In the run up to our Pleasure Garden Ball event at the Museum of London on Tuesday 14 February, we’ve put together a quick blog post that should tell you everything you need to know about the pleasure garden!

As London became more built up in the 17th and 18th centuries, Londoners began to need open spaces to relax in. Pleasure gardens were built at the edge of the city and were privately run. The most famous were the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.

Vauxhall, 1785 by Thomas Rowlandson

Pleasure gardens competed for visitors, vying with each other to offer evermore exciting entertainments. Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens offered a wide variety of entertainment, including lion-tamers, trampoline clowns, fortune tellers, ventriloquists, monkeys, dogs, jugglers, horses who danced to a waltz and fire walkers.

Tournaire's Equestrians, Vauxhall Gardens, 1846

Costumes from the Museum of London’s pleasure gardens

The Museum of London’s pleasure gardens

As this years’ intern within the applied arts section of the conservation department at the Museum of London I am very grateful to have been given the exciting opportunity of experiencing the build-up and installation of the Museum’s major new exhibition – Dickens and London.

In the months before installation began, conservators were busy ensuring all the objects and artefacts were suited to being placed on display. Within the new exhibition objects of a range of materials are installed including shop signs from Dickensian London, documents written in Dickens’ own hand and furniture from Dickens’ house.

This required the knowledge and expertise of our whole conservation team, particularly specialists in paper, textiles and the applied arts.

Within the Applied Arts section we work to conserve many artefacts of Victorian social history; however, as an admirer of Dickens it has been incredibly rewarding being able to work on objects with a particularly close connection to the man himself – such as this chair he was often photographed in.

Dickens’ chair is on open display within the new exhibition, so work was required to stabilise and secure the aged leather upholstery, predominantly around the back rest, where the degraded material had begun to laminate and fall away.

In addition to this, surface cleaning was conducted to remove dust.

Modern ethics within the field of conservation maintain that minimal intervention should be practiced when conserving artefacts – this means altering the original material and structure as little as possible, whilst ensuring the object is sturdy enough to be displayed or stored. We also aim to make every process and alteration reversible, so our changes could be ‘undone’ if needed in the future. For Dickens’ chair this meant adhering loose leather with a removable adhesive to consolidate the fragile material.

Historic leather can suffer acidic degradation due to reactions with sulphurous pollutants in the air. Testing the pH of the leather of Dickens’ chair revealed the leather had become particularly acidic – it was therefore thought appropriate to treat the leather with an aluminium compound – a process that effectively re-tans the leather – neutralising acidity and reversing some degradation processes.

Preventive conservation is also a key role of the museum’s conservators and collection care staff. With regards to this we have been carefully monitoring light levels (particularly important where objects such as Dickens’ handwritten manuscripts are displayed!), ensuring the environment within the gallery is suitable for the collections and that the cases are dust free – the latter involving several days spent cleaning the inside and outside of display cases!

It has been brilliant to see the culmination of many people’s knowledge, ideas and skills work together to create such an exciting and enchanting exhibition.

You can hear more about the conservation work at the Museum’s next free ‘meet the expert’ event at 2pm on Wednesday 25 January.

We felt that the support that resulted in our diligently boxed PLA Archive volumes deserved to be highlighted in a post of its own.

Here, one of our volunteers, Kate, shares her thoughts on her time with us and the process of boxing up key PLA record books:

“It was a fantastic experience and very valuable as a trainee paper conservator to be able to have ‘hands-on’ experience of cleaning and repairing documents then building the archive boxes for long-term storage for an established museum.

I would measure the books and make each box to fit the book, making sure there was enough room around the edges inside the box to be able to fit fingers in to lift the text out. To stop the book sliding around plastazote can be slotted into the box.

Using archival adhesive I would fold the archival cardboard and stick at the edges together using clamps to hold everything in place while the glue was drying. The box was made in two parts, a base and a lid that fitted over the base.

Here is an image of a bespoke box ready to go back to the store! ”

Look out also for an update soon from Claire Frankland, Port & River Archivist and Project Manager, as this project reaches its first birthday.

October’s Dickens Book Club has already kicked off in my household, descending as I have into Dickens’ murky world of the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy five in A Tale of Two Cities.

Despite having studied English Literature at university my Dickens readometer is a little stunted (blame the tutors). Great Expectations (favourite all-time novel) and Oliver Twist (precious few show tunes) are the only two books I have made it to the end of. Even my dad’s fervent enthusiasm couldn’t see me to the end of The Pickwick Papers while the sheer length of Bleak House seemed overwhelming to the point of being unreadable.

