Boadicea's remains

After reaching a certain age we should maybe review all the little truths that we regularly pass on to others - just in case they are not true.

Take, for example, the thick layer of ashes from Boadicea's burning of London which I would mention from time to time when walking past All Hallows by the Tower during my days at The Times.

I was sure it was there. I was sure I had seen the black remains. I would describe them with by best antiquarian enthusiasm.

And then a few weeks ago, waiting for some incomprehensible meeting about money in a City office, I dropped by to see Boadicea's ashes again.".

Nothing of the kind was immediately visible. I asked where the ashes were.

Just before the weekend, in an email from the vicar's helpful assistant Angie Poppitt, I received the following news that:

"in the undercroft can be seen the tessalated pavement of the house of some Roman Londoner; while seven feet beneath the level of the present building there were found the ashes of the London sacked and burned by Boadicea in AD61."

Ms Poppitt "would presume from this reference that evidence of the ashes was found during the archaeological excavations of the crypt in the 1920s, but that they were covered over again once the work was completed. If that is the case, they would now lie beneath the present crypt floor which is, as you may recall, several feet lower than that of the Roman pavement behind the glass".

Tactfully she points out: "It may be that someone mentioned this fact on your earlier visit, and this is what you remembered".

Even more tactfully she suggests that "it may be that there are more detailed references to the ashes in the archives or in the Museum of London's records of the excavation, but I have checked with our present tour guides and, whilst many of them do refer to Boadicea when they are talking about the Londinium model and the artefacts, none of them have any knowledge of the evidence of burning actually being visible in this church".

All similar points in my conversational armoury are under current review.

Comments

[Oliver Nicholson]

Delightful that the clergy continue to describe what classicists call 'mosaic floors' as 'tessellated pavements'. I first met the term when a small boy being shown around Southwell Minster and have long preferred it, not least for its symmetrical assonance.

[Tambour]

I always find it strange that we always believe that the leaders of ancient times were responsible for every historical act. Its like today when Obama is being given credit for the killing of Osama? Yet he was nowhere near the place!

[Candadai Tirumalai]

I believe it is by now a hoary truism that history is a pack of lies the living foist upon the dead.

[Richard]

At the entrance to Balliol College we inquired about the location of the door that was charred at the burning of the martyrs in 1555. The porter very politely provided directions to a particular door, just inside, a few paces away. As we earnestly headed toward the relic, he added, "If that's what it is."

[wfs]

She really plays a big role.

[Susse Mabie]

I was led to your weblog while investigated the ancestry of my husband's famly and name. I found Boadicea to be the furtherset back I can go. One of her daughters carried on the line and it went on to Charlemagne and Louis I, King of the Holy Roman Empire.