ROMAN URBAN TOPOGRAPHY in Britain and the western Empire

Perring: London in the 1st and early 2nd centuries
water-supply and tolerable drainage were suitable for Note
industry.
Shops have been found beside even quite minor streets,
but most of the new development was for housing. The
better-quality residential quarters seem likely to have
been those within easy reach of a natural water-supply –
it is now almost certain that Roman London was never
provided with piped water. The natural topography and
geology dictate that the best such sites were those on the
lower slopes of London’s two hills, beside the Walbrook
and the Thames. Such considerations were no doubt
important in the siting of the Governor’s palace and also
account for the distribution of London’s known bath
blocks.
Much of this new development was concentrated on the
western hill, and it seems that by c 100 almost all the
available land down to the river on both hills had been
taken up by houses or streets. There is surprisingly little
evidence for open space in the form of yards and gardens,
and even some of the more lavishly decorated buildings
must have had a somewhat utilitarian aspect. Certainly the
courtyard or winged villa-type houses were as yet a rarity
in London. Like the smaller commercial buildings, the
houses were made largely of timber and clay with thatched
roofs and unglazed windows; the only possible advance in
construction techniques seems to have been the progressive
rejection of post-built walls in favour of solid air-dried
clay, often based on stone or tile plinths. Nevertheless,
their internal decoration leaves little doubt that in some
cases these houses were quite sophisticated.
The buildings of this type which have been examined
most fully are those on the Watling Court site (Fig 66).
Here the best-decorated house contained mosaic pavements
whose nature and design imply the presence of
Italian mosaicists, if not also of Italian clients. When it is
recognized that many of the architectural elements, both
plans and construction techniques, can be paralleled in
Italy and the Gallic provinces, it is possible to argue the
presence of a sizeable immigrant population.
A building adjacent to that described above was erected
within what was apparently the same property and was
therefore presumably in the same ownership. The building
is of interest for two reasons. Firstly, it was evidently
constructed according to a predetermined plan – which
implies the use of architectural drawings or notes – and,
secondly, it was laid out in an unusual manner. The plan
apparently involved the repetition of certain groups of
rooms and the absence of a through corridor. This
arrangement could imply that the building was in fact
divided into a number of separate apartments approached
directly from the alleyways which encircled the building.
Flavian London was largely destroyed by a major fire in
the 120s. The subsequent history of the city is discussed in
the next paper (Marsden, pp 99-108). In conclusion,
however, we can now see that Roman London had no
single imposed street system, but a number of separatelyplanned
areas, as yet imperfectly understood. These were
organized around a nucleus which itself was structured
around the communications system (bridge, quayside,
and arterial road). Because of this somewhat piecemeal
approach, London’s urban topography could be structured
to fit the natural topography to its best advantage.
98
1 In particular, Perring, D, & Roskams, S, forthcoming, The development
of Roman London west of the Walbrook, and Marsden, P, 1980,
Roman London. The debt to these works is so extensive that no
further individual references are made in the text.