Roman London - the London wall
These pages are based on a "Royal Commission On Historical Monuments 1834" - actually it is 1928; which is in the public domain.
[21] . London Wall, West, corner of Blomfield street.
In 1837, "In building the new sewer, at a few feet eastward of Carpenters
Buildings, an ancient sewer of Roman workmanship was cut through.
It was embedded in a mass of rubble masonry 12 feet wide. At 14 feet southward
of London Wall, it terminated in a mouth cut to the slope of the ditch into
which it had discharged itself. The bank of the ditch was covered with large
quantities of moss. On the northern side it had been converted into a place of
sepulchre. The remains of two skeletons, with a large dogs skull and part of the
stem of a rams horn, were found therein, together with some Roman pottery, a
small silver coin of Antoninus, and a copper coin of Faustina and other ancient
money. One upright and two sloping stout iron bars at 12 feet north of the new
sewer, Moorgate street to Old Broad street, closed the mouth of this tomb, and
were in the most perfect state of preservation, still retaining their grey
colour.
At 11 1/2 feet northward the crown had been broken in. A coarsely wrought base
of a column was among the rubbish. The bottom is flat and paved with two layers
of large tiles, and the sides and arch of the sewer are built with small tiles
with thick joints of mortar.
The bed of this ancient work and that of the new sewer being nearly coincident,
they were connected on both sides . The substructure of the City wall is rubble
banded at 3-foot intervals with two thicknesses of large tiles.
Sir W Tite’s description of the same discovery adds some further details and is
as follows :—
"Eastwards of Carpenters' Hall, a mass of rubble masonry, of about 12 feet in
thickness, was cut through , and in the centre was found a culvert or Roman
sewer, in which were discovered three iron bars in perfect preservation,
enclosing a human skull of a dog, and the stem of a stag’s horn, together with a
silver coin of Antoninus and a copper com of Faustina. Beyond this point the
crown of the culvert had been broken in and a fragment of a rudely wrought
column had fallen through the breach. As the ancient sewer passed under houses
no further examination could be made in this direction, but on the south side it
was only found to be perfect, but even the mouth of it was discovered under a
house at the north-east corner of Carpenters Buildings. The sewer was
constructed of small thin tiles, cemented together by very thick joints of red
mortar, made of pounded tile, and having a large pebble inserted in the centre
of each.
From the top of the sewer to the opposite bank of a ditch into which it
discharged itself were placed several pieces of timber scantling in a sloping
direction, and a considerable quantity of long moss, undecayed and still
retaining a greenish colour, was taken from between them. The ditch receiving
the contents of the sewer was made on the south side of the remains of a strong
work like part of a fortification, about the site of Little Moorgate or the
entrance of Bloomfield Street. As the depth from the present surface to the
bottom of the sewer was 18 feet 4 inches, and the open ditch of the fortress was
still deeper, it is evident that at the time when they were constructed the
adjacent ground was dry and substantial, for the later accumulation of soil was
so soft that at one part the bricks could scarcely be laid [Cat, of Antiq. Roy.
Exch., XXXI]. A City Sewers Plan [I, 124] gives the precise position of this
culvert.
Roach Smith's account of the discovery of a second “ aquaduct " in 1841 is as
follows :
" In London Wall, opposite Finsbury Chambers, at the depth of 19 feet. [to the
extrados of the arch] what appeared to have been a subterranean aquaduct was
laid open. It was found to run towards Finsbury under the houses of the Circus
about 20 feet.
At the termination were five iron bars fastened perpendicularly into the
masonry. . . . At the opening of the work towards the city was an arch (Plate
27) 3 1/2 feet high from the crown to the springing-wall, and 3 1/4 feet wide,
composed of 50 tiles disposed as shown in the engraving. The spandrels were
filled in with rag-stone to afford strength to the work." He estimates the total
length of the enclosed as 60 yards. Finsbury Chambers was the block on the West
corner of
Blomfield Street, but its entrance would appear to have been a short distance
West of the junction of the two streets. The second culvert would thus have been
very near, if not directly below, that discovered in 1837. The drawing shows
that the channel was 24 1/2 feet below the present surface, or 5 feet lower than
that of the culvert first discovered.
It is possible, therefore, that the higher culvert may have been inserted at a
later date, when the lower channel had become blocked.