TDP Newsletter Spring 2010

8/9/2019 TDP Newsletter Spring 2010

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The Thames Discovery Programme is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and managed by the Thames Estuary Partnership with support from the Thames Explorer Trust

w e l c o m eo the TDP newsletter - Spring 2010

Join TDP on site this summer!

We ! re planning a packed schedule this summer, makingthe most of some good low tides and (hopefully!) sunnyweather, and you are welcome to attend as many or asfew sessions as you are able.

The aims of the summer season are twofold. Firstly, theeldwork will give all of you the opportunity toconsolidate and build upon the initial training undertakenat Custom House, Isleworth, Charlton, Strand-on-the-Green, Bankside or Trig Lane, and the eldwork lastsummer at Alderman Stairs, Putney and Bermondsey.Secondly, we are expanding the number of key sitesavailable for detailed recording through the work atBurrell ! s Wharf, the Tower of London, Greenwich, Kew,Woolwich and Rotherhithe.

There will also be opportunities to join the FROG teamsacross London for work at their key sites.As always, please keep an eye on the website for updatedinformation regarding events, eldwork and volunteeropportunities. I look forward to seeing you out on site thissummer!The dates and places of the eldwork are as follows:

Week 1: Charlton (17-21 May 2010 )

Week 2: Burrell!

s Wharf (14-18 June 2010 ) Week 3: Tower of London (12-16 July 2010 )

Week 4: Greenwich Royal Palace (11-16 August 2010 )

Week 5: Kew/Strand-on-the-Green (23-29 August 2010 )

Week 6: Woolwich (9-14 September 2010 )

Week 7: Rotherhithe (25-29 September 2010 )

These sessions are open to any FROG member who has

completed Days 1 and 2 of training; please email EliottWragg (Field Ofcer) at [email protected] tobook or call 0207 566 9310.

For those of you who have not yet had the chance tocomplete Day 2 training, the following weekend dates areavailable:

Greenwich Royal Palace: 14-15 August 2010

Kew/Strand-on-the-Green: 28-29 August " 2010 " "

Rotherhithe: 25-26 September 2010

NEWSHello, we are now moving into Spring, better light andsome warmer weather, so TDP activities on theforeshore will increase. ! For those of you who havecompleted the FROG training, details of theforthcoming FROG summer eldwork season areenclosed. ! If you are interested in taking part, Nathalie& Eliott will be very pleased to hear from you.

Please keep an eye on our website for the latest news,foreshore walks and events, and further developmentsn our Riverpedia research project. !

f you have any questions about the project, pleasecontact us: 0207 566 9310 or email:[email protected]

Many thanks to all the FROG contributions to thisnewsletter - if you would like to add anything to futureeditions, please get in touch!

Best wishes

Lorna

Archaeology Outreach OfcerThames Discovery Programme


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SAVE THE DATE!

Events

"Along the Black Waterfront"Riverpedia Seminar

26th April 2010 6pm 7pm

Room 612 Institute of Archaeology,UCL

Seminar on the history of the Black

community in London and the riverThames, with author and researcher onBlack history, S. I Martin.

S. I Martin is the author of Britain's SlaveTrade, and three novels, IncomparableWorld, Jupiter Williams, and JupiterAmidships.

To book a ticket, please either visit ourevent booking website directly:

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/ 610549169

call us on:

0207 566 9 310

or email us at

[email protected]

Find out more about the Riverpedia project on the Thames Discovery

Programme website:

www.thamesdiscovery.org/riverpedia

FROGS Launch a New Site

We visited a new part of the foreshore, at Syon Reach,Brentford on 29th, 30th & 31st March 2010. We FROGShopped across the tidal water meadow.

The objective was to trace all the features recorded in theThames Archaeological Survey, check for and recordchanges and to locate them accurately using GPSechniques, provided by MOLA Geomatics.

The GLSMR includes about 50 entries for Syon Reach,ncluding many prehistoric artefacts and signs of human

activity. ! Naturally,

we are hoping toadd to the list.

English Naturehas given themeadow andforeshore SSSIstatus andpermission had tobe obtained fromhem to carry outhe work.

