London - Edward Rutherfurd [594]
“Imagine”, he had said, “a summer. At the end of it the leaves fall. They lie on the ground. They almost dissolve, you might say, but not quite. The next year the same thing happens again. And again. Thinned out, compressed, those leaves and all the other vegetation build up in layers, year after year. It’s the natural process. It’s organic.
“Something similar happens with man, and especially in a city. Each year, each age, leaves something. It gets compressed, of course, it disappears under the surface, but just a little of all that human life remains. A Roman tile, a coin, a clay pipe from Shakespeare’s time. All left in place. When we dig down, we find it and we may put it on show. But don’t think of it just as an object. Because that coin, that pipe belonged to someone: a person who lived, and loved, and looked out at the river and the sky each day just like you and me.
“So when we dig down into the earth under our feet, and find all that is left of that man or woman, I try to remember that what I am seeing and handling is a huge and endless compression of lives. And sometimes in our work here, I feel as if we’ve somehow entered into that layer of compressed time, prised open that life, a single day even, with its morning, and evening, and its blue sky and its horizon. We’ve opened just one of the millions and millions of windows, hidden in the ground.”
Sarah smiled to herself. She had liked that. And standing there in the trench, looking at the place where perhaps Julius Caesar had stood, she reached out her hand, and touched.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am deeply indebted to the following, all experts in their respective fields, who gave advice, provided information and in many cases read and helped me correct text that I had written. Any errors that remain are mine alone. Ms Susan Banks, Museum of London Archaeology Service; Mr David Bentley, Museum of London Archaeology Service; Mr John Clark, Curator, Museum of London; The Reverend Father K. Cunningham, St Etheldreda’s, Ely Place; Mr A. P. Gittins, Tom Brown, Tailor; Mrs Jenny Hall, Curator, Museum of London; Mr Frederick Hilton; Mr Bernard Kearnes J.P.; Dr Nick Merriman, Curator, Museum of London; Mrs Lily Moody; Mr Geoffrey Parnell, Curator, Tower of London; Mr H. Pearce; Mr Richard Shaw, Lavender Hill Reference Library; Mr Ken Thomas, Archivist, Courage Breweries; Mrs Rosemary Weinstein, Curator, Museum of London; Mr Alex Werner, Curator, Museum of London; Mr R. J. M. Willoughby.
I am grateful to the Directors and librarians of the Guildhall Library, the Museum of London Library, and, as always, the London Library for endless courtesy and assistance.
No thanks can be enough to Ms Eimear Hannafin and Mrs Gillian Redmond of Magpie Audio Visual for their unfailing help and good humour in the typing and constant altering of the manuscript.
Special thanks are also due to David Bentley and Susan Banks in the preparation of maps, and to Andrew Thompson, Siena Artworks, London, for map design and execution.
As always, I should be lost without my agent, Gill Coleridge, and my two editors, Kate Parkin of Century and Betty A. Prashker of Crown Publishers. I thank them all for their unfailing support and encouragement.
To my wife Susan, my children Edward and Elizabeth and my mother, I owe a huge debt for their respective patience, support and hospitality.
Finally and most importantly, I must record that without the curators, especially John Clark and Rosemary Weinstein, and the staff of the Museum of London, this book could not have been written. The Museum of London has been for me, throughout this book’s long gestation, a source of constant inspiration.
Table of Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title
Copyright
Dedication
About the Author
Also by Edward Rutherfurd
Maps
Preface
The River
Londinium
The Rood
The Conqueror
The Tower
The Saint
The Mayor
The Whorehouse
London Bridge
Hampton Court
The Globe
God’s Fire
London’s Fire
St Paul’s
Gin Lane
Lavender Hill
The Crystal Palace
The Cutty Sark
The Suffragette
The Blitz