What s Left of Roman London

When you walk around the city of London today it's quite hard to imagine what life was like 2,000 years ago. But this was the thriving city of Londinium, home to tens of thousands of Londoners. I'm Katie Wignall and today we're on a hunt for what are the visible remains of Roman London and also where can we find a connection with these Londoners that lived 2,000 years ago. The Roman Empire launched an invasion of Britain in 43 AD and a few years later they established a settlement on the site of the present-day city of London. Londinium, as it was known, was a trading post and then a town and it lasted until 410 AD. At its height it had a population of around 50,000 and during the 2nd century the Roman historian Tacitus describes it as famous for its wealth of traders and commercial traffic. Here in Guildhall Yard is one of the best examples of Roman London hiding in plain sight. If you look down there is this thick black line that encircles the floor here in this nice oval shape and this is marking out the line of the Roman amphitheatre, London's version of the Colosseum, and happily we can visit some of All we have to do is head inside Guildhall Arts Gallery. We're walking along what would have been the eastern entrance into the amphitheatre's arena with the tron-like green design representing the waiting crowd. The first amphitheatre was a wooden structure built around 74 AD but in 120 AD a larger stone amphitheatre was constructed. There's no written records of events in London's amphitheatre but given the spectacles in other similar sized Roman cities we can imagine there were fights between gladiators, simulated hunts with wild animals and unfortunately probably the public torture and execution of criminals or slaves. Either side of the entrance there are two surviving chambers. One contains these grooves in the stone and seems to suggest that there was a vertically sliding wooden door possibly to let wild animals into the arena but the most exciting find was this drain. The drain is lined with wood which gives us an accurate date for the site but it also means that you can discover all kinds of interesting things that were lost here. There are bone hairpins and even part of a gold necklace which is on display in the gallery and it gives you an idea of the well-dressed spectators that were watching the drama unfold here. The amphitheatre could hold between seven to ten thousand spectators a staggering number considering the population of Londinium was about 60,000. The Royal Albert Hall can hold just under six thousand but how can you get a sense of Londinium as a whole? This is all hallowed by the tower. It claims to be one of the oldest churches in the city of London but what we want to see is down in the crypt. As we descend into the crypt you're reminded that Roman London was about seven meters below the current street level. Here we have a Roman pavement. This would have been an internal bit of flooring in a private home and what's great about it is we can see a bit of Roman DIY. This white section would have been added when the waterlogged floor near the River Thames started to get uneven but there's something even cooler nearby. This is a model of Roman London at least what it would have looked like around 400 AD and it was made in the late 1920s early 1930s then gifted to the museum made by a man and what's really interesting looking at it you have all of the major landmarks apart from one there is no amphitheater and that's because as of the 1930s the amphitheater had not yet been discovered. Here we can see that encircling Londinium was a large wall built around 200 AD. I've previously done a YouTube video on London's Roman wall but a newly opened museum allowed us to see another impressive chunk at Bynestreet. This section of the Roman wall was completed between about 190 to 230 AD but there also is an older section of the wall around 250 AD called a bastion so this is a fortified section added against the threat of possible invaders and it gives us a bit of a clue as to why the wall was created. Was it defensive? But again the city of London is all about making money perhaps the wall forms just a barrier for collecting tax for the import of goods being brought in. For another niche theory about why the Roman wall is created we need to head to a garden called Noble Street. This is a charming little nature reserve but actually what we're looking at is a preserved bomb site. The damage from the second world war revealed some ancient Roman foundations of a wall and it also reveals the answer to a question that had previously puzzled historians. Looking at the outline of the Roman wall prior to the second world war historians were quite confused why there was this drastic right angle here. It turns out that bomb damage revealed not part of a wall but actually a fort and this Roman fort that could hold about a thousand soldiers predated the wall and this filled in a little gap that had been a mystery previously. It also leads to one of my favourite niche theories of why they built the wall which was just to give something for the soldiers to do. Is it true? Maybe? It's a theory. This is absolutely not one of the places you'd expect in London to find something very historic but amazingly just up ahead in this disused office building there is a Roman home that you can have a look at. This is the site of Billingsgate bathhouse first discovered back in 1848. It was once home of the coal exchange but this was demolished in the 1960s and the city of London offered public tours inside. The bathhouse was built as an extension to a private foam around 250 AD. Who doesn't want an en suite spa at home? The bathhouse was made of three chambers of differing temperatures cold, warm and hot and you can see the evidence of underfloor heating. These stacks of tiles allow hot steam powered by a furnace to pass under the floor. We're staying on a watery theme now to head to a lost Roman river. This contemporary sculpture is a reminder of the River Walbrook that once flowed through the middle of Londinium and it's remembered in the street name today. This is Bloomberg's European headquarters but it sits on top of a really important site in Roman London called the Mithraeum and the great thing about this is that anyone can walk on in and have a look. Thanks to the waterlogged ground around the River Walbrook some extraordinary objects have been preserved and you can see them on display in the Mithraeum. Organic material like leather usually disintegrates but here it's been saved and you can even see the indentations of a two thousand year old Londoner's foot in the leather shoe sole. Another exciting survivor is this wooden writing tablet. These would have been covered in wax and then the stylus pen below scratched in the writing but often it would leave a trace of the words in the wood below. From 57 AD there is a record of a receipt of payment, the very first financial transaction recorded in the city of London. Once again to find Roman sites you have to descend below ground level. The Mithraeum gives you an opportunity to immerse yourself in the spiritual experience of Roman London. This wasn't a Christian temple but rather a more secretive society dedicated to the cult of the Mithras. This is the face of the god Mithras, a copy of the original stone bus which is now in the London Museum. The lights dim and you hear chanting and the ceremony happens around you and then the lights go up and you can explore the original site. So from the spiritual world of Roman London our final stop is an unusual memorial. At 9.20 pm on Friday the 10th of April 1992 a bomb planted by the IRA exploded by the Baltic exchange. It killed two men and a 15 year old girl and today the site is occupied by the famous skyscraper known as the Girtham. But around the corner a far older discovery was made. In 1995 while they were surveying the ground to build this skyscraper behind us they discovered the grave of a Roman girl aged between 13 and 17. Now we don't know anything about this young girl only that she was buried here but I think it's incredible to walk past here amongst the new skyscrapers, the stone and the glass and know that almost 2,000 years ago other Londoners were doing the same. In the next episode we're in search of what's left of Norman London from 1066 to 1184 so subscribe to the channel to stay up to date. I'd also love to hear in the comments which are your favorite bits of Roman London.