Transcript
8/13/2019 TDP Newsletter Winter 2014
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The TDP joined up with the Council for British Archaeology London (CBAL)
for the Bankside Archaeology Day. The day included a guided walk on theforeshore with the TDP, a walk with Amelia Fairman around some of the
Thameslink sites that Pre-Construct Archaeology have recently dug, a tour
around the remains of Winchester Palace with Becky Wallower (CBAL),
and a lecture by co-director of the famed Rose Theatre excavation, Julian
Bowsher (MOLA), at the Globe and Rose Theatre dig sites. A definite
highlight of the day was the trip up the belfry at Southwark Cathedral (right).
Though the walk up the narrow, dark and windy staircase was a bit terrifying,
the view was astounding! Unfortunately it was already high tide by the time
we made it up to the top. The CBAL group run events regularly, the majority
of which are open to the public. Visit them on their website to find out more.
archaeologyuk.org/cbalondon/eventsg
THAMES DISCOVERY PROGRAMME
WINTER2014
Written by The TDP Team
HAPPY NEW YEAR!Whats to come
Its 2014: a new year, a fresh start
and a whole lot more foreshore
archaeology on the way. Were
gearing up for a packed year of
fieldwork, workshops and lectures.
In this issue you can read about
upcoming events and news from
the autumn/ early winter. In linewith other 5th anniversary events
we redesigned our t-shirts (left),
which are available to order on our
websitein two colours! Also new
this year is our newsletter design.
Were very grateful for our friends
Audrey and Dawn who donated
their time to design it. The new year
has also brought a series of storms
that have caused flooding and tidal
surges up and down the coasts
of the UK, putting foreshore andintertidal archaeology in the news
all winter. The TDP regularly tweets
maritime archaeology news so if you
arent already, go on, follow us! gNew t-shirts for a new year
The view from the rooftopof Southwark Cathedral
Events 2FROG News 3
Feature 4Feature 5
Other News 6-8IN THIS ISSUE
Written by The TDP Team
BANKSIDE ARCHAEOLOGYFrom the Rose to the roof
http://www.archaeologyuk.org/cbalondon/eventshttp://www.thamesdiscovery.org/frog-blog/tdp-t-shirts-for-salehttps://twitter.com/ThamesDiscoveryhttps://twitter.com/ThamesDiscoveryhttp://www.thamesdiscovery.org/frog-blog/tdp-t-shirts-for-salehttp://www.archaeologyuk.org/cbalondon/events8/13/2019 TDP Newsletter Winter 2014
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FROG NEWS
One of the aims of the Thames Discovery Programme is to reach out and connect
with other individuals and groups who are working in, or interested in working in,
intertidal contexts, so it was a bit of a no-brainer that we should link up with our
friends at City of London Archaeological Society (COLAS) for some foreshore work.
As announced at the TDPs annual Foreshore Forum, December saw a joint TDP/
COLAS weekend of recording structures and features on the foreshore at Swan
Wharf and Canon Street. More than one person asked me what I thought I was doingbooking fieldwork for the depths of mid-winter, but actually we were extremely
lucky with the weather and had two days of fine clear sunshine. With 18 people
participating over the two days, we managed to get the whole of the at risk section
of Swan Wharf recorded, as well as some other groups of timbers. In addition, a small
team worked on recording the Roman quern stone near Cousin Lane Stairs and, by
the good graces of the weather gods who sent a nice low tide, they even managed to
locate another two pieces of quern stone lower down on the foreshore. As theres
loads of recording to do at this site, well be planning return visits, again with FROGs
and COLAS members, so FROGS can look out on the Ning network for dates. g
In November we heard that we had been given Scheduled Monument Consent fromEnglish Heritage to monitor and record the area around the Tudor jetty at Greenwich
Palace. Its great that English Heritage recognises the importance of the work
that we do. We will be doing more over the next few years to try and get a better
understanding of this area.
