Token House Yard

Between July and September 2002, Pre-Construct Archaeology Limited carried out archaeological investigations within the floodplain of the Walbrook Stream, a former tributary of the Thames, at 6 - 8 Tokenhouse Yard, City of London. Despite basementing, a 6m depth of Roman and earlier deposits survived. Overlying a prehistoric palaeochannel was one of the best-preserved sequences of a Roman London back alley ever found, consisting of two parallel in situ cleft oak pale fences, surviving to a height of 0.6m, with a 1.5m wide gravel metalled alley between them. The fence was comprised of thin, regular radially cleft oak pales, which slightly overlapped at the edges, forming a wind proof and very private type of fence.

Although elements of this type of fence have been recorded from recent excavations, showing that Roman London was full of pale fenced yard areas, they do not survive as intact as these examples. A sequence of four well-preserved timber box drains (at least one was associated with the alley), overlying one another, represent four separate phases of water management. A large quantity of well-preserved Roman leather and metal artefacts were also recovered from the site, and further analysis of all the material recovered, combined with environmental samples, will shed light on an important industrial area of Londinium.