Syon AbbeyResearchAssociates, agroup ofesearchersnterested in the

history of SyonAbbey (1426 -1539) has helped to arrange access, thanks to the co-operation of the Syon Estate. You can read more abouthis eldwork on the FROGBlog.

Laurie ElvinFROG Member

Please contact Laurie Elvin for more informationon 07875 123274


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Ship Breaking on the Thames

The ! industry of ! ship breaking is as old ashat of ship building itself; as vesselsuccumbed to the cumulative pressures of

hard use and the effects of marine life andhe water they were either hulked, broken

up for re-use or even buried. Shipbreaking, however, has never been asglamorous as building state of the artmodern vessels and has, therefore, beenittle documented and investigated.

One of the most obvious pieces ofevidence of ship breaking is Turner " santastic painting of the Fighting Temerairerom 1839. From the time of the close ofhe Crimean War in 1856 however, wetart to get a little more documentary

evidence. This was the great period of theransition from sail to steam. Also the new

explosive shells, used in naval battleswere so destructive that there was aneed for greater protection for navalhips. Armour was added to some

wooden ships, which were then knownas the Ironclads, more ships were builtentirely of iron; the best known of thesebeing HMS Warrior. Even before this ithad become increasingly difcult toource mature oak from Britain after the

massive Napoleonic shipbuildingprogrammes, and hardwood had beenourced from the Baltic and more exoticocations such as West Africa and the

Malabar coast of India.

The old wooden sailing ships becameurplus to requirements as the new ironhips were introduced. ! This increasedhe demand for ship breaking on the

Thames, which coincided with the drop inwooden ship building.

The switch to iron and later steel vesselsmeant ships could now be built to hithertounthinkable sizes; the Thames shipyardswere not large enough to launch the largest ships and equally it became more economic to build iron andteel ships in the north of England with close proximity to iron and coal deposits.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Continued..

The big freeze Anchor and Hope Wharf, Charlton, 1895National Maritime Museum Flickr collection

FROG fieldwork at Charlton, 2009 by Hugh Dulley

RIVERPEDIA


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Ship Breaking on the Thames Continued

Ships due for breaking up ! were rst drawn up onto theoreshore and secured. The ship would then rise ! and ! fall

with the tide, while its upper structure was dismantled.When the ship would no longer oat, work could only beundertaken at low tide.

There was a demand for ! the recycled metal ttings,urniture and even sometimes the ships own crockery plus

of course the wood. The ! oak and teak ! from the ships waseasoned ! and had many uses, for example:-

Building and repairing ships

Constructing buildings, eg warehouses

Wooden paving for roads, rst used in Oxford Street in 1838

Interior furniture for houses

Garden furniture

Figure heads, subsequently used outside many naval barracks

Wood for burning

Protection of the Thames river bank - old ships timbers till in use

Liberty in fact built their new shop on GreatMarlborough Street in 1924 from ship " s timbers. Thisdramatic design was constructed from the timbers ofHMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan. The mainrontage is the same length as the Hindustan. Oldailing ships were also used as prisons, smallpox

hospitals, naval training establishments and oatingchurches.

The biggest ship breaker on the Thames was HenryCastles & Sons, who were founded in 1861, at theirpeak they had yards at Charlton, Woolwich,Rotherhithe and Vauxhall. Over the years the yardsclosed, no doubt due to the lack of wooden ships forbreaking and the problems they had in breaking up ironand steel ships. The last yard at Woolwich closed in 1938.

This article is based on some preliminary internet research into hip breaking on the Thames in London. If you have any further information

on Castles and ship breaking, Eliott Wragg and I would be very glad to hear rom you.

Hugh DulleyFROG Member

A floating hulk,!possibly !viewed from the porthole of another ship.

National Maritime Museum Flickr collection

Figurehead of HMS Wellington at theBaltic Wharf, Millbank.

National Maritime Museum Flickr

RIVERPEDIA


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Visiting the tunnel

I was one of thoselucky enough tomake the visit andthe experience willalways remain withme as a very specialoccasion. It madethe story of the

achievement of oneof the greatestengineering triumphsof the Brunel " s,father and son, thebuilding of the Thames Tunnel, even more vivid. The rst of anunderground network of tunnels that has transformed the life ofLondon, the Tunnel eventually became part of the LondonTransport system which we have today. It was lit then, as now,by a string of lights running the whole of its 1300 feet length(396.24 metres).

