tdp newsletter spring 2013
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Latest news from the Thames Discovery ProgrammeTRANSCRIPT
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THAMES DISCOVERYPROGRAMME
DonationsWelcomeAs you may know, the TDP was supported by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund from 2008-2011. Since October 2011, we have been fundraising to support the continuation of the project. The TDP are dedicated to keeping our training, fieldwork and workshops affordable for all. We appreciate donations in any amount! To make it easy for you to contribute, we have a snazzy new Donate button located on the front page of our website. For more information see our website: www.thamesdiscovery.org/frog-blog/help-support-the-tdp
Spring 2013
THE TDP NEWSLETTER
The Thames Discovery Programme is hosted by Museum of London Archaeology
Happy New Year!Welcome to the first TDP Newsletter of 2013. Despite the snow, wind and rain, we’ve been out on the foreshore all winter. Looking forward to the warmer months though, and we’ve got a programme of events that proves it. Read on to hear about what the FROGs have been up to, what we’re planning for the Spring /early Summer, and other bits that we hope you’ll find interesting. Looking forward to seeing you on the foreshore soon. From the TDP Team: Gustav, Nathalie, Eliott and Courtney
Thames foreshore New Year’s Eve debris! Eliott and a very cold Courtney at Vauxhall
Nat’s mittens holding a Roman clay head found over the winter
Current Archaeology’s Archaeologist of the Year Nominee...our very own Gustav Milne!TDP’s Programme Director Gustav Milne was nominated for Current Archaeology’s prestigious award this year for his dedication and significant contribution to the field of maritime archaeology. On 1st March 2013 we joined him at the awards ceremony to celebrate his nomination. Thanks to all who voted and who joined us at the awards ceremony to celebrate our fearless leader!
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Spring 2013
UPCOMING EVENTSFROG TrainingRing your brother, email your mother and blog / tweet / facebook your friends: FROG Training will take place in April this year, at the lovely historic Greenwich Palace site! We’re only offering FROG training once more in 2013, so now’s your chance to get your wellies on and get involved. Here’s the schedule:
Saturday 20 April: Day 1 Training at Mortimer Wheeler HouseSaturday 27 April: Day 2 Training at Greenwich Palace ForeshoreSunday 28 April: Day 3 Training at Greenwich Palace ForeshoreMonday 29 April: Day 4 Training at Greenwich Palace Foreshore
Cost is £25/day (£12.50/day concessions). For more information or to book see: www.thamesdiscovery.org/events/frog-training-2013 or email Eliott.
Prehistoric worked flint found at Vauxhall
Greenwich Palace ForeshoreWe’ll have an outreach stand on Day 2 and 3 of FROG Training this year at Greenwich Palace. If you’re interested in volunteering to help run the stand and tell people what we’re doing on the foreshore, let us know by emailing Nathalie.
Walk and Talk for Discover Greenwich11:00am – 12:15am, 1 May 2013Discover London’s longest open-air archaeological site,
the foreshore of the River Thames. Join a guided walk of the foreshore with the TDP, learn how to identify archaeological objects and discuss your finds. Please bring Wellington boots/suitable footwear. £6 per adult (16+). Booking essential: 020 8269 4799
A windlass eroding out at Bermondsey in Southwark
Festival of Archaeology Open Foreshore at Tower of LondonOn the 26th and 27th July, we’ll be back at the Tower! As ever we’re looking for friendly and energetic FROGs to help us teach the public about what we do, about the Tower of London, and about archaeology on the foreshore. Email Nathalie if you’re interested in getting involved.
Foreshore Forum 5-6 October 2013SAVE THE DATEWe’ll be celebrating our 5th Anniversary with a special 2-day conference on the 5th and 6th of October at University College London. In fact, the TDP team started planning back in November, not long after our 4th annual Foreshore Forum. If you missed out in 2012, you can read about it here: http://www.thamesdiscovery.org/frog-blog/foreshore-forum-2012. The TDP are planning a pretty epic programme of speakers from around the UK. We hope to see you in October 2013!
Call for Papers and PostersAs part of this year’s Foreshore Forum we will have a space dedicated to displays and posters. If you are interested in taking part in this part of the conference, or alternatively are interested in giving a paper, please contact Courtney for more information.
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Vauxhall FROG2012 was an eventful year for Vauxhall FROG, and
2013 is shaping up to be even more so. The Vauxhall FROG team has been awarded £1,000 of Council for British Archaeology (CBA) Challenge Funding to fund their ongoing research into the prehistoric and industrial histories of the Vauxhall foreshore.
The Vauxhall foreshore is a fascinating but under-researched area of London. When the tide is low enough, we can see prehistoric remains; the Bronze Age structure and Mesolithic timbers, and the lithics and prehistoric pottery. We also have its more recent industrial history, from the later eighteenth- to mid-twentieth centuries. The work carried out by the FROG is intended to bridge the gap between the land and the river and to produce an accessible guide to the archaeology on the Thames foreshore at Vauxhall.