The winter storms have caused a lot of erosion across the site, especially around the
medieval jetty, where two of the baseplates have now disappeared. Weve also had
more new features appear, including a causeway in front of the Naval College steps
and a very neat chalk bargebed. Weve also spent some time looking at an area with
a lot of clay pipes. Could they be waste from the pipe kilns on Crane Street? And
finally, as part of our ongoing quest to put the key sites in context we had a great walk
looking at the industrial remains on the foreshore from the Dome to the Anchor and
Hope pub in Charlton. g
CITY FROG
The Greenwich FROG recording the Tudor jetty
Photo: Helen Johnston
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CITY FROG
CITY FROGGREENWICH FROG
City FROG recording a quern stone
Photo: Solange LaRose
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FEATURE
In August last year the Thames Discovery Programme had the privilege of being
invited to explore and record the foreshore at Victoria Tower Gardens, adjacent
to the Palace of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. A site as famous as
this provides a daunting task, but as ever a team of dedicated FROGs braved the
elements, with fascinating results.
A key find was a number of intricately detailed pieces of moulded stone (left),which are thought to relate to previous phases of the Palace of Westminster. James
Wright, Standing Buildings specialist from Museum of London Archaeology was on
hand to provide us with some tips and advice, and in total 72 fragments were drawn
and recorded. The results have now been digitized and James is working on further
analysis, but it is possible that some of these architectural fragments relate to the
phases of building before a fire destroyed the complex in 1834, and new buildings
were re-designed by architect Charles Barry and one Augustus W. N. Pugin.
Exciting developments are also afoot for the prehistorians amongst us, with samples
of bone being collected from rapidly eroding peat deposits on the foreshore. It has
not yet been possible to give these an absolute date, but other deposits in the areahave been dated to the early Bronze Age. Previously, part of a human skull had been
found on the site, but in August other fragments were also identified one a human
femur with wear patterns indicating long deposition in the water, and another sample
of burnt animal bone thought to be cattle, horse or red deer.
Noted too was an area of bomb damage on the river wall (above) which was also
recorded in August. Some detective work byTDP Director Gustav Milne has revealed
that the river police reported the damage on the 16th of March 1941. This provided
an excellent opportunity to combine documentary, photographic and archaeological
records. Research on the site is ongoing, and we hope to return in the future to
explore the archaeology further so watch this space! To see more photos visit
flickr.com/photos/thamesdiscovery g
Houses of Parliamentforeshore
Written by Jo Warren
TDP staff and volunteers in front of the 1941 WolrdWar II bomb damaged river wall
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Moulded stone from theforeshore
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FEATURE
The last week of summer season fieldwork saw the team working on two sites onthe south bank at Putney (FWW03 and FWW04) and on the north bank at Fulham
Palace (FHM07). At Putney we returned to an old stomping ground between Putney
Bridge and Putney Railway Bridge (FWW03) where we had previously recorded
part of the foundation of the 18th century Putney Bridge and a post-medieval box
drain and causeway. This year we concentrated on what Nathalie had previously
identified as a long hard thing, comprising a linear arrangement of large re-used
masonry including some very nicely carved and moulded stones, which lay directly in
front of the river wall and ran some 150m upstream from the Hurlingham Yacht Club.
While doing detailed recording of the more intricate masonry pieces we also had
a good think about the structures function by looking at how it related to the river
wall. The structure coincided with a stretch of low, slightly sloping, probably early-mid 19th century brick wall, which had been heightened with a much later concrete
addition, and it butted up against the rubble back fill within the walls construction
cut. It seems most likely that the weight of the later addition was causing the lower
brickwork to start to move and collapse and thus the large foreshore structure was
built to stabilise the lower wall. Each day towards the time of low tide we dashed
downstream to the next site along (FWW04) where Pamela Greenwood from
Wandsworth Historical Society has been recording prehistoric horizons and Saxon
fish traps for 40 years. We re-recorded one of the fish traps but also observed two
intact prehistoric horizons, greyish green sand overlying peat, out of which were
eroding a number of sherds of Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age pottery and a flint of
possibly earlier date.
