The working life of Museum of London

Cooking Pots, Bones, Milk (Street) & Eggs?

A culinary delight of ingredients provided the setting for week 7’s recipe of fun.

On the general finds side of the project, two sites were improved this week; Monday & Friday’s teams ploughed on through the material from St John Cass School, (CASS72), admiring the numerous amounts of pottery and steadily reducing the number of boxes these pots are stored in, by effective repacking and ordering. Wednesday’s groups tackled animal bone from the Triangle site (TR74), the final type of material they’ll be getting their hands on as next week it’s over to the Museum of London for them as they start to put together the photos they’ve been taking throughout to produce their video diaries.

Over with Registered finds, we started a new site, Milk Street (MLk76) which produced our first object of the week – a saxon bone comb which used to be on display in the old medieval gallery. A few bits of leather remaining from last week was also completed and Friday’s team completed all the glass, wood and started a box of pigment samples which produced our second object of the week – an oyster shell paint palette.

This week’s workshop was something quite different to the usual ones as we welcomed archaeological conservator, Luisa Duarte to LAARC to guide us through “Eggscavation”. Quite possibly my favourite workshop so far, Eggscavation, is all about how conservators lift delicate artefacts on site and a great practical way of learning the techniques behind it.

On entering our common room, volunteers were confronted with a seed tray full of compost, with an egg buried in the centre. Not knowing whether the egg was whole, hard boiled or indeed covering something else, the task was to careful lift the object, before carefully excavating it further.

Wrapping the visible shell with wet tissue first, then ten created a barrier to surround the egg, using laminated card. Once fenced in, volunteers mixed some plaster of paris and poured this into the fenced off space, covering the tissued egg.

Whilst waiting for the plaster to set, Luisa showed us some brilliant pieces of leather and wood and explained the process of freeze drying in relation to these organic finds.

Then it was back to the egg, the next stage being to put a fish slice beneath the barrier of card and flipping the whole thing over, plaster side down. Finally, with a small stick and brushes, they removed the remaining soil, until the egg and the contents inside were exposed.

I’m pleased to report that not one egg cracked!

To view more photos from the week, visit our Flickr site by clicking here: Flickr

To find out more about the excavations we’re currently working on or any other associated information click on the highlighted links in the text.

Welcome back…

Work continues a pace as we approach the final three weeks of the excavation period,  So do our minutes hasten… (Sonnet 60).

Last week we welcomed a new member to the team, Dave Saxby, whose insights and vast experience will be invaluable to our understanding of the site.

Of nuns and beer – a brief history from the holy to the profane…

Up until the mid 12^th century, the area of the site here would have been just fields.  Previous archaeological excavations in the area immediately surrounding The Theatre have found no substantial evidence for Pre-historic, Roman and Saxon occupation.

This all changed in the 1150s with the founding of the St John the Baptist Priory.  Our colleague, Hana Lewis excavated the Priory Church as a part of the nearby East London Line excavations in 2007.  An article about that dig appeared in the latest issue of London Archaeologist (the periodical covering history, heritage and archaeology in London, follow this link for more information: http://www.londonarchaeologist.org.uk/). 

In its four hundred year history the Priory was the ninth richest in Britain and held sizable tracts of land and like other religious establishments of its type, it was mostly self sufficient.  Britain’s Priories were usually equipped with barns for storing crops raised on their lands, mills to grind the corn, cellars, dairies orchards and sometime vineyards.  Our site lies entirely within the precinct walls of Holywell Priory and directly over some of the buildings west of the main complex that would have provided the nuns with their daily bread and beer. 

Map of Holywell Priory

On this map of the Priory, created in the nineteenth century from historical records, the buildings that would have occupied our site are listed as a bake house and a brew house on the left (west) side of the Great Court and above (north) of the pond.

Bread has always been a staple and before modern piped water infrastructure, drinking beer was safer than drinking water (the brewing process effectively sterilises the drink), this was especially true in built up environments like the rapidly expanding Tudor London, where ground water and wells could easily become contaminated.  The beer in question wasn’t always the strongest of ales as we may know them today.  More frequently consumed was small beer, which was weaker and made from a second fermentation of malt that had already produced the more intoxicating first brew.

