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A Roman Ruin At The Hairdresser

August 8, 2018
by the gentle author

Nicholson & Griffin, Hairdresser & Barber

The reasons why people go the hairdresser are various and complex – but Jane Sidell, Inspector of Ancient Monuments, and I visited a salon in the City of London for a purpose quite beyond the usual.

There is a hairdresser in Gracechurch St at the entrance to Leadenhall Market that is like no other. It appears unremarkable until you step through the tiny salon with room only for one customer and descend the staircase to find yourself in an enormous basement lined with mirrors and chairs, where busy hairdressers tend their clients’ coiffure.

At the far corner of this chamber, there is a discreet glass door which leads to another space entirely. Upon first sight, there is undefined darkness on the other side of the door, as if it opened upon the infinite universe of space and time. At the centre, sits an ancient structure of stone and brick. You are standing at ground level of Roman London and purpose of the visit is to inspect this fragmentary ruin of the basilica and forum built here in the first century and uncovered in 1881.

Once the largest building in Europe north of the Alps, the structure originally extended as far west as Cornhill, as far north as Leadenhall St, as far east as Lime St and as far south as Lombard St. The basilica was the location of judicial and financial administration while the forum served as a public meeting place and market. With astonishing continuity, two millennia later, the Roman ruins lie beneath Leadenhall Market and the surrounding offices of today’s legal and financial industries.

In the dark vault beneath the salon, you confront a neatly-constructed piece of wall consisting of fifteen courses of locally-made square clay bricks sitting upon a footing of shaped sandstone. Clay bricks were commonly included to mark string courses, such as you may find in the Roman City wall but this usage as an architectural feature is unusual, suggesting it is a piece of design rather than mere utility.

Once upon a time, countless people walked from the forum into the basilica and noticed this layer of bricks at the base of the wall which eventually became so familiar as to be invisible. They did not expect anyone in future to gaze in awe at this fragment from the deep recess of the past, any more than we might imagine a random section of the city of our own time being scrutinised by those yet to come, when we have long departed and London has been erased.

Yet there will have been hairdressers in the Roman forum and this essential human requirement is unlikely ever to be redundant, which left me wondering if, in this instance, the continuum of history resides in the human activity in the salon as much as in the ruin beneath it.

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5 Responses leave one →
  1. Greg Tingey permalink
    August 8, 2018

    “Continuum”
    Yes, well, a few years back, the NW corner of that block was being excavated ( Corner of Leadenhall/Gracechurch streets ) and they found … the remains of a Roman meat-market.
    And, when Leadenhall was rebuilt in the late 1800’s it was … a meat-market.

  2. August 8, 2018

    This is amazing, how the past lingers. My ancestor ran a pub near there in Bulls Head Passage, now the Glass Hut. that has a cellar too. (also the Leaky Cauldron in Harry Potter) I live in the Sussex countryside, but all my roots in London. Archaeologists are currently uncovering the romans in a field near to where I live, too. Maybe my Sussex Romans would come up to the London basilica.

  3. August 8, 2018

    Wow! Incredible! Great post.

  4. August 8, 2018

    Oh my, fancy having that in your back room!!!!

  5. Rita permalink
    August 8, 2018

    Thank you for this fascinating news.

    I hope to have a haircut and visit the establishment to view for myself one day.

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