Four strange places to see London's Roman Wall
60 comments
·November 11, 2025PaulRobinson
The Museum of London site (now closed as they prepare to move to their new site, coincidentally near the AWS HQ), and there was a window you could look down on part of the wall, which you can also see from the other side of the road near Barbican. I won't give directions, as that seems futile anywhere near Barbican, but I had only just thought about how weird it is that there is wall at Tower Hill, and wall at Barbican - they can't be the same run of wall as it was built, can they? That'd be immense...
tialaramex
The new Museum's site also has a very cool view through a window, but it's a view of the passing trains [underground], because historically that building (one of London's markets) had a freight service and of course there's no room to move a railway line under London so even though it hadn't needed a freight service for decades the passenger service over the same rails still exists and you will be able to wave to surprised (if they haven't taken that route before) passengers from inside the museum.
A friend lucked into (there's literally a lottery for popular sites) tickets for the new site in Open House London 2024 and the window existed but wasn't really set up for tourists yet of course.
tobylane
I went on that Open House tour, and they said the window view is a secret until opening day. They've told contractors not to take personal photos.
For context, this line is Thameslink, just south of Farringdon, on the east (heading south) side.
tialaramex
I'm terrible at keeping secrets so, it was probably a bad idea to let me go on the tour, or, perhaps we should try to have fewer secrets so that I'd remember ?
vr46
I used to eat lunch at Bastion 14, although you can't get anywhere near it now. There was plenty of old wall at Moorgate that was very open access.
defrost
From the article:
London's original wall was 2 miles long, 6 metres high and almost 3 metres thick at its base
that states it ran from the Tower of London to the Museum in the Barbican.
emmelaich
There is a London Wall Walk, starting at the Tower of London. Text copied from the plaques at the postern: (thanks Google Lens)
>The London Wall Walk follows the original line of the City Wall for much of its length, from the royal fortress of the Tower of London to the Museum of London, situated in the modern high-rise development of the Barbican. Between these two landmarks the Wall Walk passes surviving pieces of the Wall visible to the public and the sites of the gates now buried deep beneath the City streets. It also passes close to eight of the surviving forty-one City churches. The Walk is 134 miles (2.8km) long and is marked by twenty-one panels which can be followed in either direction. Completion of the Walk will take between one and two hours. Wheelchairs can reach most individual sites although access is difficult at some points.
mock-possum
> The Walk is 134 miles (2.8km) long and … Completion of the Walk will take between one and two hours
Sorry, this is suggesting I can walk over a hundred miles in 1-2 hours???
defrost
> The Walk is 134 miles (2.8km)
Google Lens appears to have missed the point here.
urban_winter
If you're in the vicinity of the road called London Wall (where the car park referenced in the article is) then it's only a short walk to London's Roman amphitheatre [1]. It doesn't seem to be very well known but is quite impressive. It's one of very many bits of Roman history entombed in basements of London buildings.
The Merrill Lynch Financial Centre also has a big chunk of Roman stuff in the basement - but there's no public access and no access to the walkway around the ruins even if you're an employee.
[1] https://www.thecityofldn.com/directory/londons-roman-amphith...
trenchpilgrim
Note this is about the City of London, an entity much smaller and older than the modern city known as London. It's land area is about 3 km^2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London
Title should probably read "the City of London" rather than "London".
kergonath
> Note this is about the City of London
Not really. It’s about the Roman wall. It happens to be both in Greater London and around the City.
> Title should probably read "the City of London" rather than "London".
There’s only one Roman city wall in London, it is not ambiguous.
EFreethought
I had a hard time remembering that distinction when I first read about the "City of London".
Here is the US, the "city of Chicago" is the same as "Chicago".
turbonaut
For further confusion, ‘London’ does not exist at all as a well defined entity and the UK has no de jure capital.
4ndrewl
For further confusion there are two cities within the (historical) county of London - the city of Westminster and the city of London.
globular-toast
For even further confusion "London" actually contains two cities: London and Westminster. London was a walled city but Westminster was not. So "London" was we know it today is more like Westminster than London.
Scarblac
What is the exact job of the mayor of London then?
wat10000
New York is an obvious example of two entities of the same name, with the “City of” version being a small part of the larger version. It’s just on a much bigger scale.
onionisafruit
New Orleans is a city, but City of New Orleans is a train
dboreham
See also: The Loop
xnx
Architectural Digest has a good video of the Roman Wall and other Ancient Roman history in london: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_-JnvuAeVI
smikhanov
I can only imagine how many similar places to see ancient ruins in everyday context are in Rome. Or Athens.
zeristor
I worked for Lloyd’s Register for a spell, and their cafeteria was where the Vine Street building is, just got used to eating lunch there by the bits of wall everyday for a few years.
jen729w
For more of this sort of thing, check out the Old Structures Engineering blog. Don does a post a day, day in, day out -- so obviously some are more detailed than others. I enjoy having it in my feed.
