Nearly two thousand years ago...

Under the foundation lies a Roundhouse first excavated when Norman Foster's team started this development in 1996. The Roundhouse in its day would have been just under a 1000 Roman cubits (475 yards) from the river, in a village-like settlement. The Roundhouse was dated to a very early 50 – 60 AD Roman period where people had been making beads that looked like native British beads but in fact were made from recycled Roman glass. This shows the old Briton and new Roman cultures co-existed for some time. This Roundhouse settlement closed down in about AD60. However, none of the buildings showed any sign of fire damage. This is surprising, because in most parts of Londinium we find thick layers of debris, evidence of how the city was totally burned down by Boudica and the Iceni in AD 61-2. Then the Romans built the London Wall 2 miles long, 20ft high and 8ft thick, this site would have been in the shadow of the main Londinium fort at Cripplegate. The wall lasted another 1600 years, defining London 's perimeter for centuries.

The coin illustrates the currency of the day - a Roman coin from the Londinium mint with Carausius head. He held power for seven years, before being assassinated by his finance minister.