sea—the North Downs. The upland declines a little, the valley broadens towards the sea, as the river changes into an estuary. Between the one and the other there is no very hard and fast division; the ground by the side of each is low, but as a rule by the river it is just high enough to be naturally fit for cultivation, while by the estuary it is a marsh. But as the ground becomes more salubrious, the channel becomes more shallow, and at one place, a short distance above the confluence of a tributary stream from the north—the Lea—this change in the character of the valley is a little more rapid than elsewhere. These conditions seem to have determined the site of the city—the original nucleus of the vast aggregate of houses which forms the London of to-day. Air and water are among the prime requisites of life; no important settlement is likely to be established where the one is insalubrious, the other difficult to obtain. Thus men, in the days before systems of drainage had been devised, would shun the marshes of Essex and Kent, and, in choosing a less malarious site, would seek one where they could get water fit to be drunk, either from brooks which descended from the uplands, or from shallow wells. These conditions, as we shall see, were fulfilled in the site of ancient London; these for long years determined its limits and regulated its expansion. Let us imagine London obliterated from the valley of the Thames; let us picture that valley as it was more than two thousand years ago, when the uplands north of the river were covered by a dense forest, and the Andreds Wald (as it was afterwards named) extended from the Sussex coast to the slopes of the Kentish Downs. We gaze, as we have said, upon a broad valley, through which the tidal Thames takes its winding course, receiving affluents from either side. These are sometimes mere brooks, sometimes rivers up which the salt water at high tide makes its way for short distances. The brooks generally rise among the marginal hills; the rivers on the northern side start far back on the undulating plateau; but on the southern the more important have cut their way completely through the range of the North Downs and are fed by streams which began their course in the valley of the Weald. Of the latter, however, probably not one is directly connected with the earliest history of London; of the former, only the Fleet, which, rising on the southern scarp of Hampstead Heath, ultimately enters the Thames near Blackfriars Bridge. But both the one and the other at later stages in the development of London may require a passing word of notice. What, then, do we see at this earliest phase in the history of the future metropolis? At once we are impressed with the fact that the Thames formerly must have flowed in a channel broader but straighter than its present one; a channel which is now indicated by a tract of alluvial land a few feet below the general level of the valley, and but little above high-water mark. Traces of this may be seen here and there between Chelsea and London Bridge, in the low ground about Millbank and along the river-side at Westminster, and in that which runs from Lambeth along the right bank of the Thames. But the most marked indication of this alluvial plain begins about a mile below London Bridge. Here the left bank of the river is formed, as it has been from the bend at Hungerford Bridge, by a terrace ranging at first from about 25 feet to 40 feet above mean tide level, a most important physical feature, for it determined, as we shall see, the site of London. But on the opposite shore, the strip of lower ground—often about four or five hundred yards wide—on which river-side Southwark is built, continues until, at Bermondsey, it widens rather suddenly to about a mile and a half. So it goes on past the junction of the Lea, now widening, now contracting slightly, as, for instance, opposite to Purfleet and above Greenwich, but always a broad lowland through which the present tidal river takes a wholly independent and sinuous course. This plain is formed of silt which the Thames itself has deposited over the debatable region where river and sea begin to meet. It is but little above high-water mark; much of it less than a dozen feet above ordnance datum. A similar low plain, about half a mile wide, may be traced for a few miles up the valley of the Lea, and indications of this may be found here and there by the side of the Thames above Chelsea; but commonly they are wanting, and always are limited in extent. In their absence, the river bank is higher, for it is formed by the scarp of that terrace to which we have already referred. The difference in elevation between these plains is not great, for the second begins at about 20 to 25 1 3 4 5 feet above ordnance datum; but it shelves from this gently upwards, forming the remainder