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Besides the wall, there are two other monuments, still surviving, of Roman London. One is “London Stone”; the other is the Roman bath in the Strand, which I have already mentioned (p. 98).
There does not appear to be any exact account of the stone as it was before the fire which so grievously diminished it. Strype says that it was much worn away, only a stump remaining. What is left is nothing but a fragment. There was formerly, however, a large foundation. It stood on the south side of Cannon Street, from which point all the mileage of the roads was measured. In the romance of Sir Bevis of Hampton there is a great battle in the streets of London:—
The first Mayor of London, Henry FitzAylwin, lived in a house on the north side of St. Swithin’s, and was called Henry FitzAylwin of London Stone.
Stow describes the stone in the following words:—
“On the south side of this high Street [Candlewick Street] near unto the Channell is pitched upright a great stone called London Stone, fixed in the Ground very deep, fastened with Bars of Iron, and otherwise so strongly set, that, if cartes do runne against it through negligence, the wheeles be broken and the stone is left unshaken. The cause why the stone was there set, the very time when, or other memorial hereof, is there none; but that the same hath long continued there is manifest, namely, since, or rather before the time of the Conquest, for in the ende of a fair written Gospel Booke given to Christes Churche in Canterbury by Ethelstane, King of the West Saxons, I find noted of landes or rentes in London belonging to the said churche, whereof one parcel is described to lie neare unto London Stone. Of later time we read that in the yeare of Christe 1135, the first of King Stephen, a fire which began in the house of one Ailward, neare unto London Stone, consumed all east to Aldgate, in which fire the Priorie of the Holy Trinitie was burnt, and west to St. Erkenwald’s shrine in Paule’s Church: and these are the eldest notes that I read thereof. Some have said this stone was set as a marke in the middle of the City within the wall, but in truth it standeth farre nearer unto the river of Thames than to the Wall of the City.” (Strype’s Stow, vol. i. bk. ii. chap. xiii.)
James Howell (Londinopolis, p. 4, 1657) adopts Camden’s opinion:134 “London Stone I take to be a Mile mark or Milliary such as was in the market place at Rome from which were taken dimensions of all Journies every way considering it is near the midst as it lyeth in length.”
Wren thought that the stone originally belonged to some considerable monument in the Forum, for in the adjoining ground on the south side were discovered tessellated pavements and other extensive remains of Roman workmanship and buildings while men were digging for cellars after the fire. On this point Mr. Price pertinently reminds us that the Miliarium Aureum at Constantinople was not in the form of a pillar, as at Rome, but a fine building, under whose roof stood statues of Constantine, Helena, Trajan, Hadrian, and many other figures.
And Maitland says that some people held the stone to be significant of the City, devotion to Christ, and of His care and protection of the City, and quotes certain rhymes of Fabian (vol. ii. bk. ii. p. 1047):—
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