This site preserves a section of the landward circuit of London's Roman city wall together with the remains of an internal bastion (Bastion 4a) at Crutched Friars, near the eastern stretch of the defences. The wall was constructed around AD 200, with bastions added later in the 4th century as part of upgraded defences for Londinium, enclosing roughly 330 acres of the provincial capital.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
As part of the eastern landward wall of Londinium, this fragment illustrates the city's transformation into a fortified provincial capital and later the response to growing insecurity in late Roman Britain. The bastions, projecting from the wall to allow flanking artillery fire, mark a significant upgrade reflecting the strategic importance of London in the later empire.
Excavations along Crutched Friars and Cooper's Row have exposed coursed Kentish ragstone masonry with characteristic tile bonding courses and a sandstone plinth, set on a foundation of flint and puddled clay. Bastion 4a, like other eastern bastions, is solid-based and contained reused monumental masonry — including funerary sculpture — incorporated into its core, dating its construction to the later 4th century.
This site preserves a section of the landward circuit of London's Roman city wall together with the remains of an internal bastion (Bastion 4a) at Crutched Friars, near the eastern stretch of the defences. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a site site from the Roman period in Britain.
London Wall: remains of Roman wall and bastion (4a) at Crutched Friars is classified as a Roman site — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including London Wall: section of Roman wall and bastion beneath Crosswall, No. 1 America Square and Fenchurch Street railway station (0.1 km), London Wall: remains of medieval and Roman wall extending 75yds (68m) N from Trinity Place to railway (0.2 km), London Wall: remains of Roman wall, bastions and city gate of Aldgate from 17 Bevis Marks to India Street (0.2 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
Aubrey Research generates detailed historical reports for any location in Britain, incorporating Roman heritage, Domesday Book records, scheduled monument data, archaeological finds and much more. Enter a nearby address to begin.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any address in Britain — drawing on Roman heritage, Domesday records, scheduled monument data, archaeological finds and medieval history to reveal the complete story of a landscape.
Research the area around London Wall: remains of Roman wall and bastion (4a) at Crutched Friars