Inside the Museum of London

I have been busy in the ‘clay pipe corner’ of the LAARC since my last update. Along with Fiona and Sigrid, I  have been working through more bags and boxes of clay tobacco pipes. Most of the pipes we are working on are regrouped in logical sequences: similar initials, symbols, decorations and stamps. They were regrouped in that way for study at Liverpool University.  For example, all pipes with crowns, dots or suns were grouped together. All pipes with the same initials were put in the same bag. Now, here at the LAARC, the work consists of matching the loose pipes with their original site label, some attributed more than 30 years ago.  The pipes will eventually be put back with their original site boxes. But before that happens, all of the pipes will be reviewed and some will be selected for the Museum of London’s Pipe Reference Collection. During this process, we are making notes on decorations, initials and stamps and recording our findings to eventually create a comprehensive database. We  need good light for this and the use of a magnifying glass has proved extremely useful to record the initials and to help us distinguish between a T and an F – not easy with 400 years old pipes!

Last week I was in the LAARC with Sigrid and we had a lot of fun working through those pipes with clearly legible initials as you can see in the photo below.

We have found nicely decorated stems with inscriptions in the most recent bags which Jacqui Pearce, Museum of London Archaeology’s clay pipe and ceramics specialist will certainly identify easily and may add to the Reference Collection.

I am beginning to wonder if the original number of 800 pipes is accurate since more and more bags keep appearing; I guess we will have to count them…and see if there are not in fact 8000!

Finally, some of you may know that clay tobacco pipes were not solely used for smoking but also for blowing bubbles!  They were used by children over the past few centuries and were only replaced by colourful plastic imitations after WWII. While looking through the boxes of pipes, I wondered if the clay pipes for blowing bubbles were visually different to the tobacco variety. It seems they are of a lower quality; but are they easily recognisable?  That’s a question I will have to ask Jacqui next time I see her!

Click here for a photo of a child using a pipe to blow bubbles.

Helene Jean-Venturoli

There has been some exciting news lately at the LAARC.   We have welcomed back the clay tobacco pipes collection after a 30 years loan to Liverpool University! While in Liverpool, the pipes were under the care of Dr. David A. Higgins and Dr. Peter J. Davey who performed extensive research on the collection. The collection was also available for students and other researchers; so they have been intensively studied.  Liverpool University is nationally and internationally renowned for its research on clay tobacco pipes and the LAARC collection was one of many collections on loan.  There is also a major cataloguing project going on at the National Pipe Archive (NPA) housed in Liverpool University’s Department of Archaeology. Called the National Pipe Stamp Catalogue, the project has already recorded more than 28 000 pipes with makers’ marks from several places in England.

Since last month, a group of three enthusiastic volunteers have been working at the LAARC with Jacqui Pearce, the clay pipe specialist, and Dan Nesbitt, assistant curator, on the reorganization and repacking of the returned pipes, around 40 boxes containing more than 800 pipes! Since a lot has changed in recent years in the clay pipe domain, the LAARC is taking the opportunity to reassess its collection and build a new reference collection on clay tobacco pipes. The new collection will include some of the pipes that were on loan and also some of the pipes that have been excavated in London over the last 30 years while the collection was in Liverpool. Considering the discoveries of recent years, some new types of pipes will eventually join the typology developed in 1969 by Adrian Oswald and David Atkinson.

So far, the volunteers have ‘rediscovered’ some beautiful examples of makers’ marks, stamps and symbols. They have worked through more than a dozen boxes already, all registered finds.  During week 1 and 2, the makers’ marks boxes were sorted out, while weeks 2 and 3 were spent on boxes of pipes with symbols and decorated bowls and stems. As for the makers’ marks, the initials TB and RM were quite frequent and there were nice examples of symbols such as the crown, dot, sun and star to name but a few.   There is still a lot to do however and we hope to add another blog update soon so you can see what other treasures the volunteers have found!

