Watling Street, the Roman general, by building London Bridge and by
making a strong fort on the hill at the northern end of it, laid the
foundation of Roman London.

The new city, which speedily rose round the bridge head on the northern
side of the river, was of considerable dimensions by the time it is
first mentioned--namely, in A.D. 64. This is by Tacitus, who describes
it as full of merchants and merchandise. At the same time, except for
the pretorium at the bridge head, there were no defences. Anything like
a walled town must have been among the islets on the southern side; but,
from the character of the Roman remains found in Southwark and St
George's Fields, it is probable that the British town there was not of
any importance, and answered to Julius Caesar's contemptuous description:
"The Britons call a thick wood, enclosed with a rampart and a ditch, a
town." The new Roman fort at the northern end of the bridge, with its
suburb of merchants' houses along the Walbrook, is the London of
history, and the first we hear about it is that--while Camalodunum was a
Roman Colonium, and Verulam a Municipium--London was only a Prefectura.
This is the opinion of Pennant; but Tacitus, who first names London as
being in existence at all and who lived and wrote about A.D. 90,
expressly mentions it as abounding in merchants and business. Dr. Guest
was of opinion that the Roman fort was made in A.D. 43. It stood above
the outfall of the Walbrook, its western wing being where Cannon Street
terminus is now, and its eastern extremity reaching to Mincing Lane.
These limits were determined in a paper by Arthur Taylor in
_Archaeologia_ in 1849, and were confirmed during the building of Cannon
Street Station. The road from the bridge divided in East Cheap and
passed out towards the spot now called from the Marble Arch, where it
joined the old road which the Saxons subsequently named the Watling
Street, now Park Lane and Edgware Road, as to one branch; and as to the
other, the Ermin Street, which led towards Lincoln. The Roman governor
probably lived in his Pretorium, where, at the north-west corner, close
to the celebrated London Stone, remains of pavements and buildings have
been found. At the south-eastern corner, too, but at a lower level,
another pavement, which still exists under the Corn Exchange, may have
been part of a bath. There are no remnants of a church or a temple, but
some antiquaries fancied they saw relics of a Roman