But I’m ready to start anew. I’m already excited about peering through the thick mist that envelops so many of Dickens’ novels to unearth the maze of characters beneath; to find new favourite phrases from Dickens’ witticisms (the indignant ‘I’ll eat my head!’ a particular favourite from Great Expectations); and to discover the moments that will stay with me long after the book is done, just like those between Pip and Joe – what larks!

At forty six chapters long I am being pragmatic about the challenge that lays before us. My plan is to read two chapters per day for the first fifteen days of October, then one chapter per day until the end of the month. If my maths is correct this should see us glide neatly towards the final chapters in time for Halloween and November’s book, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

So I’ll be captaining our speedy ship through the 400 plus pages of Dickens’ fourteenth novel via updates on Facebook and Twitter – please do share your thoughts, comments, favourite quotes and anything else you’d like to discuss on those pages.

Finally, don’t forget you can buy your copy of A Tale of Two Cities from Foyles Bookshop and receive a discount when using the code ‘MOLBC’.

The origins of children’s television in programmes such as Andy Pandy and Bill and Ben (the flowerpot men) are, in some ways, very different but at the same time very familiar to what our children see and enjoy today.

The pioneers of this new medium in the 40s and 50s were Frida Lingstrom and Maria Bird at the BBC who developed the ‘Watch with Mother’ slot and invented the characters Andy Pandy, Bill and Ben and the Woodentops amongst others.

The Museum of London is fortunate to have many of these puppets as part of the collection.

On the Exploring 20th Century London website you will find an Audio Slideshow  alongside an opportunity to test your knowledge in a fun quiz whilst looking out for tweets and facebook posts capturing the lives of Londoners  in  the 20th Century.

Curator of Social and Working History, Jim Gledhill, discovers a hidden world under Holborn. Listen very carefully, he shall say this only once…

One of my favourite gags in the Indiana Jones franchise is the scene in The Last Crusade when Jones says to the villain clutching a stolen artefact, “This belongs in a museum!” to which the bad guy replies, “So do you!” Sadly the life of a museum curator is not quite as adventurous as that of the fictional archaeologist, but every now and again we do get out and about to visit some unusual places. As a curator responsible for an industrial collection, this usually means visiting various workplaces, current or historic, and usually above ground. Recently I was invited by colleagues at BT Archives to visit a subterranean location which is a bit more off piste.

Approximately one hundred feet (30 metres) below Holborn is one of London’s best kept historical secrets. The Kingsway Exchange, so named for the purposes of misdirection, was originally built as a deep level bomb shelter for up to 8,000 people in 1942, although never actually used as such. Upon completion the tunnels were requisitioned by MI5 and MI6 and other agencies for wartime covert operations. After the war the General Post Office took over the site and extended the complex for use as a trunk telephone exchange (an exchange that connects smaller exchanges) that would be secure in the event of a nuclear war. Dug using shovels in what must have been back-breaking work, the facility was so secret that the soil was spirited out of London for disposal so as not to arouse suspicions. Kingsway continued to be a state secret as important government and defence communications were connected through it. These included the lines to Number 10, the Cabinet Office and the Cold War hotline between the White House and the Kremlin.

The British public only became aware of the complex in the 1960s when it was removed from the secret list. British Pathé made a film in 1968 showing the exchange in operation, but without revealing its location. At its height, the exchange could deal with 6,000 calls simultaneously and handled up to two million calls a week, around 15% of London’s trunk (long distance) telephone traffic. Following the introduction of Subscriber Trunk Dialling from 1959 (where the caller could make a long distance call without the help of an operator) the exchange became less important and was closed in 1980. In the 1980s the government used part of the structure as a back up for its PINDAR nuclear bunker located beneath the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall. Since 1990 it has been used for storage only.

I visited Kingsway with staff from BT (the current owners) in order to investigate the exchange which I had recently acquired objects from for the Museum. The BT staff were drawn from different areas of the company’s vast operation (BT still owns the national telecommunications infrastructure). We entered via a non-descript door in a side street off High Holborn. After going down a flight of stairs, the visitor has to pass through a steel blast door – an unsubtle hint that admission is for authorised personnel only! Descending by lift, the visitor emerges in one of two large tunnels that make up the main structure. A series of shafts and interconnecting tunnels link up these enormous reinforced arteries. As you proceed deeper into the complex the sound of Central Line tube trains can be heard rumbling ominously above. I’m struck by what an undiscovered country London really is. There’s a goods lift down there that takes you up to a secret entrance in Chancery Lane tube station. During the Cold War even London Underground was not aware of the existence of this secret door (!).

