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Issue 68December 2002ContentsnewsScatness dates push back history of brochs 'Londoners' stone sheds light on city's cosmopolitan ways Ivory plane from Roman settlement in the North East Wealthy trading suburb excavated near Roman fort History from pig fields, beaches and back gardens featuresRoman Britons after 410 Bear pit to zoo Great sites lettersRoman roads, talismans, animal bones and Tolkien (again) issuesGeorge Lambrick on the pillage of the warship 'Sussex' Peter EllisbooksCBA updatefavourite findsBill Putnam on a World War II fork in a 'prehistoric' ditch
ISSN 1357-4442 Editor Simon Denison |
featuresGreat sites: London's medieval waterfrontGustav Milne on a series of excavations in London that transformed our knowledge of medieval crafts, fashion and daily life It is now possible to walk beside the north bank of the Thames from the Tower of London west to Blackfriars, avoiding the heavy traffic that thunders along Thames Street for most of the route. The pedestrian-friendly pathway opens up new riverside vistas for visitors to the historic City while providing a haven of relative peace in which office workers can enjoy a summer lunch break. This new public amenity was a consequence of a major redevelopment that saw obsolete warehouses and offices comprehensively swept away in advance of a mile-long stretch of new riverfront buildings. It began in the 1960s, gathered momentum in the 70s and 80s, and continued into the 90s. In addition to the modern buildings and the new Thames Path there was another major gain - the archaeological excavation and study of London's medieval waterfront. This long-term project did more than simply illuminate the workings of the ancient port. It had a revolutionary impact on medieval archaeology in general. The start, however, was anything but auspicious. In 1970, the provision for archaeology in the nation's capital was at an all time low - one fully-stretched archaeological officer and an all too rapidly increasing programme of large scale redevelopment. The digging of the deep foundations of the new buildings destroyed the archaeological remains, which were usually not recorded and often not even seen. One of the major projects at the time was the construction of a new river wall on the western part of the waterfront, between Blackfriars and Trig Lane. A Roman ship had been discovered and hastily recorded in 1962 during the first phase of this development, clearly demonstrating the waterfront's potential for archaeology. However, the project was inadequately monitored as it progressed and another vessel was rudely exposed by the mechanical excavators in 1969 - a river barge with a cargo of bricks for the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666. The lessons had still not been learned by November the following year, when the mechanical grab ripped up part of a late medieval barge near Trig Stairs. Just three days and no funding were made available to record the vessel. The following month yet another medieval wreck was encountered. There was no time to excavate this new find, and little time even to clean and record it. It was simply sketched, photographed and discarded. Surely the history of the harbour deserved better than this? Where was the public outcry of the kind that so recently saved the Newport Ship (BA, October)? It came in 1972, following a rescue excavation on the Baynard's Castle site at the western end of the City waterfront. The well-preserved façade of a late medieval building together with deeply-stratified waterlogged deposits of Roman, Saxon and medieval date were recovered in what was intended to be a five-month excavation. Then the work schedule was dramatically curtailed to just one month. Over the final weekend, the last desperate salvage excavations were recorded in full view of the public and the national press, then based in neighbouring Fleet Street. The resulting furore led to questions in the House of Commons, and a consequence was that a full-time archaeological unit was set up in December 1973. The rich, well preserved and eminently photogenic medieval waterfront had won the day. Wharves and wrecksThe new professional team adopted much of the agenda set out by the archaeologist Martin Biddle in his Future of London's Past. This legendary report, published in 1973 and much influenced by the Baynard's Castle affair, declared that: 'the history of the waterfront is critical for all periods of London's archaeology. . . here lie the wharves and jetties . . . and even the wrecks of ships and their cargoes. . . The waterlogged nature of the deposits still surviving will have a major contribution to make to a knowledge of London's trade connexions at home and abroad, her manufactures, and the details of her daily life in the medieval period.' These prophetic statements in no way overstated the case. Indeed, while the report was in press in the summer of 1973, another waterfront excavation was mounted, this time on the site of the Old Custom House, close by the Tower. It recovered the well-preserved remains of a Roman quay, medieval timber-faced wharves standing 2m tall, half a ship and the foundations of the Customs house where one Geoffery Chaucer served as Customs controller in the late 14th century. The new professional unit, the Museum of London's Department of Urban Archaeology, made the study of the waterfront a priority, not least because much of that zone was suddenly ripe for redevelopment with the progressive closure of the enclosed docks to the east, from 1967 to 1981. For the next 25 years, the Museum's archaeological units mounted major medieval excavations ranging all along the waterfront, as well as around the medieval bridgehead, in the Vintry/Queenhithe area, on the Southwark shore and upriver at Kingston. Many embankments, timber revetments and masonry river walls from the 10th to the 15th centuries were recovered, and tonnes of artefacts retrieved. The work emphatically confirmed the suggestion that the land south of Thames Street had been won from the river in the medieval period. A firm chronology