At the weekend we crossed over the river to Fulham Palace (FHM07) to investigate
a possible wickerwork structure that we first observed whilst monitoring the site in
2012. Although very fragile, we were able to gently clean and record what turned
out to be a brushwood panel visible for about 7m in length and 1m in width which
appeared to lie on top of a similar greyish green sand layer recorded on the other
bank, suggesting a possible prehistoric date for the structure. Indeed a sherd of
prehistoric pottery was recovered from close by. While it seemed as though it could
possibly have been some sort of prehistoric causeway (albeit unlikely given that it
ran parallel to the river wall) or a platform for fishing, we were very unsure and so
brought in the big guns of Jon Cotton (ex Museum of London Prehistoric Curator)
and Professor Martin Bell (Professor of Archaeology, University of Reading) to seewhat they thought. Their verdict was that it was more likely to be a wicker hurdle
which had fallen over, possibly from an Anglo-Saxon fish trap; samples were taken for
Radiocarbon dating so watch this space for results! g
Fulham and Putney fieldworkreport
Written by Eliott Wragg
The possible wicker hurdle in detail
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FROGs at Fulham recordingthe possible wicker hurdle
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There are lots of other London
links to be made in Sydney too, for
example a number of the First Fleet
vessels were either built or ended
their lives on the Thames, while the
range of post-medieval and Victorianartefacts from waterside excavations
and now on display in places like the
Rocks Discovery Museum (therocks.
com/things-to-do/the-rocks-
discovery-museum.aspx) would be
familiar to any foreshore explorer!By Nathalie Cohen g
OTHER NEWS
TDP GOES GLOBAL
The plus side of the erosion on the
Thames foreshore is old material coming
to the surface after being buried for
centuries. The down side is some of
the historic structures revealed aredisappearing as the shore that kept
them in place erodes away. In 2013 we
saw substantial parts of two medieval
jetties, at Tower of London and at
Greenwich Palace, float away down the
Thames: gone forever. Fortunately the
TDP faithfully recorded, photographed
and measured the structures where
our ancestors once walked. Greenwich
was the centre of Tudor England and
accessed more by the river than theroad. A trickle of finds shows Roman
activity here. One wonders if the erosion
continues we will lose most of the
archaeology and be down to only the
prehistoric in a couple of years! We are
perhaps fortunate in the circumstances
to be involved in an interesting time of
discovery. What next? A Viking ship
from the siege of London, Anglo-Saxon
brooches, a Celtic bronze shield or two,
or where Caesar actually crossed the
Thames would not go amiss.By Christopher Gunstone g
FROG COMMENT
This Christmas, I was on holiday in Australia, and through the wonders of
Twitter, I had an invitation to speak at the Nicholson Museum, part of the
University of Sydney. The Nicholson Museum is home to the largest collection
of antiquities in both Australia and the southern Hemisphere. Founded in
1860, the collection spans the ancient world with primary collection areas
including Greece, Italy, Egypt, Cyprus, and the Near East. They also have a
collection of British artefacts, including these amazing fake, lead medieval
figurines (below). Charles Nicholson acquired them in the 1860s, via an
antiques dealer, from two Thames Mudlarks, William Smith and CharlesEaton (Billy and Charley), who variously claimed to have found them on the
foreshore in Shadwell, and on a church excavation near St Pancras. However,
it turned out that Billy and Charley were manufacturing artefacts by the
thousand at premises near the Tower of London! These artefacts form part
of the wonderful 50 Objects, 50 Stories exhibition at the museum. Also
currently on the display is the Lego Acropolis (sydney.edu.au/museums/
exhibitions-events/lego-acropolis.shtml) Lego Pompeii is coming next year!
