A Whiff of Roman London

A new exhibition, High Street Londinium, at the Museum of London challenges existing notions about Roman London, promising visitors a chance to see, touch, even smell it, as it really was. Far from the impressive stone edifices, mosaics and bath houses associated with Classical Rome, excavations by the Museum's archaeology department have revealed that most buildings were erected quickly and cheaply out of local timber and mud brick.

When several nineteenth-century buildings, including the famous Mappin and Webb shop, were demolished in the heart of the Square Mile in the mid-90s, many were horrified. However, for archaeologists at the Museum, the two years they were given by the property developers to excavate No.l Poultry, threw up some fascinating discoveries.

The single largest and most complete section of Roman London yet to be unearthed was discovered beneath the Victorian foundations. Some seventy-three Roman buildings, complete with back yards were found spanning AD 50 to AD 410. The shallow basements were excellently preserved, along with thousands of individual artefacts within them. From finds such as tools, (including a rare find: a complete wooden spade), thousands of animal bones, seeds, jewellery, and some 800 coins, the functions of buildings could be identified. Stashes of unused crockery in a basement pointed to a shop selling tableware, for example, while concentrated evidence of a type of insect found in grain stores con-firmed a bakery.

Established in the mid-first century AD, Roman Londinium attracted settlers to Britain from all over Europe eager to capitalise on the trading opportunities afforded by the commercial centre of the new province. Public baths and a wooden amphitheatre were con-structed c.AD 70-90. As the city expanded, dwellings were built haphazardly to house the new arrivals in close proximity to those of the native population. Rooms tended to be small, with several living and working under one roof. Fires frequently broke out, and in AD 61 the city was destroyed in, and had to be rebuilt in the wake of, the Boudiccan revolt.

Linking the system of streets, alleys and drains between buildings, archaeologists discovered the main arterial thoroughfare, the Via Decumana, made of packed gravel, nine metres wide and running from east to west through the town. It is a section of this massive road and the shops that lined it that has been recreated c.AD 100 for High Street Londinium. A bakery and a shop selling tableware are among the buildings that have been painstakingly recreated by a set-building company, Sand Films, working in close co-operation with archaeologists and curators, and where possible using original methods and authentic materials. The aim of the reconstruction is to impart to visitors a sense of the density, noise and filth that characterised Roman London, as well an idea of the lifestyles of the inhabitants. Visitors can walk through the alleys and shops handling the objects they encounter. Costumed interpreters demonstrate Roman crafts in situ, at given times.

More 'experience' than exhibition, High Street Londinium is a head-on response to challenges levelled at museums in recent months to prove themselves accessible and relevant to a twenty-first-century audience. Simon Thurley and his team have created a 'touchy-feely' attraction, but one that refuses in its precision to compromise the historical substance of the original material. Visitors are encouraged 'to think like a Roman, to be a Roman, to live the part'. But for those disturbed by the pretence, the real finds from No. 1 Poultry are exhibited in conventional style at the end of the reconstruction.