for that process of encroachment was established, using a combination of dendrochronology, coin and artefact analysis. Structures that were recorded included the medieval customs house, the Hanseatic Steelyard, warehouses, a dyehouse, the wharves of fishmongers and wine merchants and even the southern abutment of several phases of the medieval bridge. Clearly this work was of great importance for the topographical study of medieval London, but it proved even more significant than that. For a start, the City work clearly exemplified the European-wide phenomenon of urban encroachment on the waterfront, as shown in Dorestad in the Netherlands or Bergen in Norway, providing a chronology and a structure for it, and encouraging its study through a series of international waterfront conferences (held in London, Bergen, Bristol, York and Copenhagen). The general form of these sites was a sequence of timber or stone revetments set one in front of the other advancing riverwards over time, invariably including a thick dump of midden-like landfill material between each revetment structure and its replacement. It was the study of the well-preserved structural evidence, the foreshore material and especially the finds recovered from the peat-rich midden dumps that opened the next new chapter in medieval archaeology. Taken together, the Museum of London had an archive that comprised over 100 waterfront structures, most of them closely datable, either relatively or absolutely, and frequently with that bark-edge precision for which dendrochronology is famous. Most of these dated structures were associated with deep, waterlogged midden deposits from which tonnes of artefacts of all descriptions had been recovered. The medieval waterfront sites therefore provided all its midden material with very precise dating. To put the matter perhaps too simplistically, here in London, the pottery was not used to date the structures as normally happens elsewhere; the structures were used to date the pottery, be they imported or locally-produced. The full impact of this revolution has rippled outwards from the City. Pottery which 25 years ago was datable to within one or two centuries, may now be datable to within 30 years, as Clive Orton and Alan Vince showed in the early 1980s. Leather and boneThe other finds, whether organic, metal or bone, were also found in quantity, opening up the opportunity to study whole series of large dated assemblages. An internationally-acclaimed series of volumes was published between 1987 and 1998 by the Museum of London and HMSO, covering themes such as shoes and pattens, knives and scabbards, textiles and clothing, dress accessories, horse furniture, pilgrim souvenirs and a stunning range of household objects. Here is the material culture, not just of medieval London, but of medieval England. The studies have looked at changing craft technology, trade patterns, changing fashion, the development of a market economy and vernacular religion. The brooches, rings, belts, buckles and buttons found on the waterfront, for example, provide graphic evidence for the gradual introduction of mass-production into the medieval market place. There was clearly as big a demand for the cheap and cheerful as there was for items of the highest quality. All human life was here. The range of shoes shows that prior to 1200 everybody wore the drawstring type - fashion was clearly not an issue. After 1350, however, a remarkable variety of slip-on, front-laced, side-laced, latchet or buckled shoes where available. Times had changed. Increasing guild control can also be noted on the cutlers' marks found on over 100 of the dated knives recovered. Only one 13th century blade bore a cutler's mark, whereas over half of the 14th century specimens did so. Even the waterlogged riverside revetments had their part to play in the wider arena. Here was a long sequence of timber structures, dating from the 10th the 15th centuries, each one built to serve the same workaday function. The broad changes over time - from earth-fast to frame-building; from the use of timber in the round to the use of squared baulks; the introduction of the saw and the mortise and tenon joint - all these trends could now be precisely dated. The chronology thus established was applicable well outside the confines of Thames Street, to the broader picture of vernacular timber building crying out for such precision. Even nautical archaeology has made great gains, for many of the waterfront structures incorporated broken-up vessel fragments, hull planking, keels, a prow, a side rudder, ribs, a mast partner. At least 30 medieval vessels are represented from the nautical finds from the London waterfront, of which several are clearly non-local in origin. History and climateAll in all, this remarkable research is doing so much more than mapping the medieval waterfront, and contributing to our understanding of the economy of the port, important as that work is. Outside the medieval period, the waterfront project revealed spectacular evidence for the Roman port. Furthermore, the wider implications of the project reach even to the effects of climate change. The changing level of the medieval Thames, for example, based on the evidence from the waterfront sites, can be used to help assess the scale of the predicted sea-level rise in the next century or so. Waterfront sites have also provided a secure dating framework that supports many aspects of medieval chronology, through the fortuitous association of dendrochronology, a diverse range of well-preserved waterlogged structures and sufficient lost coinage. But perhaps above all, the most widely-felt legacy will be the continuing research into the material culture recovered in such quantity and such quality from the London waterfront. Here is a window into the economic, technological and social history of medieval England that is as tangible as it is profound. Gustav Milne directed medieval excavations on the London waterfront in 1974-6 and 1988-90. He now lectures on the archaeology of London at UCL |
CBA web:British ArchaeologyFebruary 2000 CBA BriefingFieldwork CBA homepage |
