[HN Gopher] Beginnings of Roman London discovered in office base...
___________________________________________________________________
Beginnings of Roman London discovered in office basement
Author : petethomas
Score : 115 points
Date : 2025-02-13 04:46 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| tristanj wrote:
| This is not unusual in this district of London.
|
| The remains of London's Roman amphitheatre are beneath Guildhall,
| in the basement of the public art gallery:
| https://www.thecityofldn.com/directory/londons-roman-amphith...
|
| And in the basement of Bloomberg's London headquarters, there's
| also a reconstructed Roman temple dedicated to Mithras. It's free
| and open to the public. Interestingly, after it was discovered,
| they dismantled it, moved it elsewhere, then later rebuilt it
| piece by piece: https://www.bloomberg.org/arts/advancing-the-
| arts-around-wor...
|
| Finally, the Roman baths at Billingsgate are open to visitors on
| weekends: https://www.thecityofldn.com/directory/billingsgate-
| roman-ho...
| madaxe_again wrote:
| This is not unusual in general...
|
| My cottage in wales is built smack atop a roman road, and the
| garden follows the line of the agger. At some point it degraded
| so much that people started walking in the roadside ditch
| instead, which is now a holloway.
|
| I have a friend in Bath who has an extremely fine Roman mosaic
| under his basement floor - found during construction a few
| centuries ago and they just left it in situ, put clay atop it
| and laid flags. He rediscovered it about 15 years ago when they
| pulled the flagstones up to put in a damp-proof course. Likely
| part of the baths complex as his house is a stones throw from
| them. Archaeologists documented it, and it was then buried
| under sand and a damp-proof course.
|
| He's still got damp down there.
| toyg wrote:
| It's Britain, fighting damp is like fighting the ocean: you
| can win a battle but you'll never win the war.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Yep, Roman ruins are all over the place. I cycle past a chunk
| of the old London Wall regularly. Lullingstone Villa in Kent
| was a cool school trip as a kid.
|
| And then there's this little wall running across
| Cumbria/Northumbria...
| stuaxo wrote:
| I visited the Mithras temple the other day, and was pretty
| confused that they had moved it since the first time I had
| gone.
| zeristor wrote:
| Actually they had moved it to where it was originally.
|
| It was excavated then reconstructed by some 1950s office
| block.
|
| I imagine Bloomberg either thought of this as a key feature,
| or it was part of planning consent for their head quarters.
|
| Access is free, but it has been restricted to reduced
| crowding. When I've been there it seemed there seemed to be a
| Bloomberg employee tour on, I'm not sure how much access is
| controlled by Bloomberg, but it was a surprisingly long way
| down in the ground.
|
| I'm not sure how much lower ground level was in Roman times.
| y33t wrote:
| IIRC temples to Mithras were almost always underground or
| in a cave.
| klelatti wrote:
| I worked in that 1950s office block (Temple Court) and was
| involved in the sale of the site to Bloomberg.
|
| The Temple of Mithras sat outside the office a few feet
| from the pavement with free public access at all times. It
| attracted very little interest though as there wasn't much
| to mark it out.
|
| IIRC it had to be moved as part of the redevelopment and
| the idea to relocate to its original location were a very
| early part of the proposals. Not a big deal as part of a
| very large project and obviously a way for Bloomberg to
| gain favour with the City of London planners.
|
| There are a few interesting videos on YouTube on the
| history e.g.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAEtYSJ4GLE
| cco wrote:
| Appreciate the primary source insight!
| supernova87a wrote:
| I can see how when owning a building in a place like that, you
| might be tempted to say, "not even going to dig, don't want to
| know what we might find under there" that will cause your
| property to completely change value and control.
|
| I wonder who takes the loss, in case suddenly your building can
| no longer be developed and is essentially state property
| (although owned by you).
