ABSTRACT
Much material exists, in pictures, maps and records, to give a vivid impres sion of London’s buildings, at any rate in the latter part of the Middle Ages. Of these buildings very few survive today. Those that escaped the Great Fire have become the victims of later rebuilding, particularly in the nineteenth century, when widespread office-building reflected the industrial and commercial prosperity of Britain at large. As has already been said (p. 152), with obvious exceptions the mediaeval buildings of London survive only below street-level and in the areas of modern cellars are rep resented (if they are present at all) only by their foundations. Archaeo logical excavation therefore cannot be expected to augment or extend modern knowledge of the mediaeval houses and other buildings of the city
on any considerable scale. Its value lies in the fact that on a strictly limited number of sites it may produce some information about details of construc tion and the like which other sources may not reveal and perhaps in this way may bring the living conditions of mediaeval Londoners more vividly forward than would otherwise be possible.