When the Priory was dissolved in 1539, its lands and remaining buildings were split up and sold and by 1576 the area including our site was in the possession of one Giles Allen who sold a 21 year lease to James Burbage and his business partner and brother in law John Brayne to build and operate The Theatre.  As Burbage (and more of him anon) appears to have been a canny business man, he would clearly have seen the advantage of some on site catering to extract a few more pennies from his punters.  The later Bankside theatres such as The Globe and The Rose were known to have dedicated tap houses for their catering needs and just as The Theatre served as the prototype for the playhouses it is not inconceivable that our brew house served as a pragmatic re-use of an existing build for the prototype tap house.

Would I were in an alehouse in London!  I would give all my fame for a pot of ale… (Henry V. III. i. 13)

Black glazed red ware pottery

Historically we know that the brew house and bake house complex survived the dissolution and were rented out at least in part as tenements, but it is also likely that they continued their original purpose.  We have evidence, in the form of black glazed red ware pottery, in a form that is traditionally associated with brewing and beer drinking.  This pottery is contemporary with The Theatre, likewise the pottery fragment with the bearded gentleman design mentioned in our first blog posting; he was found crushed into the theatre yard – home to the groundlings!  What would be more natural than to share a pint or two with ones friends when one comes to see a show. 

Photograph of brew house wall

We have now found the back wall of the medieval brew house building and on initial inspection it seems we now have hard evidence for its survival through the dissolution.  It seems that the later Tudor builders were not averse to a little recycling as demonstrated by the discovery of a remnant of an inserted stone floor made of a green sandstone called Reigate stone.  This was probably taken from one of the Priory buildings as they were being demolished. 

Dave Saxby cleaning the re-used stone floor

The photo of Dave shows him cleaning this re-used stone floor; the stone just below his left knee has a rounded moulding carved around its edge and an oval groove cut into one side.  These carved elements indicate that the stone was formerly used as a decorative architectural feature, probably the top of a small column or pair of columns.  The find resembles some of those found by Hana in the Holywell Priory church. 

Hana visits our site to see the Priory stonework

We are currently analysing the finds from this area and hope to update you as soon as we know if they back up our current ideas, or whether we will have to form an alternative hypothesis.  In this game you are only as good as your last hypothesis and if the evidence doesn’t support it, you have to re-don the thinking cap, formulate another and rigorously test it against new data.

O! there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly…(Hamlet III. ii. 1)

As a part of the Tower Theatre Company’s fund raising campaign (http://www.thetheatre.org.uk/index.htm), last week the actors Paul McGann and Susannah Harker performed scenes from Midsummer Night Dream and Romeo and Juliet upon the very ground where four hundred years ago, the same words were enacted before an equally rapt audience.  

Suzannah Harker and Paul McGann on site

From historical records we know that Romeo and Juliet was premiered here at The Theatre and with James Burbage’s son Richard in the lead role.

There seems to be more than just a little serendipity surrounding this place and as archaeologists we feel a sense of privilege to be a part of this project that completes the circle from stage to stage.

Next time…

• Some of the characters who once populated this space
• Echoes in the landscape
• Exciting new developments, the latest finds and their implications

Links:

London Archaeologist: http://www.londonarchaeologist.org.uk/

Tower Theatre Company: http://www.towertheatre.org.uk/

Tower Theatre Company, the new theatre: http://www.thetheatre.org.uk/index.htm

Footage of the 2009 evaluation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=savcpQFVu8w

MOTCO UK directory and image database, antique maps, prints and books: http://www.motco.com/default-Markou.asp

Museum of London: http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/english

Museum of London Archaeology: http://www.museumoflondonarchaeology.org.uk/English/

Ben Crystal: http://www.shakespeareontoast.com/

Before I write about our Gertie Millar photo album, I thought I should introduce her. Not that she needs much introduction. There is a lot of information on the internet (216!!! images on Flickr alone), so I will try to stick to the basics.

Gertrude was born in Bradford on 21 February 1879, the third daughter of Elizabeth Miller [sic], a worsted-stuff worker and dressmaker. Gertie later claimed that her father was a wool merchant called John Millar, but he was not listed on her birth certificate (ODNB). According to Gertie’s obituary in The Times (26 April 1952):

‘Gossip in her heyday said that she had been a mill-hand and worn the clogs; but the records state that in December 1892, at the age of 13, she was the female Babe in the pantomime The Babes in the Wood at the St James’s Theatre, Manchester, that in December 1899, she was Dandini in Cinderella at the Grand Theatre, Fulham and that during the intervening years she was appearing in pantomime and comedy in provincial towns.’