The clandestine nature of Kingsway means that it is an entirely self-contained complex with an artesian well providing a fresh water supply and huge generators providing power. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis the facility was placed in ‘lock down’ and staff lived in it twenty four hours a day. Equipped with a canteen, bunk beds and even a bar, the complex was designed for its two hundred or so staff to maintain communications in the event of a nuclear strike. Now the disused living quarters have a ghostly feel to them that I’ve often felt visiting abandoned buildings formally so active (no wonder the producers of Dr Who have been making use of Kingsway for filming recently). When examining the rows of empty bunks and the cramped living conditions that accompanied them, one concludes that surviving a nuclear war would have been cold comfort.

I recently collected a Cheetah teleprinter which was used by BT internal security staff at Kingsway in the 1980s. I visited their former office, now empty and derelict. When collecting at former industrial sites I am often left wondering what became of the people who worked there. In the depths of Kingsway, beneath the working day world of pedestrians, cyclists and taxis, I get an even stronger sense of this. It’s difficult for historians to study the secret world – its inhabitants are usually very careful not to leave behind much evidence. Often they do not want to be found. I do know however, that someone typed away on the Cheetah’s keyboard day in day out in the depths of Kingsway and it was their job to make sure that this vast complex remained secure. It’s odd to think what a big deal that was back then when Soviet nuclear missiles were pointing at London and Ronald Reagan was in the White House.

Now even Cold War bunkers have become real estate: BT has put Kingsway up for sale on the open market. The Metropolitan Police have expressed an interest in using the huge fortified tunnels as a rifle range. Whatever becomes of the old exchange, the secret is now well and truly out.

The good news is that they have survived this winter’s cold weather. Brian (the bee man) asked me to check that the hive entrance was clear and to listen for signs of life.

I went out to look at the hive on 16 January, when the weather was especially mild. I cleared some dead bees from the hive entrance and listened for buzzing. I didn’t hear a thing!

However, the mild weather prompted some of the bees to leave the hive, so I knew they were not all dead. This was confirmed when Brian visited the museum on Friday 21 January. Brian listened to the hive and detected life (I could still hear nothing). It was too cold to open the hive, but we were able to peak in through one of the feeding holes.

Bingo, live bees!

I have been instructed to wait for the next spell of warm weather before opening the hive and checking the food stores. 

It is crucial that there is enough to feed the larvae once they begin to lay eggs, and this may happen as early as March. If they appear low, Brian has left a bag of winter bee food, it looks rather like icing sugar. In summer the bees feed on liquid and turn it into honey. In winter they cannot cope with this, so we need to give them solid food to keep them going. 
 

Brian advised me to think about recruiting deputies soon because March and April are indeed very busy months and failure to keep on top could cause the bees to swarm.

The health and safety implications are terrifying! Brian will also be getting back to me with details of an evening study session for all of The City trainee bee keepers.

I will be back to you very soon…

Britannia (our gladiator re-enactors) recently attended a training session at the Lunt in Coventry (a reconstructed wooden Roman fort). The event was captured by professional photographer Pete Webb and will feature in the June issue of the science and technology magazine, Flipside (external link).

The Lunt is a great site and has the advantage of a sand filled wooden Gyrus (circular Roman cavalry training area).

Gladiators are starting to wear the full equipment as you can see from the images. Not only that, but this was their first training on deep sand, a surface we hope to have at the Guildhall in July.

The advantage of this material is the grip underfoot and the fact that it’s easier to land without serious impact injury – however it’s very tiring to work on, and it’s easier to see why excavated gladiator skeletons have more developed ankle bones than seen on other bodies from this time period.

Catch-up on our earlier training updates by clicking on ‘Special Events’ in the ‘Categories’ option to the right of this post and look our for more news from our gladiators as the games draw closer.

Images copyright Pete Webb / Flipside Magazine.

This was to allow the Museum of London Archaeology’s Geomatics Team and Standing Buildings Team to work on the structure whilst Nimbus Conservation carried out conservation works.

The two teams of archaeologists worked together in order to produce detailed elevations of the structure showing the different types of building materials and the existing features. Documentary research into the Bastion’s history was also undertaken using the City of London’s records held at the London Metropolitan Archive.

The comparison between the archival information and the observation of the fabric will lead to the reconstruction of the history of the remains of the bastion and identification of a sequence of development phases.

There is a wealth of information on their work available on the Museum of London Archaeology website here.

Here, Jane Sidell, English Heritage’s (external link) Inspector of Ancient Monuments for London, helps us uncover what was happening underneath:

Bastion 14 has been gradually decaying since the last conservation works over a decade ago. Unfortunately, historic buildings when exposed to the elements tend to deteriorate and consequently require on-going light maintenance. Owing to its deterioration, through weathering, frost-shattering and vegetation growth, the bastion was identified as vulnerable and was placed on the English Heritage, Scheduled Monuments at Risk Register.

A plan and programme of conservation was devised following a condition survey and the work was undertaken by Nimbus Conservation.