Recent examples:
https://oldstructures.com/2025/10/24/not-quite-a-tunnel/ https://oldstructures.com/2025/10/21/relieved/
hodgesrm
For another interesting mix of new and ancient, check out the Serdica metro station in Sofia, Bulgaria. [0] It's fully inside an excavated Roman-era ruin. Very cool!
cairnechou
That car park in image [4] is wild. The juxtaposition of a mundane parking garage built directly on top of ancient Roman ruins is incredible. It's a powerful reminder of the layers of history we're living on top of. Thanks for sharing.
tobylane
In a locked room off that car park is a bit more of that fortification. https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/visiting-roman-ruins-hi...
MrGreedy
> That car park in image [4] is wild. The juxtaposition of a mundane parking
Meh.
Let me introduce you to Colchester, the oldest recorded town in the UK. The wall behind the carpark you see here is the original Roman wall (circa 65 AD) with modern brick on top... (The tourist sign is in the foreground if you zoom in). The walls were built after the city was sacked by the rebel queen Boudica in 60 AD.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.887807,0.9045163,3a,81.3y,...?
Oh, and if you rotate the streetview 180 degrees, between the trees you can make out the ruins of St Botolph's Priory, sacked during the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 AD. It's a nice place for a lunchtime picnic.
dghf
> Let me introduce you to Colchester, the oldest recorded town in the UK.
And a candidate for the location of Camelot, thanks to its Roman name, Camulodunum.
flir
Show 'em the Hole in the Wall.
ipnon
Not bad engineering to make it through a handful of civil wars, a Blitz, and a couple thousand V-1 rockets mostly intact. You have to wonder how long all the steel and concrete that's been laid around the Thames from our civilization will last.
ahazred8ta
There's a Templar fortress in Lebanon that was occupied by militants a few years ago. 800 years old and still being used for its intended purpose.
willvarfar
Most of the wall has been plundered for stone and to make way for new development over the past millennium. Its not conflict that has destroyed 2 miles of a 6m high 3m thick wall, it's peace :)
tom_alexander
> ground level then was a few metres lower than now
What?! That's huge. What happened?
pmontra
If you leave ground alone all sort of things grow on it or lay on it. Dirt, mud, leaves etc. Soil grows at about 1 mm per year. 1 meter in 1000 years.
Historically cities were hit by floods and wars and new buildings were built on top of the foundations of old ones. We had an article about that church in Rome built over another roman church built over another roman church, etc. down to an old temple on a spring, or something like that.
clan
Sounds like Basilica of San Clemente[1][2]. One of the many many many "hidden" gems of Rome. Highly recommend visiting it!
Or you can go on a virtual tour[3]
[1] https://www.basilicasanclemente.com/eng/
pmontra
Thanks! And this is the article I remember https://www.exurbe.com/the-shape-of-rome/
asdff
It might even happen faster than that. If I don't sweep my cement patio for about a month, the decaying leaves from the bushes are enough to make about an 1/8th inch of fresh brown soil under the leaf piles.
pmontra
Exactly. This is hard to understand when living in a flat in a modern city but it's immediately clear in any other case.
My figure of 1 mm is about the compacted result of decaying and layering. It may vary a lot according to the configuration of the ground.
null
shagie
Seattle: https://undergroundtour.com
Buried ships of San Francisco - https://www.nps.gov/safr/learn/historyculture/buried-ships-o...
https://www.baylightscharters.com/bay-lights-charters-blog/w...
> Delgado received his first big assignment back in 1978 while working for the National Park Service: excavating and studying the remains of the Niantic, one of the first whaling vessels that brought gold-seekers to the area. It had been discovered near the Transamerica Pyramid at the corner of Clay and Sansome streets. After being left behind during the Gold Rush, the ship had been repurposed to serve as a storeship, saloon, and hotel until its demise in an 1851 fire.
Consider that https://maps.app.goo.gl/tYjaESQXss2KhHXQA used to be sea level.
As mentioned else comment, things were torn down and that served as the foundation for the next building.
gassi
Before industrial demolition was common, old buildings would be town down and material repurposed for new constructions, build on top of existing foundations and rubble. Do this enough over the centuries and your city will slowly rise in height.
mr_toad
If anyone’s ever in Barcelona I recommend checking out the history museum, which is literally built on top of some Roman and medieval ruins. You can descend into the basement to see the excavated remains of the foundations of Roman buildings that had been levelled and built on top of.
trenchpilgrim
Every time a building fell apart due to earthquake, fire, flood, war, abandonment- the good material was taken for reuse and the bad material became rubble which was often smoothed out and used as a foundation.
Not London Wall related but the London Bloomberg HQ when it was built reconstructed the Temple of Mithras at the actual position, quite deep underground.