ROMAN URBAN TOPOGRAPHY in Britain and the western Empire

Perring: London in the 1st and early 2nd centuries
site of the forum and the bridgehead, has yet to be
investigated in detail, but it seems probable that this area
had a street grid from the start. Debris from the Boudican
fire indicates that in c 60 the frontages beside the main
arterial roads were intensively built up within the area of
original settlement, and that outside extensive suburbs
had developed along their line; there was also occupation
in Southwark at this time. For the most part these suburbs
were made up of the shops and workshops of small-scale
traders, together with a number of circular and rectangular
houses with wattle-and-daub walls apparently owing
more to British than to Roman building traditions.
With the possible exception of some small-scale development
along the streets leading to Bishopsgate (for
Ermine Street) and Ludgate (for Westminster), neither of
which was necessarily part of the primary layout, most of
the remaining area within the planned limits of the city
was not filled out until the Flavian period. The extent to
which the Boudican fire affected London’s development is
not yet clear, although it is possible that post-fire rebuilding
was used as an opportunity to regularize and ‘Romanize’
some of the suburban development. It is becoming
increasingly plain that Roman London reached the peak
of its development, at least in terms of the extent of
settlement, in the late Flavian period. Commercial pressures
had filled the arterial road frontages with narrow
properties which were occupied by strip buildings
arranged gable-end-on to the streets. The economic
importance of these frontages is illustrated by the speed
with which necessary redevelopment occurred on nearly
all the sites which have been examined. It is also notable
that boundaries were reestablished with such precision
that detailed property records must have been available.
Only on one site (GPO, Newgate Street, 1975) have
near-complete buildings of this type been identified, but
these adopted the familiar arrangement of shops and
workshops with residential quarters behind (Fig 65).
Typically the residential quarters consisted of a principal
room (perhaps a dining-room) reached by a passage and
adjoined by a service area which is likely to have been used
as a kitchen, but perhaps also incorporated a latrine. A
number of smaller rooms behind were probably bedrooms.
In one example three such ‘bedrooms’ formed
what was effectively a separate block to the rear of the
building. This might be considered excessive for a single
household and it is possible that some rooms were let out
separately. Behind the main streets most areas which had
previously been open were rapidly filled in the Flavian
period, apparently in a series of planned units. Some more
industrial areas have been noted in the upper Walbrook
valley; this was unattractive for better-quality housing,
since it was essentially marshland, but the excellent
Fig 66 London: Watling Court. Building D appears to have
formed the northern wing of a large house which
extended beyond the limit of excavation to the south.
It was built in Flavian times and was originally
separated from Buildings H and K by a wide
gravelled space; Building F was inserted subsequently
and may have been divided into a number of
separate apartments (Scale 1:200; drawn by David
Bentley)
96