THAMES DISCOVERY PROGRAMME

SUMMER 2015

SUMMER IS HERE!

And were as busy as ever...

Written by Nathalie Cohen

Causeway to
the Hounslow
waterfront and
Crane Stairs

Welcome to the Summer 2015

edition of the TDP Newsletter!
Were sorry its been rather a long
time since our last edition but the
team has been rather run off our
feet. However, were delighted
to announce that FROG member
Lana Joyce has very kindly offered
to take over the editorship of the
Newsletter from the next edition,
so you will be hearing from Thames
Discovery more regularly in the

future. Whether youve recently

joined our mailing list or have been
a friend to the project since the
beginning (seven years ago!), thank
you for your support and we hope
you enjoy reading all the latest
news and updates from us and our
colleagues working on the CITiZAN
project. g

LONDONS LOST WATERWAYS

Access to the Foreshore
Written by Nathalie Cohen

Our research focus during August/September is Access to the Foreshore. Were running a number
of guided walks through late summer/early Autumn across London to examine the archaeology of
the foreshore, and think about the ways in which people have travelled along and across the river
in the past. FROG fieldwork during August will survey the fast-eroding foreshore at Cannon Street
focusing on the remains of steps, stairs and bargebeds that were once part of the port of London.
Our fundraising campaign with Micropasts is due to end in September, and we hope to raise 5,000
we are almost halfway there so MANY thanks to those of you who have already contributed. With
the funding raised we aim to employ part-time researchers to compile the fieldwork data, site
inventories and update the Riverpedia section of the TDP website with the project results. Wed
like to encourage contributions in the form of short articles or pieces of research about watermen,
lightermen, or any other aspect of Thames travelling or trade, so contact us if you are interested in
contributing. Were also planning an event in 2016 to present the results so watch this space! We
hope you are able to join us, either on site or online, to hear more about the project. g

IN THIS ISSUE

Events

Feature

All Hallows
Stairs

Other News

45

EVENTS

1126 July

TDP AND THE

FESTIVAL OF
ARCHAEOLOGY
Its that time of year! The Festival of
Archaeology, organised by the Council for
British Archaeology in coordination with a
plethora of local and national organisations,
runs for two weeks in July. There are plenty
of river and maritime orientated activities
that will interest TDP supporters.

Our exclusive guided walk on the
Tower of London Beach is now sold out! But
there are plenty of other events still open for
booking. On Thursday 23 July you can hear
Nathalie Cohen talk about mudlarking and
monitoring on the River Thames, at Hall Place
in Bexley http://www.thamesdiscovery.org/
events/hall-place-lecture. Or join us at Tower
Open Foreshore, on Saturday 18th Sunday
19th July: http://www.thamesdiscovery.
org/events/tower-of-london-openforeshore-2015

DONATE

CALENDAR
11-26 July

FESTIVAL OF
ARCHAEOLOGY EVENTS
The Festival of Archaeology
has an extensive programme
of events. Dont miss out! Visit
the CBAs website for more
information and a complete
programme.

http://www.archaeologyfestival.org.uk/
2 August

CANNON ST WALK

Explore the foreshore near

Cannon Street, in the City of
London. Find out more about our
archaeological recording work
and the Londons Lost Waterway
Project, and hear about recent
fieldwork activities on this historic
stretch of Thames foreshore.
For more information see http://
www.thamesdiscovery.org/events/
cannon-street-walk
2-18 September

TOTALLY THAMES

Each year the Mayor hosts

the Totally Thames festival,
celebrating the heart of the

Feeling generous? You can easily donate at

https://crowdfunded.micropasts.org/projects/
londons-lost-waterway

city of London. Join the TDP

for a series of guided walks on
iconic beaches and learn more
about the fascinating and unique
archaeology and history of the
River Thames. This year we will
visit: Isleworth (2nd), Burrells
Wharf (3rd), Trig Lane (4th),
Cannon Street (4th/17th),
Custom House (12th), Greenwich
(13th), Bermondsey (14th),
Deptford (15th), Wapping (16th),
and Charlton (18th). Places are
limited so booking is essential!
Visit the TDP website for more
information and to book your place:
http://www.thamesdiscovery.org/
events/totally-thames-foreshoretours
5 December

TDP Annual Conference

Save the date for the annual

TDP conference, which will take
place at the historic Society of
Antiquaries on 5 December.
Check out the historic Society of
Antiquaries here: https://www.sal.
org.uk/

