ABSTRACT
The next phase in the history of London Wall is a period of decline when in some places at least the wall had degenerated into a decayed state. This change had already taken place by the time that some of the later bastions were built. When Bastion 19 near Newgate was exposed in 1909 it was found that the city wall was standing to a height of only 5 feet above its plinth.1 Its top as surviving appeared to be toppling over outwards-a fact which can be observed today. The end of the bastion, butting against the wall, fits the curve of its upper courses and there can be little doubt that when the bastion was built the wall could not have been standing to any appreciably greater height than it does now. The external situation at Bastion 14 in Castle Street is still (in 1965) not yet clear: investigation here must await the removal of modern obstructions. Behind the bastion itself, however, the wall had been reduced to a height of only just over 2 feet above its foundation level (Plate 3): here a rebuilding in random rubble very similar in character to that of the bastion had taken place: whatever the position with the internal thickening the original wall had been completely rebuilt from this low level. So, too, at St. Alphage (but not at the neighbouring London Wall site,
nor, apparently, further east again at All-Hallows-on-the-Wall1) the Roman wall-face seems to have been renewed in its lower part at some remote date in the past. The original core is covered by a random-rubble face set on a very irregular line well behind the original Roman face (Fig. 19); and there is some hint that the body of the wall as a whole may have required re construction from a very low level. It is impossible to say at present when these repairs were carried out and
it seems likely now that no further evidence on them will be forthcoming apart from what may result from the stripping of Bastions 13 and 14. Though they display a certain similarity they need not be of the same date; the same sort of repairs had to be done to the wall in places away from the north-western area, for instance on the eastern side. It can at least be said, however, that the wall was not everywhere maintained in its original state throughout the centuries; and that some parts of it were in a decayed condi tion when the bastions were built. It has already been observed that the workmanship of the repair behind Bastion 14 is very similar to that of the bastion itself. It is now time to consider the bastions. They are semi-circular or horse
shoe-shaped towers, here as in most other places structurally later than the city wall. Their ends usually, but not invariably, abut on the wall; but Bastion 15, across the angle of the Aldersgate re-entrant (8), is toothed into the wall at its surviving north-east end (Plate 14). Down to recent times there has been no completely reliable evidence on which to base a close date for the bastions of London. Twenty-one are known or recorded,2 and they fall into two groups according to their construction: the one involving the reuse of stones from other buildings or monuments and having its lower part built solid; the other hollow-based and constructed in random rubble. These differences may well imply differences in date, but there is no evidence on which this question can be decided. The first group is often spoken of as the eastern series, the others as the western, but it is doubtful whether the distinction can be completely maintained. On the whole, however, the ‘eastern’ series appears to have been better built than the ‘western’, whose walls are frequently of very irregular construction, with uneven offsets and other indications of a low level of building skill. The eastern salient of the Aldersgate re-entrant, between St. Giles
it was established that the deposits against it had already been much disturbed by, amongst other things, the seventeenth-century brick culvert which has been seen recently elsewhere: the exposed part of the bastion was drastically refaced at the end of the nineteenth century.1 Internally, the levels are such that part of the offset foundation is exposed, though it has been given a protective rendering. The remainder of the bastion also has a modern finish which largely masks the original masonry, but where visible this appears to be of the random rubble characteristic of the ‘western’ bastions as a whole. Bastion 1 3 (2) survives only to the level of St. Giles’ churchyard and has
suffered extensive mutilation in other ways.2 Recent investigation has shown that on the north externally it ends on the city wall (Plate 20); to the south the junction has been destroyed. Internally, the ends of the bastion have been cut away or underpinned by modern foundations. In spite, however, of the low level of the cellar enough remained to show that the foundation, a little over 2 feet deep, was set in the floor of the Roman city ditch, the base of which had survived. The level of the offset of this bastion no doubt marks the surface level of the ditch-filling when the bastion was built, so that by that time the city ditch had silted up to rather less than half its original depth in this sector. Excavation of the area outside the bastion may in due course shed fresh light on these relationships, though the depth of late disturbance nearby does not encourage much hope of this. It would have been instructive to have seen more of Bastion 15, but the
