London Under Read Free Page B

Wharf with the inscription
da mihi vita
(give life to me). Four stars were also inscribed upon it, as a sign of eternity.

    Part of a Roman wall found behindthe Minories, from Charles Knight,
London
, 1841–4 (illustration credit Ill.4)
    Piece by piece Londinium is restored. The damp earth has preserved it so well that from the evidence once lying beneath the ground we may conjure up a greatcity with abasilica, amphitheatre, arena and numerous public buildings; we see bath-houses and monumentalstatues, shrines and palaces. Sacred artefacts continue to be preserved beneath the earth, such as the monumentalScreen of the Gods of which only portions have been found; it now rests within theMuseum of London. It was a stone façade of some 19 feet, with the images of six gods carved on either side. Some of these images remain undiscovered beneath the earth. So the underworld still contains gods and heroes. The head of a river god, carved in oolitic limestone, was discovered beneath Great Dover Street inSouthwark. A carved sphinx came out of the bowels ofFenchurch Street. Bacchus had his seat of power atPoultry, where two figurines were found. Isis ruled under Walbrook, with images of her and her family close to the Mithraeum. The Mithraeum itself—the temple dedicated to Mithras in the middle of the third century—was found 18 feet beneath Walbrook, and such was the excitement aroused by the discovery that in the autumn of 1954 80,000 people visited the site. It exemplifies the power of that which has been lost and found again. The same excitement was generated by the rediscovery of the Rose Playhouse, in Southwark, during the course of excavations in 1989.
    A spot of sacred ground retains its sanctity over many centuries. When the bombs of the Second World War had reduced St. Mary-le-Bow to ruins, it was discovered that its crypt was in essence aRoman building; at a depthof 18 feet a Roman road passed what must once have been the entrance to a temple above the ground. In similar fashion it was discovered that the undercroft of All Hallows, by the Tower of London, was built of Roman brick. It also once lay above the surface, and was used as a barber’s shop; a groove in the pavement indicates a supply of running water. Beneath the crypt ofSouthwark Cathedral have been excavatedstatues of Neptune and of a hunter god; an altar has also been found. There are other forms of continuity; excavations beneaththe Treasury inWhitehall uncovered the waterlogged remains of two successive timber halls dating to the ninth century.

    Thehead of Mithras, found buried beneath the temple nave in 1954 (illustration credit Ill.5)
    As a result of these discoveries certain streets acquirewholly new identities.Cromwell Road in West London is the site of a Saxon community, while Creffield Road inActon has revealed Palaeolithic settlers; inHopton Street,Southwark, a bowl from theBronze Age has come to light.Knightrider Street, below St. Paul’s, concealedwalls of a great terrace that has been interpreted as the retaining wall of a circus where chariot races were held; hence the name of the street. Wooden structures of the early Iron Age have been found at Richmond Terrace inWestminster, and there is evidence of a submerged forest atBankside. There have been surprises from the first ages of the human world. A votive object, known as the “Dagenham Idol,” was buried 8 feet under the edge of the Dagenham marshes; it had been underground for almost 4,500 years. A wooden dugout canoe, containing a flint axe and a flint scraper, was recovered from beneath theErith marshes.
    C rypts, andvaults, and burial grounds are also part of the identity of the city. Their roots are very ancient. There are photographs, in volumes of London archaeology, in which the excavator can be seen crouched over a bent skeleton, the living implicitly copying the dead. And, in large part, the original city was built upon the bones of the dead. “It was a solemn consideration,”