Gertie could not have found a better time to arrive in the capital. With the first performance of In Town on 15 October 1892 at the Prince of Wales Theatre, a new type of entertainment had been introduced to England, which perfectly suited Gertie’s talents: musical comedy. In Town had been produced by George Edwardes (1855-1915), aptly named to dominate the London theatre world during the Edwardian age. Since 1886, Edwardes had been running his own theatre, The Gaiety on Aldwych, and he opened a second, Daly’s Theatre off Leicester Square, in 1893.

Edwardes next musical comedy, A Gaiety Girl (1893) was so successful that, for a while at least, he stuck to this winning formula with The Shop Girl (1894), The Circus Girl (1896) and A Runaway Girl (1898). Gertie’s appearance as Dandini coincided with Edwardes’ switch to boys, title-wise, and she was engaged to tour in the role of Isabel Blyth in The Messenger Boy in 1900. Music had been provided by Ivan Caryll and Lionel Monckton, the latter a lawyer turned critic and songwriter. Monckton took a shine to Gertie and made sure she was cast as the bridesmaid Cora in his next collaboration with Caryll. The Torreador opened at The Gaiety on 17 June 1901 and ran for a staggering 675 performances.

Gertie did not have the lead role, but apparently brought the house down when, together with a chorus of bridesmaids, she sang: ‘Keep off the grass, / Keep off the grass, / Conduct like this I won’t pardon. / Play at your ease, but if you please, / Keep off the grass in the garden!’. Soon Monckton added another song for her: ‘For I’m not a simple little girl, / I’m not a goody-goody girl, / I know exactly what is what , / I know what’s right but I prefer what’s not’. Monckton seems to have expressed his own feelings for Gertie in a second addition, a duet with Dora, ‘A Ward in Chancery’ (i.e. a minor in the care of the court), extolling the virtues of ‘Captivating Cora’. By 20 December 1902, Monckton and the 28-years younger Gertie were married. (By the way, if you want to read these fascinating lyrics in their entirety and sing along, karaoke-style, have a look here.)

As you can guess from the above, musical comedies were not exactly highbrow but they had beautiful scenery, even more beautiful costumes and … girls, lots of them. It is may not suprise that King Edward, with Queen Alexandra, was in the audience when the re-built Gaiety opened in 1903 with The Orchid, another Caryll/Monckton collaboration, this time with Gertie in the lead as The Hon. Violet Anstruther, Principal Pupil at the Horticultural College (don’t ask).

The review of The Orchid in The Times (27 October 1903) gives a good idea of what an evening at The Gaiety was all about. The article starts with a list of characteristics a critic would expect from a ’serious’ play: it had to be witty, poetical, comment on life, illuminate politics, provide social critique and rational amusements (among a few other things). The writer then imagines the response of The Gaiety:

‘I don’t want to make you think about yourselves or any one else; I want to make you forget to think; when you come to see me, do, if you can, be merely frivolous and forget your worries. I am inconsequent, irresponsible, irrelevant; I know it, but just see what a lot of pretty girls I’ve got; I can’t teach you anything, but look at these gorgeous dresses – the programme will tell you how many different people have been employed in the making of them; I can’t get nearer to throwing light on our national life than the caricature of a living politician, but I can tickle your ears very pleasantly for an hour or two if only you will let me.’

The audience went to The Gaiety and Daly’s to have a good time, to look at the girls and to check out the frocks. Like the Gibson Girl in America, the Gaiety Girl became a fashion icon and Gertie Millar was probably the most famous of them all. She made a big impression on the young Noël Coward who remembered in 1966 (The Times, 26 July) that the star was well groomed on and off the stage:

‘I remember Gertie Millar who was always beautifully dressed and emerged after a show in a flurry of scent and flowers. It left a tremendous impression. As a small boy I used to wait for hours to see her and once she gave me a red rose from her bouquet which I kept for years pressed in a … volume of Chums. (Chums was a boys’ magazine published between 1892 and 1942.)