greater part of it was destroyed in 1922 and only a foot or two of its wall had survived where it joined the city wall. This bastion is (as already noted) the exception to the rule that the bastions mostly rest against the city wall and are not bonded into it; for here a slot had existed, or been created, in the wall and the bastion was toothed into it. The slot was wider than the bastion wall, so that for a foot or two behind the bastion there was a shallow recess, the face of which was set back behind the original city wall face. At this point also the foundation was not deep and rose over a wedgeshaped deposit of occupation-material (Plate 23) from which came a few
sherds which are unfortunately indeterminate as to their form, though in general appearance they look to be of late Roman date. From the bastions so far described, therefore, all the evidence is of a
somewhat inconclusive kind. With Bastion 14 the position is rather better, though problems enough remain. Bastion 14 has had a chequered career. The Royal Commission refer to it as if it no longer existed in 1927.1 But it had in fact survived within the buildings in Castle Street, escaping German bombs, and being more seriously threatened by the activities of a squad of Pioneers, who were prevented from demolishing it as an unsafe structure by the fortunate intervention of an architect who recognised it for what it was. As this is being written, therefore, Bastion 14 still stands to a height of
9-10 feet above the modern surface level of Castle Street. Externally, at this height, it is of mediaeval construction (below, p. 84); internally it is masked by a modern skin of brick that prevents its character from being seen. Fortunately, the modern floor-level within the bastion provided only for a half-cellar, with the consequence that a depth of deposit was preserved to open up the possibility that datable material might be forthcoming. It is rarely possible to date a featureless wall or other stone construction
without the aid of evidence derived from some source other than its own masonry; and since the dates of the bastions that are a feature of many Roman towns are of considerable importance in the elucidation of the history of the towns it was hoped that any datable levels within Bastion 14 could be shown to be closely related to its construction and use. With these problems in mind the interior of the bastion was emptied with the greatest care. A trench dug along its main axis was widened by cutting back its faces a foot at a time, each new section thus exposed being cleaned and studied until finally all the filling had been removed. The result was to show that, like the neighbouring bastion (13), this had been carried out across the Roman ditch, the inner slope of which had survived beneath the later filling (Fig. 15). The bastion wall, behind and below the modern lining referred to above, was of random rubble, most of the stones being small and thin and poorly coursed, with no definite demarcation between foundation and faced wall. Within the bastion at a depth of 2% feet falling to 4 feet below the cellar
surface of this floor was level with the offset which marked the division between the original (fort) wall and the later repair already described (p. 64); toward sthe outside the floor sloped downwards over the city ditch, now filled up. Both above and below the floor the deposits were a featureless dark soil. Two finds of great importance but apparently of conflicting significance came from the gravel surface. The first was a coin of Constans (a . d . 346-50), partly buried in the floor. Barely a foot away from the coin, and also on or very near the surface, was found a small bronze pendant (Fig. 16). The coin is completely consistent with the accepted date for the great
majority of the bastions which are attached to the walls of a number of Romano-British towns. The bastions are assumed, with good reason, to reflect the uneasy conditions of the third and fourth centuries when much of the Roman Empire was subjected to external barbarian pressure. For Britain these attacks were in effect the first invasions of the Saxons: the defences of the Saxon Shore, begun in the late third century, were created to repel them. The town bastions, however, are somewhat later, and those which have been dated belong consistently to about the middle of the fourth century.1 But the pendant seems to be much later. Its zoomorphic ornament of
hares and (apparently) dogs’ heads places it in the period of the eighth/ ninth century: if the evidence of its ornament means anything therefore it is late Saxon rather than Roman in date. The value of the pendant as a dating medium for the bastion clearly
depends on whether bastion and floor go together. It seems quite certain that the pendant did not find its way down to the gravel surface as a result of some later disturbance of the covering deposits; and it is most unlikely that the surface could have remained open through the four centuries or so that must have elapsed between the loss of the coin and the loss of the pendant. The lack of distinction between foundation and faced wall in the bastion (p. 68) precludes complete certainty as to the relationship of wall and floor; but whatever the truth about this the pendant provides a reminder that for some at any rate of London’s bastions a Roman date should not be too readily assumed. The possibility of some variation in date is hinted at in the constructional differences which have already been noted (p. 65);
