The Lost City of London - Before the Great Fire of 1666
Another in the series on the history of London up to the time of the Great Fire of 1666, largely taken from my book, “The Flower Of All Cities” (Amberley, 2019) …
Building Works
The Normans built the first stone buildings within and without the walls of the City for hundreds of years. These included a number intended to symbolise their sovereign authority over the Saxons, most importantly the White Tower in the Tower of London, built by William I, William II and Henry I, between 1076-1101, out of Kentish Rag and imported Caen Stone. Hundreds went on to be imprisoned here over the centuries; and scores tortured, and/or executed, in a variety of horrible ways. One wonders how much better a world it would have been if all the imaginative effort expended in devising means of inflicting suffering had instead been channelled elsewhere. The first Baynard’s Castle…
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