The conservation works aimed to secure structural stability, re-point the masonry where needed, using traditional lime mortars, reversing some elements of unsympathetic repairs undertaken in the past.

The excellent work undertaken really shows much more clearly how the bastion would have functioned as a defensive feature before being gradually overwritten by later buildings such as the warehouses and workshops known in the vicinity.

The conservation programme was commissioned through the City Surveyors Department at the City of London Corporation who very generously funded the project.

The Museum of London Learning Department has teamed up with the Institute of Physics (external link) to take you on a tour of some of London’s famous and lesser known places of scientific discovery. A brand new smartphone game will guide you around the city, giving you activities and photo opportunities along the way.

Take a new view of the city and uncover the fascinating stories behind the places you wander past each day. The trail will take you around central London and will be a great way to fill a lunchtime or a summer’s day.

To enjoy the tour, you will need a smartphone, either an iPhone or Android phone with an internet connection, and the free SCVNGR (external link) app available from iTunes (external link) and the Google App Store (external link). Simply login to the app, choose treks and then search for “London Science Uncovered”.

Once you’ve completed the trail, answered the questions and snapped your photos, come along to the Museum of London. Show your phone and congratulations message to the Museum’s hosts at the entrance desk to claim your goodie bag of prizes!

We’d love to hear your feedback and suggestions too, so send us a message:

aflowers@museumoflondon.org.uk

Blog author: Alex Flowers, Project Coordinator (Digital Learning)

Researching the tour was very interesting and it was great to be able to highlight certain objects that visitors might not have thought as ‘entertaining’.

I talked about ice-skating…

…jousting, gambling with fradulent dice…

…and archery among other pastimes.

But one of the things I discovered during my research took me by surprise and I found so interesting I had to include it ( I hope no one was offended!)…

There was a type of medieval entertainer who we might describe today as a ‘flatulist’. Apparently one of the most famous was ‘Roland The Farter’, who came to the court of King Henry II at Christmas and performed, according to the records at the time, ‘one jump, one whistle and one fart’. For this he was rewarded with a manor in Suffolk!

So ready your excuses…”well it was fit to entertain a king…”!

Both companies decided the site was ideal. The Tower Theatre Company called in MoLA (Museum of London Archaeology) to conduct the necessary works to establish what lay beneath the lighting warehouse that had occupied the site since WWII. Almost immediately, the team discovered what appeared to be the corner of a polygonal structure in the western corner of the dig, the kind of structure that would indicate a Tudor theatre.

The idea of finding a Tudor theatre in Shoreditch was hugely exciting; for years archaeologists and historians had been trying to pin down the site of ‘The Theatre’, James Burbage’s purpose-built playhouse, erected on a corner of the site of the old Holywell Priory. Tudor London was incredibly densely populated, challenged only by Edo (old Tokyo) in terms of people per dwelling. The space for entertainments was limited, both physically and legally, with strict controls on where and when plays could be performed.

In 1575, the City fathers banned plays for the public within the City walls. Troupes could still perform for the wealthy within private houses, but cheap theatre for the masses had to find a new home. James Burbage was a carpenter-turned-actor, leading a group of actors under the patronage of the fabled Robin Dudley, Earl of Leicester. In 1576, disgruntled with the lack of a popular playhouse (and the revenue playing to the masses brought in), Burbage began to eye up potential sites for a theatre; Shoreditch was perfect. Just outside the City walls, Shoreditch was ideal for a walk to the theatre, and was outside the City regulations so things such as drinking and prostitution could operate unhindered by the authorities.

The Theatre was an instant success. People crowded to see the productions; Jonson, Marlowe, and Thomas Kydd’s Revengers’ Tragedy were performed regularly. Theatre-goers walked up a narrow stone path and dropped their entrance fee in to earthenware boxes which were broken open after the performance (and kept in a small, safe room which soon became known as ‘the box office’). Once inside the theatre, much like the modern Globe, the groundlings stood in the open whilst those who had paid for seats sat in tiers around the polygon. The actors, protected by a roofed stage, performed in the open.

So popular was The Theatre, others soon followed suit, with The Curtain opening only 200m to the south. At the height of The Theatre’s popularity, a new young playwright appeared: William Shakespeare. After being befriended by Burbage, Shakespeare’s work began to appear on stage at The Theatre from 1594, including the first ever showing of Romeo and Juliet, as well as a Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The Shoreditch site has produced many surprises, partly due to the nature of it being built on and occupying some of the Priory outhouses. Burbage didn’t choose an open piece of ground for his theatre, and the paved pathway to it (discovered at the very end of the dig) led between other buildings. Further evidence of the presence of the theatre was discovered in the form of pieces of seven pottery ‘money boxes’, the disposable, sealed earthenware vessels used to collect the entrance fees. These were stored in the small room that rapidly became the ‘box office’ and smashed open at the end of the evening so the takings could be counted.

