The Wall of London
One of the most unusual of London attractions is the original Wall of London. This is the first defensive wall the Romans built around Londinium, which was a strategically important port town on the River Thames. This is one of the oldest crumbling walls in the world that is still standing. It was built in the second or early third century and it continued to be developed until the Roman departure of Britain in 410. Along with Hadrian’s wall in the 180s the London Wall was one of the largest construction projects in Britain. It was constructed mainly of Kentish ragstone brought by water from Maidstone. Ragstone is a name given to stones that are quarried in thin pieces to make flagstones. Kentish ragstone is a hard grey limestone found in Kent, England. It is estimate that the stone from the wall would have required about 1300 barge journeys by water from mines in Maidstone.
The wall was about three miles long on three sides with one border being the River Thames. It enclosed an area of three miles. The wall itself was six to nine feet wide and about twenty feet high although the remnants today are much lower and narrower. It had a ditch outside the wall that also prevented intruders from entering the smaller early city of London. The wall has a number of bastions and gates. At one point the Thames side of London also had a wall to prevent them from invasion of Saxon pirates.
The wall lasted as a fortification for over a thousand years and then development in the 18th and 19th centuries demolished part of the wall. A great deal of the wall was destroyed during World War II during the time of the London Blitz. The wall’s moat was a rubbish ditch for the longest time and it always smelled until it was cleaned up and turned into a street.
London Wall is now the name of a road in the city of London running along part of the course of the wall. The wall used to define the boundaries of the city of London right up until the times of the Middle Ages.
Today all that remains of the wall itself are garments, the best of which are on the gorunds of the Museum of London, the Barbican estate and around Tower Hill. There is also a visible section at St. Alphage Gardens and just outside Tower hill tube station.