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Unless otherwise stated, this image is the copyright of the submitter. Contact them for permission to reproduce it. |  | | Description | Once considered to be the guardian of the City and the place where all distances from London were measured, the London Stone now sits almost forgotten in a little glass box set into the wall of 111, Cannon Street opposite the Underground Station at TQ326809. Very difficult to photograph because of the internal light and glass. It is very low to the pavement and I put my compact digital to the glass and hoped for the best!
The Stone is a fragment of oolithic limestone and must have been brought to its present site by glacier or by man. Some believe it to be 3,000 years old and the last remnant of a stone circle that once stood on Ludgate Hill at the site now occupied by St Paul's. Legendary King Lud (circa 73 BC) expanded Caer Lud (Lud's Town) which became Londinium to the Romans and then Lundenwic to the Saxons. The Stone could be a fragment of a Roman milestone as it is in the heart of Roman London, but it looks nothing like Roman stonework or the Roman milestones in the British Museum and elsewhere. The Saxons recognised it as an important stone as it is recorded by them in the 10th century. More recently it has featured as a meeting place and a rallying point as in Jack Cade's Rebellion and as such, is named by Shakespeare in Henry IV.
It must have been much larger than it is now and perhaps souvenir hunters have chipped pieces off it. In 1629 the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers ordered that "two and twenty dozen" defective spectacles should be broken "in Canning Street on the remayning parte of London Stone".
Well, whatever its origin -it still stands close to where it has always been and although most people hurry by without giving it a glance, it still holds a special place in the hearts of Londoners. |
| Posted Comments: rodhie saputra
(2005-03-02) | it's great, but the picture it wasn't quite clear | Thorgrim
(2005-03-02) | I don't think I can get a clearer photograph. The stone is behind glass and faces the street so reflections are a problem. |
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