of the more obvious bed of the valley, till it reaches a height of about 100 feet. At about this level, though it is impossible to be quite precise, the steeper slopes, more especially on the northern side of the river, and the hills, continue to rise till sometimes—as at Hampstead and at Highgate—they reach an elevation of rather over 400 feet. We cannot, however, do more than speak in general terms, for in a valley like that of the Thames—mainly excavated in a soft and tenacious clay—a large part of the rainfall runs off, forming numerous brooklets and small streams, which carve out many minor undulations and shallow ramifying valleys. The lowest alluvial plain, in olden days, must have been a desolate marshland, the haunt of wildfowl and the home of ague; so we pass it by, to describe more particularly the ground which overlooks it. The valley as a whole—in the neighbourhood of London—is carved out of strata assigned by geologists to the earlier part of the Tertiary era, the period called the Eocene. These rest upon a mass of chalk some 650 feet thick beneath the junction of Tottenham Court Road with Oxford Street—which rises to the surface towards the Kentish Downs on the one side and in the Hertfordshire hills on the other. Near London this rock is not exposed, but it begins to show itself near Deptford and Charlton, and is yet more conspicuous about Dartford and Purfleet, so that it evidently forms a true basin beneath London. Of what lies beneath it we shall speak hereafter, for this is a matter of more importance to the future history of London than at first might be supposed. The Eocene strata take the same basin-like form as the underlying chalk, so that while the lowest of them rises to the surface north and south of London, it is rather more than 200 feet below sea- level at Hungerford Bridge. This rock, called the Thanet Sand, is a marine deposit; it is a very light grey or buff- coloured sand, formed almost entirely of quartz grains, and it occupies a more limited area than the overlying strata, its thickness beneath London commonly varying from about 20 to 40 feet. The Thanet Sand seldom, if ever, reaches the surface to the north or the south-west of London, but it may be seen to the south-east, as about Woolwich and Croydon. Over the Thanet Sand comes a rather variable group of clays and sands called the Woolwich and Reading Beds. They extend over a larger area and generally run a little thicker than it does, for beneath London they are usually about 50 or 60 feet, and occasionally rather more. The fossils are sometimes fresh-water forms, sometimes estuarine or marine, so that the deposit probably marks the embouchure of one or possibly two large rivers. Next comes that brownish clay which is so constantly turned up in digging sewers or foundations, especially on the lower slopes of the hills. Its name—the London Clay—is taken from the metropolis; but it covers, or at any rate has covered, a much more extensive area, for it can be traced at intervals (large masses having been removed by denudation in some districts) as far as Marlborough on the west, the Isle of Wight on the south, and Great Yarmouth on the north. The same cause has reduced its thickness in parts of the metropolitan districts. Beneath Trafalgar Square, for example, it is 142 feet, and in some wells even less, but the total thickness must have been—indeed in some places it still is—rather more than 400 feet. At the base a band of pebbles commonly occurs. This, under the central part of London, is inconspicuous; but farther away, especially towards the south and the east, it is often 20 to 30 feet thick, and sometimes more. It consists of well-rounded flint pebbles, generally not so big as a hen’s egg, mixed with quartz sand. This gravel lies at or near the surface over a considerable area about Blackheath, Charlton, and Chiselhurst, and is now generally distinguished from the London Clay by a separate name—the Blackheath or the Oldhaven Beds. Both this formation and the London Clay contain fossils, sometimes rather abundantly, which indicate a marine origin, though the deposit cannot have been formed at a long distance from land, for estuarine species occur in it; while fossil fruits and pieces of wood are sometimes common in the London Clay, the latter being often riddled by the borings of teredines (a bivalve mollusc which still exists and makes great havoc in timber). So that in all probability both the gravel and the clay were connected with the rivers already mentioned. Above the London Clay comes a group of sands, occasionally containing intercalated beds of clay, which once must have had almost as wide an extent as it, but in the London area it is reduced to isolated fragments, capping the clay hills at Hampstead, Highgate, and Harrow. Here the deposit is less than 100 feet in