In 1594, James Burbage died and his sons inherited their father’s chaotic, speculative legacy. He had been involved in too many deals, and the lease on The Theatre’s plot was rapidly running out. In 1597, time was up and the owner of the land refused to renew. The brothers made a plan and took a 31 year lease on a plot in Southwark.

On the 28th of December, 1598 in the middle of a snowstorm James Burbage’s widow, his two sons, a builder and a dozen labourers arrived at The Theatre. They took it down, numbering each timber and carted it to the frozen Thames, where it was dragged across that night. In the summer of 1599, the timbers had been reassembled and a new theatre was ready to open: The Globe.

The Shoreditch site was taken over by tenements and warehouses. A thousand human dramas have since played out in the plot occupied by Burbage’s playhouse. Those stories are lost, but evidence of the players in them remains in the finds the Museum of London archaeologists made: pottery, money and blackened hearths. In what was a garden behind one of the small houses that would have stood there in the 18th century, was found the skeleton of a dog, interred with his bowl as if merely asleep.

The Tower Theatre Company’s serendipitous choice of a new location has resulted in the discovery of a missing piece in the story of early theatre in London. This summer, just before the dig closed, I was lucky enough to be part of the last audience of The Theatre, when Paul McGann and Susannah Harker, both supporters of the Tower Theatre Company, read from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, recreating the atmosphere of Shakespeare’s first playhouse. The discovery of The Theatre has been referred to as ‘the holy grail of English Theatre’, but I think that small performance amongst scaffolding and duckboards, glasses in hand was as close to the original spirit of Shakespeare’s time as we are likely now to come: entertainment with just a little bit of magic.

My words here are just an overview of the huge amount of work done on the dig. The team working on site created a brilliant and very detailed blog on their work. Do click to have a read: http://bit.ly/cNCdp2

Lynne intends to post diary entries on a regular basis so check back here (and on Facebook and twitter) for more updates soon.

Wednesday 14 July
Today I met with Brian and saw inside the hive for the first time. The first thing I noticed when the lid was removed, was the distinctive smell, a combination of resin and honey (very pleasant). Brian removed some of the frames. The two on the outside had some of their cells filled with honey, which had been capped with yellow wax. These are for feeding the bees. The five inner frames  had a mixture of cells containing honey, cells containing pollen and cells containing the brood. The outside frames contained mainly eggs (which looked like grains of rice) and larvae (which looked like prawns). The most mature were in the centre and least mature were in the periphery. The most central frames contained the most mature brood, capped with brown wax and including pupae. I was able to see the queen (she is larger than the workers with a long slim abdomen and long yellow legs) who is labelled with a blue spot. There were also a few drones, these are longer and chunkier than workers, with large eyes, like a pair of large tinted goggles. Brian was pleased with the way the brood had progressed since he last visited 2 weeks ago. The colony is not a strong one because the original queen had to be replaced. The new queen is doing well, and the workers were busy collecting pollen (protein for the brood) but the late start will mean that it is unlikely that there will be honey to harvest this summer.
Wednesday 21 July
Bee activity at the front of the hive was a little quieter than last week. Inside the hive there was some progress. However, the frames that Brian had turned around (in the hope that they would be filled with honey) remain untouched. Nevertheless, there was evidence of brood production. The queen was moving over one frame, with her abdomen poised as if to lay. She was being attended by a group of workers who were licking her! Brian is concerned that our urban bees may never find enough food in the city. He has suggested that we feed them to give them a bit of a boost. My homework is to make some bee food. Basically, I need to dissolve 4kg of cane sugar in a roughly equal volume of water. Sounds like fun!
Wednesday 28 July
Last night I made bee food in my kitchen. The work surfaces are now a little sticky!  This morning I sat on the 8.05 to Cannon street armed with 4 mineral water bottles full of sugar solution. Next job of the morning was to produce some signage for the garden terrace (which is now open). “The garden terrace is temporarily closed because of increased honey bee activity”. Brian and I looked inside the hive. Again, there had been some progress, but not as much as hoped for. We transferred the bee food into a feeding box. This is a 4 litre plastic container with a grid in the lid. The box is inverted over  a hole in the lid that covers the occupied frames. The bees are then able to food through the grid. Torla came down to take some photographs (see me in action below)  from the safety ( we thought) of the garden. Unfortunately, she was not far enough away to escape being stung. Not once, but twice! My next task was to ask security to lock the doors to the garden terrace to prevent the public from wandering out !

“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.

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.”

