The working life of Museum of London

Dave Sankey, Senior Archaeologist for the Museum of London Archaeology Service, writes:

“If you wander around St Paul’s Cathedral, you’ll see some curious modern pavements in the South Churchyard, opened this summer. The area has been landscaped following small “evaluation” trenches excavated by Robin Wroe-Brown and his team and a watching brief on the initial landscaping excavations by David Sankey and Aleks Cetera, with expert input by the then diocesan archaeological advisor John Schofield.

The “new” pavement is a modern representation of the remains of the medieval church and illustrates the square cloister surrounding the octagonal chapter house.  [Image from the Telegraph article, St Paul's Cathedral opens new South Churchyard]

The new design is a simplified version of the original. For instance, the original pavement of the chapterhouse (a building attached to a cathedral, church, or monastery and used as a meeting place for the religious fraternity) had different-sized panels near the door on the west side and equal -sized panels in the east (see photo below).  These floor panels are equal-sized throughout the new version.

The medieval internal pier-bases and ribs (below) were far more intricately carved.    However, the use of Purbeck stone for paving and the ribs and yellow limestone for the walls does accurately represent the original materials.  It would be wrong to quibble about detail when what has been achieved is a worthy attempt to evoke the medieval cathedral that lies below.  After all, to accurately represent the originals would require a tall structure that would obscure the view of Wrens cathedral, and a user-friendly picnic or meeting area with modern wheelchair access to the cathedral.

Rather, I’d encourage anyone to mentally wander around the space and imagine the tall chapterhouse with it’s imposing buttresses dividing large stained-glass windows, surrounded by the square 2-storey cloister with open tracery on the ground floor, overlooking the minuscule lawns. And the hunched figures of medieval clerics, plotting or worrying about relations with the king or the Pope in Rome, or the rival Pope in Avignon. Even if you can’t visit it, you might get the picture.”

This video explains more about the old St Paul’s Cathedral.