How were the visits organised?

The tours through the Tunnel from Rotherhithe to Wapping andback again were extremely well organised. They were timed,with groups setting off at 15 minute intervals accompanied by aguide. With regular stops, our guide talked about specic pointsof interest, and answered our questions. Walking conditionsoverall were quite comfortable, despite a few damp patches, andthe dry atmosphere was pleasantly surprising. Considering howdemanding it must have been to cope with non-stops tours ofvisitors over the two days, the staff worked after us well andwere remarkably patient.

Partly because of the smoothness of the tour organisation, Ifound it quite difcult at rst to step back in time, to get a senseof the enormity of the whole project, what was achieved and atwhat cost in terms of human lives lost. In physical terms, theclosest I got was in examining and in contrasting those walls andarches which remained plastered (ornamented with their Doriccolumns) and those showing only the brickwork, where youmight imagine the physical toil in their construction.

By Edna WolfsonFROG Member


A Visit to the Thames Tunnel

The rst signicant sub-aqueous tunnel

in the world

Over the weekend of 12th & 13th March2010, after being closed to the public for145 years, the Thames Tunnel reopenedas a nale to London " s EAST festival 2010.Access to the Tunnel, described bycontemporaries as the 8th wonder of the world was for two days only. It is nowclosed permanently, and will be used for anextension of the East London Railway.

Public interest in this event was wildlyunderestimated, and there were manydisappointed applicants for tickets, whichwas a considerable loss of income. What amissed opportunity and lack of imaginationby the controlling authority! This stemsrom an agreement between the Greater

London Assembly and the site developershat the public open days would only run

over two days. Here is a prime example of

what archaeologists often come up against,when sites due for development are ofpublic interest. Contrast this with 1852,when the Tunnel rst opened; by the end ofhe rst week, more than half the

population of London had paid to walk whatwas then being described as the shining avenue of light to Wapping .


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SAVE THE DATE!

Memoryscape Walk in Greenwich

1st May 2010 11am 1pm

Meeting at Cutty Sark DLR

A TDP Guided Walk with a Difference!This sound walk will be guided by youriPod, CD or Mp3 player (we can lend CDplayers of you haven " t got one) andfeatures the voices of people whose liveshave been entwined with the riverThames.

This walk begins at maritime Greenwich,one of the most historic areas of riversidein London. The walk explores the hiddenhistory of London's docks, once thebusiest docks in the world. The picturepostcard, tourist views of Greenwich arequickly left behind to explore the strangequaysides and deserted industriallandscape of the Greenwich peninsula.The walk is narrated by the people whoused to work in the docks and wharfs inLondon. Their stories are taken from aunique collection of 200 interviewsgathered when the docks fell into disuse,which is now stored at the Museum inDocklands.

The collection recalls the working life of aport that once had a workforce of 100,000people - a culture that has almostcompletely disappeared in a livingmemory.

For tickets visit our event bookingwebsite:

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/ 617691532

call

0207 566 9 310,

or email

[email protected]

An Alien Invader in the Thames

Man is not the only species making an impact on the Thames " banks. I recently attended a joint meeting organised by theNational History Museum and the Linnean Society, at BurlingtonHouse, on the Chinese Mitten Crab in the Thames, and whether itcould be commercially shed.

The Chinese Mitten Crab ( Eriocheir sinensis ) is an invasive, mainlyresh water species that has boomed in the Thames in recent

years. It is tough, active, aggressive and an enthusiastic burrowernto banks, often causing severe erosion , e g at Chiswick Eyot and

Syon Park. There are seasonal migrations up and down theThames by adults and larvae, to and from the spawning areas inhe Thames Estuary. At such times it can be so numerous that

hey can block intakes to water treatment works and the like. It iscalled the Mitten Crab because the adults have curious, hairy

outgrowths on their main claws. FROGS in central London maycome across juveniles under rocks at low tide, or their discardedhells, that are shed periodically as they grow and moult.

