The working life of 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