A HISTORY OF LONDON by New Broad Street (Plan C, 56), beyond which it makes for Allhallows Church, the north side of which is built on it (Plan C, 57). The houses on the south side of New Broad Street (west) were pulled down in 1906,*" revealing the Roman masonry of the wall. From the shape and dimensions of the semicir- cular vestry on the north side of the church, it was suspected that it had been built upon the base of a bastion, although none of the early maps show one on this spot. The opportunity was taken by the Society of Antiquaries to investigate this, and not only were the remains of a bastion discovered, but it was found to have been partly formed over a Roman ditch. None of the masonry was disturbed, but it could clearly be seen that it was constructed largely of architectural remains, among which were a fluted pilaster with moulded cap (Fig. 18), portions of cornices, and several large stones with lewis holes. The base was built mostly of large blocks of oolite, 2 ft. high, and varying from 2 ft. to 4 ft. wide, liberally cemented with pink mortar, which was spread in a thick covering over the joints and angles, showing unmistakably that it had been employed by the builder of the bas- tion. Its base rested 14 ft. below the present surface and 2 ft. 8 in. below the plinth of the City wall ; it projected 1 6 ft. in front of the wall and was about 20 ft. wide. The centre of the ditch was about 20 ft. from the wall, and the bastion extended for some five or six feet over its edge, the width of the ditch being 1 5 ft. and its depth 5 ft. The ditch in front of the bastion had first been filled up with a mass of chalk, flint, and other stones, among which was a portion of the cap of the pilaster mentioned above, which had been knocked off to level the stone on one side. There were also many pieces of roofing and other tiles, lumps of opus sigmnum. Sec. Against this obstruction there had accumulated in the ditch on the east side a quantity of black mud, containing many remains of reeds and rushes, shells of water snails, and fragments of Samian and Romano-British pottery. In no part of the soil filling the hollow of the ditch and above it to a height of 6 ft. was anything found of a later period than the Roman. The ditch was traced throughout the length of the street, running parallel with the City wall ; in all other parts it was filled with light sandy loam, and everywhere it contained Roman relics. The churchyard wall to the west of the church is built on the wall (Plan C, 2S), the Roman portion of which extends almost to the level of the present surface (Fig. 19). The portion adjoining the church was broken away apparently when the church was built, but from this point it was fairly well preserved, and was exposed to a length of nearly 40 ft., showing three rows of bonding tiles with the intervening courses of ragstone, and finally the plinth, which consisted of large blocks of red sandstone, varying
- " JrcL Ix. 197.
58 Fig. 18