I don’t know when a photo of Gertie first appeared on a postcard. Some actresses were said to spend more time in the photographer’s studio than on the stage and judging from the number of postcards that have survived, Gertie’s seem to have been very popular. We only have two in our collection, the one at the top of this blog is from around 1906, the one below shows Gertie as ‘Mitzi’ in The Girls of Gottenberg from 1907 (Edwardes obviously wanted another stab at his Girl comedy successes).  The photographs in our album are different and only a few ever appeared on postcards, as far as I can tell.  You will finally see them next week when we pick up the story in 1909 with Gertie’s probably most successful performance, as Mary in Our Miss Gibbs.

PS: I should mention, the description of Gertie I used for the title is from A.E. (Albert Edward) Wilson’s Edwardian Theatre (first published in 1951):

‘Hers was not perhaps the conventional standard of beauty but there was a real charm in the saucy tilt of her nose, in the buoyancy with which she took the stage, and the air of joyous delight and good nature with which she entered into the fun and frolic of the business.’

PPS: After reading my last blog one of my colleagues pointed out this article about the return of Pierrots. There must be something in the air.

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

Today’s blog entry was compiled by Jill and Marianne, two of our trainee archaeologists:

“Trench 2 has been cleared to a fairly level surface making it easier to identify the different areas of soil and debris. Following on from a talk on planning, we divided the trench into sections and split into groups to have a stab at plotting by grid these different areas.

In Trench 1 we have had a first taste of using a mattock, or pick axe, to break up large lumps of debris (mainly bricks)…

…We found several metal curves which we guessed could have been drawer handles and parts of a chimney pot.

Also today, Roy Stephenson, Head of the Department of Archaeological Collections and Archive at the Museum of London, came to speak to us about pottery and ways of dating finds.

He was able to identify, from our finds, pottery from Roman and Tudor times and Midlands Purpleware, Tudor Greenware and a small piece of black basalt ware made by Wedgewood.

The training excavation in Burgess Park has started.

This is a five day course for adults to learn the basics techniques of field archaeology in an urban environment.

We are continuing on the site following on from our community excavation work with schools and other groups.

Two of our new recruits, Becky and Katie,  took time out from excavating to share their initial thoughts and discoveries:

” Today is our first ever day as trainee archaeologists. About 14 of us are here from different backgrounds – old and young, supple and not so supple!  we are excavating footprints of Victorian terraced houses, many of which were bombed irreparably during the war and subsequently flattened and cleared before becoming a park.

First off we learnt trowelling to clear debris in order to reveal soil/brick features, discovering small finds as we go.

It is thrilling  to identify an intricate design on a piece of pottery, tile or clay pipe, but less attractive items must also be collected such as random metal pieces and glass.

There is an enormous variety of material…

…brick, plaster from architectural features, coal, slate, flint (all discarded unless unusual) and then clay pipes, pottery , glass etc…oh, and losts of dust!

Will be learning this afternoon how to record the finds on context sheets and seeing what everyone elsehas found and what we can learn.”

There’s many a slip twixt cup and lip…

This beautiful item was found in a trench placed just outside of The Theatre, and once again, our pottery expert Jacqui Pearce has been able to throw some light upon it:

The goblet is more properly called a beaker (the more ordinary connotations of this term are better suited to it as well). It is made in Surrey-Hampshire border ware, probably in the mid 16th century (could go into later 16th, but not much beyond). It could well have been made at Farnborough, the late 16th century hub of the industry. The form was often used alongside small drinking jugs and loads have been found at the Inns of Court, where they were bought in bulk. It marks the large scale transition from drinking from wooden bowls to using ceramic vessels, which took place in the 15th and 16th centuries.

The beaker would have been used to drink wine or sack, which is a Tudor type of sherry, a fortified wine and it is not inconceivable to speculate that it may have a close association with The Theatre. 

So why do archaeologists love pottery so much?

Pottery is one of the most useful things an archaeologist can find.  Pottery designs, styles, types of material, developments in ceramic and kiln technologies change with time.  Also, specific types and styles of pottery can be associated with specific groups of people and activities.  Perhaps most importantly, even if it is not complete, pottery sherds are almost indestructible and therefore can survive for long periods of time, buried in the earth to be discovered by archaeologists and shed light onto the past. 

