Series: London Middlesex Archaeol Soc Spec Pap

First volume of a complete reassessment of the development of Saxo-Norman London, based on evidence from seven sites from which some fifty buildings are catalogued and discussed. Three main types of structures are represented: single-storeyed surface-laid domestic buildings on the street frontage; sunken-floored outhouses or storage sheds; and cellared buildings beneath or behind the main ranges. A wide variety of structural techniques was used, and two building types are shown in reconstruction drawings. Evidence for floors, doors, hearths, and ovens is also discussed, and the development of the City's street grid is conjectured.

TQ 330806. A wealth of Roman, and some Saxon and Saxo-Norman, finds come from excavations designed to investigate Roman terracing of late 1st and 2nd centuries on the N bank of the Thames. Wooden revetments were backed by dumps of building rubble, soil, and domestic refuse of all kinds (pottery, food remains, domestic items including leather shoes, craft tools, and evidence of leisure activities).

The first large group of human burials from the City of London comprises 234 skeletons from the cemetery off Newgate Street, dating to 11th-12th centuries. Six grave-types were identified, though most were in simple graves. Coffins were not certainly present, though many graves had wooden fragments. The skeletons were examined for evidence of family groupings, disease (infrequent apart from osteoarthritis and osteoporosis), and trauma; there was also a woman who had died in childbirth. Graveside rites are briefly considered.

About three-quarters of the volume is devoted to cataloguing the finds (samian and other wares, glass, leather, wooden objects including writing tablets, coins, etc). Three successive waterfront structures were revealed: a 2nd century revetment; an impressively complex quay structure dendrochronologically dated to AD 225-45; a riverside city wall behind the quay, probably of AD 255-70, and possibly contributing to the demise of the quay (this was the period of the Saxon Shore forts). Most of the finds came from the early 3rd century infilling material of the quay and the silts outside it; included were crateloads of imported wares from ?warehouse clearance.