No one, it has been said, can ever hope to know more than a little of London. In the attainment of that little a visit to the Guildhall Museum is certainly indispensable. The Guildhall itself lies within the heart of the "square-mile" of the City, the old original London round which the vast conglomeration of Greater London today has grown up. It is with the history of the City and the growth of civic life that the Guildhall Museum is primarily concerned, and to this extent its character is a local one.
Outstanding among its collections are those recalling the London of *|Roman times.
The earliest evidence of Roman London shows that it consisted of a fort or citadel built on rising ground beside the Walbrook—one of the several, now "lost," rivers which served as tributaries of the Thames, The Walbrook area has yielded some of the chief Roman "finds" in the museum, including those discovered during excavation of the National Safe Deposit, opposite the Mansion House. Here in the moist and boggy stib-soil were. brought to light Roman tools and weapons, coins and leather-work, tings, brooches, armour, horse furniture and quantities of broken "Samian" paierae and cups bearing the names of the ancient potters.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.