They are considered a delicacy in many SE Asian countries andone means of control might be licensed shing, as happens inHolland. The meeting heard reports from researchers about thepossibility of Thames crabs carrying liver ukes, Vibio Sp bacteriaand various forms of industrial pollution. On the whole they look asafe as any other shell-fish. The main problem is that the peakeason f or trapping the sought-after migrating adult crabs

coincides with the season for migrating eels, whose slumpingpopulation is causing grave concern.

The Mitten Crab is not the only alien invader. In recent years theNorth American Signal Craysh, (Pacifastacus leniusculu), another enthusiastic bank burrower, has almost driven the nativeCraysh to extinction in most of England.

By Rose Baillie

FROG Member

Female Mitten Crab carrying eggs. Paul Clark (Natural History Museum)


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w e l c o m eo the TDP newsletter

The ThamesDiscovery Programme team areplanning an exhibition of FROGproduced images as part of a 6week exhibition about theforeshore and the TDP atDiscover Greenwich in lateAugust/September 2010. If youwould be interested in takingpart in a foreshore-focusedphotography project leadingup to this exhibition, andwould like to register yourinterest, please get in touchwith Lorna. Further detailswill be confirmed in May.

These images have been taken by photographerand FROG Peter Kyte ( www.fotog.info )


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S S Great Eastern An Anniversary Idea

In July 1853, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, one of Britain " s greatest engineers, was commissioned to build the largest, mostinnovative metal-hulled, steam-powered ships in the world. Brunel chose John Scott Russell " s shipyard at Millwall to build

this Great Leviathan, as the Isle of Dogs was the only place in the country that could provide the skills and technical expertiseto deliver such an audacious project.

Work began in 1854, and at over 12 000 tons, 211 metres inlength and with paddle wheels 18.29 metres in diameter, theship nally had to be launched sideways into the Thames, afterthe construction of two slipways on the foreshore for thispurpose. The cost of the launch was some 170 000, a third ofthe total estimated expenditure for the entire project. Afterseveral attempts, the Great Eastern was nally hauled down theslipways and oated off at high tide on Sunday 31 st January1858. The cost to both Brunel and Russell in terms of theirnances and health were disastrous.

In 1984, the remains of what is thought to be one of the timberslipways were rediscovered on dry land near Napier Road, E14,and this is now on display in a public open space next to SlipwayHouse. In January 2010, the TDP team identied the survivingremains of the footings of the Great Eastern slipways on theforeshore, either side of the Thames Clipper pier. Both are thecorrect form, size and distance apart to conrm identication.

Since we know from Brunel " s records that the Great Eastern " sstern projected some 46 metres # west " of the aft slip, and the bow some 55 metres # east " of the for " ard slip, we can nowaccurately project the footprint of this great ship on the present day waterfront, sitting between the landward remains of the

slip to the north, utilising the modern river wall (which isconveniently curved) as the starboard side.

Over 80% of the ship " s footprint is in a public space, known as# Maritime Quay " , and therefore we have an opportunity to mark outin plan and prole the ghost of the Great Eastern as a monumentfor Millwall, where the skyline was once dominated by the ship " shull. This could be a lasting memorial to the shipbuilding industrythat once thrived on the banks of the Thames.

June 2010 sees the 150 th anniversary of the Great Eastern " s rsttransatlantic voyage, and we " d like to suggest a permanent

memorial to this astounding feat of engineering, shipbuilding andthe skills of the shipbuilders of the Isle of Dogs: The plan of theship could be easily traced on the ground on Maritime Quay withcoloured stonework or painted lines, and her prole marked on the

riverwall; the lower trunks of ve appropriately-spaced treesabove the riverwall could be clad in black to represent the vefunnels, with the six masts interspersed (named Monday Saturday fore to aft) and explanation boards placed nearby.

The ghost of the vessel would appear from the other side of the river Thames, and the Great Eastern " s immense scale couldbe appreciated on land at Millwall. This would join up the evidence for the slipways on land and that which can still be foundon the foreshore, and provide an exciting addition to the Thames Path. A new focus for the rich heritage of Millwall and theIsle of Dogs would mark a pivotal moment in Island history

The building of the 'Great Eastern': bow view of theship and yard - 1857.

National Maritime Museum Flickr site

The building of the 'Great Eastern': a view of the paddlewheel - 1857. National Maritime Museum Flickr site

TDP Newsletter Spring 2010

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