thickness, for so much has been washed away, but it often reaches quite 300 feet on the dry moorland about Chobham, Aldershot, and Weybridge. Then comes a great gap in the geological record. The beds just mentioned belong to the Eocene, but after these nothing more is found till we are very near the end, if not actually out of, the Pliocene period. This long interval, in the district with which we are concerned, was occupied by earth-movements, the result of which was denudation rather than deposition. As we have already said, the chalk and the overlying Eocene strata are bent into the form of an elongated basin, which is related to the long dome-like elevation from which the hills and valleys of the Weald have been sculptured. Basin and dome alike are the results of wave-like movements which began to affect a large portion of Europe soon after the latest Eocene deposits in the London area were formed, movements of which the Alps and the Pyrenees are more conspicuous monuments. But these folds first began at a still earlier epoch—that which separates the newest part of the chalk from the oldest beds of the Eocene. Even then the London basin and the Wealden dome must have been outlined, though less boldly than now; for beneath the City the Thanet Sand and the Woolwich and Reading Beds are pierced in borings, and are together about 90 feet in thickness. But high up on the North Downs the pebble bed at the bottom of the London Clay may be seen resting on the chalk. So this district in early Eocene times must have been higher than the former one by at least the above-named amount; or, in other words, the basin of the Thames and the dome of the Weald must have been already indicated. GEOLOGICAL MAP OF THE SITE OF LONDON 6 7 To larger image. The later earth-movements, however, were on a much grander scale. Under London Bridge the base of the London Clay is about 90 feet below the sea-level, while on the North Downs it is about 750 feet above it, so the displacement since it was laid down has been at least 840 feet. The uplift in the central part of the Weald was doubtless much greater, but as denudation must have begun as soon as ever dry land appeared, we cannot say to what height the hills in this part may have risen. Still, when we remember that the valleys of the Wey, the Mole, and the Medway, which drain the northern half of the Weald, have cut completely through the range of the North Downs on their course towards the Thames, and are the makers of the valleys in which they flow, we can understand the magnitude of the work of denudation. But that work was far too complicated, the subject is far too difficult and full of controversies, to be discussed in these pages; we must content ourselves with mentioning a few facts which have more or less affected the history of the metropolis. As the rivers flowed, they transported and deposited the débris of the land, and if ever a submergence occurred, the same work would be done by tides and currents of the sea. The earliest deposits, obviously, would be formed in places which are far above the present beds of the streams. Most of these deposits would be washed away, their materials would be sorted out and transferred to lower levels, as the valleys were widened and deepened, and as the surface of the ground approached more nearly to its present contours. Thus gravels, sands, and clays are found at various levels down nearly to the present level of the Thames. The oldest of them, deposited within a radius of about ten miles from London Stone, lie rather more than 300 feet above the sea.1 These last are probably connected with similar sands and gravels which cover considerable areas in the Eastern Counties, and may have been deposited at an epoch when even the outline of the present valley system of the Thames had not been delineated. Upon this question, however, it is needless to enter. The next deposit, supposing these patches of sand and gravel to be of one age—a very doubtful matter,—is the Boulder Clay—a stiff, tenacious clay, often studded with pieces of chalk, from minute grains to biggish lumps, which commonly are fairly well rounded, together with flints, both rounded and angular, and fragments of other rocks. These have been derived, generally speaking, from the north and from various places, often at long distances, either on the eastern side of England, or in Scotland, or occasionally even in Norway. The clay also appears to have been formed from materials which came from the same direction. But little of this Boulder Clay now remains in the neighbourhood of London; the nearest patch is found on the higher ground on either side of the 300 feet contour-line between Whetstone, Finchley, and Muswell Hill—perhaps also at Hendon. To what extent the valley system of the Thames was sculptured when the Boulder Clay was formed; why the