In preparation for the first of our school groups arriving on-site Monday (spaces are still available to attend the week-long adult training digs  in July – see our website for details)  Tom, one of our senior archeologists, spent a morning on-site clearing away the top soil back to the “demolition layer” a few inches below the grass turf.

We have been surprised by the amount of brickwork found so near to the surface as this demolition waste is normally moved off-site or more often it is piled together and covered in turf – which could explain that little hill you have in the garden of you flat or house…

One of our key jobs in advance of Monday is to record what is  currently visible on-site which will help our archaeologists plan dig locations for our first visitors Monday.

The results of our upcoming work on-site and the thoughts of those involved will be the subject of updates here on our blog and on our twitter pages.

Kate and Jackie ,who are coordinating the dig, were recently welcomed by the owners of one of the remaining Victorian houses in the terrace which used to stretch to include the site we are now investigating to have a look around allowing them to gain an insight into the scale and design of the homes that used to be on the site of our dig. They were both keen to explore the basement but unfortunately this had been renovated by the local council in the 1980s making the work that will be supported over the forthcoming weeks that more important…

Hand made envelope

Mail art is art that uses the postal system as a medium. Mail artists typically exchange ephemera in the form of illustrated letters, rubberstamped, decorated or illustrated envelopes, artist trading cards, postcards, artistamps, faux postage, mail-interviews, friendship books, decos, and three-dimensional objects. As an art form, it has been used for comic and satirical affect and for commercial advertising to the promotion of social causes such as fair trade, and the abolition of slavery.

Mail art envelope

Mail art became very popular in the C19th, particularly in the USA. Examples exist of pictorial propaganda envelopes with patriotic motifs produced by both sides during the American Civil War. It then saw a re-surgence in popularity in  the 1950s and an international network of artists exchanging a myriad of objects developed and thrived right up to the digital revolution of the 1990s.  In the second decade of the third millennium artists are starting to look to it again as a genre, in reaction against the explosion of electronic mail exchange.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, last week, artist Emily Candela led a workshop on this as part of the Museum’s Inclusion programme and it produced some really lovely work (as you can see). Everyone who heard about this fairly unknown trend got very interested in and inspired by it. In the workshop, we all created envelopes from tracing paper, with hidden treasures inside: bits of old postcards, beads, ribbons, poems. And the reaction of the addressees to receiving them has been fantastic. So we wanted to pass the idea on. Much more exciting to receive than an email on your computer or a bill through your letterbox.

I started volunteering at LAARC back in 2003, was employed here in 2004 and have been here ever since. On a day to day basis I get to handle some of the world’s best objects. But forget all them at this time of year, as there’s one annual object that get’s me more excited than any other – the LAARC Gingerbread house!

The history of Gingerbread seems to go back over 500 years with Germanic/Swedish origins, arriving in Britain in the 1500’s and being widespread by the 1700’s. But I’m not here to write about the history of Gingerbread, but instead the Archaeological Archive’s tradition of making a Gingerbread House each Christmas.

Back in 2003, LAARC had a full time conservator, Jannicke who came from Norway. It was she who first introduced the Gingerbread house to the archive. Keeping with Scandinavian tradition, the house was decorated for Christmas and sat proudly as the centre piece at our Christmas party. Decorated with an abundance of sugary sweets, bonded together with icing sugar, it’s a dentist’s worst nightmare, but looks a dream. Its true moment of glory however, is when it gets smashed, revealing even more sweets and chocolates inside.

Ever since then, despite Jannicke leaving in 2005, we’ve kept up the tradition of decorating a house each year and along the way have watched it evolve into one of the highlights of each Christmas party.

The smashing of the house is now preceded by two events; the decorating and the competition to determine who gets to smash it. The decorating gets done by LAARC staff in a creative morning session, where we let our artistic skills flow. The competition’s vary and have previously included a Christmas caption competition, a Christmas catapult competition and a Christmas song quiz. This year, we were very lucky to have Jannicke join us at our party and as our guest of honour, she along with her 1 year old daughter and volunteer Chris (he volunteered the most this year)  got to be the smashers.

We may not be as grand as the recent Obama Gingerbread WhiteHouse, but it’s a nice little tradition we have and long may it continue!

More archaeologists than ever are using digital technologies to record on site. The most obvious example of this is the use of digital cameras, particularly during standing building recording investigations. As a result, we are finding that archives often now contain a significant proportion of ‘born-digital’ records, for which there is no paper equivalent. 

Despite significant advances in the field of digital preservation over the past 10 years, we still request that depositors provide selected key records in both digital and paper format. Our revised Standards for Deposition provide further detail about these requirements. We recognise however that this may need to change, even as soon as the next 12-18 months. 

