Archaeologists reveal details of huge fort built by Romans on route into London 2,000 years ago

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

Archaeologists believe a vast fort commanding the route from London Bridge was built by Romans as an emergency measure to secure London as a 1st century trading post

A fort covering nearly four acres had a “fighting platform” and would have been built to house 500 Roman soldiers in direct response to the sacking of London by Queen Boudica in AD63, say the archaeologists who discovered the rectangular complex beneath Fenchurch Street in the City of London.

Three-metre high banks, reinforced with interlacing timbers and faced with turves and a timber wall, featured around the “formidable” structure found at Plantation Place for British Land, which could have been partly built by captured Britons working alongside the Roman army’s expert constructors.

Huge double ditches formed a fearsome deterrent to potential attackers in the aftermath of the raids by troops fighting for Boudica, the native tribal Queen of the Iceni. Their revolt razed the early Roman town to the ground in AD 60 and 61.

A granary, cookhouse and latrine lay within the fort, as well as evidence for roads and storage and administrative facilities.

A few fragments of armour, including part of a helmet and mounts from horse harnesses, also surfaced, although the team from the Museum of London Archaeology, who have published the full findings for the first time, say the fort saw action for less than ten years, with evidence of tents rather than permanent barracks.

A pickaxe and hammer would have been two of the tools to have helped the army build the fort in a matter of weeks. They drew materials from nearby woods and made the most of the debris left by buildings burnt during the revolt.

The fort played a key role in rebuilding Roman London following the utter destruction of the sacking.

A new quay and a water-lifting machine are contemporary finds in the area, with the army providing labour and engineering expertise for new roads.

The much larger Cripplegate fort was constructed in AD 120 and a substantial wall was built around the town in the 3rd century.

Archaeologists are still searching for evidence of an earlier fort or military structures for the intervening periods.

• A Museum of London Archaeology publication, An Early Roman Fort and Urban Development on Londinium’s Eastern Hill, is available to buy now.

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Three places to discover the archaeology of London in

Museum of London
Discover the story of London from the collapse of the Roman city in the 400s to the accession of Queen Elizabeth I in 1558 in the permanent exhibition, Medieval London.

British Museum
Room 41's unparalleled collections range from the Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea, and from North Africa to Scandinavia. The gallery’s centrepiece is the Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk – one of the most spectacular and important discoveries in British archaeology.

Museum of London Docklands
The Thames Highway gallery explores the early ports of London, from the arrival of the Romans in AD43 to the historic ports of Norman and medieval London excavated at Billingsgate and Lower Thames Street.

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/archaeology/art554626-fenchurch-street-fort-museum-london-archaeology