It was restored in the late Anglo-Saxon period, a process generally thought to have begun under Alfred the Great after 886.

Since the Second World War, conservation efforts have helped to preserve surviving sections of the city wall as scheduled monuments.

The long presence of the walls has had a profound and continuing effect on the character of the City of London, and surrounding areas.

Reasons for its construction may have been connected to the invasion of northern Britain by Picts who overran Hadrian's Wall in the 180s.

[7] This may be linked to the political crisis that emerged in the late 2nd century when the governor of Britain Clodius Albinus was consolidating his power after claiming the right of succession as Roman emperor.

The economic stimulus provided by the wall and Septimius's subsequent campaigns in Scotland improved Londinium's financial prosperity in the early 3rd century.

It had gateways, towers and defensive ditches, and was built from Kentish ragstone, which was brought by barge from quarries near Maidstone.

[10][11] After Londinium was raided on several occasions by Saxon pirates in the late 3rd century, construction of an additional riverside wall, built in phases,[10] began in 280 and was repaired c.

[10][12][13][14][15] The riverside wall may have limited access to the Thames, both commercial and otherwise, so it may have reflected a diminished level of activity within the city.

[19] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that the Romano-British retreated back to London after their bloody defeat at the Battle of Crecganford (Crayford, Kent) at the hands of Hengist and Horsa, leaders of the Saxon invaders, in 457.

From c. 500, an Anglo-Saxon settlement known as Lundenwic developed in the same area slightly to the west of the abandoned Roman city, in the vicinity of the Strand.

[21] In 886 the King of Wessex, Alfred the Great, formally agreed to the terms of the Danish warlord, Guthrum, concerning the area of political and geographical control that had been acquired by the incursion of the Vikings.

Within the eastern and northern part of England, with its boundary roughly stretching from London to Chester, the Scandinavians would establish Danelaw.

Archaeological research shows that this involved abandonment of Lundenwic and a revival of life and trade within the old Roman walls.

Old St Paul's Cathedral, rebuilt in the Romanesque style by King William the Conqueror and his successors, was on its completion one of the longest churches in Europe.

In the view of Frank Stenton: "It had the resources, and it was rapidly developing the dignity and the political self-consciousness appropriate to a national capital.

During the early medieval period – following the Norman Conquest of England – the walls underwent substantial work that included crenellations, additional gates and further towers and bastions.

[29] As London continued to grow throughout the medieval period, urban development grew beyond the city walls.

The extent of the city's jurisdiction has changed little from 1000 to the modern day;[33] but the extramural parts were long home to only a few people.

A notable late change to the boundary appears to be that Stow's Survey of London suggests that the part of Moorfields next to the wall was still, in 1603, outside the city's jurisdiction.

The Blitz during the Second World War, through the sheer scale of bombing and destruction of buildings and the surrounding landscape, revealed numerous parts of the London Wall.

At 00:15 on 28 August 1940,[35] during the pre-wave of bombing before the Blitz, buildings and parts of the wall were destroyed between Fore Street and St. Alphage's churchyard gardens around Cripplegate.

With a few exceptions, the parts of the modern road network heading into the former walled area are the same as those which passed through the former medieval gates.

Fleet Street and the Strand The bastions, towers built against the face of the city wall, are scattered irregularly across its perimeter.

Transcript of tile 5 'For nearly fifteen hundred years the physical growth of the City of London was limited by its defensive wall.

The historian John Stow, writing c 1580, recorded the many unsuccessful attempts to prevent the City ditch becoming a dumping ground for rubbish including the dead dogs, which gave Houndsditch its name.

Moorgate was the only gate whose name described its location as it gave access to the moor or marsh which stretched along the northern side of the city.

In 1415 it was totally rebuilt by the Mayor Thomas Falconer and the engraving shows it after substantial rebuilding as a single gate, flanked by towers.

Throughout the 16th century attempts were made to drain the marsh and within a hundred years the whole area had been laid out with walks and avenues of trees.

Transcript of tile 4 'Prior to the construction of the western section of the road London Wall in 1959, excavations revealed the west gate of the Roman fort, built c AD 120.