latter stops short on the northern slopes; under what circumstances it was deposited—are all subjects of controversy which it is impossible to discuss in these pages. Suffice it to say that the clay indicates, to some extent at least, the action of ice; and that as the patches of it and of the associated gravels occur at different levels (a fact which is still more obvious in other districts) and appear to exhibit a general correspondence in distribution with the present contours of the ground, several valleys must have been by then partially, if not completely, defined. In the main valley—as, for example, near Erith—fine sandy clays or “brick earth” occur, which some geologists consider to be at least as old as this clay. The climate, when this “brick earth” was deposited, certainly must have been much colder than it is at present, for remains of the musk-sheep have been found in it, and at that time the valley of the Thames must have been excavated nearly to its present depth. But on the slopes of this valley, and of its tributaries, beds of gravel are found, containing stones which must have been washed out of the Boulder Clay; and as these gravels often extend to more than a hundred feet above the present level of the river, the changes since they were deposited must have been considerable. They contain the bones of extinct mammals, such as the woolly rhinoceros and the mammoth, with others indicative of a climate distinctly colder than at present. But as these also have been found almost at the present level of the river, the animals must have remained in this country till it had assumed very nearly its present outlines. For instance, the tooth of a mammoth was discovered in 1731, 28 feet below the surface, when a sewer was dug in Pall Mall. Many bones of this and other animals have been found in the “brick earth” of Ilford; and a splendid pair of tusks, obtained in 1864, is now preserved in the British Museum, South Kensington. Here “the ground forms a low terrace, bordering the small river Roding on the one side, and on the other it slopes gradually down to the Thames. The height of the surface at the pits is about 28 feet above the Thames.”2 It is therefore certain that the river valley was cut down nearly to its present level while the climate was still much colder than it is at present, and very probable that its depth was much increased after the chalky Boulder Clay had been deposited; for these gravels, as has been said, are strewn over the lower slopes up to about a hundred feet above the present river. At Highbury Terrace they even reach 154 feet, and at Wimbledon 190 feet. These gravels have yielded the remains, not only of the mammoth, but also of man. His bones indeed have hardly ever been discovered, but stones chipped into shape by his hands are far from rare. They are almost always made of flint, a material which was abundant, could be readily trimmed, and afforded a good and durable cutting edge. These implements are never smoothed or polished, and exhibit many varieties of form. They range from mere flakes, the artificial origin of which cannot always be proved, but which in all probability were used as knives and scrapers, to instruments which could only have been made at the cost of considerable time and some skill. Similar remains have been found elsewhere in the more eastern and southern counties of England and on the Continent. The people, however, who fashioned such implements hardly can have been so far advanced in civilisation as the wandering tribes of Esquimaux in Northern Greenland. These worked flints are very rarely found either below 20 or above 100 feet from the sea-level, but between these heights they are not uncommon. About two centuries ago a well-worked flint, something like a spear-head in shape, 8 9 10 was found with an elephant’s (mammoth’s) tusk “opposite black Mary’s, near Grayes Inn Lane.”3 Implements of various shapes have been obtained from the gravel near Acton, Ealing, Hackney, Highbury, and Erith, as well as at Tottenham Cross, Lower Edmonton, and other places in the valley of the Lea. But the most interesting localities hitherto investigated are in the neighbourhood of Stoke Newington and of Crayford. The worked flints at the former place are found at more than one level, and indicate a progress in manual skill sufficient to lead observers to the conclusion that they belong to more than one epoch. The newest of these implements, flint flakes with occasional more elaborate specimens, were so abundant and have occurred in such a manner as to suggest to their discoverer (Mr. Worthington Smith) that they lay on the actual surface where they were fashioned by the workers of olden time. “The floor upon which this colony of men lived and made their implements has remained undisturbed till modern times, and the tools, together