On the 16th of December, over 100 Sydneysiders turned up to hear (a slightly
jetlagged!) talk all about the Thames Discovery Programme maybe we couldset up the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Survey in the future! The tidal range
is not anywhere as great as that on the river, but enough is exposed at low
tide that interesting features are visible for example at Cremorne Wharf
(above), where you can see the remains of mooring chains and other features.
Cremorne Wharf foreshorein Sydney Harbour
Fake medieval figurinesare part of the 50 Objects,50 Stories exhibition at the
Nicholson Museum in Sydney
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http://www.therocks.com/things-to-do/the-rocks-discovery-museum.aspxhttp://www.therocks.com/things-to-do/the-rocks-discovery-museum.aspxhttp://www.therocks.com/things-to-do/the-rocks-discovery-museum.aspxhttp://www.sydney.edu.au/museums/exhibitions-events/lego-acropolis.shtmlhttp://www.sydney.edu.au/museums/exhibitions-events/lego-acropolis.shtmlhttp://www.sydney.edu.au/museums/exhibitions-events/lego-acropolis.shtmlhttp://www.sydney.edu.au/museums/exhibitions-events/lego-acropolis.shtmlhttp://www.therocks.com/things-to-do/the-rocks-discovery-museum.aspxhttp://www.therocks.com/things-to-do/the-rocks-discovery-museum.aspxhttp://www.therocks.com/things-to-do/the-rocks-discovery-museum.aspx8/13/2019 TDP Newsletter Winter 2014
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OTHER NEWS
Smashing up any misconceptions about prehistoric people as well as some large
lumps of rock was the order of the day at TPDs Riverpedia Workshop Flint! on
17 January. Archaeologist Jon Cotton presented an overview of flints utility at a
time when survival was regularly at stake. Flint is widespread across Britain and can
be broken predictably when struck knap is Dutch for snap to create a variety
of tools. But flints also offer evidence indicating aesthetic or spiritual aspects of
prehistoric cultures, for example, through the relationship seen between someobjects and the flint colour chosen, as in the case of leaf and barbed and tanged
arrowheads, which tend to be orange. Or my favourite, a small circular flint, roughly
knapped to leave a fossil shell at its centre, and serving no obvious purpose. It could
simply have been a souvenir from a prehistoric walk. The earliest evidence for
hominids in London comes from around 400,000 years ago, but evidence of earlier
peoples may have been lost or could still emerge. Importantly for FROGS finding
ancient foreshore timber, is to note that it can be possible to tell from the particular
signature that axes leave on a stump of wood, whether that axe was of metal or stone.
We dont actually know who it was who did the knapping men, women or children
or, as Jon thinks likely, everybody knapped flint to some extent. Excavations have
shown debitage waste from flint knapping mapped to the remains of hearths,suggesting the activity was communal.
Worked flint also has a history of re-use, for example, by Romans who thought they
were thunderbolts thrown by Jupiter and could ward off lightning if put in roofs, and
there have also been forgers such as Sir Jack Evans, a 19th century antiquarian who
also supplied a market in antique fakes. Nor is all worked flint ancient it was used
well into the 19th century for gun flint-lock making. So theres a lot to think about in
the wider history of flints. Flint is still knapped by hobbyists and archaeologists, and
in the afternoon James Dilley, an expert in ancient crafts, demonstrated the level of
skill and different techniques required by knapping. He produced two different types
of hand axes before letting us each have a go and, by our rather less successful
efforts, we also demonstrated the skill required. I found the whole day great fun and
informative and think it will help us better identify flints from the foreshore. To see
more photos visit flic.kr/s/aHsjQSA3Z7 g
Riverpedia Workshop: Flint!Review
Written by Claire Millington
The Riverpedia workshopand lecture series provides
learning opportunities forthe FROG volunteers and the
general public.
The FROGs after a day of knapping, with tutorsJon Cotton and James Dilley
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