Stane Street was the Roman road that linked Londinium to Noviomagus Reginorum (Chichester). In use by AD70, It starts its journey at the southern end of London Bridge and ran for 57-miles. I decided to walk the first 10 miles from Borough to Tooting. Stone Street led me through Elephant and Castle, Kennington, Stockwell, Clapham, Clapham Common, Balham, ending at Tooting in the Trafalgar Inn.
A collaboration with the brilliant Young’s Beer.
The wall around the Roman city of London, Londinium, was built in around the year 200AD using Kentish ragstone quaried near Maidstone and most likely transported by boat along the Medway. It ran for 2 miles at 20 feet high from Tower Hill in the East to Moorgate in the North and then close to the River Fleet in the West where there was a gate leading to the river. It’s not known why the wall was built. One theory posits it could have been as a response to the threat of civil war between Clodius Albinus, governor of Britain who claimed the role of Emperor, and Septimus Severus who was proclaimed Emperor. London stayed within these walls for over a thousand years and didn’t expand until the Tudor period. To this day it still largely defines the City of London.
Our walk starts at Tower Hill near the Tower of London with one of the most impressive and imposing sections of the Roman Wall. The bottom four metres of this wall is still the original Roman structure with the higher levels added in the middle ages. We then go along Coopers Row where we can see the next section of Roman stone work before heading along Vine Street and Jewry Street to Aldgate.
London’s Roman Wall at Tower Hill
From here we progress along Houndsditch and Bevis Marks to Bishopsgate, one of the Gates into the Roman City. At Bishopsgate we follow London Wall and see fragments in the old churchyard of St Alphege before passing through the site of Cripplegate into the Barbican. Here we find another section of the Roman wall near St Giles Cripplegate with a medieval tower. We then pass through the Museum of London and see our last fragment of the wall in Noble Street (you can also pick up a great map of Roman London from the Museum shop).
Our route takes us down Kind Edward Street to Newgate then along Warwick Lane, which was a mistake as we should have gone to the corner of Newgate and Old Bailey and walked South from here. The London Wall Walk then crosses Ludgate Hill and worked its way down the old lanes to Queen Victoria street not far from where the North bank of the Thames would have been in Roman London.
This walk was filmed on 5th December 2020
The lockdown inspired me to make a video that’s been on my list since reading a report in the Spring 2016 edition of London Archaeologist. The excavation report by Gary Brown covered a dig that was carried out in 2004 on the Beaumont Road Estate in Leyton. An intriguing section of Roman Road was unearthed that has slightly baffled archaeologists as its size, location and alignment do not seem to be consistent with the general understanding of the established Roman Roads that pass through Leyton and Leytonstone. A number of theories have been proposed, which I talk through in the video, but as far as I’m aware it’s still a bit of a mystery. Also because this appears to be no mere side-road, but is equal in width to some of the main Roman Roads of southern England such as Watling Street and Stane Street.
What I was keen to test on the ground as well as on the map was how this Roman Road might align with the Bronze Age trackway that was excavated near the bus garage at Leyton Green. It was a fascinating lockdown walk that also took in Jack Cornwell Park, and some of the old streets of Leyton.
Here’s a blog post from 2017 documenting some of my other walks along Roman Roads near London.
Fresh off the train from Ramsgate into Stratford International I needed to stretch my legs so set off Westwards. Cutting down beside the Copper Box Arena and along the Lea Navigation towpath I crossed onto the Hertford Union Canal – which connects the Lea Navigation to the Regent’s Canal.
I emerged onto Roman Road as the sunset started to light up the blocks of flats above the shops. I follow the ancient London to Norwich route through Globe Town and Bethnal Green to the junction with Shoreditch High Street, itself the Roman Ermine Street striking north through the Hertfordshire countryside and beyond continuing north through Lincoln to York. On the other side of this two millenia old confluence is the narrow lane, Holywell Street associated with the Shoreditch Holy Well and the Holywell Priory, although the site of the Holy well has been reported as being in nearby Bateman’s Row.
I’m sucked into the belly of the Barbican, escaping across the modern A1 North Road and down Long Lane through Smithfield. I always get the shivers passing across the ‘Smooth Field’ as this is where my namesake, John Rogers the Martyr was burnt at the stake on 4th February 1555.
My feet lead me to the road that links me to the place of the my birth, the A40, and where John Rogers the Martyr was vicar at St. Sepulchre. I pay my respects to the great heretic then head for the Central Line at Chancery Lane.
Out along Roman Watling Street yesterday with Iain Sinclair, Andrew Kotting, and Anne Caron-Delion – walking from Shooter’s Hill to Westminster. The image above was taken in front of the fantastic ‘History of the Old Kent Road’ Mural on the old North Peckham Civic Centre. The mural, by Adam Kossowski (1966), tells the story of all the epic journeys that have taken in the road over its long history.
Iain asked me to pose in front of the figure of Jack Cade, who led a revolt against the King in 1450, as he saw a resemblance – must have been my beard and nose. Earlier we had passed over Blackheath where both Cade, and earlier Wat Tyler in the Peasants Revolt of 1381, had rallied their forces for an assault on the City.
