This blog is being made by the students and teachers who are going to London over Easter 2009 currently studying or working in the I.E.S. Francesc Xavier Lluch i Rafecas in Vilanova i la Geltrú. The blog is included in the Generalitat's Innovació Educativa London Calling project.
The activities are addressed to help students prepare -first- the trip to London and -second- the DVD they will create after the experience (A DVD guide to London for youngsters by youngsters)
Roman roads, together with Roman aqueducts and the vast standing Roman Army (in the 2nd century, c. 28 legions plus auxiliary units, totaling c. 400,000 troops, of which c. 50,000 deployed in Britain), constituted the three most impressive features of the Roman Empire. In Britain, as in other provinces, the Romans constructed a comprehensive network of paved trunk roads (i.e. surfaced highways) during their nearly four centuries of occupation (43 - 410 A.D.).
The pre-Roman Britons used unpaved track ways for their communications, including very ancient ones running along elevated ridges of hills, such as the South Downs Way, now a public long-distance footpath. In contrast, most of the Roman network was surveyed and built from scratch, with the aim of connecting key points by the most direct possible route. The roads were all paved, to permit even heavy freight wagons to be used in all seasons and weather.
Most of the known network was complete by 180 A.D. Its primary function was to allow the rapid movement of troops and military supplies, but it also provided vital infrastructure for trade and the transport of goods.
Roman roads remained in use as core trunk roads for centuries after the Romans withdrew from Britain in 410 A.D. Systematic construction of paved highways did not resume in England until the 18th century.
The old Roman proverb that "all roads lead to Rome" was largely applicable in Roman Britain (Britannia) to London (Londinium), the city founded on a virgin site by the Romans, which soon became the province's capital and largest city. From London, six core routes radiated.
Nowadays you can see part of a Roman Road in the Crypt of All Hallows by the Tower.
Historical development
The earliest roads, built in the first phase of Roman occupation (the Julio-Claudian period 43–68), connected London with the ports used in the invasionand with the earlier legionary bases.
Construction and maintenance
Standard Roman road construction techniques, long evolved on the Continent, were used. A road occupied a wide strip of land bounded by shallow ditches, varying in width from 86 pedes (25.3m) on Ermine Street in Berkshire to 338 pedes (100m) on Ackerman Street in Oxfordshire. In the centre a carriageway was built on a raised agger after stripping off soft topsoil, using the best local materials, often sand or sandy gravel. The two strips of ground between the agger and the boundary ditches were used by pedestrians and animals, and were sometimes lightly metallic. Theagger was sometimes, but not always, bordered by deep ditches to take rainwater and keep the road structure as dry as possible. The metalling was in two layers, a foundation of medium to large stone covered by a running surface, often a compacted mixture of smaller flint and gravel.
Archaeological evidence
Extant remains of Roman roads are often much degraded or contaminated by later surfacing. In many places, Roman roads were built over in the 18th century to create the turnpikes. Where they have not been built over, many sections have been ploughed over by farmers and some stripped of their stone to use on turnpike roads.
Wayside stations have been identified in Britain. Roman roads had regularly spaced stations along their length - the Roman equivalent of motorway service areas. Roughly every 5 miles (8 km) - the most a horse could safely be ridden hard - there would be a mutation (literally: "a change"), essentially stables where mounted messengers could change horses and a tavern to obtain refreshment. Relays of fresh riders and horses careering at full gallop could sustain an average speed of about 20 mph (32 km/h). Thus an urgent dispatch from the Army base at York to London - 200 miles (320 km), a journey of over a week for a normal mounted traveller - could be delivered in just 10 hours. Because mutations were relatively small establishments, and their remains ambiguous, it is difficult to identify sites with certainty.
Post-Roman legacy
In some places, the origins of the roads were forgotten and they were ascribed to mythical Anglo-Saxon giants and divinities: for instance, Wade's Causeway in North Yorkshire owes its name to Woden, the supreme god of Germanic and Norse mythology. Chaucer's pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales almost certainly used Watling Street to travel from Southwark to Canterbury.
All Hallows greatest claim to fame is its association with famed diarist Samuel Pepys. When the Great Fire of London raged in 1666, Pepys climbed the brick tower of All Hallows to watch the progress of the fire across London. Pepys lived in Seething Lane, across the road from All Hallows.