We have recently made connections with local heritage groups, and we are currently working on a mapping project to help us to understand the remains on the foreshore.
City of London/Trig Lane FROG City of London FROG is now monitoring the central stretch of foreshore on the north bank from Blackfriars Bridge to London Bridge. This stretch of riverfront has a long history of trade activity and the FROG aims to investigate the complicated foreshore archaeology which includes bargebeds, wharves, river stairs, piers and jetties. We are also interested in the phases of building, rebuilding and modification of the embankment walls themselves.
We’d be interested in collaborating with other FROGs working within the same area, and we’d be happy for any unattached FROGs to join us for monitoring visits, or to just come along to have a look. If you have any experience in pottery identification, or would like to practice on newly-found artifacts, do come along. Details are always posted on the Ning network and there are some pictures on Flickr. If you’re not yet a FROG, use the opportunity to get trained up in April!
Greenwich FROG Greenwich FROGs have been busy over the winter. In February we spent a fascinating day at the Greenwich Heritage Centre pouring over their archives. There was a whole host of useful maps, plans, and documents, mostly relating to the Borough of Greenwich, but several useful items for other sites on the Thames as well. It’s well worth a visit!
We have had a couple of successful monitoring visits to Greenwich Palace since the start of the year, despite freezing temperatures, and misbehaving river levels. The site is still eroding, and changing rapidly, even the Trafalgar Tavern end of the site, which seems to be more stable, has had noticeable changes. We had a good poke around that end of the site on our last visit and looked at some of the mooring features and bargebeds that are now visible. We are starting to build up a collection of plans, photos and pictures relating to this section, so hopefully, we’ll be able to build up a picture of the businesses and activity that happened on this section of the foreshore. The other success on our last visit was finding a new feature within two minutes of being the foreshore. Which is a record, even for us! It’s a stone jetty leading from the centre of the Naval College river steps. There’s a jetty in that position marked on several maps and plans, so it’s exciting to find it in reality! There is a lot of work to do during the fieldwork in April to investigate all the new features that have appeared in the last year.
Bermondsey and Rotherhithe FROG The B&R FROG are extremely grateful that the CBA has granted us £1,000 to conduct fieldwork on our sites over the next couple of years. We have remained busy all winter. A few months ago our prehistoric peat deposits were exposed more than we have seen in over 3 years of monitoring, and we managed to find in situ worked flints! We also have a number of exciting research goals for the coming season, including a study on the use of handheld GPS devices for monitoring on the foreshore.
Bankside needs you!The Bankside FROG are looking for new members to join them in their quest to monitor this historic part of the foreshore. Stretching from Cannon Street to Blackfriars Railway Bridges, the site has everything from prehistory to post-medieval archaeology. If you are a FROG and want to join up, email Courtney. If you aren’t a FROG take advantage of April training to get started!
FROG BlogWant to read more about the TDP’s recent activities? Check out the FROG Blog archives at www.thamesdiscovery.org/frog-blog-archive. Recent blogs include The Blessing of the Thames by FROG Rose Bailie, and Have You Seen a Campshed Lately? by FROG Margaret Sparks.
Spring 2013
FROG NEWS
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Welcome to our new FROGsIn February and March we ran two training weekends with our pals at DigVentures. Aptly titled ‘Dirty Weekends’, we trained 30 new FROGs how to clean and record timbers on the gridiron at Bermondsey. They learned all about the heartaches and pleasures of working on the foreshore, where tides are often unpredictable but the archaeology is incomparable!
Riverpedia WorkshopsOne of the benefits of being a FROG is getting access to the Riverpedia Workshops. These workshops bring experts to the FROG to teach anything from Soils and Sediments to Pottery Identification. We’ve run two this year. The most recent one was Fieldwork on the Foreshore, which was geared towards refreshing your recording skills in the intertidal environment. There will be more Riverpedia workshops throughout the year so keep your eyes open for these announcements.
We theWe at the TDP would like to heartily thank the Council for British Archaeology, who have recently granted two of our FROGs £1,000 each as part of their Challenge Funding programme. THANK YOU!
Dr Michael Allen teaching Soils and Sediments.
Spring 2013
...AND IN OTHER NEWS
Tel. 0207 410 2207TDP, Mortimer Wheeler House46 Eagle Wharf Road, London N1 7ED
Eliott: e. [email protected]: [email protected]: [email protected]
Questions? Comments? Contact us at:
FROGs refreshing their recording skills at the workshop Fieldwork on the Foreshore
Guided walks and history talks...The TDP team have been busy this past winter leading a variety of guided walks and giving lectures to local history and archaeology societys such as Eliott’s lecture on the history of the ship to Hendon and District Archaeology Society. If you want more information on TDP guided walks, feel free to contact us.