Oldal 62 [62]
OCR
= aa ee = a i 40 ORIGIN OF THE CITY that to the bridge for certain, but both Billingsgate, under another name, and Dowgate, at the outfall of the Wallbrook, may have been in existence. Two fragments of the old wall may be easily seen. One of them, with some strongly marked Roman features, is at the new post-office buildings in St. Martin le Grand. The other is the well-known bastion in the churchyard of St. Giles s, Cripplegate, which, though built of Roman materials, and on a Roman foundation, dates probably from an extensive ‘restoration’ of the city walls made in the reign of Edward IV. I have endeavoured so far in this chapter to put forward the curious tales by which the Londoners of the twelfth century accounted for their walls, their gates, and the names they bore. ‘They are more entertaining than some of the modern theories with which we meet, but they are scarcely more extravagant. Stow put his successors on the right track, but they speedily left it. Of these modern theories, only one is worth noticing here. Readers of the foregoing part of this chapter will have noted that " Roman London,” of which some people talk so glibly, is only, to speak strictly, a geographical term. There was no Roman London, except a strongly fortified barrack, till after the middle of the fourth century, or, say, 360. The Romans left Britain in 410, their ATI influence meanwhile having steadily declined, the country having been constantly disturbed by the
