What a brilliant post! Fascinating on London, but also the pubs of St Albans where I learned to drink as a teenager! Farriers, Blackies, Red Lion and the Rats particular favourites. Quick question, I’m aware Watling Street follows the route of Edgware Road, but does it also follow Oxford Street to get to that point?
Thanks for your comment. Regarding Oxford Street, I’d imagine so yes but couldn’t be definite. Oxford Street/Bayswater Road was the Roman road to Silchester. Oxford Street lines up with the City of London’s Watling Street and then it would have headed off across the bridge. I do miss St Albans pubs. We’d always start at the Horn of Plenty by the City station and then take different routes into the centre and sometimes out the other side. I think we covered them all by the time I moved away from Radlett after a couple of years
Thank you for another thought-provoking post Scott. I’d walked past or on bits of Roman wall in the City many times before one day realising that ACTUAL ROMANS (or their slaves, anyway) had built it. One of those all too rare moments when I stepped out of the present day and truly appreciated the history all around me. Thank you also for defending the split infinitive - perfectly valid where it makes the meaning of a sentence clearer. Can you imagine the Starship Enterprise setting out its mission as ‘boldly to go’? No, nor me.
For years I slavishly parroted the split infinitive meme until I was in a pub one evening and someone taught me English grammar versus Latin grammar between pints one and three. Of course the ‘pint three’ lessons were forgotten immediately!
Interesting read. Thanks. BTW the Latin signs are still in place at Wallsend.
What a brilliant post! Fascinating on London, but also the pubs of St Albans where I learned to drink as a teenager! Farriers, Blackies, Red Lion and the Rats particular favourites. Quick question, I’m aware Watling Street follows the route of Edgware Road, but does it also follow Oxford Street to get to that point?
Thanks for your comment. Regarding Oxford Street, I’d imagine so yes but couldn’t be definite. Oxford Street/Bayswater Road was the Roman road to Silchester. Oxford Street lines up with the City of London’s Watling Street and then it would have headed off across the bridge. I do miss St Albans pubs. We’d always start at the Horn of Plenty by the City station and then take different routes into the centre and sometimes out the other side. I think we covered them all by the time I moved away from Radlett after a couple of years
Thank you for another thought-provoking post Scott. I’d walked past or on bits of Roman wall in the City many times before one day realising that ACTUAL ROMANS (or their slaves, anyway) had built it. One of those all too rare moments when I stepped out of the present day and truly appreciated the history all around me. Thank you also for defending the split infinitive - perfectly valid where it makes the meaning of a sentence clearer. Can you imagine the Starship Enterprise setting out its mission as ‘boldly to go’? No, nor me.
For years I slavishly parroted the split infinitive meme until I was in a pub one evening and someone taught me English grammar versus Latin grammar between pints one and three. Of course the ‘pint three’ lessons were forgotten immediately!
Wow, I hope you manage to find that postcard, Scott!
So do I! The weather’s not as good today and so, if I can tear myself away from listening to the cricket, the search could resume
Excellent article Scott. I had a go at a tube map of Londinium myself - before I knew how to use the software properly https://londonist.com/2015/08/a-tube-map-of-roman-london
Which software did you use for that? Perhaps I’m over thinking this and it was PhotoShop!
Photoshop Elements, bout as basic as it gets