with thousands of flakes, all as sharp as knives, still rest on the old bank of the brook just as they were left in Palæolithic times. In some places the tools are covered with sand, but usually with four or five feet of brick earth.... That (the floor) was really a working place where tools were made in Palæolithic times is proved by the fact of my replacing flakes on to the blocks from which they were originally struck.”4 At Crayford also, a layer of flint chips was found by Mr. F. C. J. Spurrell in “brick earth” at the foot of a buried cliff of chalk. The circumstances under which these flakes occurred led him to the conclusion that this also was the site of an old “workshop” of flint implements.5 These gravels may be assigned to a time—probably towards the conclusion of the Glacial epoch—when the climate of Britain was still cold, when the higher hills were permanently capped by snow, and when glaciers may have lingered in the more mountainous regions. All through the spring and early summer the rivers would be swollen with melting snow, the torrents from the highland districts would be full and strong, and thus denudation would be comparatively rapid—the more rapid because the latest deposits, the Boulder Clay with its associated gravelly sands, would be incoherent and in many places still unprotected by vegetation. Very different would be the brooks and the rivers which then traversed the valley of the Thames from those which now creep through lush water-meadows or glide “by thorpe and town.” The final sculpturing of the valleys—all that has been effected since the date of the Chalky Boulder Clay— may have been accomplished with comparative quickness. Still, since the time when the oldest of these flint implements were lost by their owners, the beds of the valleys have been lowered, in some places by not less than a hundred feet. The district also, until the greater part of this final sculpturing was accomplished, was inhabited by men whose habits of life were throughout substantially the same. The alluvial deposits, as already stated, rise but little above the surface of the river at high tide. Their thickness varies, but commonly it is from about 12 to 20 feet. The lowest part is generally gravel and sand—materials indicating that the conditions which produced the older deposits of a like nature passed away gradually. This is followed by river silt, with occasional thin beds of peat or with indications of old land surfaces on which flourished woods of oak or even of yew. Below the Port of London, marine shells are rather abundant in the lower part of the silt; these indicate that the general level of the land was a little lower than it had been during the preceding age, perhaps even than it is at present. These alluvial deposits have yielded implements of smoothed or polished stone, of bronze and of iron; also canoes, and even relics of the Roman occupation of Britain. In other words, they have yielded antiquities belonging mainly to prehistoric times, though the record is continued up to a comparatively recent date. Marshy or peaty ground occurs even within the limits of the city,6 as at one corner of St. Paul’s Cathedral, in Finsbury Crescent, and near London Wall, as well as at Westminster. Thorney—the “Isle of Thorns”—the site of the Abbey, was formerly a low insular bank of gravel among marshes. The lake in St. James’s Park indicates the track of the Tyburn, which traversed one of these swamps. It was a brook of some size, and traces of it may be found in the names Marylebone (le-bourne7), and Brook Street. One branch of it passed “through Dean Street and College Street till it fell into the Thames by Millbank Street.”8 The water from the slopes north of Hyde Park made another stream called the Westbourne; this, after following a path still suggested by the Serpentine, found its way to the Thames through a fenny district which is now Belgravia (see also p. 26). Such, then, is the structure of the valley of the Thames; such are the deposits which form its surface on either side, and on which the metropolis has been built. But we must now look a little more closely at their distribution, for by this the growth of London in ancient times was largely determined. The broad terrace already mentioned on the left bank of the Thames, the site of mediæval London, consists, for a couple of miles or so inland, mainly of a flint gravel more or less sandy, seldom exceeding 20 feet in thickness, and commonly rather less, which rests upon the tenacious London Clay. Here and there this gravel may be traversed by a small stream, but the most marked break in its level is formed by a brook which, flowing from the slopes of Hampstead and Highgate, at last has cut its bed down to the clay and has broadened out into a creek as it joins the Thames. It was known in its lower reaches as