Inside the Museum of London

LAARC VIP11 – Week 7

It’s been a busy old week at the museum’s Archaeological Archive. The main focus of our activity has been clay tobacco pipes, specifically, those that were discovered in Brentford in 1977. Previous blogs will tell you more about the amazing pipe kiln that was found there and the excellent work our ‘Unearthing Hounslow’ team carried out this summer, but for this blog, it’s all going to be about the makers themselves.

First and foremost, whilst smoking is bad, tobacco pipes are pretty cool. And sometimes, they’re just pretty. You can get different shapes and sizes, ones with flat bases, ones with spurs, some that are plain and some that are fantastically decorated like our pooping pal on his potty:

But for the archaeologist, it’s all about the small maker’s stamp that can be found on the heel or base that reveals the initials of the pipe maker. The way to ‘read’ a pipe is by holding it so the stem is towards your mouth. The letter on the lefthand side is the initial of the maker’s first name, the letter on the right, the first letter of their surname.

The kiln in Brentford belonged to William Heath so it’s not surprising that a fair number of these pipes have the initials ‘W,H’ marked. However, this being said there’s been lots of other makers too and even the ‘W,H’ pipes have variations such as crowns or stars atop of the letters. Our specialists are even able to identify which pipes have been produced using the same pipe mould.

So the task set aside for our VIP11 teams this week was to identify these stamps and group any similar ones together. Over 70 different stamps were identified suggesting that Mr Heath was hiring out his services to several other pipe makers and our teams took to the challenge of using their magnifying glasses to carefully scrutinise and separate the different types.

Meanwhile, the other interesting finds from the excavation were being assigned individual numbers and packed to the archive standards. These included buttons, buckles, coins, stone hones and some really cool glass bottle seals, including the one with the griffin’s head (as first discovered during Week 4) and one with the actual word ‘Brentford’ on (which is always nice)

For this task, our volunteers got to use iPads to create a digital record with a photo of the object and the object’s information label. These will help create a database of finds from the site, which we aim to get online in the near future.

The University of the 3rd Age were also using iPads as a useful resource for public engagement. This came into the final part of their training ahead of next Wednesday 21st November when they’ll be chatting to visitors to the Museum in the main foyer from 13.00 – 16.00

So iPads & pipes. What about plaster? Well, last week we got to handle, audit and pack two very different types of plaster. First, there was some amazing fragments of decorated roman wall plaster from Cornhill including splashes of colour attempting to replicate marble and lines with different shading attempting to create perspective. Later in the week we came across some Victorian moulded plaster from Liverpool Street which included this incredible plaster horse’s head.

This inspired Glynn & I to lead a short workshop about roman rooms, from underfloor hypocaust tiles to the best wall plaster ever found in London, to mosaics and to ceilings. Any excuse for us to go into our ceramic & glass store!

You can keep track of our progress via Twitter #LAARCVIP #VIP11

LAARC VIP11- Week 6

Ingredients

• At least 100 boxes of archaeology that have matured for at least 30 years. (Boxes should contain a nice mixture of materials such as ceramics, glass & metals. Whether they come from the same historical period is optional but added variety does improve the outcome)
• 25 volunteers (a variety of ages, gender & archaeological backgrounds adds flavour to the outcome)
• A mixture of stationary (best to stock up on numerous staples)
• A selection of high quality plastic finds bags (small, medium & large)

Recipe

1) Take the 25 volunteers and separate into 4 teams. When mixing the volunteers, aim to put together a diverse group of around 6 volunteers per team.

2) Invite them to your workplace for 10 weeks (1 day a week) and let the teams bond.

3) Meanwhile, take a trolley full of boxes of archaeology and lay out on a table. Set out sufficient stationary and packaging equipment alongside the bags.

4) Once the volunteers have begun to gel, replenish with tea, coffee & biscuits before transferring them from the tea room to the work area where you had previously laid out the boxes of archaeology.

