The London Under London by Miranda Miller

 

This is a photo of the Great Hall of the Guildhall which has been the City of London’s civic and ceremonial centre since the 12^th century.  In the Middle Ages the Lord Mayor of London was almost as influential as the monarch. The hall you see today, which dates from the early 15^thcentury, has stained glass windows, magnificent carvings and a medieval crypt.  The banners and shields of London’s 110 Livery Companies are on the walls. For six hundred years it has been the setting for state events, banquets and state trials, most famously that of Lady Jane Grey in 1553.  The 16 -year- old who was Queen of England for nine days was found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death in this hall. It survived the Great Fire of London when, as Samuel Pepys recorded, “the horrid malicious bloody flame” destroyed the roof.”  The Great Hall was also damaged in the Blitz when the ancient carvings of Gog and Magog were destroyed, but it was rebuilt yet again.  

 The Guildhall is a fascinating place to visit and, surprisingly, not too touristy. Another reason to go there is to catch a glimpse of Londinium: in 1988, after more than a hundred years of searching, London’s only Roman amphitheatre was finally rediscovered hidden beneath Guildhall Yard by Museum of London archaeologists digging in preparation for building the new Art Gallery.

 

 The curved band of dark stone on Guildhall Yard you can see in this photo marks out the perimeter of the amphitheatre beneath the piazza. The first Roman amphitheatre was built in 70CE from wood but was renovated in the early 2nd century with tiled entrances and ragstone  walls, and enlarged so that it could seat six thousand people – an astonishing number at a time when it’s estimated that the population of the city was between 45,00 and 60,000. The amphitheatre was used for public events such as gladiatorial games, entertaining soldiers and the public with fights between wild animals, public executions of criminals and also for religious ceremonies. Although these violent spectacles were sometimes criticised, particularly by the growing Christian community, they attracted huge audiences. St. Augustine, writing in the 4th century CE, describes his own reluctant excitement at these spectacles: “He opened his eyes, feeling perfectly prepared to treat whatever he might see with scorn... He saw the blood and he gulped down the savagery... He was no longer the man who had come there but was one of the crowd to which he had come.”

Here is a map of Roman London showing the amphitheatre. Londinium soon became the largest Roman settlement in Britain. There were public baths, temples, a fort, a forum, a public square surrounded by shops and an enormous hall known as a basilica. In the 2^nd century CE Tacitus describes it as “Famous for its wealth of traders and commercial traffic.” Londinium was a major centre of international trade where merchants imported luxury goods such as wine, oil, and cloth and exported raw materials and slaves. 

After the Romans left in the 4th century, the amphitheatre lay derelict for hundreds of years.  In Peter Ackroyd’s novel The Clerkenwell Tales, set in London in 1399, citizens assemble in the ruins of this building, just a few hundred yards from St Paul’s Cathedral.

 

 

 

These photos show what you actually see when you go down to the amphitheatre, with holograms designed to show you the scale and human proportions. A few months ago, I took my grandsons to see the Guildhall, which is a fascinating building in its own right. Then we took the lift down from the art gallery to the amphitheatre, a really thrilling experience. This place has been at the centre of London life for two thousand years and nobody who is interested in history could fail to be excited by this opportunity for time travel.

 

www.mirandamiller.info

My ninth novel, When I Was, about a child growing up in London in the 1950s, will be published in March by Barbican Press.