FOLLOW US

FEATURE

Newly minted FROGs during training at Greenwich

Fieldwork with the TDP: So far this summer weve worked on two of our original key sites, Greenwich Palace
bring it on! (http://www.thamesdiscovery.org/riverpedia/greenwich-palace-riverpedia) and
Written by Eliott Wragg

Rotherhithe (http://www.thamesdiscovery.org/riverpedia/rotherhithe-riverpedia),
and a new site at Town Wharf, Isleworth. A big thank you to all of you who have come
and helped.
At Greenwich, where erosion continues to be severe, we re-recorded what now
appears to be two phases of Tudor / Stuart jetty as new components continue to
emerge, well done to Martin Hatton and John Layt for picking these structures
apart. The Greenwich FROG have been regularly monitoring and recording at the
site, in order to better understand this structure, including trying to establish its full
extent. You can read about their work here: http://www.thamesdiscovery.org/frogblog/greenwich-frogs-go-nautical-sort-of. We also recorded new elements of the
baseplate structure to the west which may have been a 17th or 18th century attempt
to consolidate the foreshore. MOLA Geomatics (http://www.mola.org.uk/services/
geomatics) also undertook a topographic survey of the site so we can quantify the
rate of erosion. As is now traditional, our most recent FROG intake completed their
training at Greenwich at the same time, a warm welcome to the TDP to you all!

Gun carriage cheeks at

Rotherhithe

Erosion at Rotherhithe, the next site we worked on during May, is also a serious
concern, where a number of elements of the gridiron at Hanover Stairs have washed
away. Over the last couple of years this has revealed that the ships keels and other
nautical timbers forming the gridiron were resting on a number of gun carriage
cheeks, extremely rare artefacts indeed (see picture left). We have identified that
the keel elements come from four different vessels and, thanks to Jackie Days
research, have a good idea of what they were- a little more work and we will reveal
all! On the last day we also recorded some new ships timbers emerging beneath the
Mayflower pub.
Most recently we have been at B J Woods boatyard on the eyot opposite Town
Wharf, Isleworth, recording the remains of ML286, a WWI motor launch which was

OTHER NEWS
FEATURE CONTD
then converted to a houseboat and later took part in the Dunkirk evacuation. This
has been an extremely challenging site, not least because of the mud (it is officially
the muddiest site we have ever worked on!), but also because of the nature of the
vessel which is in an advanced state of decay. You can read more from a FROGs
perspective: http://www.thamesdiscovery.org/frog-blog/a-frog-s-first-site. As
a result we have trialled a new form of 3D laser scanning and await the results
with interest. We have also had a lot of interest from Historic England, who sent
a photographer, and BBCs Digging for Britain spent two days filming the site,
hopefully to be broadcast in September.
During July we will be working on eel traps and a possible hulked ship at Millwall and
in August we will be on the City foreshore looking at more things than I can mention
here! Hope to see you there! g

BJ Woods boatyard: a new

and exciting site for the TDP

CITiZAN: COAST TO COAST!

Meet the crew

Written by Stephanie Ostrich

Regular readers of the Thames Discovery Programme newsletter will

have heard of the Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network
and its development over the last year after a successful application
(http://www.thamesdiscovery.org/frog-blog/citizan-announcement)
to the Heritage Lottery Fund, and with support from the Crown Estate
and National Trust, our new community archaeology project has now
begun!

The CITiZAN team in all

their glory:
who wouldnt want to hang
out with this group?

This project follows on from the Thames Discovery Programme model and employs
a system of community-based training and outreach programmes and will create an
infrastructure to support a network of volunteers with the skills and systems in place
to be able to monitor and survey the highly significant but threatened archaeological
sites around Englands coast and foreshores, hopefully resulting in a greater
awareness of English coastal and intertidal sites as an important heritage resource
(see http://www.thamesdiscovery.org/about/tdp-newsletter-autumn-2014).

