Roman London

The Forum and Basilica

The forum and its basilica filled the ground under the market: the largest basilica north of the Alps in its day, and nothing of it above the pavement.

Forum & basilica

Also in Food Markets and Architecture and Harry Potter.

Londinium's forum stood here from the late first century, a square of shops and offices round an open court with the basilica - the city's hall of justice and business - running the length of its north side, longer than St Paul's is today. It was pulled down around AD 300 and the market grew over it; the one piece a visitor can stand next to is a pier of the basilica in the basement of a barber's shop on Gracechurch Street, kept behind glass.

In February 2025 archaeologists testing the basement of 85 Gracechurch Street, next door to the market, found the foundations of the first basilica, the smaller one that stood here before it: flint, ragstone and Roman tile, a metre wide and four metres deep, in the part of the building called the tribunal, where the magistrates sat on a raised platform to hear the city's business. The office above is to be rebuilt around them with a basement the public can walk into, expected in 2029 or 2030.

The current market is Victorian, cream and maroon under a glass roof.

Where

Gracechurch Street, EC3V 1LT

Nearest station

Monument · 5 min walk

Also here

• Tour for MugglesGuided tour

Hours

Hours from OpenStreetMap.

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• The Bridge5 min walk
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