Street at its back. But at an opening on the north side of George Street the old wall is still to be seen, forming the boundary between a vacant piece of ground into which the opening looks and a court to the east of it, to which there is an entry from Trinity Square. This fragment of the wall, the direction of which is nearly from south to north, is perhaps about forty feet long, and appears to be upwards of twenty-five feet in height. The outside, at least as seen from the court, where it can be most easily examined, is formed of squared stone, the courses of which at the southern extremity are pretty regularly laid; towards the other extremity they are more irregular. Here also, where a brick gable of a house has been built into it, the interior of the wall is visible, and seems to consist of unhewn stones, smaller than those with which it is faced, imbedded in mortar. There is no trace of anything Roman above-ground here. But a considerably longer and also a more perfect fragment of the wall is to be found in a line with this a little farther to the north, forming the back wall of the extensive hemp warehouse of Mr. Atkinson, which is entered from the west through a court leading from the foot of Cooper's Row, or very near the north-east angle of Trinity Square. The outside of Mr. Atkinson's premises may be seen from the Mews Lane entering from America Circus; and the remnant of the city wall here fronts the backs of the houses of America Crescent. On this, its exterior side, it presents an even surface from the base to the summit; but on the interior it recedes as it rises from the ground, and is terminated on the second floor of the warehouse by a parapet about breast high. In Mr. Atkinson's first floor a number of arched recesses have been formed in the wall, but whether when it was built or afterwards may be doubted: the masonry about them has a very patched and inartificial appearance. Near the base of the wall are some courses of flat bricks, such as Woodward saw in the first ten feet of the portion he examined at Bishopsgate; and this would therefore seem to be the lower range of the old Roman structure, still sound and serviceable, after having stood probably fifteen hundred years.

But a still more curious fragment of the Roman foundation was disinterred only a few weeks ago, a little farther to the north, in the course of the operations now in progress for the extension of the Blackwall Railway. Beneath a range of houses which have been in part demolished, in a court entering from the cast side of Cooper's Row, nearly opposite to Milbourne's Almshouses, and behind the south-west corner of America Square, the workmen, having penetrated to the natural earth—a hard, dry, sandy gravel-came upon a wall seven feet and a half thick, running in the direction of the two portions already described, that is to say, a very little to the west of north, or parallel to the line of the Minories; which, by the resistance it offered, was at once conjectured to be of Roman masonry. When we saw it, it had been laid bare on both sides to the height of about six or seven feet, and there was an opportunity of examining its construction, both on the surface and in the interior. The principal part of it consisted of five courses of squared stones, regularly laid, with two layers of flat bricks below them, and two similar layers above-the latter at least carried all the way through the wall-as represented in the subjoined drawing. The mortar, which appeared to be extremely hard, had a few pebbles mixed up with it; and here and there were interstices or air-cells, as if it had not been spread, but poured in among the stones. The stones were a granulated limestone, such as might

have been obtained from the chalk quarries at Greenhithe or Northfleet. The bricks, which were evidently Roman, and, as far as the eye could judge, corresponded in size as well as in shape with those described by Woodward, had as fine a grain as common pottery, and varied in colour from a bright red to a palish yellow. A slight circular or oval mark-in some cases forming a double ringappeared on one side of each of them, which had been impressed when the clay was in a soft state. It is to be hoped that the City authorities, or the Society of Antiquaries, have taken care to secure complete drawings of this interesting fragment of antiquity during its short restoration to the light of day-only to be in part destroyed, in part covered up and hidden more impenetrably than ever, by the same busy spirit of speculation and improvement by which it was for a moment revealed.

[Part of the Roman Wall of London recently excavated behind the Minories.]

From this point up to Aldgate High Street, and thence, in a north-westerly direction, behind the south side of Houndsditch, or between that street and Duke Street, Bevis Marks, and Camomile Street, the line of the wall can now only be traced by a slight elevation of the surface, which is generally more or less discernible where it had stood, and where no doubt its foundation for the most part still exists under the modern buildings that have been raised upon the same site. It was at the west end of Camomile Street that Woodward, in the beginning of the last century, examined the portion of the wall then laid bare from the foundation, and about to be demolished. Here stood Bishop's-gate, at the point where the street called Bishopsgate Within is still divided from Bishopsgate Without. Hence the wall was carried in a westerly direction, with a slight deflection to the north, between Bishopsgate Churchyard and Wormwood Street. We are informed that it was reached in Wormwood Street a few years ago, in digging for the foundation of the St. Ethelburga Charity Schools. From the end of this street it proceeded in the same direction along the north side of the street still called London Wall; and here a few fragments of it still remain above-ground. One small portion extends westward from the church of All

