Roman Wall In London Wall Underground Car Park

Bay 52 of the London Wall Car Park features an incredibly well-preserved Roman wall.

When London Wall and the underground car park was being built in 1957, a length of 64m of Roman wall was discovered.

Much of the wall was demolished, but a section was retained and occupies a couple of parking bays within the car park.

The part demolished appears to have been mainly medieval rebuilds of the wall, but there must have been Roman within this wall and the foundations, so a sad loss.

Access to the London Wall car park is either through the main entrance, near the Museum of London, or down one of the pedestrian entrances along London Wall.

If you enter through the main entrance, it will be a longer walk, as the wall is towards the end of the car park, near Moorgate.

As you walk along the car park, the wall emerges between pillars 51 and 52.

According to Historic England, London Wall was constructed as part of an extensive programme of public works between approximately AD 190 and AD 225.

It served to form the basis of the protection of the town far into the medieval period, and was also a key factor in determining the shape and development of both Roman and medieval London.

The uniformity of design and construction of the 2nd century wall suggests that it was planned and built as a single project.

It enclosed the whole of the landward side of the town from Tower Hill to Blackfriars, incorporating an existing military fort at Cripplegate.

It was laid out in straight sections, linking the major routeways into London, and gateways were constructed at the points of entry at Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Newgate and Ludgate.

The defensive nature of much of the Wall's circuit was strengthened by an external ditch, with the exception of those areas where the marshland around the Walbrook acted as a natural defensive feature.

Internally, it was strengthened by a bank of earth.

The Roman Wall was built on a trench foundation of puddled clay, and included a rubble core interspersed with bonding tile courses.

It is known to have stood to a height of approximately 4.4m above a sandstone plinth, and is believed to have been surmounted by a parapet walkway.

Excavation has indicated that defensive bastions were added to the Wall in the 3rd Century AD, and a number were also added during the medieval period when the Wall was repaired and refortified.

By the mid-16th Century, however, with the continued expansion of London, its function as a town boundary and defence had ceased. London Wall survives in various states of preservation.

Some parts of the Wall, especially along the eastern section, still stand to almost full height and the bastions are also clearly visible.

Other parts are no longer visible above the present ground surface, but in these areas sections of the Wall survive as buried features, and sufficient evidence exists for their positions to be accurately identified for much of its length.

The wall's role in the origins and history of England's capital city justify considering all sections of London Wall that exhibit significant archaeological remains as being worthy of protection.

The section of Roman Wall within the London Wall underground car park, 25m north of Austral House and 55m north west of Coleman Street, survives well.

The state of preservation of the Wall provides a valuable insight into the construction techniques employed during the Roman and medieval periods.

The survival of the Wall as upstanding Roman masonry is rare, this being the only section standing along the northern side of the London Wall circuit.

As a monument which is visible to the public, this section of London Wall serves as an important educational and recreational resource which will increase our understanding of how London's defences developed.

Roman London

Londinium, also known as Roman London, was the capital of Roman Britain during most of the period of Roman rule.

Most twenty-first century historians think that it was originally a settlement established shortly after the Claudian invasion of Britain, on the current site of the City of London around 47–50 AD.

Following the foundation of the town in the mid-1st century, early Londinium occupied a relatively small area, roughly half the area of the modern City of London and equivalent to the size of present-day Hyde Park.

During the later decades of the 1st century, Londinium expanded rapidly, becoming Britannia's largest city, and it was provided with large public buildings such as a forum and amphitheatre.

By the 2nd century, Londinium had grown to perhaps 30,000 or 60,000 people, almost certainly replacing Colchester as the provincial capital, and by the mid-2nd century Londinium was at its height.

Its forum basilica was one of the largest structures north of the Alps when Emperor Hadrian visited Londinium in 122.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, as London developed into one of the largest cities in the world, it vastly outgrew its wall.

As London rapidly spread eastwards, many of the eastern stretches of the wall remained standing, though largely obscured behind houses.

But from the 1840s large sections were destroyed by railway works and later by property redevelopment and road building.

Early archaeologists were given opportunities to investigate the wall and discover more about its construction, but they could do nothing to stop its destruction.

The section at Tower Hill, pictured above, only survived as the western end of Trinity Place, a narrow alleyway created in the 18th century.

The west face of the wall would have been clearly visible, but the east side was concealed behind the buildings of Jacob’s Yard.

In 1938, the wall and part of the land on its western side were placed in the guardianship of the Ministry of Works, a predecessor of English Heritage.

The adjacent buildings were demolished to reveal the wall, which was conserved and restored in the 1940s and 1950s.

Visiting London Wall Underground Car Park

The address is: Barbican, London EC2V 5DY. The carpark is open Monday to Friday from 6am-7pm and Saturday 6am-1.30pm.

If you’d like to see the Roman wall, it’s in bay 52.

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