Hélène Jean-Venturoli

Volunteer

Well, what a year 2010 was! More than 250 new archaeological archives were deposited at the LAARC throughout the year by archaeological contractors working in the Greater London region. These archives are incredibly important as once a site has been excavated, the archive is often all that remains. Every one of these archives adds to our understanding of London’s archaeology, but every now and then we receive an archive for a site which really captures the imagination and sheds new light on London’s past. Looking back at 2010, I have selected two such archives to share with you.

43-53 Narrow Street, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets , E14,  Pre-Construct Archaeology Ltd (Site code: NHU99)

Archaeological excavations at this site in the Ratcliff area of East London uncovered pits and gullies of Bronze Age date, Iron Age pottery and a Roman ditch. Medieval through to modern remains were also uncovered at the site, including a late 15th-c brick clamp and building remains with pits and ditches of 16th to 18th-c date. These pits and ditches, particularly those of 17th-c date were filled with pottery, glass and other objects, a significant proportion of which were imported from France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, Iran and China, and many of which are rarely, if ever, found in Britain. These objects were collected by a group of 17th-century privateers, sea-captians and pirates who had occupied the excavated properties.  According to Dr Frank Meddens in his book Pirates of the East End (2008: 2):

“This rich assemblage is seen as the remains of booty and global mercantile and illicit trade at a time that access to the New World and the Far East was being opened up and fought over. “

Examples of some of the objects can be seen in the images below, and some of the pottery from the site will be on display as part of the forthcoming exhibition “Pirates: The Captain Kidd Story” at Museum of London Docklands from 20 May to 30 Oct 2011.

English or Dutch tin-glazed earthenware octagonal plate, decorated in the "Chinamen in grasses style", c. 1680-1700

Northern Italian sgraffito ware dish, early 17th-century

A Monetelupo majolica dish with an oriental knot design, c. 1650

Northern Italian slipware charger

Sources:

• Meddens, Frank (2008) Pirates of the East End, Sampson and Horne Antiques, London.
• NHU99 archive, LAARC

15-16 Bedford Street, Westminster, WC2, Pre-Construct Archaeology Ltd (Site code: BDO04)

Mid Saxon rubbish pits and post-medieval cesspits were excavated in the western half of this site. Six Saxon pits of varying sizes were recorded, all dating to the 7th-8th centuries. The fill of one of these pits included a large quantity of antler and bone working waste, including numerous comb blanks, clearly indicating waste from a craft workshop nearby. 

Another of the pits had a wooden base and its fill indicates that it may have been a cesspit. 17th century activity was represented by a series of gravel quarry pits, possibly associated with road construction around the newly built Covent Garden Piazza in 1631. Building had occurred on the site by the 18th century, as represented by brick-lined cesspits, cluster of masonry drains and a wall.  Artefacts from one of the cesspits may indicate a coffee house or drinking establishment on the site.

Selection of finds (L to R: Saxon antler working waste, post-medieval wig curler, Saxon bone spindlewhorl, Saxon bone working waste

Eastern view of a Saxon pit from the site

Northern view of the Saxon cesspit

Sources:

• BDO04 archive, LAARC
• London Archaeologist Fieldwork Round-up 2005

Our excavation in Burgess Park has sadly now finished.  The machine arrived yesterday and we filled in the trenches.  Today the cabins will be collected. 

I have really enjoyed working in Burgess Park.  We have uncovered some interesting details about the history of the park and met some interesting local residents who kindly shared their research and memories of the area.  Some 400 local school children have helped explore the archaeology and we’ve trained 31 adults in the techniques and principles of archaeological excavation. 

We may have finished excavating but this is not the end of our work on the site.  The next stage is done back at the office and we need to pull together our research, photos, maps and finds, consult with specialists and write up the results.  These results will be published and available to anyone who is interested.  The records and finds from the site will be archived with the London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre (LAARC) in due course, and again these will accessible by appointment to anyone who would like to see them.  After all that the process starts again.  Where shall we excavate next summer…?