An archaeologist called Flinders Petrie (most famous for his digs in Egypt and the near east and often regarded as the father of modern systematic archaeology) was the first to developed ceramic typologiesin the nineteenth century.  For these typologies, he grouped his excavated pottery by style and type and produced a sort of evolutionary chart showing how the pottery had developed through time (for more information on Petrie, follow this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flinders_Petrie).  He was then able to use these typologies to create a relative chronology for the pottery and therefore his sites to help to date them in the absence of any historical information and modern absolute dating techniques (methods like Radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology that you may be familiar with from Time Team).

Today, we have the benefit of a great deal of historical and other research which, when combined with absolute dating techniques, has produced very good dating frameworks for understanding a site from its pottery.  Experienced pottery specialists, like Jacqui Pearce can often tell at a glance what a piece of pot may have been used for and what period it dates from.

So what does the beaker tell us?  On its own, a single item of evidence usually cannot tell us much.  We have to look at all the finds as a whole (we call that whole an assemblage), to truly get the best information.  However, this particular beaker does, tantalisingly, offer us some information.  It is a relatively high status item which appears to put it a little out of place for this location.  Shoreditch has traditionally been known as a poor area as suggested in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons, where the bells of Shoreditch say when I am rich, more in hope than expectation.

The presence of such a high status item in this location, which nay date from the time of The Theatre poses a number of interesting if speculative questions:

• Was this the beaker of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Burbage or one of their friends or associates?  Perhaps it was used to toast a successful production?  “I am known to be… one that loves a cup of hot wine…” (Coriolanus. II. i [52])
• Was it discarded by a rich theatre goer?  “We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart” (Hamlet. I. ii [175])
• Was it a prop used in one or more the plays?

The answer may never be known to us, but this artefact has the potential to link us directly to Shakespeare and his contemporaries through the simple act of taking a drink and it has been waiting, patiently in the ground, waiting for us for over 400 years.

This beaker will now be examined more closely, restored and eventually put on display.

Archaeology in action:

We have some exciting news from the Museum of London: from the end of the week (17th July), a new exhibition area will be opening entitled Archaeology in Action.  These displays will showcase excavations in London as they are happening and items and information from this site will be among the first to be shown.  Entrance to the Museum of London is free and for details of how to get there, follow this link: http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/VisitUs/.

Building the new theatre:

Our evaluation work and the revelation of actual remains of the Shakespearian theatre on this site was greeted with enthusiasm by the Tower Theatre Company, but the discovery also presented them with a design challenge.  How could they build their new theatre without damaging the old?

The project architect and engineers had to produce a layout that both avoided and incorporated The Theatre (for more information on the planned new theatre, follow this link: http://www.thetheatre.org.uk/theatre.htm).  The supporting foundations, pile, drains and cabling have to be placed safely away from The Theatre and their proposed locations have to be thoroughly excavated to ensure no archaeological information is lost. 

(copyright Bland, Brown and Cole)

This plan shows where The Theatre remains are in relation to the new stage.

Can you dig it?  Yes we can….

This last week’s work has been excavating the approved trenches where the piles and other foundations will go and with these trenches, we open little windows onto the past.

We are hoping to find more of the structure of The Theatre, in particular, more of the outer wall.  So far we have discovered a brick pad that may be the remains of one of the external wall, foundation piers that would have supported one of the oak upright posts that formed this outer wall.

Finding more of the outer wall will enable us to more accurately determine the full size of The Theatre which we currently estimate to be about 22 metres across.

To give an idea of what The Theatre may have looked like, you can visit the famous reconstruction of The Globeon the Southbank of the Thames, which is a little larger than The Theatre, or you could try building one yourself.  Follow this link and print off a paper do-it-yourself model of The Globe http://papertoys.com/images/globe-color.pdf, we have one in pride of place in our site hut.

One for the record – professional photography on site:

Last Thursday another important member of our team visited the site, our professional photographer Maggie Cox.  Maggie’s job is to take the high quality publication and archive photographs needed for our reports and for the archive.  These photographs together with our written and drawn paperwork help to build a complete picture of our work on the site, ensuring that no detail is overlooked.  We call this preservation by record. 

Maggie Cox recording archaeological features

To prepare for Maggie, we had to thoroughly clean the areas she was to photograph.  We used a rather unusual piece of equipment for an archaeological site – a vacuum cleaner! 

