page_title: London Stone
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: London Stone / Interpretations / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: Remains of the Praetorium in London (Roman)
context_page_description: London Stone is a historic landmark housed at 111 Cannon Street in the City of London. It is an irregular block of oolitic limestone measuring 53 × 43 × 30 cm, the remnant of a once much larger object that had stood for many centuries on the south side of the street.
  The name "London Stone" was first recorded around the year 1100. The date and original purpose of the Stone are unknown, although it is possibly of Roman origin. There has been interest and speculation about it since the medieval period, but modern claims that it was formerly an object of veneration, or has some occult significance, are unsubstantiated.
context_section_description: By the 1960s, archaeologists had noted that in its original location London Stone would have been aligned on the centre of a large Roman building, probably an administrative building, now known to have lain in the area of Cannon Street station. This has been tentatively identified as a praetorium, even the local "governor's palace". It has further been suggested – originally by the archaeologist Peter Marsden, who excavated there between 1961 and 1972 – that the Stone may have formed part of its main entrance or gate. This "praetorium gate theory", while impossible to prove, is the prevailing one among modern experts.
  London Stone has been identified as a "mark-stone" on several ley lines passing through central London. It has also entered the psychogeographical writings of Iain Sinclair (born 1943) as an essential element in London's "sacred geometry".
  There are two recent additions to the mythology surrounding London Stone. The first claims that Dr John Dee, astrologer, occultist and adviser to Queen Elizabeth I, "was fascinated by the supposed powers of the London Stone and lived close to it for a while" and may have chipped pieces off it for alchemical experiments; the second that a legend identifies it as the stone from which King Arthur pulled the sword to reveal that he was rightful king. The first of these may have been inspired by the fictionalised John Dee of Peter Ackroyd's 1993 novel The House of Doctor Dee (see In literature below). Both these "legends" seem first to be recorded on the website h2g2 in 2002.
caption: The known floorplan of the presumed "governor's palace"
exif: {}