This is not unusual in this district of London.<p>The remains of London’s Roman amphitheatre are beneath Guildhall, in the basement of the public art gallery:
<a href="https://www.thecityofldn.com/directory/londons-roman-amphitheatre/" rel="nofollow">https://www.thecityofldn.com/directory/londons-roman-amphith...</a><p>And in the basement of Bloomberg’s London headquarters, there’s also a reconstructed Roman temple dedicated to Mithras. It's free and open to the public. Interestingly, after it was discovered, they dismantled it, moved it elsewhere, then later rebuilt it piece by piece:
<a href="https://www.bloomberg.org/arts/advancing-the-arts-around-world/mithraeum/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.org/arts/advancing-the-arts-around-wor...</a><p>Finally, the Roman baths at Billingsgate are open to visitors on weekends:
<a href="https://www.thecityofldn.com/directory/billingsgate-roman-house-and-baths/" rel="nofollow">https://www.thecityofldn.com/directory/billingsgate-roman-ho...</a>
"Re-beginnings" would be more accurate.<p>Considering this building is dated to after Boudica's revolt [0] burned the city, the revolt itself having been caused by Nero/Rome ignoring a will by the nominally independent Celtic king Prasutagus leaving the area jointly to his wife/daughters and Nero upon his death.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudican_revolt#Londinium" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudican_revolt#Londinium</a>
I can see how when owning a building in a place like that, you might be tempted to say, "not even going to dig, don't want to know what we might find under there" that will cause your property to completely change value and control.<p>I wonder who takes the loss, in case suddenly your building can no longer be developed and is essentially state property (although owned by you).
There should be an Augmented Reality app for London that shows you how it was around 1,800 years ago, whereever you are standing, mobile phone in hand.<p>On the top of the Shard, there is an AR telescope that shows you what is in some of the buildings of the cityscape, which is already very useful. Imagine something similar, but pointing to Roman times in "Londinum".
Did you get my email?<p>What is email? I find alley near market to squat and make toilet and bright light and person in dingy cloth and colorful noose ask me about email. KPIs. Ready for one on one. Last year I kill 15 barbarians I tell them. They look blank and ask if I complete performance review.
I worked next door to this building a while ago. London is constantly under construction, and in the Leadenhall area they are constantly finding Roman artifacts. The basement of my (terrible 1980s) building had a whole set of Roman bits and bobs embedded in the floor.<p>People from elsewhere says “how amazing” but it becomes a routine fact after a while. And while it is amazing it’s also a bit annoying. Major projects plan to block off a street for a month, which becomes three months or more once a Roman coin pile turns up.
I'm sure I've seen a sandstone culvert in an otherwise boring wall around the strand or Lincoln's Inn which is a Roman water supply. Can't find it on the wub, but.
This is right next to Leadenhall Market, which dates from the 14th century. I wonder if there were other markets on the same-ish site between the Roman forum and Leadenhall.
I mean it's the BBC so they obviously have a focus on British history but you can find remains like that under many cities in Western and Southern Europe.