CIMRM 814 - Mithraeum. Walbrook, London, Britain.

CIMRM entry

814. In ILN 2; 9; 16 Oct. 1954. W. F. Grimes gives a survey of the results of the discovery of a Mithraeum in London at Walbrook near the Mansion house (fig. ILN 1954, 543 and the reconstruction-drawings on pp 594-595; 534-535). The temple is lying in the valley of the Walbrook stream and has an overall length of some 60 ft. and a width of about 25 ft. The temple is well built, its chief material being Kentish ragstone, with levelling or bonding courses of tile. A feature of its construction is the massive character of the west end, with a square buttress on the crest of the apse and massive semicircular buttresses flanking it. There is some suggestion, yet to be confirmed, that some or all of these buttresses are afterthoughts added at an early stage while the building was being erected. Their presence is indicative of the unstable nature of the surrounding ground. The entrance of the temple was at the east end. Flanking the doorway to the south is a small annexe, apparently a later addition. Probably a short flight of steps leads to the floor of the sunken central nave. The nave, 11 ft. wide, runs the length of the building, from the entrance to the opening of the apse, the floor of which was raised high above those of the body of the temple as first designed. The nave is flanked by steeper walls, which not only carried stone colnmns separating it from the side aisles, but also supported and revetted the floors of the aisles. Timber had been extensively used in the aisle floors which served as benches upon which the worshippers reclined. A feature of the steeper walls is the concrete settings upon which the pillars were erected: there were seven in all, spaced approximately 6 ft. apart, their diameters varying between 18 and 20 ins. The floor of the semicircular apse was raised nearly 3 ft. above the original floor of the nave. The apse seems to have been given a somewhat elaborate architectural treatment. That the opening of the apse had some form of division by columns is suggested both by certain remaining features and by a fragment of a comparatively slight column, which would appear not to have fitted anywhere else. A series of four shallow holes against the back wall of the apse is a featnre which gives rise to some speculation. They may have held the supports for some kind of screen or reredos, or perhaps had something to do with the lighting arrangements. A further interesting structure was a timber-lined well in the south-west corner of the south aisle. It was about 2 ft. deep and a little over 3 ft. square and its walls were in excellent condition. This was the temple as it would have appeared in the early years of its existence. As time went on various structural changes were made, e.g. the steady raising of the general floor-level. A date after 150 A.D. seems most probable for its erection; its story goes into the fourth century (coin of Constantine the Great). But by this time the temple must have become a shadow of its former self: already some part of its equipment of sacred images had been buried beneath its later floors in circumstances which are still obscure. Its interior, too, had been drastically remodelled, and it must have been re-roofed: the floor of the nave was now level with that of the apse; the stone columns had been removed and had either been replaced by an arrangement of timbers or had given way to a simple chamber with no distinction between nave and aisles. Building debris on the last floor shows that it must have been allowed to fall into disuse at a time when it was still more or less isolated in its marshy surroundings - a time when already the last years of the Roman occupation must have been approaching" (Grimes).

External links.

• 1954 Film clip from British Pathé News.