Did the Romans found London?

From now on, I will be sending out an additional post each month that will be behind a paywall. I’m doing this partly to say thank-you to paid subscribers, but also to foreshadow research I’ve undertaken that I’d like to share, but that hasn’t appeared in print yet. Here’s the first one — on the name of my grandfather’s old town.

It is often asserted in history books that London was founded by the Romans. Archaeologists have never found evidence for a settlement in the centre of London older than the Roman period. But the location of London is so ideal for a port where goods from the continent could be traded it seems strange that Roman London was the first settlement built in the location. The place-name London is not derivationally Latin either – it is generally accepted to be Celtic in origin. So why would the Romans have called London by a Celtic name if they founded the city? And what did the name London originally mean?

Early Roman accounts refer to London as Londinium. The name is first recorded on a writing tablet excavated in London during the Bloomberg excavations. In 2010, the American financial firm Bloomberg wanted to develop a site in London for its new European headquarters. But it was in the old Roman section of London and they had to pay archaeologists to excavate the site before going ahead.

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