The working life of Museum of London

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