The dry and dusty nature of conditions on site at the moment means that vacuuming is the best way to reveal the detail needed for the photographs. 

In the original Shakespearean:

The actor and Shakespearian writer, Ben Crystal visited the site last Thursday.  One of his aims is to de-mystify Shakespeare and his works to make them more accessible and enjoyable.  Together with his father he has also researched what Shakespeare may have actually sounded like: the accent of Shakespeare and to demonstrate he recited Sonnet 116: 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Ben Crystal reciting Shakespeare's Sonnet 116

It was certainly very different to the received pronunciation of much modern acting and we hope to be able to post a recording of this performance soon.  This was Ben’s second visit to The Theatre and hopefully not the last (follow this link to Ben’s website to find out more: http://www.shakespeareontoast.com/). 

The power of the pen and the power of place

For writers of the time of Shakespeare and Marlowe, the tool of choice was the quill pen, and with their words they oft laid bare the frailties of the human condition.  The power of their words has left an indelible imprint on our language and in our culture.  Their stories still resonate today and have infiltrated many layers of our society.

Our slightly battered 1980 edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations has 39 pages for the Bible, but a staggering 75 pages for Shakespeare, eight for Hamlet alone!  Poor Kit Marlowe gets but two pages, but more of him anon. 

Within The Theatre, these words were enacted and brought to life for the entertainment of the masses.  Because we can now stand in the very place where this first happened this archaeological site is an evocative place and still holds some of the power of those words.

As archaeologists, our tool of choice is the 41/2” pointing trowel.  Our work here will continue to contribute to the sum of our understanding of this place and of the bard, his contemporaries, his times and all the others who have passed through this place; with each scrape of the trowel we come nearer to them and through them, to ourselves.

When the new theatre is opened it is hoped that the remains of the old will be on display, and as the modern actors cross the stage, they will walk with the shades of their predecessors, time travelling from the present to the 16th century and back, “It is an honest ghost, let me tell you” (Hamlet. I. v [138]).

Coming up soon:

• Legal disputes (‘twas it ever thus): battles with brooms, stick and bills, of pistols and hemp seed
• Exciting developments at the Museum of London – “Archaeology in action”
• Exciting event on The stage: press launch and thespians
• Get thee to a nunnery: a little more of the Priory
• Of beer and pies – the brew house bake house – the eternal importance of beer and pies
• Shakespeare beyond this world
• Of earthquakes, clowns and star crossed lovers

Links:

Tower Theatre Company: http://www.towertheatre.org.uk/

Tower Theatre Company’s new theatre and The Theatre: http://www.thetheatre.org.uk/index.htm

Footage of the 2009 evaluation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=savcpQFVu8w

MOTCO UK directory and image database, antique maps, prints and books:

http://www.motco.com/default-Markou.asp

Museum of London: http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/english

Museum of London Archaeology: http://www.museumoflondonarchaeology.org.uk/English/

Ben Crystal: http://www.shakespeareontoast.com/

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

If you are aged 14 – 24 (or know anyone who is) and have a way with words, we’ve got the perfect competition for you. In addition there are some great prizes including a digital e-book reader and vouchers to get you motivated.

More about the competition and how to enter…

If you have read any of our previous posts about the Stories of the World project you’ll know we are doing lots of creative work with young people to explore the theme of place. We are focussing on the legacy and influence of the Romans. One of these projects, Speak to Me, looks specifically at language – from exploring how Latin contributed to the development of Roman London, to Latin’s influence on language today.

The poetry brief is: ‘Latin isn’t dead. Prove it by writing a poem inspired by a Latin word or phrase.’

All entries must be original and unpublished. Please send your poem to my colleague Lucy Sawyer, Youth Programme Assistant, lsawyer@museumoflondon.org.uk. Please include your name, age and full contact details with your entry. One poem per entrant, maximum 400 words.

The closing date is 25 August. Entry is free.

Junction, our youth panel, is hosting a Gladiatorial poetry slam Tuesday 28 September 6.30 – 8.30pm here at the Museum. Winners of this poetry competition will be announced at this event (although they will be contacted in advance), and read out either by the entrant or our compere, Jacob Sam La Rose. In addition the evening will include performances by up and coming young London slam poets. The event is free and open to all.

‘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