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The Late Roman Waterfront in London

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

T. Brigham
Affiliation:
Department of Urban Archaeology, Museum of London

Extract

The Roman waterfront in London has been discussed several times, most recently in The Port of Roman London (Milne, 1985) and The Roman Quay at St Magnus House, London (Miller, Schofield and Rhodes, 1986). The former dealt largely with the late-first-century waterfront and associated buildings recorded on sites excavated to the north of Thames Street, on either side of the Roman London Bridge, including Pudding Lane, Peninsular House and Miles Lane (FIG. I). The subsequent redevelopment of existing properties, and the construction of new buildings relating to succeeding waterfronts further to the south, were also covered in detail, although the later quays themselves (of early-second to mid-third-century date) lay beyond the site boundaries, and were only briefly discussed. The second report, however, dealt with the mid-second- to early-third-century waterfronts and the section of riverside wall recorded between 1974–78 at New Fresh Wharf (St Magnus House), adjacent to the more recent (1982) Billingsgate Lorry Park site. Both works discussed evidence for trade, as represented by finds from the various sites involved, in some depth.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 21 , November 1990 , pp. 99 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © T. Brigham 1990. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

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3 Summarised in G. Milne, The Port of Roman London (1985).

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18 Possibly the southern extension of a feature postulated by Milne at the east side of Peninsular House (Milne, op. cit. (note 3), 129–31).

19 Miller et al., op. cit. (note 6), 96–8.

20 Jennifer Hillam has suggested that the derivation of timbers from several sources could reflect a period of storage, which may give a date more in accord with the later pottery, although normal Roman practice was to use ‘green’ timber.

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24 Marsden, op. cit. (note 1).

25 A watching brief to the south of the site (Rutter, op. cit. (note 1)) uncovered opposing post-and-plank and stave revetments in the area between the wall and the third-century quay (p. 140); the 12.4 quay may belong to this phase. Although the revetments have not been dated, it seems likely that the canalisation was contemporary with the infilling of the basin, since this was the first occasion when this could have been carried out.

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46 T. Williams, Excavations at St Peter's Hill, 223–5 Upper Thames Street, 1981, D.U.A. Archive Report (in preparation); Burch and Hill, op. cit. (note 23); RCHM, op. cit. (note 45).

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48 Pottery at Seal House and Billingsgate covered generally the same range of Romano-British and imported wares as New Fresh Wharf, although the quantity involved was smaller. Similar imported material was also recovered from Swan Lane, but here the range of wares was more limited, particularly of North Gaulish and Rhenish forms (p. 163). Although it is dangerous to generalize on such a small sample, it seems possible that this was caused by the site's position further upstream: there may have been some zoning of imported wares from the regions mentioned above, in addition to the well-known concentration of samian wares around the bridgehead, suggesting specialist traders. An eleventh-century analogy exists in the concentration of Germanic pottery in the Dowgate area, which later became the London headquarters of the Hanseatic League.

49 Dunning, G.C., ‘Two Fires of Roman London’, Antiq. Journ. xxv (1945), 4877.CrossRefGoogle Scholar There is a possibility, however, that the second-century bridge was situated beneath the present one, upstream from Regis House. This hypothesis depends upon the interpretation of a massive structure observed during the construction of Rennie's bridge in the 1830S. It is hoped to discuss this more fully in a future article. See Lambert, op. cit. (note 11), 68.

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71 G. Boon, ‘Excavations on the site of the Roman quay at Caerleon’ in G. Boon (ed.), Monographs and Collections, 1, Roman Sites Cambrian Arch. Assoc. (1978).

72 Louwe Kooijmans, op. cit. (note 59), 106–33.

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75 idem.

76 Of the three boats of Roman date found in London, Marsden has suggested (P. Marsden, ‘Early shipping and the waterfronts of London’ in Milne and Hobley, op. cit. (note 51), 10–16) that the County Hall ship was a sea-going cargo vessel, requiring almost 2 m of water for berthing, while the Blackfriars boat was a coaster, which could be grounded. The New Guy's House boat was a river vessel, possibly a lighter, capable of navigating shallow waters.

77 C. Maloney, The Upper Walbrook Valley in the Roman Period (forthcoming).

78 Yule, op. cit. (note 30).

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88 The third-century quay recently recorded at Cannon Street Station may be of similar type, and consisted of two rows of boxes, at least the rear row of which was infilled; the unrecorded northernmost boxes of Custom House II may also have been stabilised in this way. The Cannon Street example comprised a massive rear wall with an intermediate wall of smaller beams, which together supported a series of stacked tiebacks. The frontage was robbed, but had rested on closely-spaced piles.

89 Miller et al., op. cit. (note 6), 68.

90 It should be emphasised, however, that the Romans were certainly familiar with submarine timber construction including bridge piers, coffer dams and other structures (Vitruvius V.XII; Milne, op. cit. (note 3); Oleson, J.P., ‘The technology of Roman harbours’, I.J.N.A. 17.2. (1988), 147–57)Google Scholar despite the constructional difficulties this entailed; the Xanten quay, for instance, was constructed in a non-tidal river, and stood permanently in up to 0.8 m of water.

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104 Miller et al., op. cit. (note 6).

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122 Hillam, op. cit. (note 120).

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