One issue we are currently exploring here at the LAARC is whether or not to permit archaeological site plans to be provided in digital format only. Depositors are currently required to provide a hard copy plot of any site plans in addition to the digital version(s), which are generally produced in AutoCAD or ArcGIS software programmes. However, with the development of free software readers for AutoCAD DWG/ DXF files and ArcGIS shape files, and the ability to produce static versions of site plans in PDF or TIF format for researchers who simply want to see where a site is located (as opposed to undertaking more detailed site location analyses), is this really necessary?

We would be very interested to know your thoughts on this issue, and would welcome any comments. Do you think it is time to embrace digital only, or is it still too soon to forgo hard copy site plans altogether? What would you prefer to use if undertaking archaeological research at the LAARC?

So a few weeks ago we decided to sign up Museum of London on Twitter, feeling a bit sceptical about how many people would really be interested in finding out about us and following our tweets. I have to admit to being pleasantly surprised at the number of people who have decided to ‘follow’ us within such a short period of time.

So far our tweets have been about current and upcoming events taking place at our museums which we think may be of interest to our visitors, with a few general comments thrown in for added benefit.

But is this really what you want? What would you like as to tweet about?

You can find us on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/museumoflondon

Feel free to send your comments and suggestions either here on the blog, via email to webmanager@museumoflondon.org.uk, or off course, by tweeting on Twitter, adding the tag #museumoflondon to your comments so that we can follow what you are saying about the Museum of London.

Don’t forget we are also on Facebook!

• Museum of London Facebook fan page:
  www.facebook.com/pages/Museum-of-London/27560776046?ref=ts
• Museum of London Facebook ‘late’ page:
  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7856761651
• Museum of London Docklands Facebook ‘late’ page:
  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20481470787

We have cleaned out the databases now and have improved their security so that hopefully this “attack vector” is no longer open. Apologies for any problems you may have experienced – my embarassment is complete, because this is not the first time this year that some of our databases have been compromised in this way! Do let us know if you notice anything odd – such as pop-up dialog boxes, or pages only loading partially – so we can fix problems quickly. Otherwise please enjoy the sites.

• www.museumoflondon.org.uk
• www.museumoflondon.org.uk/docklands
• www.museumoflondon.org.uk/archaeology

In phase two and three, we will be auditing all our websites, holding audience evaluations to find out what our visitors think, and planning and implementing the migration of all our websites into one single site. This will involve analysis of our current website structures and planning the future architecture and redesigning of all the templates within our websites, including our microsites.

We would love to find out what you think of the websites and how it might develop in the future. So tell us what you think of the sites and the new ‘tabs’ that combine all our three venues together by sending me your comments to: webmanager@museumoflondon.org.uk.

Please note that we are aware some things may not display properly or some links may be broken, but please bear with us while we go through this transition period.

Thank you for all your continued support.

Firstly, the site has proved to be quite a success, at least compared with our modest expectations. Actual visits and pageviews have only crept up gradually since the launch, albeit with a few great flurries of activity. We get around 3000 visits a month and people tend to look at 7 or 8 pages per visit. But user reaction has been growing inexorably, with more people contacting us through the website every week as they find their ancestors or seek the photographer of a photo they own.  I think that Google is sending a lot more of our visits now, which means people with very specific interests and questions – which you should probably expect with a database of 10,000 people! Still I don’t think we were expecting quite so many inquiries, and it’s often hard to offer more than is already on the site. Tunjay, who is the administrator in our Later Department, does everything possible to give a helpful answer, but the fact is that we at the Museum of London aren’t the source of or experts about the data; that role belongs to David Webb, whose many years of research he generously contributed to the database.

The second reason for an update is that we were contacted while ago by the production team of a TV programme that’s due to air very shortly, and which just might feature the website, since it helped in researching the family history that the programme explores. I don’t know if it will actually be mentioned, but it would be nice validation of David Webb’s work if it was.

Both of these illustrate that family history and genealogy are a very important part of the reason that a site like this is interesting to a wide audience. Soon after the launch, as we started to get inquiries from family historians, I ventured onto their turf to ask in a couple of forums what we could do to make a site like this useful to them. The answer was basically “not a lot, it’s already what we need”; that’s gratifying, but I suspect there’s always more we could do. One thing might be to offer downloadable datasets; another (perhaps less for the benefit of genealogists) could be to integrate the biographies with related resources on photography, geography, social history, archive collections etc.

As well as inquries, there is another kind of contact we get through the site, where people write to add to or correct our information, and this is really exciting. Again, we pass the information on to David Webb for him to examine and process as he sees fit. So far, because of this roundabout flow of information, we have not re-integrated any information, but I would hope to do this in the future so if you have any amendments for us, please, please keep on sending them.

