The working life of Museum of London

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

As a very amateur archaeologist who volunteers on National Trust Working Archaeology Holidays, imagine how excited I was when I found out the Museum of London was having a community dig in my neighbourhood, only a 10 minute walk from my home! I hastened to ask if they wouldn’t mind having a volunteer from Museum staff join the dig. Jackie, Kate and Meriel were very sweet and agreed I could come along and get my hands dirty. “I’ll bring my own trowel and gloves” I promised, hoping to ingratiate myself.

Sadly, I was only able to join the dig for 2 hours on Saturday morning, but it was a fun (if very hot and dusty) two hours. I arrived shortly after 9am, an hour before the Camden Young Archaeologists members; and Francis Grew and Kate put me right to work in a back corner of Trench 2. I am the person on the far left of one of the photos in the blog for Day 12 at Burgess Park below, which shows us all working in a neat little square.

There’s nothing quite as fun as revealing what once was a house, even if most of it is a post-bomb site pile of rubble (although I understand that the bomb didn’t actually hit the house outright) and I was very pleased to excavate a section of ceramic pipe, a Bakelite light switch with some wire still attached and a bit of glazed tile, along with a bit of what I thought might be fused glass from the heat of the explosion (but that is an un-educated guess!).  I left the glass in situ with the pipe, although perhaps the enthusiastic young archaeologist after me may have added them to a finds tray later on!

It was really fun to be on the field side of things (in contrast to the field notes side of things that records managers/archivists like me are used to) for a change and big thanks are due to the archaeology team who agreed I could come along.

Sarah Demb, Museum of London

‘Is this supposed to make us like archaeology?’ One girl from the Harrow Young Archaeologists Club evidently had her doubts, as she began trowelling away demolition rubble during the baking heat of Saturday afternoon. Yet half an hour later she was had become so absorbed in her task that the leaders had the utmost difficulty prising her out of the trench!

Everyone feels that the dig is reaching a critical phase. Whereas the front wall and coal cellar of the house on Trafalgar Avenue are clear to see, the back half of the site stubbornly refuses to reveal its secrets. Was the bomb damage much greater here than previously believed? Was the building totally destroyed, right down to its foundations? For the moment at least, we are just trowelling through layers of rubble.

With temperatures in the 30s, Saturday was a day for finds’ washing. Neither the Harrow diggers nor the Camden Young Archaeologists, who worked on site in the morning, minded swapping their trowels for a washing-up bowl of muddy water. And all the time we continue to find evidence for what the house looked like before it was destroyed by that V2 rocket. A fine red marble moulding, perhaps from a fireplace, came to light today. And we know that the cornice, the ceiling and perhaps the door frames were finished with highly decorated plasterwork in ‘Wedgwood’ blue.

Francis Grew, London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre Manager

The final Friday of our 2010 community dig was in fact only a half day. In the afternoon volunteers from the London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre’s volunteer programme (VIP: “Volunteer Inclusion Project”) joined us to have a change from packing objects in the stores to finding things on site.

As per usual, we started with an introduction to the area, looking at old maps and comparing them to the surviving built environment around us. Then it was into the trench to carefully scrap away at the layers of earth that hold Burgess Park’s history within. We find that 30 minutes in the trench is just about right before people start to get too hot, so we swap them over to the finds washing which takes place under the cool shade of the horse chestnut tree.

Volunteers play a huge part in the running of the Museum, especially within the Museum’s Department of Archaeological Collections and Archive. Over the two weeks of this dig 15 people have volunteered their time to help out with the supervision of the schoolchildren, both within the trench and at the finds washing tables. Our volunteers have included current students of archaeology, current Museum volunteers, work experience students and unemployed people looking for some extra skills to add to their CVs. We’ve also had volunteers from a range of backgrounds join us including France, Spain & Japan, each sharing knowledge of archaeological practices from their home country and picking up tips from our methods of community engagement.

 Many thanks to all the volunteers who have played a big part in this year’s community dig.

Adam Corsini, Museum of London