Valentines day weekend on the Thames: the sun shone, the water glistened, and we fell head over heels for some of the best foreshore archaeology we’d seen in a long long time.
Joining the renowned Thames Discovery Programme for the first of two dirty weekends, our merry band set about cleaning and recording a ‘Grid Iron’ – a solid wooden surface built onto the riverbank to help barges and other cargo vessels land safely on the shoreline. As the tide receded and we cleaned back the surface, it became clear that these timbers had their own tale to tell. The keel and stern-posts set fast into the Thames mud had once belonged to an 18th century war ship – a 74 gun ship of the line that probably served time in the Napoleonic wars.
With evening lectures in the neighbouring Angel pub, and afternoon finds ID sessions from local experts, this was good clean fun at its very best. Can’t wait till the next one!
Archaeology in your inbox?!
Want to join a dig? Learn more about archaeology? Join our email list for a monthly digest of our most popular stories, plus alerts for any digs, events, or courses you can join.
Join the list
Written by Brendon Wilkins
As Founder and Co-CEO of DigVentures, Brendon brings together two decades of commercial archaeology experience with his expertise in digital innovation for archaeological fieldwork, public participation, and social impact evaluation. With a consistent research and publication record, his PhD (‘Digging the Crowd: the future of archaeology in the digital and collaborative economy’) explores new business and social impact models that position citizen science as a response to economic and climatic challenges facing humanity. Brendon steers the ship of DV’s fieldwork, evaluation and ‘Deep Time’, our crowdscience platform training citizens to search Earth Observation Data for cultural and natural heritage. Brendon’s signature laugh lights up every room, especially when he sneaks onto the turntables for a cheeky DJ set!
There are no comments on this post yet. Be the first!