The Noble Street section preserves a stretch of the Roman city wall of Londinium together with the remains of a bastion and the western wall of the earlier Cripplegate fort. The fort was built c. AD 120, and its west and north walls were incorporated into the landward circuit of the city wall when the latter was constructed c. AD 200, giving this corner its distinctive angular plan. The visible masonry combines Roman work in Kentish ragstone with later medieval rebuilding.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
This site marks the north-western angle of Roman London's defences and demonstrates the unusual two-phase military and civic fortification of the provincial capital, where an earlier auxiliary fort was absorbed into the later town wall. It is one of the clearest surviving illustrations of Londinium's transformation from a fortified administrative centre to a fully walled city.
Excavations following Second World War bomb damage, notably by W.F. Grimes in the 1940s–50s, revealed the doubled wall thickness at the junction where the fort wall was thickened externally to match the city wall, along with internal turrets and the footings of bastion 14 (a later, probably 4th-century semicircular addition). The exposed remains, conserved in a sunken garden, show Roman coursed ragstone with bonding tile courses surviving beneath medieval and post-medieval superstructure.
The Noble Street section preserves a stretch of the Roman city wall of Londinium together with the remains of a bastion and the western wall of the earlier Cripplegate fort. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a site site from the Roman period in Britain.
London Wall: section of Roman and medieval wall and bastion at Noble Street 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: the west gate of Cripplegate fort and a section of Roman wall in London Wall underground car park, adjacent to Noble Street (0.1 km), London Wall: section of Roman wall and Roman, medieval and post-medieval gateway at Aldersgate (0.1 km), London Wall: section of Roman wall and medieval bastion in Postman's Park and King Edward 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: section of Roman and medieval wall and bastion at Noble Street