Anne Caron-Delion, Iain Sinclair, John Rogers – photo by Andrew Kotting
Anne, an academic from UCA, lives near Watling Street and was a great source of local lore – leading us across Blackheath, pointing out relevant and interesting heritage. She was also channeling info garnered from spending time living intermittently with a Watling Street obsessive; David Aylward and as well as drumming for Ted Milton’s BLURT, some refer to as the King of Deptford. David was one of Andrew’s troupe of Mummers who passed across Blackheath for the film Edith Walks, and was memorably acousted by the Police for drumming on the site of ancient (some say neolithic) tumuli. Either Anne or Andrew mentioned being on the spot with Julian Cope during the writing of his epic book The Modern Antiquarian but my memory is muddled on this point.
I captured some footage along the way that will form a silent backdrop to the event Iain’s doing in Brighton with Alan Moore and John Higgs on 24th May, The Ghosts of Watling Street
“Three visionary authors – Alan Moore, Iain Sinclair and John Higgs – gather under one roof to take an epic journey through Britain’s hidden history, geography, myth and culture, as they travel west along one of Britain’s oldest roads – Watling Street – from Dover to Wales, via London and Northampton. Along the way Moore, Higgs and Sinclair reveal a country haunted by John Crow, St Alban, William Blake, Rod Hull and Emu, James Bond and stranger ghosts of its past – as they unearth an identity of Britain that transcends our current Brexit divisions.”
I also shot some great footage with Iain and Andrew that will form a video on my YouTube channel in the coming weeks. Filming them yomping along the busy road, stopping to attempt to gather cutaways then jogging along to catch them up, took me back to the filming of London Overground which Iain recounts in his forthcoming book The Last London. It’s always a real joy to go out on the road with these two great gentlemen.
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Andrew Kotting’s latest film, Edith Walks (for which I shot some footage), is screening across the UK in the summer. There are two special events coming up in London that are not to be missed:
23rd June 2017 – ICA with Readings and Q&A
2nd July 2017 – Curzon Aldgate with musical performance and Q&A
Also screening at:
07/07/17 Showroom, Sheffield
09/07/17 Watershed, Bristol
20/7/17 Filmhouse, Edinburgh
19/7/17 Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow
23/6/17 Tyneside, Newcastle
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2018 Update: Here’s the video of the Watling Street walk from my YouTube channel
Three months ago today I set out under a murky sky with the temperature hovering around zero, bound for a section of the old Roman Ermine Street that passes through the woods between Broxbourne and Hertford. There was light snow as I departed from Cheshunt Station over the level crossing at 10am and make my way to the Lea Navigation towpath.
Turning inland at the Turnford/Wormley border there is a curious collection of rare features side-by-side. At the Slipe Lane Level Crossing stands a 19th Century Coal Tax Post (a large stone obelisk) next to a Second World War Pillbox. The two structures are indicators of being on the outer limits of ‘London’ despite being clearly in Hertfordshire. The Coal Tax Post a notification of entry into the tax jurisdiction of the Corporation of London, and the Pillbox forming part of the Outer London Defence Ring.
11.30am I shelter from the snow in the lychgate of St. Laurence Wormley while trying to find the Twix that’s hiding somewhere in the bottom of my bag. It would’ve been nice to have a look at the early 12th Century nave in the church but of course it’s locked so I have to satisfy myself with trying to identify the window in the south wall that dates from the same period.
Onwards through Wormleybury, across a field and up a lane and there I pick up the marked section of Ermine Street on the edge of Paradise Wildlife Park. Into afternoon now and the February snow continues to drift down as I tread the ancient track perhaps taken by the Syrian divisions of the Roman Army that spent time garrisoned in the Upper Lea Valley before moving North.
The ‘road’ continues its straight course through Danemead Wood and over the Spital Brook – this muddy woodland path leading you through the phases of English history. Ermine Street becomes Elbow Lane and takes you past Hobbyhorse Wood.
At Hertford Heath I turn away from the Roman Road and schlepp through Balls Wood Nature Reserve where the Vegan Vandals have been at work. From here I pass over the last winter fields guided into Hertford by the sound of playing fields on the edge of town.
Following the screening of London Overground at the Genesis Cinema last October I was approached by a couple who told me about a section of Roman Road running through Hobbs Cross near Theydon Bois. So one Sunday I set off on the Central Line then over fields in search of this preserved section of the Roman Road that once ran through Leytonstone after crossing the Lea at Leyton running out to Great Dunmow joining a junction that linked in roads to Braughing, Braintree and Chelmsford.
There’s an article in the Guardian today about new analysis of a stash of human skulls excavated at London Wall in 1988 which has pointed towards the theory that they may have been collected then displayed in open pits. They date from the second century AD, which rules them out as victims of Boudicca’s rebellion.
“They come from a peculiar area by the Walbrook stream, which was a site for burials and a centre of ritual activity – but also very much in use for more mundane pursuits. We have evidence of lots of shoe making, so you have to think of the cobbler working yards from these open pits, with the dog chewing away – really not nice.”The Guardian
Shame that they later describe the Walbrook as “long vanished” – it still gurgles away beneath the tarmac and spills out into the Thames near the bottom of Dowgate Hill. You can follow its course above ground – the Walbrook is very much present.