Hallows on the Wall, which is built upon it. A little farther on, opposite to the entry to Sion College, another fragment may be seen over a brick wall, which screens it in the greater part from the street. And still farther to the west the old wall still forms the southern boundary of the court-yard of the White Horse Inn, and the back of the premises of Messrs. Deacon and Co., canal-carriers. But one of the most interesting remnants on the whole line is that to be found in Cripplegate Churchyard, part of the southern boundary of which, dividing it from the continuation of London Wall called Hart Street, is still formed by the old city wall, which here terminates its course to the westward with a circular inclosure, in very good preservation, the basis, no doubt, of one of the towers by which it was formerly adorned and strengthened, and the only one of which any traces are now to be found. Access to the inside of the inclosure may be obtained through the entry to the Clothworkers' Almshouses at the end of Hart Street. From this point the line of the wall turns to the south, and a portion of it extending in that direction also remains, dividing the churchyard from the houses in Mugwell Street, nearly parallel to which it had continued its course, passing by the back of Barbers' Hall, the front of which is in Mugwell Street, and then descending rather more than half way down the back of Noble Street, when it turned again to the west, and was carried across Aldersgate, and behind the houses forming the north side of Bull and Mouth Street, where another small part of it may be still seen dividing the houses from the extensive churchyard of St. Botolph's, Aldersgate. From the west end of Bull and Mouth Street it deflected a little towards the south-west, passing behind Christ's Hospital, till it arrived within a short distance of Giltspur Street, and there, turning again to the south, struck down upon Newgate Street, which it crossed a little to the east of its present termination at the Old Bailey. From Newgate Street it proceeded southward in a line parallel to the Old Bailey, behind which one or two small fragments of it are still standing. One, forming part of the back wall of the premises of Messrs. Elston and Co., builders, has an arched cavity hollowed out of it, at the height of about fifteen feet from the ground, exactly resembling those in Mr. Atkinson's warehouse; but, as the latter have been formed in the inner and this in the outer side of the wall, it would rather seem that neither had made part of its original construction. Lud-gate stood at the present point of division between Ludgate Hill and Ludgate Street, immediately to the west of St. Martin's church, or directly in front of the London Coffee House. From this point, or rather from a spot a few yards farther to the south, the wall again turned to the west, with a slight inclination southward, passing behind the south side of Ludgate Hill,-where a small fragment of it is still to be seen forming part of the wall of a butcher's shop in what is now called St. Martin's Court,-till it abutted upon the bank of the Fleet River, which it then accompanied to the Thames.

But it is matter of historical record that a portion of the space thus encompassed was taken into the city at a comparatively recent date. Till the year 1276 the wall proceeded in one straight line from Newgate to the river, as we learn from Matthew Paris, who informs us that the part of it to the south of Ludgate was then pulled down, with the permission of the city, by Robert Kilwarby, Archbishop of Canterbury, to make way for his foundation of a house for the Preaching or Black Friars; upon which Edward I. commanded the city to build a new wall running west from Ludgate to the Fleet, and thence southward

to the Thames, so as to enclose the entire precinct of the Black Friars, whose convent here, by the bye, is stated to have been erected on the site and with the stones of the old castle of Montfichet. But as this has not been the last addition made to the city-which has since been extended as far to the westward as Temple Bar-so in all probability it was not the first. The western boundary of Roman London appears to be indicated by the point at which the old wall first deflected from its course to the westward, and by the new direction which it then assumed. There can be little doubt that it proceeded originally in one unbroken line from the angle at Cripplegate Churchyard to the Thames. If a line so drawn would not include the entire city as then existing, there would seem to be no reason why the turn should have been made at the particular point and in the direction actually chosen. If any space beyond such a line was to be taken in, either the wall, we may suppose, would have been carried farther to the west before a change was made in its direction at all, or much more of a westerly inclination would have been given to its new course. If we suppose the Roman wall to have followed the direction it took on first turning round to the south at Cripplegate Churchyard, it would pass to the east of St. Paul's Churchyard, and would leave without the city, in conformity with the Roman custom, the ancient cemetery there. Probably it was a part of the foundation of this original wall which was discovered in sinking a shaft a few years ago opposite Paternoster Row, "where," we are told, "at about eighteen feet deep the operations were checked by a stone wall of intense hardness, running in a direction towards the centre of St. Paul's, and which cost the labourers three or four days to cut through."

