Great Britain -- Antiquities, Roman; Romans -- Great Britain
(25) In the _Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects_ for
April 11, 1914 (xxi. 333), Mr. W. R. Davidge prints a lecture on the
Development of London which deals mostly with present and future London
but also contains a new theory as to the Roman town. Hitherto, most
writers have agreed that, while Londinium may have been laid out on a
regular town-plan, no discoverable trace of such plan survived, nor
could any existing street be said to run to any serious extent on Roman
lines. Mr. Davidge devises a rectangular plan of oblong blocks, and
finds vestiges of Roman streets in the present Cheapside, Cannon Street,
Gracechurch Street, and Birchin Lane. In a later number of the same
journal (Aug. 29, p. 52) I have given some reasons for not accepting
this view. First, Mr. Davidge's list of four survivals would be too
brief to prove much if the survivals were proved. Secondly, Roman
structural remains seem to have been found under all the streets in
question, and it is, therefore, plain that they do not run on the lines
of Roman thoroughfares. Thirdly, his suggested plan brings none of his
conjectured Roman streets (except one) to any of the various known gates
of Londinium; it requires us to assume a number of other gates for which
there is neither probability nor proof.
(26) In the Post Office Magazine, _St. Martin's-le-Grand_ (Jan. and July
1914), Mr. Thos. Wilson, then Clerk of the Works, gives details, with
illustrations, of the Roman rubbish-pits lately excavated at the General
Post Office (see above, p. 23).
_Norfolk_
(27) In the earlier pages (1-45) of his _Roman Camp at Burgh Castle_
(London, 1913) Mr. L. H. Dahl deals with the Roman fort at Burgh Castle
(Gariannonum), near Yarmouth, which formed part of the fourth-century
_Litus Saxonicum_. His account, which is not very technical, seems based
on previous writers, Ives, Harrod, Fox. I note a list of thirty coins
which, save for an uncertain specimen of Domitian and one of Marcus,
belong entirely to the late third and the fourth centuries, and end with
two silver of Honorius (_Virtus Romanorum_, Cohen 59). He detects a
Roman road running east from Burgh Castle towards Gorleston, preserved
(he thinks) in an old road sometimes called the Jews' Way; this,
however, seems unlikely. He also maintains the view, which others have
held, that the fort had no defences towards the water. This again seems
unlikely. Burgh Castle, like Richborough, Stutfall, and other forts of
the _Litus_, may well have had different arrangements on its water-front
from the walls on its other three faces. But it cannot have lacked
defences, and excavations prove, here as elsewhere, that walls did
actually exist on this side.
_Northumberland: Corbridge_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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