ABSTRACT
It has long been suspected that 'Londinium, a very flourishing town at the beginning of the 2nd century, may have afterwards dwindled very markedly in size' (Waddington 1930, 68—9). More recently the argument for a decline in the London settlement has been restated by Harvey Sheldon with particular reference to results from excavations in Southwark (Sheldon 1975, 278—84). Latest work on the northern side of the river seems to confirm his case; deposits of the century prior to c. AD 150 are two to three times as common as those of the following century (Vince 1987, Fig. 102).
