The gazetteer includes 66 entries, compiled from Museum of London records, articles and previous gazetteers. It supports the view that there was an urban settlement here in the Middle Saxon period. The extent of the settlement thought to be Lundenwic, and the position of its boundaries, are at present uncertain, although the distribution of sites suggests a settlement area of about 60 ha. The western limit of the town may be marked by an area of gravel quarries found to the west of the National Gallery and possibly in Trafalgar Square. The southern limit was defined by the Thames, and recent excavations at York Buildings indicate that the Middle Saxon waterfront at this point was about 160m north of the modern riverside. Occupation sites have been found as far north as Shorts Gardens, and as far east as Somerset House. While stray finds in the vicinity of Fleet Street suggest that the settlement may have extended further east up to the Fleet Valley, the ‘negative’ evidence from recent excavations undertaken in this area by the Museum of London tends not to support this view.

The settlement, therefore, appears to be centred around the Strand, which may have been one of the town’s principal streets. The Strand, together with Fleet Street, is considered to be on the line of a Roman road leading from Ludgate in the City. Physical evidence for this road was recently found south of Old Bailey at Ludgate Hill (site code: PWB88). It may also have been recorded by the 16th-century writer Stow on the north side of Fleet Street between Chancery Lane and St Dunstan’s church, where the remains of an earlier road were uncovered by labourers in 1595. The earliest documentary evidence for the Strand, however, is in a charter of AD 1002, where it is referred to as Akemannestraete.

Most of the Middle Saxon settlement lay north of the Strand, and considerable evidence of occupation of this date has been found in this area, notably at the Peabody site, Maiden Lane, Shorts Gardens, Jubilee Hall and Long Acre. Occupation sites in the locality are mainly characterised by dump layers, metalled surfaces, pits, wells, and structural features such as postholes, stakeholes, beamslots and brickearth floors. The finds assemblages from these sites provide evidence for long-distance trade with the Continent, inter-regional trade, industrial activity and crafts. Animal bones and plant remains have also been recovered, and so far assemblages from the Peabody site, Maiden Lane, Jubilee Hall and the National Gallery Basement have undergone detailed examination, and have provided information about the Middle Saxon agricultural economy, and the diet of the inhabitants of Lundenwic.

Five churches are located on or near the Strand, including St Dunstan in the West, St Clement Danes and St Mary-le-Strand, and may be of early date. Nevertheless, only St Martin-in-the-Fields and St Bride’s have produced any archaeological evidence to support this suggestion.

Two isolated mid-Saxon inhumations have been found, at the Peabody site and Jubilee Hall, but the location of the cemeteries of Lundenwic remains uncertain. However, it is thought there may have been a Continental-style cemetery at St Martin-in- the-Fields, while undated burials in King Street and at 51-4 and 67- 8 Long Acre suggest the existence of a cemetery (possibly Saxon) to the north of Covent Garden Piazza.

A notable feature of this gazetteer is the high proportion of discoveries made in the last six years. Before 1985 in situ Middle Saxon strata had been found only at the Treasury and possibly at the Savoy. However, by October 1991 at least 25 sites with deposits of known or probably Middle Saxon date had been recorded. It seems reasonable to conclude from this that Wheeler’s suggestion that groups of Saxon buildings lay along the riverside between the City and Westminster was not followed up, and that many middle Saxon sites in the area were destroyed without record. One such site may have been observed in Bedford Street, where pits were apparently seen. This loss was suffered partly because the significance of finds like those at the Savoy was not fully recognised until recently, and also because of the inadequacy of archaeological cover before the creation of the London Archaeological Service in 1983. Furthermore, in comparison with often more substantial remains of Roman and medieval date, Saxon features and artefacts may be easily overlooked, and are perhaps less likely to be reported when disturbed.

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