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.
(26). London Wall, East of Coleman Street. In 1911 excavations on the site of
No. 123 revealed a portion of the wall ; the outer face had been cut away. The
wall reached to within 2 feet of the pavement-level and extended 10 1/4 feet.
below it.
In 1920 the demolition of No. 122 London Wall, at the East angle of Coleman
Street, exposed a short length of the wall which presented some unusual
features. The core of the wall was not built with the usual care and contained
numerous fragments of brick and roofing-tiles; a very haphazard extra layer of
bonding-tiles could be traced under the third course above the plinth.
This irregularity was thought not due to rebuilding as the normal double
bonding-course was in position above it, but the whole section had been altered
and the precise amount of rebuilding done was not easy to determine. The whole
face of the wall was exposed at the West end of the site, the base of the plinth
being 14 feet below the modern ground-level ; above the plinth were five courses
of squared rag-stone and a double bonding-course of brick; above this point the
outer face of the wall had fallen away, and had been made good at some uncertain
date by a battering plinth 6 feet deep and resting on a rough foundation about 2
feet thick laid against the surviving face of the original wall. Above the
batter, the face of the wall resumed the vertical, the face being set back about
10 inches from the original face at the base of the wall. This later vertical
face consisted of a double bonding-course surmounted by four courses of rag.
Near the East end of the site a human skull was found half buried, upside down,
in the gravel 2 feet from the plinth.