The 16th century antiquarian John Stow wrote about the “very tall” stone (before it got smashed up that is):
“A great stone called London Stone, fixed in the ground very deep, fastened with bars of iron, and otherwise so stronglie set that if carts do runne against it through negligence the wheeles be broken, and the stone itself unshaken”
(quoted in J&C Bord’s ‘Mysterious Britain’)
John Stow also found the earliest written record of the stone in ‘a fair Gospel book’ once belonging to Ethelstone, an early 10th century king of the West Saxons. It described how certain lands and rents were “described to lie near unto London Stone.”
Slightly later in the late 12th century the first mayor of London was known as Henry Fitz-Ailwin de Londonestone. The stone already symbolised the power and authority of the city.
(from Ackroyd’s ‘London – the biography’ 2000).