It is not improbable, however, that, even during the Roman occupation, the extension of the city towards the west may have led to an alteration of part of the original line of the wall in that quarter, and to the carrying of it in the direction of Aldersgate, Newgate, and Ludgate, even by such a sharp turn as it made at Noble Street. All that we contend for is, that that is not likely to have been the course in which it proceeded when the portion of it from Cripplegate churchyard to the sudden break off behind Noble Street was first designed and erected. In other directions, as well as in this, there is good ground for inferring that what was at one time considered as country, and without the circuit of the city, was built upon by the Romans in a later age. Sepulchral remains have been found, as we have seen, within at least the more recent line of the wall, not only in St. Paul's Churchyard, but also at Bishopsgate on the north side of the city, and at St. Dunstan's in the East towards its southern or eastern boundary. But it is remarkable that in each of these instances the urns and other evidences of sepulture were found under pavements; thus showing that, although the place had once been a cemetery, it had afterwards come to be built upon. No doubt even the space that was completely covered with houses, and that would therefore naturally be accounted an integral part of the city, must have gradually spread itself out over the country on all sides in the course of the three or four centuries during which London, under the Roman dominion, was, we have every reason to believe, a flourishing town, growing in population, as well as in wealth and general com* Observations on the Roman Remains found in Various Parts of London in the years 1834, 1835, 1836; by Mr. Charles Roach Smith. In Archæologia, xxvii. pp. 140-153. "In this wall," it is added, "were cemented two large sea-shells, evidently for ornament. Sir William Gell notices this as a common practice in Pompeii." Close to the wall were found several of the second-brass coins of Vespasian and Domitian, and above it a fine Samian dish, with a hammer nearly a foot long, and some other iron tools.

mercial and political importance. And no doubt, also, there were many buildings, villas of opulent merchants and others, scattered over the neighbouring country, along the great roads and up and down among the pleasant fields, that at no time were considered as making part of the city, although some of them might be very near to it, nor were ever included within any artificial circumvallation. Beyond what we have considered to be the most probable line of the original enclosure of Roman London, tesselated pavements or other sure marks of habitation have been discovered not only between St. Paul's and Ludgate-at the London Coffee House and in Creed Lane-but so far to the west as St. Andrew's Hill, in Holborn, to which point nobody has ever supposed that the city wall extended. Nay, for that matter, the clear vestiges of Roman dwelling-houses have been found not only in the adjacent suburban district of Southwark, but here and there along that bank of the river as far east as Deptford. But the evidences of continued building and a compact population are confined to the locality still forming the heart of the city, and to the limits we have assigned to the walled London of the Romans. Almost every excavation that is made to a sufficient depth within these limits. brings us among their long-buried relics—to the very streets on which they walked, or the floors of the houses in which they lived. The general level of Roman London ranges from above fifteen to seventeen feet under the present surface,* thus showing an accumulation at the rate of about a foot in a century gradually arising out of the mere occupancy and traffic of a crowded population; for of the whole little more than two feet usually consists of the débris of the ancient city. Probably indeed the rate of augmentation has been considerably greater than this in more recent times. In some places, too, what is called the Roman soil descends to a much greater depth than its general level. This is particularly the case along the course of the stream of Walbrook, which formerly, passing through the wall (whence its name), entered the city between Bishopsgate and Moorgate, at the east end of old Bethlehem, and proceeded nearly along the line of the new street called Moorfields, and of the present Walbrook Street, under which, we believe, it still flows as a sewer, discharging itself into the Thames at Dowgate. In Prince's Street, which skirts the west side of the Bank, and connects Moorgate Street with the other magnificent new opening called King William Street, leading to London Bridge, the Roman stratum was found in the course of the late excavations to go down to the depth of not less than thirty feet. Here, too, and along the whole line from Prince's Street to Finsbury, in which also it was of unusual depth, it was, according to Mr. Smith's account, much more moist than usual, "highly impregnated with animal and vegetable matter, and almost of an inky blackness in colour." "Throughout the same line also, " Mr. Smith continues, "were at intervals noticed a vast and almost continuous number of wooden piles, which in Prince's Street were particularly frequent, and where also they descended much deeper. The nature of the ground, and the quantity of these piles, tend to strengthen the probability of a channel having flowed in this direction, draining off the water from the adjoining marshes, and that too (from the numerous Roman remains accompanying these indications) at a very remote period." The same peculiarities mark a considerable portion of the soil that is in course of being

* Account of Various Roman Antiquities, discovered on the site of the Church of St. Michael, Crooked Lane and in East Cheap; by A. J. Kempe, Esq. In Archæologia, xxiv. 190, &c.

† 'Archæologia,' vol. xxvii. pp. 140, &c.