the Fleet (see p. 27). This gravel terrace made London possible; this stream formed its first boundary on the west. The rain-water is readily absorbed by the gravel, but is arrested by the underlying clay. It can escape in springs wherever a valley has been cut down to the level of saturation, but if it is not tapped in this way the gravel will be full of water to within a few feet of the surface, so that a shallow well will yield a good supply. The first settlement was placed upon this gravel, by the river- side, where the channel is still deep at high tide; it was limited on the west by the slopes descending to the Fleet, on the east by the lower ground which shelves downwards towards the mouth of the Lea. From this nucleus, enclosed within the Roman fortification, the town expanded, as times became more peaceful, along the lines of the great roads; and at an early date a tête-du-pont would undoubtedly be formed at Southwark. But without entering into the details of this development, let us pass over some centuries and see how the growth of London was for a long time conditioned and limited by this gravel. The metropolis spread “eastward towards 11 12 13 Whitechapel, Bow, and Stepney; north-eastward towards Hackney, Clapton, and Newington; and westward towards Kensington and Chelsea; while northward it came for many years to a sudden termination at Clerkenwell, Bloomsbury, Marylebone, Paddington, and Bayswater: for north of a line drawn from Bayswater, by the Great Western Station, Clarence Gate, Park Square, and along the side of the New Road to Euston Square, Burton Crescent, and Mecklenburg Square, this bed of gravel terminates abruptly, and the London Clay comes to the surface and occupies all the ground to the north. A map of London, as recent as 1817, shows how well defined was the extension of houses arising from this cause. Here and there only beyond the main body of the gravel there were a few outliers, such as those at Islington and Highbury, and there habitations followed. In the same way, south of the Thames, villages and buildings were gradually extended over the valley-gravels to Peckham, Camberwell, Brixton, and Clapham; while, beyond, houses and villages rose on the gravel-capped hills of Streatham, Denmark Hill, and Norwood. It was not until facilities were afforded for an independent water-supply by the rapid extension of the works of the great Water Companies that it became practicable to establish a town population in the clay districts of Holloway, Camden Town, Regent’s Park, St. John’s Wood, Westbourne, and Notting Hill.”9 It is possible that the position of the older parks—St. James’s, the Green Park—and Hyde Park may have been indirectly determined by the fact that over much of them the gravel is thin or the clay actually rises to the surface. Every old settlement outside the earlier limits of the metropolis marks the presence of sand or gravel. Hampstead and Highgate, which early in the nineteenth century were severed from London by nearly a couple of miles of open fields, stand upon large patches of Bagshot Sand, which caps the London Clay and is sometimes as much as 80 feet thick. This yellowish or fawn-coloured sand may be seen almost anywhere in the old excavations at the top of Hampstead Heath, and the difference of the vegetation on this material and on the clay of the lower slopes cannot fail to be noticed. On the latter, grass abounds; on the former, fern, furze, and even heather. The junction of the sand and the clay is indicated by springs which supply the various ponds. These are occasionally chalybeate, like the once-noted spring which may still be seen in Well Walk, Hampstead. Harrow stands on another outlying patch of Bagshot Sand. Enfield, Edmonton, Barnet, Totteridge, Finchley, Hendon, and other old villages are built upon the high-level gravels which have been already mentioned. The shallow wells are no longer used in London itself. Infiltration of sewage, in some cases of the drainage from churchyards, had rendered many of them actually poisonous; clear, sparkling, even palatable, though the water might be, there was often “death in the cup.” There was a terrible illustration of this fact during the visitation of the cholera in 1854. A pump, the water of which was much esteemed, stood by the wall of the churchyard in Broad Street (south of Oxford Street). The water became infected, and the cholera ravaged the immediate neighbourhood. But though most of these pumps were closed barely sixty years ago, some, like that in Great Dean’s Yard, Westminster, were in use for quite another quarter of a century. It has now disappeared, but that within the precincts of the Charterhouse is still standing. Thus London was limited to the gravel till it was able to obtain water from other sources.10 The first step in this direction was early in