| cgcrob wrote:
| I'm sure the property development mega corporation will get
| over it.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| It's still your property. Through the "polluter pays" principle
| you (the developer) may have to pay for the archaeological dig
| (which is, by it's nature destructive).
|
| In many cases if the archaeological finds are mobile (eg coins,
| shields etc) you may be compensated for them by a government
| fund.
|
| But digging down in that part of London you're always going to
| hit something Tudor, Medieval, Saxon or Roman. It would be
| priced in as part of the development.
| vkou wrote:
| If we believe in markets, we would have to believe that the
| risk is priced into the cost of the property, much like the
| risk of a lemon is priced into the cost of a used car.
| lmz wrote:
| I wonder if you can get insurance for that. Also, how much
| worse must this be in Rome?
| userbinator wrote:
| In another few hundred years, I wonder if people will discover
| bits and pieces of the buildings today and repeat the same
| cycle.
| ggm wrote:
| I'm sure I've seen a sandstone culvert in an otherwise boring
| wall around the strand or Lincoln's Inn which is a Roman water
| supply. Can't find it on the wub, but.
| Xen9 wrote:
| It would be great use of my money, were I a billionaire, to
| build a vacuum-insulated sodaduct & cervisiaduct as a ring
| going around Europe perhaps with a monorail on the bottom (for
| convenient repairs) & photovoltaic cells on top to power it the
| monotail. Technically you can have two monorails for one track,
| one above and one below, so the upper monorail could be used
| for something else as well. The ice & carbon dioxide would be
| delivered separately to keep the the drinks fresh, and there
| would be few be a different pipe for drinks from different
| German & French & Spanish districts inside the cervisiaduct.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| Fourier-pilled
| ginko wrote:
| I mean it's the BBC so they obviously have a focus on British
| history but you can find remains like that under many cities in
| Western and Southern Europe.
| fanf2 wrote:
| This is right next to Leadenhall Market, which dates from the
| 14th century. I wonder if there were other markets on the same-
| ish site between the Roman forum and Leadenhall.
| zeristor wrote:
| I believe Leadenhall carried on being used as a market. I'm not
| sure about the 400s to 900s when the Anglo-Saxons clambered
| over Roman ruins.
|
| The Vikings set up shop around The Strand and Covent Garden,
| then Alfred reinstated London.
|
| I think, I am not historian, and maybe attributing much to
| recent TV shows. But I've worked through Queenhythe enough
| times to read the placards.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queenhithe
| ethbr1 wrote:
| "Re-beginnings" would be more accurate.
|
| Considering this building is dated to after Boudica's revolt [0]
| burned the city, the revolt itself having been caused by
| Nero/Rome ignoring a will by the nominally independent Celtic
| king Prasutagus leaving the area jointly to his wife/daughters
| and Nero upon his death.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudican_revolt#Londinium
| jll29 wrote:
| There should be an Augmented Reality app for London that shows
| you how it was around 1,800 years ago, whereever you are
| standing, mobile phone in hand.
|
| On the top of the Shard, there is an AR telescope that shows you
| what is in some of the buildings of the cityscape, which is
| already very useful. Imagine something similar, but pointing to
| Roman times in "Londinum".
| shermantanktop wrote:
| I worked next door to this building a while ago. London is
| constantly under construction, and in the Leadenhall area they
| are constantly finding Roman artifacts. The basement of my
| (terrible 1980s) building had a whole set of Roman bits and bobs
| embedded in the floor.
|
| People from elsewhere says "how amazing" but it becomes a routine
| fact after a while. And while it is amazing it's also a bit
| annoying. Major projects plan to block off a street for a month,
| which becomes three months or more once a Roman coin pile turns
| up.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| As Sir Humphrey once said, the Civil Service has the engine of
| a lawnmower and the brakes of a Rolls Royce. I think this
| applies to the UK's construction industry and regulatory
| environment as well.
|
| Crossrail cost about PS280m per mile, which I'm pretty sure is
| a record.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-02-16 23:00 UTC)