The history of London

Roman London

Though there were prehistoric settlements throughout the vast area that we now call London, no evidence has yet been found for any such community at the northern end of London Bridge where the present city grew up. The origins of London lie in Roman times.

When the Romans invaded Britain in AD43, they moved north from the Kentish Coast and traversed the Thames in the London region, clashing with the local tribesmen just to the north. It has been suggested that the soldiers crossed the river at Lambeth, but it was further downstream that they built a permanent wooden bridge, just east of the present London Bridge, in more settled times some seven years later. As a focal point of the Roman road system, it was the bridge which attracted settlers and led to London's inevitable growth. Though the regularity of London's original street grid may indicate that the initial inhabitants were the military, trade and commerce soon followed. The London Thames was deep and still within the tidal zone: an ideal place for the berthing of ships. The area was also well-drained and low-lying with geology suitable for brickmaking. There was soon a flourishing city called Londinium in the area where the monument now stands. The name itself is Celtic, not Latin, and may originally have referred merely to a previous farmstead on the site.

In AD 60, London was burnt to the ground by the forces of Queen Boudicca of the Iceni tribe (from modern Norfolk), when she led a major revolt against Roman rule. The governor, Suetonius Paulinus, who was busy exterminating the Druids in North Wales, marched his troops south in an attempt to save London but, seeing the size of Boudicca's approaching army, decided he could not mount an adequate defence and evacuated the city instead. Not everyone managed to escape though and many were massacred. Though the governors' military duties kept them mostly on the British frontier, it seems likely that they spent the winter months in London, the most convenient city from which to reach any part of Britain or the continental Empire. From the 250s, an altar inscription records that Governor Marcus Martiannius Pulcher rebuilt the Temple of Isis in the city; and a speculator, from his or a subsequent governor's staff, was buried on Ludgate Hill. An elaborate late 1st century building, with large reception rooms and offices, has been partially excavated beneath Cannon Street Station. It may have been the Governor's Palace. A second palatial building was recently discovered in the smaller trading settlement at Southwark, in the marshes south of the river.