One final thing: I created a simple REST API for those geeks out there who want to play with the database. Sadly the quality of the address data isn’t that brilliant at present, which limits what we can do in terms of mashups until I get a chance to crunch it a bit, but if you want to play then please drop me a line and I’ll give you the keys.

So to wrap up, I would love to know your suggestions for how we might improve the site. Tell us things like

• what sort of information do you need that’s not obvious at present?
• would you like any tools to collect or download information?
• would it be useful to integrate a wiki with the site, so that each person can have a page that our site’s visitors can add to and edit?

Stick your ideas in the comments or drop us a line.

If you missed it, the first episode this week portrayed a group of maverick archaeologists from the University of Wessex where “the excavation of 14th century medieval soldiers alongside Saracen coinage in Somerset leads to the hunt for the True Cross”. The show featured a fundamentalist Christian property developer with sword-wielding accomplices, scenes of faith healing, a beheading, and a dramatic conclusion that saw the team abseiling into a subterranean temple – and a fiery inferno that resulted in the destruction of perhaps one of the most significant finds discovered in the UK!!

So how does this compare to real life in an archaeological unit?

Real life archaeology is perhaps not fast paced enough to be compatible with the fictional world of television. We wait for developers and funding bodies to agree budgets, spend time agreeing sampling strategies, and await the results of radiocarbon dates sent to far-off laboratories rather than churning them straight out of a PC. We use our “archaeological imaginations” for the long drawn-out analyses of a site over time rather than for jumping to instant conclusions, a reality that may deter even the most detail-hungry script writer.

It was claimed at one point that “there is always something down there.” Having spent numerous occasions stood next to a machine digging holes only to find nothing, I can assure you that this is not always true. The next time I encounter a cavernous void, I shall remember to refrain from breaking out the mountaineering gear and lowering myself by rope into the abyss. It’s not unheard of to have random people walk across site, oblivious to signs warning of deep trenches, only to ask if treasure has been found. But the closest I have come to a fiery ending was when a machine driver, perhaps a little heavy-handed, decided to dig a little too close to a gas service.

As our heroes pieced together the evidence, ripping artefacts from the trench without a context sheet in sight and in immaculate attire without a hard hat or hi-vis jacket to be seen, I wondered if any of them were aware of the budget code or had filled out this week’s time sheet. The large expensive flat owned by one of the team, and the swanky laboratory, seemed a little far fetched but I look forward to brandishing my museum ID card in an authoritative FBI-style fashion to see what privileges it brings me.

The final scenes produced the declaration “please, please, for the love of Jehovah, may we go to the pub?” and with that came perhaps the most accurate portrayal of the archaeologist.

You can find Podcasts from the Past on iTunes with this link (or search for “podcasts from the past” or for artist “museum of london”), or point your browser at the RSS feed. You can also find out more about the individual podcasts and download the files directly at Podcasts from the past.
This project is part of the Museum’s Community & Audience Development Inclusion programme, and is managed by Inclusion Officer Lucie Fitton. I’ll let Lucie, our Inclusion Officer, introduce it in her own words:

Here at the Museum of London we wanted to do two things through this projects. One, make a step towards providing more resources for our visually impaired visitors (existing and potential). Two, by working with a group of real Londoners (by that we mean normal people living in this city, and not museum staff or specialists) to create them, we would be offering an interpretation of the collections that would be relevant and interesting to more people. Yes, these podcasts aim to describe museum objects to people who may not be able to see them clearly, but by opening your ears everyone can understand London’s story in a new way.

It was a huge task for anyone, let alone a group of people who hadn’t met, hadn’t visited the Museum before, hadn’t created audio description and hadn’t used recording and editing technology. The 10 podcasts were created in eight weeks, with just one day of workshop time each week.

Luckily we had some fantastic help from the experts. A couple of our curators showed the group around the galleries and provided invaluable advice about the objects. We then had training with Vocaleyes who showed us the basics of describing for visually impaired people. We also got the chance to meet Kirin, who is visually impaired and helped dispel myths around what it is like. Once the scripts were written we then worked with podcast producers from SoundDelivery to record and edit the final podcast. It was lots of hard work, but great fun.

The seven participants of this project come from a wide variety of backgrounds and had many skills and talents to add to this project. We hope they walk away with many more. Thanks to Charles Clark, Ivan Bello, James Kelly, Keith Allen, Liam McAtamney, Simon Allen and Warren Thompson. Also a big thank you to Tony and Kirin from Vocaleyes, and Jude, Mark and Lee from SoundDelivery.

Lucie’s also previously written about her role as Inclusion Officer and Community projects at the Museum of London. You can also see photos from the podcast workshops, including photos of the objects, on our Flickr page.

I think it’s a lovely way to find out more about some objects you can visit in our galleries, so check them out and let us know what you think.