All Hallows by-the-Tower lays claim to being the oldest church in London. The original church was founded by the Abbey of Barking in 675, and an arch from that first church still survives. Beneath the Saxon arch, traces of Roman pavement can be seen, evidence that this site was in use as far back as 2000 years ago.
All Hallows has a bloody history; due to its close proximity to the Tower of London, the church received the bodies of many of those unfortunates executed in that spot, including Archbishop Laud (1645), Bishop Fisher (1535), and Sir Thomas More (1535). The church has strong associations with the United States; In 1644 William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, was christened here, and the sixth president of the USA, John Quincy Adams, was married in All Hallows while ambassador to the Court of St James.
In the crypt is an altar believed to have been carried on the Second Crusade by King Richard II.
There is a museum in the Undercroft, and a brass-rubbing centre, one of only two such centres in London. The brass rubbing centre is open daily, but closed during church services. Staff is available to help visitors make their own rubbings of facsimile medieval memorial brasses. Entry to the brass rubbing centre is free, but a small charge is made for the rubbings.
All Hallows by the Tower was first established in 675 by the Saxon Abbey at Barking and was for many years named after the abbey, as All Hallows Barking. The church was built on the site of a former Roman building, traces of which have been discovered in the crypt. It was expanded and rebuilt several times between the 11th century and 15th century. Its proximity to the Tower meant that it acquired royal connections, with Edward IV making it a royal chantry and the beheaded victims of Tower executions being sent for temporary burial at All Hallows.
The church was badly damaged by a nearby explosion in 1649, which demolished its west tower, and only narrowly survived the Great Fire of London in 1666. It owed its survival to Admiral William Penn, father of William Penn of Pennsylvania fame, who saved it by having the surrounding buildings demolished to create firebreaks. During the Great Fire, Samuel Pepys climbed its spire to watch the progress of the fire.
Restored in the late 19th century, All Hallows was gutted by German bombers during the London Blitz in World War II and required extensive reconstruction, only being rededicated in 1957.
Many portions of the old church survived the war and have been sympathetically restored. Its outer walls are 15th century, with a 7th century Saxon doorway surviving from the original church. Many brasses remain in the interior (where one of London's brass rubbing centres is now located). Three outstanding wooden statues of saints dating from the 15th and 16th centuries can also be found in the church, as can an exquisite Baptismal font cover which was carved in 1682 by Grinling Gibbons for ₤12, and which is regarded by many as one of the finest pieces of carving in London. In 1999 the AOC Archaeology Group excavated the cemetery and made many significant discoveries.
The church has a museum called the Undercroft Museum, containing portions of a Roman pavement together with many artifacts was discovered many feet below the church in 1926. The altar in the Undercroft is of plain stone from the castle of King Richard I at Athlit in Palestine.
The church was designated a Grade I listed building on January, 4th 1950.
The Globe Theatre was built in 1599 near the river Thames, outside London, but in 1597 his license expired and his owner had to move it to the other side of the river changing its name. It served the company of the famous William Shakespeare and had the honour of being the birthplace of works such as King Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet or Othello, among others.
It was a polygon about 30 metres diameter and allowed the entry of 3,350 spectators. The stage was a rectangle into the proscenium and measured about 13 metres wide by 8 metres deep and a metre and a half high. It had two traps through which the actors reached the stage from the bottom. The bottom of the stage was known as Hell and there appeared and disappeared supernatural characters such as the ghost of Hamlet. The columns of the stage held the roof, where was another trap door from which divine characters hung.
The three doors that gave on the stage led to the back stage, where the actors waited for their entry and the characters that died outside scene went through. On top of these doors was a balcony that was used when another space to develop the action was necessary; one of this most famous uses was in the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.
Like most theatres of the time, The Globe was built without a roof over the proscenium, which did not allow performances in rainy days, or in the cold of winter; the theatre only worked during the summer (from May to October). The performances took place during weekends, from approximately two in the afternoon until before the evening.
In 1613 a fire destroyed the premises of The Globe Theatre, but was immediately rebuilt in 1614 and demolished in 1644 under the orders of English Puritanism, which condemned the theatre performances of the Elizabethan era. In 1997 the theatre reopened its doors under the name of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, respecting the shape of the old building but with capacity for only 1500 people.
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