London History

Welcome to London History, a website dedicated to advancing knowledge about the history of London, from prehistoric times to present day. London History is a wiki, so you can edit the website and contribute to it, as well as reading pages written by other users. We welcome you to add to the website and increase the knowledge base available to other users.
It is hoped that as more and more people collaborate, little by little we can compile more information about the history of London than has ever appeared in any single book or publication and produce a truly extensive and informative resource which is useful to everyone including school children, students, Londoners and history professors.

Scope

London is over 2000 years old and in that time she has seen tens of millions of lives unfold, each life, a story in its own right. To document a man's life in enough detail to do it justice would be an extraordinary achievement. To document the life of a city such as London, in great detail must surely be nigh on impossible. However if enough people join in, we can certainly document more of London's history than has ever appeared in a book and keep it all in one place and fully searchable.

A brief history of London

The name London possibly derived - though there is much dispute on the subject - from the Celtic Llyn (pronounced lun), a pool or lake (the river at an earlier period expanded into a considerable lake. The part immediately below London Bridge is still "the Pool"), and din or dun, a hill, fort, or place of strength.The "hill" may have been that on which St. Paul's now stands, or Cornhill, or that crowned by the Tower; but recent research casts doubt on the theory that there was a large settlement here in pre-Roman days, and assigns the origin of London to the Roman Conquest in the first century A.D.

Under the Romans Londinium arose, a splendid city, one of the nine colonies of Britain, but inferior in importance at first to Eboracum (York) and Verulamium (St. Albans).Great military roads radiated from the city to various parts of Britain, and distances were measured from a landmark stone called lapis milliaris in the Forum of Agricola, in the heart of the Roman town (Leadenhall Market covers part of the site of the Forum). The stone, known as the London Stone was set into a the wall in St. Swithin's Church and remained there until the church was bombed in the Second World War. The London Stone remarkably survived the bombing and now sits in a glass case behind an ornate metal grille opposite Cannon Street Station.

The direction taken by the old [[London Wall]], dating from the first century A.D., is well known, and can be traced by the modern names of streets. Considerable sections, composed chiefly of Kentish ragstone and large Roman bricks, may be seen throughout parts of the city.
In fact for many years contractors for sewers and other underground works found it necessary to stipulate that they shall be allowed to charge extra if they have to cut through or remove any portion of it. Outside the wall, a wide ditch, portions of which can still be traced, provided a further defence.