the seventeenth century, when the New River Company had its origin, and for many years this was the only Company by which water was supplied to London; but seven others were subsequently founded.11 The New River Company obtains its water from the Lea, the original source being nearly forty miles from London, but the supply has been since increased by sinking wells. The East London draws upon the same river. Five of the other Companies get their water from the Thames, some miles above London, augmenting their supply by means of wells, and the Kent Company draws exclusively from deep wells in the chalk. As these Companies were founded the metropolis began to spread rapidly over the areas which they supplied, but it did so in a regular and systematic fashion. Houses fed by the mains of a Water Company must keep, as it were, in touch with their base of supply, because of the cost of laying a long line of pipes to supply a solitary house. Thus a town which draws its water from mains advances block by block into the surrounding country, and is not encircled by a wide fringe of scattered dwellings. In the London area, however, there is a way in which the occupant of an isolated house can obtain a supply of water, though it is not a cheap one. He may bore through the London Clay into the underlying sands and gravels. When a porous stratum rests on one that is impervious, the former becomes saturated with water up to a certain level, dependent on local circumstances, and in this case a well sunk sufficiently deep into it will be filled. But if the porous stratum be also covered by one which is impervious; if all three be bent into a basin-like form; and if the porous one crop out at a considerably higher level than the place where a well is needed, then it may be water-logged to a height sufficient to force the water up the bore-hole, perhaps even to send up a jet like a fountain. Wells of this kind are termed Artesian, from Artois in France, where they have been in use for several centuries, and they began to be sunk in England about a century ago. The London Clay was pierced, and the water-logged sands and gravels belonging to the lowest part of the Tertiary series were tapped. These basin-formed beds crop out at an elevation generally of about one hundred feet above the Thames; thus they were charged with water to a considerable height above the level of the river, and it very commonly at first spouted up above the surface of the ground; but as the wells increased in number, its level was gradually lowered, for the area over which these beds are exposed is not very extensive, and a stratum cannot supply more water than it receives by percolation from the rainfall. At first everything went well; consumers were like heirs who had succeeded to the savings of a long minority, for water had been accumulating in this subterranean basin- like reservoir during myriads of years; but after a time the expenditure began to exceed the income, and the water-level sank slowly, till now it is many yards below the surface of the ground. 14 15 But when this source of supply evidently was becoming overtaxed, another was found in the underlying chalk. This rock absorbs water rapidly, but parts with it very slowly. Professor Prestwich found by experiment that a slab of chalk measuring 63 cubic inches drank up 26 cubic inches of water (all it could hold) in a quarter of an hour; yet when left to drain for twelve hours it parted with only one-tenth of a cubic inch.12 So that an ordinary well is useless. But the upper part of the chalk, generally to a depth of rather more than 300 feet, is traversed by fissures, and these are full of water. So a bore-hole is carried down till one of them is struck, and they are so abundant that failures are rare. In this way the water-supply of London is materially augmented. This source also—at any rate in the immediate neighbourhood of London—is becoming overtaxed, so an effort has been made to obtain water from yet greater depths. Below the chalk is an impervious clay (Gault), and beneath this comes a brownish sand, followed by some other beds not quite so porous (called the Lower Greensand), which are succeeded by thick clays. These sandy rocks crop out at the surface to the north of London in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire, and to the south in Surrey and Kent. So they reasonably might be expected to pass beneath the metropolis, to be saturated with water, and to yield a large supply as they do at Paris, the geological position of which bears a considerable resemblance to that of London. Bore-holes have been put down in search of these sands at Kentish Town, Meux’s Brewery (Tottenham Court Road), Richmond, Streatham, and Crossness. They have also been sunk beyond the metropolitan area at Ware, Cheshunt, Harwich, and Chatham. At the last place