5) Invite the teams to handle the archaeology and identify examples of bad collections care which need improving.

6) Using previously laid out stationary, combine with volunteers and archaeological objects until any artefacts are placed inside new bags and stored in a much more accessible fashion.

7) Replenish volunteers with tea, coffee and biscuits.

8) Repeat steps 5 – 7, supporting and encouraging the teams to continue in this manner for 5 more weeks, guiding as neccessary and providing conversation.

9) Throw in a specialist led workshop every two weeks to add variety and increase the knowledge of your team members.

10) At this stage you should find your volunteers are mixing together well and the archaeology has changed from being in a muddled unclear state to beautiful archival standards.

11) Assess your teams with mid project questionnaires before blogging responses to the question, “What aspects of the project do you find most beneficial”

“Teamwork – working with a group of other people”

“Learning how the archive is managed is very interesting”

“My knowledge of archaeology as well as my understanding of people has been improved”

“The bi-weekly presentations are great for topping up what we’re learning on the job”

“The sense of achievement when completing tasks”

12) Smile and continue to simmer for another 5 weeks, transferring some members of your Volunteer Inclusion Project to the Museum of London foyer for the final 3 weeks.

Find out if the second half of our project goes as well as as the first by following our progress on Twitter #LAARCVIP #VIP11

LAARC VIP11 – Week 5

I’ve touched on this in previous weeks, but something special is going on on Wednesday afternoons at the Museum’s London Archaeological Archive & Research Centre. The U3A are here. And soon they’ll be coming for you…

When I first heard mention of the U3A a good 6 years ago now, I really didn’t have a clue who they were or what they were about. I was told that the acronym stood for the University of The Third Age, but in truth that didn’t help much. Sounding a bit futuristic I was half expecting students with a passion for sci fi (which to be fair, would probably include most trainee archaeologists) but was pleasantly surprised to find out that it’s a ‘university’ for mature people, usually retirees, who refuse to retire quietly, but rather are set to prove that you’re never to old to learn new tricks. More importantly this desire stretches in the realms of sharing knowledge. And that pricked up my ears.

Our Wednesday VIP11 team have been learning how the museum goes about caring for its collections; learning to pack pottery up to a standard of collections care that will allow researchers better access to this material; learning information about the pieces of pottery they’ve been getting to handle; learning about the roman archaeology from the magnificent excavation that took place in 1975 at Newgate Street. And now they want to share this knowledge.

Since our first encounter in 2007, LAARC has run 6 consecutive Shared Learning Projects with the U3A (I believe a record for the heritage sector – someone please feel free to prove me wrong). All 6 projects have focused on archive based finds work though each has been wrapped within creative personal projects, which have differed on each occasion (including artwork, film making, creative writing and new skills in Powerpoint presentations). This year’s team however have a different agenda. This year’s team aren’t content with staying in an archive. This year’s team want to meet you!

In 2 weeks time they will be relocating to the Museum of London foyer every Wednesday afternoon to share their learning with our visitors. Their first date will be on 21st November and you won’t miss them. They’ll be the smiley faces behind trays of real, dug up archaeology, which they’ll be inviting you to touch and if you ask really nicely, help them pop into a bag and file away for future preservation. So if you’ve never touched a real piece of roman London, if you want to hear a first hand account of want its like to be a Museum of London volunteer, if you want to have an immersive, interactive museum experience, come and meet them, have a chat and be impressed. Because so far, in their weeks of training, I certainly have.

Indeed, I’m impressed with all our VIP11 teams. Tuesday, Thursday & Friday’s teams have been plugging away at improving loads of finds archives including Clements Lane and Lovat Lane (both dug within the City of London in 1981) which produced this fab seal from a 18th century wine bottle and fragment of slate with etched lines, possible used for sheet music.

Another amazing site worked through was Baynards Castle which had lots of preserved wood including this small paddle.

