The working life of Museum of London

Glittering Glass & Movie Making

Another successful week in the archive as we cracked on with getting archives from the 1970’s up to scratch.

Monday’s team successfully completed the repacking of the Sir John Cass School archive (CASS72). In the morning with some of the objects in need of a registered finds number, it was up to the volunteers to issue them with a unique number, fill in new labels, a registered finds card and pack the object with a piece of jiffy foam. Included amongst these finds was one of the objects of the week; a cool glass bottle used as a container for snuff. In the afternoon it was more glass to pack, this time from the 1976 London Docks site (LD76), as well as some medieval floor tiles from the various Merton Prior sites (MPY76-88)

Friday’s team started with the Merton site (MPY76-88) sorting out the general glass & tobacco pipes and auditing bone, wood and stone finds, before moving on the the general finds project’s next site, The Triangle of Billingsgate Buildings (TR74)

The focus on glass this week was linked in to our workshop, led by non other than archive manager, Francis Grew. Starting with some images and video of glass blowing, we then spent time in the ceramic & glass store studying 10 excellent examples of 18th & 19th century vessels.

Wednesday’s teams have completed their time with finds and started to second phase of their project – creating films, slideshows and comics using the photos and videos they’ve taken over the past 7 weeks. Under the guidance of the museum’s e-learning officer, Paul Clifford, the volunteers let their creativity run wild. A second session next week will see them finish their pieces showing different aspects of LAARC and their experience of VIP6.

Over the past eight weeks we’ve processed loads of boxes of material, not only improving 100’s of boxes but reducing sites by several boxes too. Along the way, we’ve rediscovered lots of cool stuff. 16 objects have stood out though and it’s now time for them to fight it out. Prepare yourselves folks. Bookmark this blog. Because starting on Monday next week my friends, it’s time for…

OBJECT OF VIP6 – BATTLE OF THE FINDS!

Click on the above highlighted text for more info or simply scroll down to the blog below.

For more photos visit our Flickr account and for more info on any of the sites we’ve worked on, click on the highlighted sitecode in the text.