From hidden rivers to abandoned stations, there’s certainly no shortage of stories sat beneath the streets of our city. And with a transport network as filled to the brim with history as ours is, you never really know what you’re going to find whilst waiting for your tube to arrive.
One particularly exciting eccentricity located on the London Underground can be found at Tower Hill tube station in the form of a piece of wall. Now, I know what you’re thinking. What’s so interesting about a wall? Well, folks – this isn’t any old wall. This is one of the few remaining sections of the 1800-year-old Roman Wall that used to surround our city. And thousands of people walk past it every day without so much as batting an eyelid.
The Roman Wall at Tower Hill station
Dating back to approximately 200AD, the ‘London Wall‘ was built by the Romans to defend the city of Londoninium against potential invaders. The wall was originally around 2.5 miles long, between 2 and 2.6 metres thick, and roughly 6 metres high. The vast majority of the wall was destroyed and demolished over the years, and only a few small sections survived to tell the tale. One of the most impressive and well-known remnants of the ancient Roman Wall can be found outside Tower Hill station. But a teeny-tiny chunk that is slightly more surreptitious in stature can actually be found inside the tube station – and many people don’t even realise its there.
If you head to the rear end of the westbound platform at Tower Hill tube station and look across the tracks, you’ll notice a small square cutout on the wall. Extremely easy to miss, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s just one of the London Underground’s random design details – but you’d actually be looking at an exposed fragment of the original Roman London Wall.
There’s a lamp installed next to it and a nearby pillar boasts a plaque confirming that it is, in fact, a little chunk of ancient history. And whilst, of course, there are far longer and larger surviving sections of the wall; there is something undeniably special about this small, secretive segment. So, next time you’re about to head westbound on the District or Circle lines, be sure to take a moment to feast your eyes on this rather fascinating piece of the capital city’s past.