Finally excellent progress has been made with the Brentford archive. Removing the archaeology from these old style square boxes into archive compliment standard ’shoe’boxes will save a good lot of shelf space as well as making the objects much more accessible, including our star find of the week, this bowl from a early 20th century clay tobacco pipe:

We’re half way through the project now. Keep track of our progress via Twitter #LAARCVIP # VIP11

LAARC VIP 11 – Week 4

Sometimes we big ourselves up (The Museum of London’s Archaeological Archive & Research Centre has a Guinness World Record! Whoop!) At other times we must be humble and admit that it’s not all rosy in our stores just yet.

This week was one such occasion as our volunteer teams on our eleventh Volunteer Inclusion Project found out. The situation is that archaeology is not a wealthy profession and to be blunt when sites were excavated in the 1970s, there wasn’t much money set aside for any archiving work. Storage wasn’t deemed as important as the actual discovery of information. Hence we find ourselves faced with all sorts of everything which was cannily recycled as a form of packaging. There’s also the whole issue of trial and error; whilst objects are nowadays packed using acid free tissue paper, it’s not uncommon to find newspaper doing the job in the 70s and as you’ll see below plastic foam has come a long way in the last few decades.

The delights we were confronted with this week excelled themselves. Ladies and gentlemen, herewith are the confessions of the archive:

Not so fantastic plastic

Confession number one is that despite 10 years of volunteer work on collections we’re still coming across items that are stored on 30 – 40 year old plastic foam. Foam that when you touch it melts away in your hand or indeed has become a little bit tacky. Here’s some yellow plastazote that we found in one box. You can just about see in the ringed area in the picture the impression that was left where I put my finger.

The toaster that never was

Possibly my favourite bit of packaging in a long while was this toaster box. Hidden within was an incredible 17th Century pipkin, pretty much complete and undoubtedly without ever having had toast inside it. Although the object is lovely, in some respects it was disappointing – our archive kitchen could do with a new toaster.

The pot that never should have been

Second only to the toaster box was this pot (contained within a reused margarine tub) On first glance it looks great (always nice to find a complete vessel). On closer examination it’s basically a fairly small sherd (outlined above) with a whole lot of reconstruction. Not only is this a waste of time (the single sherd could tell you as much information without being reconstructed) it also makes this harder to archive now as the ‘complete’ pot will take up more space.

Oh well. It’s not all doom and gloom. On the plus side, the Volunteer Inclusion Project is fishing out these examples of bad practice and sorting things out, constantly making improvements. And we did come across some amazing archaeology too. Wednesday’s U3A team found a beautiful plate with King William (of William & Mary fame) on as well as a small copper cockerel shaped mount as they explored an archive from Southwark.

There was a fab piece of roman stone furniture, a head of a roman figurine and a fancy knife handle from a 1981 City site and despite the bad packaging, the Brentford site included loads of decorated clay tobacco pipes and a rather nice medallion from a glass bottle with the depiction of a griffin’s head.

Our favourite finds of the week though were this set of unfinished strap loops as well as a mould that would have produced similar ones (though not these). Both will be contenders in our forthcoming Object of Project competition (watch this space)

To finish things off, MOLA’s zooarchaeologist, Alan Pipe led a workshop based on the identification and historical information that can be derived from animal bone.

You can follow the project’s progress on Twitter #LAARCVIP #VIP11

It’s now our eleventh Volunteer Inclusion Project and without exception, when it comes to working on metal artefacts it’s not long before someone asks “why do you keep this stuff?” It’s a reasonable thing to ask. Rusty bits of iron in shapeless forms, red-brown dust corroding off objects, green blobs of copper and grey droplets of lead waste, well, they aren’t the most inspiring of museum artefacts. Or are they…

I’m not going to go into detail about the conservation issues surrounding iron and copper (check out Jill Saunders excellent blog for that) but what I will say is that even the most boring looking rusty lump of iron has an archaeological importance. At the very least it tells you something was going on in that area; it might have been metal production or an industry; it may have been a boat with nailed timbers where the wood’s rotted and long disappeared, the iron nails being the only remaining evidence that it existed; it could be a copper button that fell off as a Elizabethan was walking home from the pub.