Thanks to all the staff and volunteers who helped run the excavation; thanks to everyone who took part; thanks to all the local people who shared their knowledge and memories; thanks to Southwark and Lambeth Archaeological Excavation Committee for their funding and finally thanks to Southwark Council for allowing us to excavate in Burgess Park.

Kate Sumnall, Community Archaeologist, Museum of London

Two trenches were excavated at Waite Street,  Burgess Park, Southwark. The difference between the two trenches reveals how the area developed over time. Trench 1 revealed a mid-Victorian house built to a high standard whilst Trench 2 exposed a later Victorian house built under completely different conditions. Some Roman pottery (Samian ware) was also found in the Trench 2 which gives us information about the earlier use of the whole site.

Maps from 1746 show the area of the excavations was used for market gardening. Vegetables needs fertiliser, – so every night a great supply arrived from London in the form of human waste matter, politely known as ‘night soil’. Other debris was also thrown in to this mixture, including the sherds of Roman pottery which have been found. Other historical periods are represented by finds such as a medieval roof tile complete with peg hole and a 17^th century clay tobacco pipe with a small bowl. The size of the pipe bowl is the clue to the period in which it was produced – tobacco at this time was rare and very expensive.

Trench 1 revealed pottery which was decorated and of good quality and some fine cut glass-ware was found indicating a respectable residential area. As London expanded and became more prosperous, the fields of vegetables had evolved to become a desirable mid-Victorian residential area. Evidence of this can found in the house uncovered in trench 1. The streets around the site also reflect the popularity of Lord Nelson after the battle of Trafalgar e.g. Nile Street and the Lord Nelson pub on Trafalgar Avenue. The houses were three-storey with a sub-basement.

The nearby Surrey Canal with its easy access to the port of London ensured that, later, the growth of major industry would move to the area. At this point, the residents of the mid-Victorian houses such as that exposed in trench 1 moved away and the houses were occupied by the families of those who worked in the increasing number of factories, for example, the R.Whites lemonade factory. The house revealed in trench 2 relates to this period.

London was attacked by the world’s first ballistic missile, the V-2 rocket (in German Vergeltungswaffe 2 which means Vengeance weapon 2) in 1944. The devastation from the 13 tonne rocket, which impacted at over 3000 miles an hour without warning, was catastrophic. There was no warning because it travelled faster than the speed of sound. Survivors only heard the sonic boom after the blast. At 10am on St Valentine’s Day 1945 our site at Burgess Park was hit by a V2 bomb. The area had been targeted because of the industry located here and the canal which was used by German bombers as a landmark leading to the city of London.

Our dig has provided evidence of the evolution of the area now occupied by Burgess Park which was created from the bomb site. The dig has shown that at the time the houses were destroyed by the bomb, both the mid- and late-Victorian houses, as represented by the archaeological remains in trenches 1 and 2, were occupied by people working in the local factories.

 Today Burgess Park is a green and peaceful park enjoyed by the local community who now have a window to the past through the findings from this dig. It was very enjoyable to meet local residents who came down to look at the dig and tell us their stories of the past including the photographs they brought with them. A whole new generation of the local community was also represented by the school children who came to help, some of whom want to become archaeologists.

Sylvia and Jo

After a day’s break from blogging, find out what happened on Day 9 of the dig below!

We began the day doing section drawings of trench two. This involved drawing the stratigraphic layers of a 2.5 metre section, and then the difficult task of creating a Harris Matrix of the section. This went well until it began to rain! Later in the day, we learned about environmental sampling, and how it can reveal even the tiniest of archaeological clues about diet and status. We then carried on digging in trench one, with an aim to reveal the boundaries of the construction cut and the walls of a Victorian coal basement. This continued until lunch time, at which point we travelled to the London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre (LAARC) which involved eating our lunch on the bus! We were given a very in-depth tour of the LAARC, viewing archaeological remains ranging from medieval human hair to Roman footwear. Afterwards, we viewed the Museum’s incredibly large and amazing Ceramics and Glass collection, including Samian ware and large marble busts.  We then headed back into the archive where we viewed the rather outdated packaging materials used to store finds in the 1970s, and the questionable labelling of some of these finds. We finished the day repackaging finds in order to create a more up-to date and effective archive.

