I have an early memory of these excavations, bemused by the trenches and soil ‘walls’ (sections) amid the ‘Totesmeer’ of devastated London Wall. Later I was taught by Professor Grimes, met Audrey Williams and dug with George Rybot in Dorset, so it is especially pleasing that this brilliant campaign now receives detailed publication.
The report covers the Roman and Mediaeval London Excavation Council's investigation of Roman sites in the Cripplegate area of London Wall. The report comprises, firstly, four sections outlining the site history, the planning of the campaign, the process of discovery, and the surviving archive. Five further sections summarise the results by sectors around the perimeter and within the interior, illustrated by significant finds and dating evidence. A tenth discusses the fort's context within London and its garrison. Appendices describe further work on site WFG9 and catalogue the epigraphic evidence and the visible remains.
The over-long introduction explains the identification of the fort; much of this deserved publication elsewhere as an insight into a past archaeological world. The main sections describe the surviving structures, the west gate well illustrated by contemporary photographs. The account of interior structures on sites WFG 20, 22 and 22a suggests a complex but heavily truncated site. The significant dated finds groups are accompanied by excellent photographs of the samian; finds and structures imply significant occupation from the late first to fourth century, whether or not military. The final sections review the site's history and conclude with an exemplary discussion of the nature of the garrison and its place within the provincial administration.
The original illustrations demonstrate the objectivity lacking in computer-produced diagrams. The representation by tone and symbol of uncertainties in the recognition of stratigraphic divisions accords with Grimes' preference for objective description and interpretation ‘from a position of maximum knowledge’, an attitude worthy of revival. A plan of the fort in its wider context would have shown the relationship to nearby baths and domestic buildings claimed elsewhere to relate to the military establishment.
Details can be queried; the dimensions on p. 26 conflict with those derived from fig. 123, 243 by 220 m over the walls, giving an internal area of c. 5 hectares. Fig. 22 is wrongly captioned — a. is an isometric drawing of the normal city wall section, b. shows the fort wall with later reinforcement as city wall (cf. W.F. Grimes, The Excavation of Roman and Medieval London (1968), figs 9 and 10). For the noun dishabitatio (163) read the adjective inhabitabilis. Many photographs had already appeared in G. Milne, with N. Cohen, Excavations at Medieval Cripplegate, London: Archaeology after the Blitz 1946–68 (2001). That work also (p. 45), provides details of later occupation, including the arguably late Roman blocking of the west gate. Shepherd now provides an account crucial to our understanding of the initial epoch-making discovery.