LAARC VIP11: Week 2

Picture the scene. Around 1900 years ago in this fine city called Londinium, a man, a tile maker, wakes up to the sound of his dog barking. He yawns, rubs his eyes and goes outside to see the beast chasing away an intruder, the only trace of whom is a hobnail shoe impression left on a clay tegula, laid out the night before in order to dry in the morning sunshine…
Fast forward a few centuries to find a lady preparing for a feast to celebrate the birth of her friend’s child. She combs her hair whilst her own children practice writing letters on the offcuts of bone and oyster shell that their father uses to make hairpins…
Whizz forward a whole load more centuries and the scene is chaos, smoke, fire. A couple dash out of their holdings passing their newly tiled fireplace as the flames begin to take hold.

All the above is simply a fabrication of my mind, yet every story comes from somewhere. As our new volunteer teams turned their attention this week from general finds (things looked at as assemblages) to registered finds (items with an individual importance) we started to come across some amazing archaeology. Their task was to carry out a massive audit of the bone, ceramic, glass, stone & wood archive from an excavation carried out in 1981 near Pudding Lane. Famous for its connection to the Great Fire, the site was rich with archaeology, from its time as a riverside street within Londinium (check out the hobnailed shoe impression left on a roman roof tile above) to the early medieval settlement which brought new items including grooming accessories (we got quite excited when we found that bone comb) and of course the Great Fire itself (the opening picture of the awesome wall tile with a seal on it dates to the mid 17th century)

Working through so many different materials meant a fine selection of artefacts were checked including a medieval bone ice skate, roman graffiti, a post med wine glass stem moulded to look like a lion’s mane and a superb jet stone roman finger ring:

So, some fun stuff for us to get our hands on. However, it’s not just about coming in contact with these goodies. The results of all the checking, sorting, packaging and reboxing of these objects ended with us gaining our first bit of extra shelf space. By simple, efficient, effective reboxing, amalgamating items whilst never overcrowding boxes, slowly slowly you end up emptying a box hear and there, leaving you with a little extra pocket of space for future archives.

Before volunteer work :(

And After volunteer work :)

If only we could share this fine work with you in person rather than via a blog huh? Well, soon we will! Our Wed team are a little different from the other days. Welcoming back the University of The 3rd Age for their 6th consecutive collaboration with LAARC, the team this year will be learning about the collections care work before transferring to the Museum of London foyer for their final 3 weeks to share it all with visitors!

This week they got to grips with packing roman pottery from Newgate street. Working their way through 7 boxes of muddled up sherds, they began repacking items into archive standard bags which transformed the accessibility of these ceramics. A couple of lovely bits cropped up too!

Their day ended with Glynn giving a run through of some of the records for the Newgate site, from initial correspondence to final publications. On the other days we were treated to the delightful Jacqui Pearce, who lead fantastic workshops focusing on the history and archaeological importance of clay tobacco pipes.

Keep track of our progress on Twitter #LAARCVIP #VIP11

LAARC VIP11: Week 1

It’s been a while but we’re back. Back with a new team of 25 volunteers. Back rummaging amongst the shelves in the Archaeological Store. Back discovering forgotten archaeological gems. Back to blog our way through everything we do for the next 10 weeks. It’s time for the 11th Volunteer Inclusion Programme!

A quick summary for those who’ve never heard of the Volunteer Inclusion Programme: Based in the World’s largest Archaeological Archive, over the next 10 weeks, 4 teams of volunteers will be working their way through boxes of archaeology dug up in the 1970s / 1980s and which are in need of some love, care and attention. The volunteers sort out the objects, pack them so they’re stored correctly, organise them so people can access them easily and all the while develop their knowledge of archaeology, archiving and London’s history whilst acquiring work based skills.

