Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T21:35:20.916Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The topography of Anglo-Saxon London

Part of: Anglo-Saxon archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2015

Tim Tatton-Brown
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

One of the few things to have remained very little changed in the City of London for nearly one thousand years was the position of most of its streets and lanes. Unfortunately this is no longer true, and in the past few decades large numbers of medieval streets have disappeared from the map for ever to be replaced by characterless dual-carriageways that now slice through the City. Not only do these new routes replace the earlier ones, but at the same time they swallow up and destroy all the surrounding side lanes and many of the old alignments disappear. Equally, property boundaries which may also have survived for at least 800 years now disappear for ever in very large redevelopments, and nowhere is this whole process more clearly seen than in the vast swathe cut for the new southern dualcarriageway that has replaced Thames Street. The whole of the western part of Upper Thames Street, with its adjoining side lanes, has been physically removed, to be replaced by a tunnelled dualcarriageway further to the south. For well over half a mile the central part of Thames Street is now so wide that it has engulfed properties on its north side, while the eastern end from the Custom House to Tower Hill, with its surrounding redevelopments, has had all signs of the medieval topography removed except for All Hallows church with its unique Anglo-Saxon arch (Taylor & Taylor, 1965, 39-400)

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 60 , Issue 228 , March 1986 , pp. 21 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1986

References

ASTON, M. & BOND, J. 1976. The landscape of towns (London).Google Scholar
BARLEY, M.W.. (ed)1977. European towns, their archaeology and early history (London).Google Scholar
BEDE, . Historia Ecclesiastica (H. E.).Google Scholar
BIDDLE, M. & HILL, D. 1971. Late Saxon planned towns, Antiq.F. LI, 70—85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BIDDLE, M. & HUDSON, D. 1973. The future of London’s past (Worcester).Google Scholar
BIDDLE, M. 1975. Excavations at Winchester, 1971 Tenth and final interim report, Antiq.F., LV, 96—337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CLARK, J. 1978. Cadwallo, King of the Britons, the bronze horsemen of London, in (eds) BIRD, J. CHAPMAN, H. & CLARK, J. Collectanea Londiniensia, 194—9.Google Scholar
CLARK, J.—, 1980. Saxon and Norman London (London).Google Scholar
DARLINGTON, I. & HOWGEGO, J. 1964. Printed maps of London circa :1553—1850 (London).Google Scholar
DYSON, A. 1978. Two Saxon land grants for Queenhithe, in (eds) BIRD, J. CHAPMAN, H. & CLARK, J. Collectanea Londiniensia, 200—16.Google Scholar
DYSON, A.—, 1980. London and Southwark in the seventh century and later: a neglected reference, Trans. London Middlesex Archaeol. Soc., 31, 83—95. Google Scholar
DYSON, A. & SCHOFIELD, J. 1984. Saxon London, in (ed) HASLAM, J. Anglo-Saxon towns in Southern England (Chichester), 285—313.Google Scholar
EKWALL, E. 1954. Street names of the City of London (Oxford).Google Scholar
GRIMES, W.F. 1968. The Archaeology of Roman and Medieval London (London).Google Scholar
HOBLEY, B. & SCHOFIELD, J. 1977. Excavations in the City of London: first interim report, :1974—5, Antiq. F., LVII, 31—66.Google Scholar
JOHNSON, A. 1975. A Roman signal tower at Shadwell, E.I., Trans. London Middlesex Archaeol. Soc., 26, 278—80.Google Scholar
PAGE, W. 1923, London its origin and early development (London).Google Scholar
PALLISER, D.M. 1984. York’s west bank: medieval suburb or urban nucleus? in (eds) ADDYMAN, P.V. & BLACK, V.E. > Archaeological papers from York presented to BARLEY, M.W., 101—8.Google Scholar
REYNOLDS, S. 1977. An Introduction to the history of English medieval towns (Oxford).Google Scholar
SAWYER, P.H. 1968. Anglo-Saxon Charters: an annotated list and bibliography (London).Google Scholar
SAWYER, P.H.—, 1983. The study of Winchester: archaeology and history in a British town, 1961–1983, Proc. Bnt. Acad., LXIX 37—79.Google Scholar
SAWYER, P.H.—, 1984. London on the Strand, Popular Archaeology, 6.1, 23—7.Google Scholar
BROOKE, C.N.L. & KEIR, G. 1975. London 800—1216: the shaping of a City (London).Google Scholar
BROOKS, N.P. 1984. The early history of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester).Google Scholar
CINTHIO, I. 1968. The churches of St Clement in Scandinavia, Archaeologia Ludensia, 3, 103—16.Google Scholar
SCHOFIELD, J. 1984. The building of London from the Conquest to the Great Fire (London).Google Scholar
SHOESMITH, R. 1982. Hereford City Excavations, volume 2: Excavations on and close to the defences (London).Google Scholar
STENTON, F.M. 1934. Norman London, an essay (London).Google Scholar
STOW, J. 1603. A Survey of London (London, reprinted 1912)Google Scholar
TATTON-BROWN, T.W.T. 1974. Excavations at the Custom House site, City of London, 1973, Transactions of London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, 25, 117—219.Google Scholar
TATTON-BROWN, T.W.T., 1975. Excavations at the Custom House site, City of London, 1973 – part 2, Transactions London Middlesex Archaeol. Soc., 26, 103—70.Google Scholar
TATTON-BROWN, T.W.T., 1980. Canterbury’s urban topography: some recent work, in (ed) RIDEN, P. The medieval town in Britain (Cardiff), 85—98.Google Scholar
TATTON-BROWN, T.W.T., 1984. The towns of Kent, in (ed) HASLAM, J. Anglo-Saxon towns in Southern England (Chichester), 1—36.Google Scholar
TAYLOR, H.M.. & , J. 1965. Anglo-Saxon architecture (Cambridge).Google Scholar
VINCE, A. 1984a. The Aldwych: mid-Saxon London discovered?, Current Archaeology, 93, 310—3.Google Scholar
VINCE, A.—, 1984b. New Light on Saxon pottery from the London area, The London Archaeologist, 4.16, 431—9.Google Scholar
WHEELER, R.E.M. 1927. London and the Vikings (London).Google Scholar
WHEELER, R.E.M., 1934. The topography of Saxon London, Antiquity, 8, 290—302 with further thoughts by MYRES, J.N.L. 437—47 Google Scholar
WHEELER, R.E.M., 1935. London and the Saxons (London).Google Scholar
WHITELOCK, D.(ed) 1979. English Historical Documents, volume I: c. 500—1042 (Oxford, 2nd edition).Google Scholar