A HISTORY OF LONDON mentioned by Maitland in IJSS'^^ °^^ °^ which he describes as being ' almost- opposite the end of Gravel Lane to the west of Houndsditch ' ; it was then ' inhabited by a baker, and the door thereof within the wall ' was ' in Shoe- maker's Row, fronting the passage into Duke's Place.' Since Maitland wrote, there has been some alteration in the arrangement and much un- intelligent renaming of the streets; but Gravel Lane has fortunately not been effaced, and there is little difficulty in recognizing the position (Plan C, 18). Maitland says that this is the tower discovered by Dr. Woodward, who writes: ' 'Tis compos'd of stone, with layers of brick interpos'd, after the Roman manner, and is the most considerable remain of Roman workmanship yet extant in any part of England that I know of, being 26 foot in height.' In searching for this tower [Maitland says] about eighty paces south-east towards Aldgate,, I discovered another of the same manner of construction of the height of one and twenty feet, perfectly sound and much more beautiful than the former, the bricks being as sound as if but newly laid, while the stones in most parts are become a sacrifice to devouring Time. The sketch by Gough, before alluded to, shows a tower of rectangular form and built apparently like the City wall of stone and bonds of tile, which agrees with the accounts both of Woodward and Maitland. Roach Smith says*" that Gough's sketch was simply described as representing a tower at Houndsditch, but J. E. Price says" that it represents the one standing near the end of Gravel Lane. Curiously, on all the old maps the bastions are shown as semicircular. Whether both of these bastions have been dis- covered in recent times is not clear. Loftus Brock, in describing the wall in Duke Street in 1887,*' records the occurrence of a rounded bastion built of large blocks of oolite, and says that it may be the second one mentioned by Maitland, and that it resembles those found elsewhere, but gives its position as 20 ft. south from the end of the Jewish Synagogue in Bevis Marks. As the corner of Heneage Lane in which the Bevis Marks Syna- gogue is situated is about 100 ft. north of the end of Duke Street, and the site of the first or more northerly bastion of Maitland is another 30 or 40 ft. to the south, it would seem that Brock must have meant the synagogue in Duke Street, in which case this bastion would clearly be the second of those mentioned by Maitland (Plan C, 1^). In any case Gough's sketch, if it represents either of them, shows that the rectangular structure was built on a semicircular base, and was of a later and different character from that of the City wall. It may therefore be presumed that these towers which Wood- ward and Maitland took to be Roman were really late and probably Norman, built of Roman materials and simulating the Roman method, as was done sa extensively at Colchester. This view is supported by the great height to which the supposed Roman work was standing above ground, and by the number of tiles used in the bonds, if the sketch as redrawn by Fairholt may be relied on. During the rebuilding of No. 31 Houndsditch in 1880, a portion of the wall 70 ft. long with a height of ii| ft. was removed, which is de- scribed by Brock ^^ as having the usual Roman characteristics in perfect " Hist. ofLond. i, 31. " Letter to Hearne. ™ lUus. Rom. Lond. 16. " Bastion in Camomile Street, 17. " Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xliii, 203-4. " Ibid, xxxvii, 86 ; xxxiii, I 32-5. 54