So what took place in week 1? Well once the morning inductions were done and dusted we started work on some fantastically shabby boxes from 1977. Perhaps that’s a bit unfair… a lack of funds and the passing of time have left these finds in a pretty poor state. Most of the objects (this week mainly fragments of animal bone and sherds of glass) have been stored in brown paper bags or worst still have been left loose inside the box. Thankfully the ‘context’ information – the all important number which pin points whereabouts on a site these objects were discovered – have been written on the artefacts themselves providing an accurate record to work off. So the first task our new teams had to do was write new labels and change the bags the objects live in.

From this...

...to this

Immediately we started to see results. Clear plastic bags allow you to see what’s inside; a label attached to the bag allows you to read the information pertaining to these objects. It’s all simple stuff but importantly, it’s simple but effective. Packing archaeology this way means you don’t even have to open the bag to view the contents (after all most damage to artefacts occurs via handling).

The actual stuff was pretty nifty – loads of animal bone found in dumping layers on what’s now Brentford High Street. Most of the bone seems to be the remains of food that people were eating: cow, sheep & pig; beef, lamb, pork. Having said this the odd large bit of jaw turned up – one which looks like it’s a horse mandible – giving an insight into the industrial aspects of the site too. Quote of the week came from one volunteer who having opened a box and suddenly being confronted with a large cow femur, raised her eyebrows and said “Wow! That’s so big!”

To create a bit of variation, we ended the day with a quick visit to our Ceramic & Glass store. It’s always a treat looking around the amazing collections stored within there (find out for yourself on a Behind the Scene Tour) and we took a whistle stop highlight tour, picking out some of the best bits.

So a smooth start. It’s on to Registered Finds next week as we lift the lids off the Pudding Lane archive and reveal details of our special Wednesday team’s project.

Follow the project on Twitter #LAARCVIP #VIP11

With newly awarded funding from Arts Council England, the Museums’ Archaeological Archive has stormed ahead with its programme of ‘opening-up’ our collections of London’s archaeology. So far this year the Archive team have engaged over 21,500 people directly with our artefacts, either in the Archive, at the Museum, or outs and abouts in the London metropolis. After a manic summer of archaeological events, we thought it was time for a quick catch up!

FOBA Finale

Collections Manager Glynn updates us on our first ‘outer borough’ project:

Our first new project, made possible with ACE funding, allowed us to transport our highly successful volunteer project from the Archive and take up residence in a London borough, taking local archaeology back to its source of excavation. Our first lucky borough was Hounslow. Over 5 weeks a diverse team of volunteers were trained in handling, sorting, documenting, identifying and repacking archaeological collections, excavated from the local area (Brentford High Street), albeit it some time ago (1977).

The culmination of this project was for our volunteer team to share what they had learnt with the greater community. In partnership with Gunnersbury Park Museum, our volunteers engaged with over 450 people as part of the Festival of British Archaeology!

Our team performed amazingly, and the museum staff were mightily impressed at the their ability to engage the public and their level of knowledge.

VIP ‘minis’

Collections Manager Lucy updates us on our new VIP ‘mini’ projects, designed to engage the Archive with new audiences:

The first of our ‘mini’ Volunteer Inclusion Projects launched this summer at the archaeological archive. They build on the success of our ten week VIP projects but allow us to work with groups of people from organisations for whom the format of our current programme is a potential barrier.

The three groups we’ve had the pleasure of working with have all contributed to the design of the project content too.

For some, the aim was to get through as much material as possible. Our volunteers from the National Autistic Society re-packed a phenomenal number of boxes of pottery and building material from a major site called GPO75.

For others, it was all about seeing as wide a range of objects as possible. They really got into exploring assemblages of animal bone, including comparing and contrasting with our human skeleton model.

