Autumn 2011 edition of the Thames Discovery Programme Newsletter

1. Newsletter Autumn 2011
Phase One: the HLF project
Thank you for your interest in the
2008-2011 Thames Discovery Programme (TDP)
Our training, survey and outreach You may have been a FROG member since
programmes for 2008-2011 have all been the beginning, met us recently over the
successfully completed! summer at one of our events or found us
online – however you got here, welcome,
and we hope you enjoy our newsletter! In
this issue you can find out more about the
last three years of our project and our future
plans. If you have any questions or would
like to find out more about the Thames
Discovery Programme, please get in touch:
enquiries@thamesdiscovery.org
We would like to thank the Heritage Lottery Fund for the initial generous grant (without
which the last three years would have been very different) as well as the other bodies,
agencies and institutions that supported us. The list is a long one and includes University
College London, its Public Engagement Unit, the Port of London Authority, CBA (London),
the Howard Trust, City of London Archaeological Trust, Museum of London Archaeology, LP
Archaeology and the Crown Estates to name but a few. Particular mention must be made of
the Museum of London, English Heritage and also the Thames Explorer Trust, our partner
organisation and enthusiastic collaborator in our outreach work; all three have been
involved with the TDP since its inception and throughout its life. And so too has the Thames
Estuary Partnership whose staff have worked long and hard on the management of the HLF
project, also providing office accommodation for some of the team: to them, an especial
debt is owed.
A big THANK YOU
to you all!

2. FIELDWORK
Our three years have been very busy: the TDP team has
run over 130 events, including children’s activities and
schools sessions, family and adult guided foreshore walks
and visits to other sites and museums across Greater
London, FROG training and archaeological fieldwork,
seminars, workshops, evening lectures and conferences—
attended by over 6,000 people. Working with the Foreshore
Recording and Observation Group, we have demonstrated
that site after site is suffering from increased and increasing
erosion. This in itself was not a surprise, but the sheer scale
and extent of the problem (comparing the situation now with
that ten or fifteen years ago) was stark. As a consequence
of this dynamic tidal regime, new archaeological features
are being exposed across the foreshore in Greater London
and we have made some exciting discoveries over the last
three years of fieldwork.
Given that the Thames foreshore is indeed the longest
archaeological site in London, we will only be able to
monitor a sample of its secrets. The fieldwork team have
selected twenty Survey Zones for our long-term study,
based on quality of the features exposed, the severity of the
erosion threat, health and safety issues (such as the relative
ease of access) and the geographical distribution from east
to west across the Greater London area. Over time, we will
be adding to this list to increase our coverage. Information
about the 20 Key Sites can be found on our website
(www.thamesdiscovery.org/riverpedia/key-sites-index).
Not all of the sites visited by the TDP teams had previously
been observed by the Thames Archaeological Survey in the
1990s, and consequently many new features were recorded
for the very first time in 2008-2011. The list includes:
 London's earliest prehistoric structure, a Mesolithic
site at Vauxhall
 more Saxon fishtraps
 a possible medieval jetty structure at Greenwich
 early post-medieval river-stair frames near the
Tower of London
 vessel fragments including part of HMS Duke of
Wellington (1852) at Charlton
 hitherto unknown type of river ballast lighter from
Woolwich
 the launch site for the SS Great Eastern at
Millwall
By any archaeological standards, this is an impressive haul,
especially when set alongside the equally important series
of features recorded previously. Our vital monitoring work
has shown that, while some of these known features are still
at least partially visible, a number of major ones have been
lost over the last decade, and thus only survive in paper
records and as photographs. There can be no doubt that
many chapters of London's long history can be illuminated
by the TDP's continuing studies on the Thames foreshore.

3. OUTREACH Our website, the use of Flickr, Vimeo, Facebook and
Over the last year the TDP has worked with Twitter platforms and our Wikipedia entry, have
schools, family groups and other organisations to proved to be a major element in the TDP's success
story. Changes to the TDP website content and
develop a variety of resources. These are intended
structure will give easier access to data and
to make the project more accessible to the wider resources, and introduce visitors to the materials that
community, particularly those with little or no back- can be used to explore the rich and varied cultural
ground knowledge of archaeology or the Thames. and environmental heritage of the River Thames and
Workshops have been developed to encourage the its foreshore. It will include examples of the sources
use of materials found during foreshore visits as the available in museums, libraries, archives, and on the
basis for whole schemes of work and cross web, and will encourage people to explore the
curricular studies by schools and for river-related evidence to be found in the riverside streets and on
projects by other groups. These resources also the foreshore itself. This work will contribute to the
provide for the needs of other riverside educational long-term sustainability of TDP education and
outreach outcomes, and encourage broader
groups and organisations, particularly those who
participation in the project in the future.
can provide access to archaeological artefacts.
Resources have also been developed with Art and Ends 30th September 2011! Visit the
Design and literacy in mind. Some of the results of
Archaeology in Action Gallery at the
this work are exhibited in this newsletter (see
overleaf). Museum of London, to see the exhibition
‘Lost and Found in the River Thames’.
…AND THE FUTURE STARTS HERE!
Phase 2: October 2011 and beyond
Although the HLF grant stops, all is not lost: a core team comprising Nathalie and Eliott will take up new
contracts, as Community Archaeologist and Foreshore Field Officer, with MoLA (Museum of London
Archaeology) in October 2011. Thus co-ordination, support and development of the FROG and their TDP work
will continue from Mortimer Wheeler House in Eagle Wharf Road. The value for continuing our crucial
monitoring and survey work needs no further justification: we are going to need all of the 300+ certificated,
trained FROG members to keep pace with the on-going survey work, especially since we would like to
increase the number of Key Sites we need to monitor from our current sample of twenty. Continuing to raise
awareness of the our work in future years is also important: we are planning more publications, making even
better use of our award-winning website, and working on at least two TV programmes for transmission in
2012: one will be a "Time Team Special", the other an episode of "Coast".
Given that the Thames is unlikely to stop washing our history away, don't put your wellies
under the bed just yet; the HLF grant might have run dry, but our river hasn't: the foreshore
still needs you!