The working life of Museum of London

Today the Rotherhithe branch of the Young Archaeologists’ Club visited in the morning, and the Central London branch visited in the afternoon. All the members were very interested in the local history, and of course the digging and cleaning activities! More evidence of The Victory, a pub on the corner of Trafalgar Avenue and Waite Street emerged from the trench including pottery, glass bottles and an interesting soda water siphon.

Due to the lack of weekday rush hour traffic I arrived earlier than usual which allowed me some time to familiarise myself with the park and buildings along Old Kent Road before the first group arrived. Having passed the unassuming art gallery on the corner of Old Kent Road and Albany Road every day this week it was only upon closer inspection that I noticed a blue plaque tucked away in a disused doorway. This blue plaque had been voted for by the local residents and installed by Southwark council.

After hearing visitors’ stories of how the area has changed in the last fifty years I decided to conduct some research into this building.

The building used to be called the Thomas A Beckett public house and above the pub was a gymnasium that was used by Sugar Ray Leonard, Joe Frazier and Mohammed Ali amongst others when visiting London, but most famously by Henry Cooper, the British, European and Commonwealth boxing champion from 1954 – 68. The blue plaque commemorates Henry Cooper.

Further research about the building revealed that in medieval London the Archbishop of Canterbury’s authority ended at a stream and pond on the junction with Shornecliff Road called St Thomas–a-Waterings. The area was used for executions. The pub was originally named after this area.

The martyr Thomas  A Beckett (born 1118 – died 29 December 1170), gave a sermon at the Augustinian St Mary’s Priory in Southwark on 23 December 1170 which was seen as his last public act of defiance before his assassination. A pilgrimage developed following his death between Southwark and his shrine at Canterbury. St Thomas-a-Waterings became a resting place on this pilgrimage route and is referred to in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.

An incident in 1888 caused public alarm when ‘a shiny black bag’ was left in the building containing “a very sharp dagger, a clasp knife, two pairs of very long and very curious looking scissors and two preservers”.  At the time the Whitechapel murders were ongoing and unsolved and the discovery of the bag led to the arrest of a suspect however it was not Jack the Ripper. The murders remain unsolved to this day.

The last notable historical connection I discovered was that after the gym above the pub closed, the rooms were used by David Bowie in the early 1970s as an audition and practice area for his band which later released the album Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. Please have a look at the building next time you pass it, and if you have any information about the buildings on Trafalgar Avenue or the surrounding streets please come to the excavation and tell us your memories

The first week has been a great success and all the different groups have had a hands-on experience of archaeology. I hope that next week will be as successful and that the sunshine continues.

Dan Nesbitt, Museum of London

See our Flickr photostream for more photos from Day 6 at Burgess Park