Our final group from St Mungo’s is still in progress. They’re considering making creative responses to the archaeology using digital photographs – pictures of the results to follow…

Working with these groups has made for a varied and exciting summer. The response from volunteers has been great and we’re looking forward to further developing different ‘miniature’ projects that ‘open up’ our collections in new ways.

Community Excavation

Archive Learning Manager Kath blasts us with figures about this year’s community excavation at Syon Park in west London:

After meeting over 300 children, almost 240 adults, finding 90 bags of finds, recording over 60 new archaeological contexts…

… recruiting 23 volunteers, 11 members of staff, after 10 months of planning, on-site for 6 weeks, with 4 portaloos and 3 portakabins and one final open day…

… we found Sir Richard Wynn’s house just in time!*

*The cellar floor and wall of the post medieval house was, in true archaeological fashion, found in the last few days of the excavation!

But the work doesn’t end there. Bob, our expert MOLA archaeologist is busy checking all of the paper records to write the archaeological report. We have sorted, bagged, labelled and boxed the majority of the finds, which have now made their way back to the LAARC for storage and access.

The group of finds we are most excited about is the building material (from the cellar and from the rubble layers); we are waiting for a specialist to look through the collection of brick, plaster, mortar and tile to confirm the connection between the material and that lovely image of Little Syon.

So hopefully more news to follow later this year – keep your eyes peeled! But until then, a huge thank you to everyone that has been part of the project so far, from the staff at Syon Park to all those who participated or who visited us!

So what’s next for LAARC?

Lastly, Collections Manager Adam gives us a tantalising taster of what’s in store for the Archive:

Well, for starters we’ll be returning to the Archive for a 10 week project that will revert to our classic format of involving volunteers, working on collections to improve the way they’re stored and accessed. Our projects always let us rediscover forgotten beauties that lie within our boxes and we’ll be highlighting the best of these each week on the blog.

We’re also thoroughly pleased to announce we’ll be working once more with volunteers from the University of the 3^rd Age. 

This will be the sixth consecutive year that they’ll be joining us for a shared learning project and the focus this time will be to train the guys up with both collections care knowledge and skills in public engagement. Come November, our septet will be based in the galleries at the Museum of London sharing archaeology with visitors!

Looking forward to 2013, we’ll be on the road again heading to two more outer boroughs of London. Similar to the excellent work that took place in Hounslow this summer, we’re intending to once again inspire communities to engage with their local heritage.

In the meantime, from August onwards, you and your family can become archaeological detectives at the Archive yourselves.

Keep track with all our activities, here on the blog or via Twitter #LAARC

Romani ite Domum

The LAARC is now over halfway through its first ‘outer borough’ project. Last week our volunteers tackled those ‘no good’ Romans. Why precisely the small piece of Roman pottery above was labelled ‘no good’ we have no idea. Perhaps, again, an example of the strange humour that pervades archaeologists! For one thing, this piece did have its all important context number i.e. its recorded location in the ground.

Our volunteers undertook the herculean task of separating huge amounts of Roman pottery sherds by their sitecode, context number, phase number and finds number. Some of this information is now outdated in regards to current archaeological practice, as we’re working on quite an old excavation: BRE77. However, the sherds required sorting this way in order for the material to match their deposited records, also stored at the Museum’s Archaeological Archive.

Although much of this Roman pottery is intrinsically interesting, the physical archaeological of the site only makes sense when compared with the site records. Saying that, the original records, held at the LAARC, aren’t always the easiest to interpret (see below).

Pottery is one of the most important object assemblages from any archaeological site, as it’s our principle (and cheapest) dating tool. The records above show the process of trying to phase site BRE77’s Roman stratigraphy, utilizing the identified pottery. Our volunteers have excelled at turning this site archive into a fully accessible resource.

In the afternoon our volunteers participated in the Museum of London’s community excavation at Syon Park. Attempting to locate the remains of the property known as ‘Little Syon’ this gave a great opportunity for our volunteers to understand the importance of objects in regards to excavated features.

