The Rise and Fall of Roman London with Tristan Hughes

Roman London isn't buried beneath the city – it is the city. On this walking tour with ancient historian Tristan Hughes, you'll follow the rise and fall of Londinium, from its founding as a Roman military outpost to its destruction by fire and its eventual abandonment. You'll also hear how the streets, walls, and buildings the Romans left behind have quietly shaped London ever since.

The tour starts on the south side of London Bridge, where the Romans first crossed the Thames in 43 AD. You'll cross the river and head up Gracechurch Street, walking over the very burn layer that archaeologists say is all that's left from Boudica's destruction of the city around 60 AD. You'll pass through Leadenhall Market, built over the foundations of a basilica that was once the largest civic complex north of the Alps, and continue through the streets the Romans laid out as a deliberate display of imperial power.

Along the way, you'll discover how 35,000 people once lived here – eating dormice and figs, bumping into merchants from Palmyra and soldiers from the Rhine – before plague, rebellion, and the collapse of the Empire's frontiers drained the city of its reason to exist. By 410 AD, Emperor Honorius told the cities of Britain to look to their own defences, and Rome simply walked away. The tour ends beside a surviving stretch of the Roman city wall at St Giles-without-Cripplegate in the Barbican, where you can still spot the signs of Roman engineers layered into the stone.

On this 60-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Explore the London Mithraeum, a subterranean temple to a secretive Roman cult, free to enter
• Visit the site of London's lost Roman amphitheatre, hidden beneath Guildhall Yard for 300 years
• Discover curse tablets thrown into the sacred River Walbrook by Romans settling scores with their enemies
• Hear how the Bank of England's Tivoli Corner replicates one of Italy's most famous Roman temples
• Walk the dead-straight roads of the Cripplegate Fort, once home to the Governor's elite personal guard
• Learn how Emperor Claudius's 43 AD invasion set off a chain of events that produced one of the ancient world's greatest cities

This tour turns an ordinary London walk into something you'll think about long after you've finished it.

Go beyond the tour with History Hit, the world’s best history channel. Subscribe to stream exclusive documentaries, including 'Enemies of Rome: In Search of the Picts' hosted by Tristan Hughes. Discover the past through our award-winning original documentaries and podcast network.