the Lower Greensand is only about 40 feet thick, instead of 400 feet as it is south of the North Downs.13 It was expected to occur under London at a depth of about 1000 feet in round numbers, but in every case it was found to be either wholly absent or so thin as to be worthless. This is true even so far away as Ware and Harwich on the northern side, and perhaps as Croydon on the southern. In the days when this Lower Greensand, and even a considerable thickness of strata which elsewhere comes beneath it, were deposited, a large island or peninsula composed of much older rocks must have risen above the sea in the region over which London and all its environs now stand. So there is no hope of increasing the supply of water from any beds older than the upper part of the chalk. But a good deal more may be obtained from this rock, if it be tapped at longer distances from the metropolis. To this process, however, there are two objections: one, that the number of wells and of conduits which will be required in order to collect the water will probably make it a rather costly source of supply; the other, that if large demands be made on the water stored up beneath the chalk hills, the level of the surface of saturation in this rock will be appreciably lowered, many springs will be dried up, and the streams will be seriously diminished, which will greatly injure thousands of acres of water-meadows and many important industries. Large sums would have to be paid as compensation, and this would add greatly to the cost of any scheme. It is doubtful whether more water ought to be withdrawn from the Thames and its tributaries; and rivers which flow through a thickly populated country can hardly be regarded as safe from sewage contamination. It is therefore not improbable that, within a few years, the metropolis will have to follow the example of Liverpool and of Manchester, and seek another source of water-supply at a yet greater distance than has been done by those cities. T. G. Bonney. 16 CHAPTER II THE SITE It is due to the respect with which all writers upon London must regard the first surveyor and the collector of its traditions and histories that we should quote his words as to the origin and foundation of the City. He says (Strype’sStow, vol. i. book i.):— “As the Roman Writers, to glorify the City of Rome, drew the Original thereof from Gods, and Demi-gods, so Geoffrey of Monmouth, the Welsh historian, deduceth the Foundation of this famous City of London, for the greater Glory thereof, and Emulation of Rome, from the very same original. For he reporteth, that Brute, lineally descended from the Demi-god Eneas, the son of Venus, Daughter of Jupiter, about the Year of the World 2855, and 1108 before the Nativity of Christ, builded the City near unto the River now called Thames, and named it Troynovant, or Trenovant. But herein, as Livy, the most famous Historiographer of the Romans, writeth, ‘Antiquity is pardonable, and hath an especial Privilege, by interlacing Divine Matters with Human, to make the first Foundations of Cities more honourable, more Sacred, and as it were of greater Majesty.’ This Tradition concerning the ancient Foundation of the City by Brute, was of such Credit, that it is asserted in an ancient Tract, preserved in the Archives of the Chamber of London; which is transcribed into the Liber Albus, and long before that by Horn, in his old Book of Laws and Customs, called Liber Horn. And a copy of this Tract was drawn out of the City Books by the Mayor and Aldermen’s special Order, and sent to King Henry the VI., in the Seventh year of his reign; which Copy yet remains among the Records of the Tower. The Tract is as followeth:— ‘Inter Nobiles Urbes Orbis, etc. 1. Among the noble Cities of the World which Fame cries up, the City of London, the only Seat of the Realm of England, is the principal, which widely spreads abroad the Rumour of its Name. It is happy for the Wholesomeness of the Air, for the Christian religion, for its most worthy Liberty, and most ancient Foundation. For according to the Credit of Chronicles, it is considerably older than Rome: and it is stated by the same Trojan Author that it was built by Brute, after the Likeness of Great Troy, before that built by Romulus and Remus. Whence to this Day it useth and enjoyeth the ancient City Troy’s Liberties, Rights, and Customs. For it hath a Senatorial Dignity and Lesser Magistrates. And it hath Annual Sheriffs instead of Consuls. For whosoever repair thither, of whatsoever condition they be, whether Free or Servants, they obtain there the refuge of Defence and Freedom. Almost all the Bishops, Abbots, and Nobles of England are as it were Citizens and Freemen of this City, having their noble Inns here.’ These and many more matters of remark, worthy to be remembered, concerning this most noble City, re...