By the end of the day we had failed to discover the remains of Sir Richard Wynn’s house, but the hard work of those on next week’s training excavation may prove more fruitful!

‘Connecting our community’

Week 4 of our project and we returned to processing the post-medieval pottery from the Brentford ’77 site archive. Our volunteer teams have achieved far more than we predicated and the pottery has almost been completed!

Amongst the piles of post-medieval London redware pottery, some interesting artefacts were found including a group of contemporary wall tiles. A mystery object for the week is the tin-glazed tile below. Depicting an angel at a brazier, we’ve got an idea as to what the biblical scene might be, but we’re welcoming further suggestions! The tile itself dates to the early to mid C18^th and may be London (/English) made, although we can’t rule out the possibility of it being a Dutch import.

The main focus of the project this week was to get our volunteers thinking about how they could engage a public audience with their new-found knowledge of Brentford’s hidden history. This we did with an activity the LAARC likes to call ‘object dissection’ – to show our volunteers that, perhaps unwittingly, they’re already learnt a huge amount about London’s archaeology. 

And so in the afternoon, we moved into the Docking Station proper. Our volunteers were on full display to Brentford High Street’s passing traffic and despite the rain, engaged with a range of people over the two days.

In order to build extra interest, Collections Managers Lucy and Glynn were in the local Morrison’s on Thursday, engaging shoppers with both the C18^th Pipe Kiln that was excavated in the supermarket’s car park and objects associated with  the  ancient Roman road, literally under our feet.

Next week our volunteers will be in the Docking Station all day, where anyone can drop in and engage with our archaeology first hand and see what the teams are repackaging from Brentford’s depths.

“A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose…”

The second week of the LAARC’s pioneering outer borough VIP project saw our volunteers tackle a host of clay tobacco pipes. Although ‘counterblasted’ as early as 1604 by King James I, these artefacts are ubiquitous to London’s post-medieval stratigraphy, having been smoked in their thousands by Londoners since the late C16^th.

Each week our Hounslow volunteers are tackling archive material from an excavation on Brentford High Street in 1977. When excavated, this site produced an amazing archaeological discovery: the foundations of an C18^th clay tobacco pipe kiln – only one of a few number excavated in Britain. The kiln belonged to one William Heath of Brentford and operated for c.40 years, supplying the local area with tobacco pipes.

King James I described the smoking habit as “a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.” However, Brentford was infamous for its pubs where these clay pipes would have been bought, smoked and disposed of in their hundreds.

Our volunteers had the Sisyphean task of analysing each individual tobacco pipe to check its sitecode and context number, in addition to whether a maker’s mark was present on the heel.

Over two days our team of volunteers registered over 200 individual pipes with such marks and bagged literally hundreds of tobacco pipe stems and pipe bowls, designated as general finds.

After a morning of meticulous sorting, we then made the long trek into central London to visit the Museum of London’s Archaeological Archive, where the material is normally stored, but represents a drop in the ocean amongst the 8, 500 other site archives that occupy 11km of shelving.

Collections Manager’s Glynn and Lucy lined up a tour of the Archive, including a visit to MOLA’s finds processing area, to get a better idea of how archaeological material is treated pre-deposition by archaeological units.

Finally MOLA ceramic specialist Jacqui Pearce – the expert in clay tobacco pipes – ran an excellent workshop, engaging our volunteers with dating and typifying these objects, as well as their history of use and archaeological study. We even got to look at a host of intricately decorated pipes, some only recently returned to the LAARC after a long term-loan to Liverpool.

Now experts in these artefacts, our volunteers will be able to answer all your questions at Gunnersbury Park Museum, where they will be running (with a little help from LAARC) a day of archaeological events for the Festival of British Archaeology on Sunday 22^nd July.

But before then it’s more finds repackaging, and a little bit of digging at Syon Park next week!