Wendy and Russell

Day Two and more digging and more dust! We began the day with a quick introduction to what we would be doing in the morning which was unsurprisingly more digging.

During the dig we stumbled across some Roman pottery, an unusual and interesting find for this dig. Later on we found the bottom of a teacup, slowly followed by a side of it.

After the morning’s dig we proceeded with a spot of levelling, made interesting with a competition of accuracy (and of course Tom’s amazing drawing skills). We learnt the importance of levelling, as it helps form a 3D image of the site using GPS for surveying, and also for locating different phases of archaeology.

We ended the day with a talk on pottery from pottery specialist Roy Stephenson (Head of the Museum’s Department of Archaeological Collections and Archive). During this talk we learnt of the importance of pottery with regards to dating. We learnt how dates would be identified through pottery fabric, formation and decoration. After this we finished the day with a little more digging!! The highlight of the day was definitely the finds we excavated from the trench.

Christie, Jasmine, Mathilde and Nathaniel

To begin our day, we had an introduction into the project, discussing the various techniques and tools we needed to use throughout the week, along with the local history of the area.

After the introduction we separated into two groups to continue digging in the existing trenches that had been excavated prior to us arriving. Our task was to continue excavating and documenting finds, these included objects such as fragments of pottery, clay pipes and various pieces of metal and china. Another task which we all conducted was to plan the excavated area onto permatrace paper to show the layout of the sites.  

During the course of the day we were lucky enough to meet a local resident, who grew up in the area, called Elvera “Babs” Lawrence. She enjoyed telling us tales of life growing up with her family during war time and the post-war era. She brought along with her a photograph of her grandfather, Alexander Joseph Douraf, and his shop on the corner of Trafalgar Avenue.

It was enjoyable to talk to the local residents in the area who were taking an interest in the project. This added to an exciting and educational first day for us at the dig.  

Katherine & James

Today we spent the morning digging on site then visited the LAARC (London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre) in the afternoon.

We had a whistle-stop tour of the archive where thousands of finds are stored in labelled bags, which are packed into carefully labelled boxes and stored on metal roller shelf units. In the metals store, metal finds are mostly stored in plastic containers with packing and silica gel to prevent dampness. Many of the metal finds recovered from archaeological sites are in a poor state, and so they are x-rayed to show up the features unseen by the human eye. Some metal finds are also treated by archaeological conservators.  All the storage areas in the LAARC are temperature and humidity controlled environments in order to protect the finds and records.

After our tour of the archive, we received an explanation of how artefacts are cleaned, and then we had the chance to work hands-on with Roman ceramics, repacking them to the LAARC’s high quality standard.  Finds repacking is being undertaken at the LAARC as part of the Volunteer Inclusion Programme, and also by the LAARC’s long-term volunteers.

Doug

Note: this is the last blog from the first week of the training dig – more blogs will follow for the second week, when a new group of students starts digging!

The morning of Day 3 was spent in trench 2 completing the context recording sheets, using the deposit that we had identified.  We learnt to provide factual information about the context, but also to discuss our own interpretation of the deposit.  We also completed a masonry recording sheet, in which we described the coal cellar in Trench 1.

After lunch one of our supervisors, Jamie, gave us a talk on environmental archaeology, where we had the opportunity to look at some bones and seeds found through sampling on various archaeological sites.

We then were taught the importance of levelling, and were given a demonstration of the equipment used (dumpy level and levelling staff).  We split into smaller groups and were shown how to use the equipment under instruction from Tom, another of our supervisors.

Unfortunately the weather wasn’t on our side during the afternoon, but this did not diminish our enthusiasm.

By Keara and Sam