Weve got our work cut out for us as we monitor sites around the whole of
England and in order to do this our teams are based around the country. The London
office is based at MOLA with the Community Archaeology team, and shares space
with the Thames Discovery Programme. Gustav Milne (Project Leader): worked
for the Museum of London since 1973 on several Roman and Medieval harbour
excavations and has taught at UCL Institute of Archaeology since 1991. He set up
the Thames Archaeological Survey from 1992-3 (English Heritage/ Environment
Agency/ MoL) and then the HLF-supported Thames Discovery Programme in
2008 at UCL (which transferred to MOLA in 2011). He has undertaken hulk
surveys for Kent County Council and RCHME (on the River Medway and River

OTHER NEWS
CITiZAN CONTD

Lee), and worked on the HLF application for and Development Phase of the CITiZAN project with Courtney Nimura from
201214. Stephanie Ostrich (Project Officer) has an MA in Archaeology from UCL and a BSc in Anthropology and a BA in
History from University of California, Riverside. She has worked in London archaeology for over six years and has over eight
years of archaeological archiving experience in the UK and abroad, focusing on digital data management and database design.
She is heavily involved in community and outreach projects, including the Temple of Mithras oral history project, the Walbrook
Discovery Programme and the Day of Archaeology, and helped to develop and maintain MOLAs social media output. Lara
Band (Training) has an MA in Historical Archaeology from the University of Leicester. Prior to employment as an archaeologist
at MOLA she was a curator at land Maritime Museum, Finland, and an archaeologist for lands Board of Antiquities where
she worked on a series of coastal sites and surveys. Before moving to Finland she worked on a variety of archaeological sites in
England including Boxgrove and the waterlogged prehistoric site at Shinewater Marsh, both in Sussex. She has also undertaken
a variety of teaching and heritage training posts, such as at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum. Oliver Hutchinson
(Outreach) read Archaeology at UCL and was recently working on two projects there, one an Anglo Saxon ArcGIS project,
the other a community archaeology scheme for the Micropasts initiative exploring 3D printing in archaeology. Prior to that he
was heavily involved for five years in setting up and delivering educational training programmes in Yorkshire on climate change,
having previously excavated on archaeological sites in Devon, Sussex, Belize and Romania.

The team for north-east and north-west England is hosted by the Council for British Archaeology in their HQ in York
with Director Mike Heyworth. Andy Sherman (Training) has a BA in Archaeology from Lampeter and was employed by the
Glamorgan Gwent Archaeological Trust (GGAT) for over seven years on a series of excavation and publication projects. He
has spent a substantial period working on the ARFORDIR intertidal zone community archaeology project in Wales, one of the
schemes that initially inspired CITiZAN. Prior to working for GGAT, Andy worked briefly for the National Trust for Scotland and
the Centre for Wetland Archaeology based at the University of Hull. He specialises in wetland and intertidal archaeology and
has an interest in ancient boat building techniques. Megan Clement (Outreach) has a BA in Archaeology from Bradford, worked
as a professional archaeologist and held one of the CBAs recent Community Archaeology Training Placement posts in 2014,
working with schools, youth groups and adults with learning disabilities, as well as with the Young Archaeologists Club. During
her placement, and subsequently, she was based with Archaeological Services WYAS in West Yorkshire.

The team operating in south-west England is hosted by Mark Beattie-Edwards and the Nautical Archaeology Society
in Historic Englands facility in Fort Cumberland. Lauren Tidbury (Training) brings 4 years of highly relevant experience
of project management and educational programmes at the Maritime Archaeology Trust (Southampton) and already has a
detailed knowledge of the coastline on SW England. She is a qualified diver (including Sea Survival Techniques and Powerboat
Level 2), holds a BA and an MA in maritime archaeology (Southampton University) and has a number of published and
unpublished reports to her name. Alex Bellisario (Outreach) has a BA and an MRes from Winchester and has also studied at
Southampton University. She has worked on outreach and training projects in Cornwall, and has particular research interests
in palaeolandscape reconstruction and the effects of climate change on fluvial and coastal systems. She has most recently
been working as the HER data manager for Hampshire, experience that will be of inestimable value to the data-rich CITiZAN
programme. If youd like to provide a valuable knowledge base for the CITiZAN team and take your Thames skills further
downstream to the coasts and estuaries across England, register your interest with us at citizan@mola.org.uk g

Tel. 0207 410 2207

thamesdiscovery.org
TDP, Mortimer Wheeler House
46 Eagle Wharf Road, London
N1 7ED

Eliott
ewragg@mola.org.uk
Nathalie
ncohen@mola.org.uk
CITiZAN
citizan@mola.org.uk

The Thames Discovery

Programme is hosted
by Museum of London
Archaeology