This well attended three-day conference, was held over a Friday evening, the main sessions on the Saturday and concluding with a field-walk on the Sunday morning. Mike Webber was the guiding light behind this well planned event, which offered a rare opportunity for all contributors to the survey to meet and "compare" notes.
The amateur societies were very much the key players for the conference, having been responsible for the Alpha Surveys. Numerous professional bodies complimented the event with their specialist expertise.
Dr Simon Thurley, Director of the Museum of London reminded us, that London would not be here if it were not for the Thames. The river was used for travel, raiding trips, and an important trade route. The Foreshore is the longest archaeological site in the region and the Thames Archaeological Survey (TAS) is the model for how archaeology should be carried out in London. Supported by 5 local societies, museums, universities, and various statutory bodies. The participation of local societies was a great asset. Archaeology must have a popular base otherwise it will die.
Mike Webber, the Survey's leader, spoke of the very high quality finds to have come from river over the past few centuries. The range of period was vast, from a prehistoric submerged forest, to early 20th century barge beds.
The aims of the Survey were two fold. Firstly to create a record of the site, and second, to promote the Thames as an archaeology resource. It was succeeding by providing knowledge for the first time about the erosion of the riverbed and banks. New bank design is now being developed to help stop erosion, including the use of ancient techniques. All this and all with a staff of just 1 full timer (Mike), and 2 part-timers, to cover a site that is 120km long!
Doug Mills of the Environment Agency gave a view from the river. He explained that the original brief of the Agency and NRA (the previous title of the Agency) was to manage flooding, reduce waste, and improve fisheries, and navigation. Previously it had no data on the effect of encroachment and development work along the riverside, unless it effected flood defences. Now, with the information provided by the Survey, it was able manage these issues and had been able to conduct test work to assess the environmental effect of different types of defences, e.g. natural beaches versus concrete walls.
John Clark of the Museum of London revealed that some 20% of MoL medieval collection had come out of Thames. However, there are still many unanswered questions, particularly around the distribution of finds. Why where Saxon spearheads mainly found at Brentford for example? He was hoping that the TAS would provide the context to start to solve these questions.
John Cotton, also of the Museum, looked back to the golden age of Thames archaeology, 1820-1900. A simply huge quantity of material was dredged up at this time and a major industry created finding (or faking) it and selling it either to collectors, or for scrap. The booming Port of London was the main reason, with bigger ships needing deeper channels to navigate; thus much of the riverbed was dredged away. This can be proved in quite a remarkable way, for quite a number of Thames artefacts can be found in Newcastle upon Tyne. The dredgings were used as ballast for the returning coal ships. A case of treasures to Newcastle! The construction sites for bridges built at the time also produced rich pickings, as did the construction of Richmond lock.
Of course, until the early 19th century, the Thames was a major source of food for Londoners. The river supported a thriving fishing industry and the TAS has recorded many fish traps of different designs, which survive up-stream of the City. Steve Colclough, of the Environment Agency, explained that pollution did not become a problem until 1820, when the tributaries were polluted and built over and building encroachment into the river channel made it more difficult for fish to migrate. No attempt to clean up the river was made until the development of the first sewerage system following the 'big stink' of 1858. After a brief recovery between 1900 and 1920, there followed a period of massive urban growth that resulted in the river becoming biologically dead. Even during this time, it was fashionable for Londoners to 'day-outs on the beach' with sand being specially imported to sites just down stream of Tower Bridge!
The river rapidly recovered in mid 1960s, when Victorian sewerage works where improved. There are now 8 automatic water quality monitoring stations and flood discharge can now be monitored. In high summer, storm discharge can produce a 'dissolved oxygen sag' that will kill all fish that enter it for up to 4 hours. Careful monitoring and control can prevent this. Although the Thames is a fast flowing river, because of the tidal effect, it takes a long time to 'flush'. It takes three weeks for a floating object to travel from Teddington to Southend. The improved water quality is evident by the dramatic numbers of species of fish that have returned to the Thames. Some are up to commercial proportions. According to Steve, the Thames and its estuary can now be considered to be a 'wildlife super highway' and is the biggest nursery in North Sea. The Thames is a lot cleaner than WE think.
Rachael Hill of the Environmental Agency put paid to the "Its filthy and dirty" misconception. Litter is the reason for the bad perception. 10,600 waterfowl now over winter on the Thames estuary. The effects of different types of embankment have been studies. Steel sheeting costs £3000 per metre, while repairs to existing structures are cheaper, as well as maintaining habitat and historic importance. Alternatives are proposed by planting reed beds and creating a more gentle, inter-tidal habit. This has been done around the Millennium Dome site.
The Saturday session was opened by our own Rose Baillie who presented COLAS's findings on its allocated stretch of the foreshore around Tower Hamlets. Historically, this has been the busiest part of the Thames, as it includes shipbuilding, repair and breaking yards, as well as the docks. Being a densely populated area, there used to be many access points, or stairs, some of which COLAS had been able to record. Some of the most significant finds were the two ships rudders near the entrance to Shadwell basin, which would have come from a 400 ton collier, of the type that plied the North Sea to and from Newcastle. Rose revealed that the Society's involvement in the Survey had resulted in the recruitment of 30 - 40 new members.
In contrast, Wandsworth Historical Society's stretch along the Putney foreshore was a lot more rural in nature, as Dr Pamela Greenwood explained. This stretch had revealed a lot of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic material.
Different still was the West Essex Archaeological Society's patch further down stream at Rainham. Access to the site was very difficult, there being very few roads and stairs. However, they had surveyed part of the prehistoric forest that has been traced from the City and runs for an unknown distance downstream. This forest has been known about for many years, as West Essex's Betty Gobel explained; Pepys commented on it when the dock were being built in the 17th century.
The Survey goes up-stream as far as Richmond, where apart from peat beds, the remains of fish traps were the major features. Andrea Wharton explained the different types of traps and which fish they were used to catch, eels being one of them.
Barney Sloane of MoL explained the surveying techniques for plotting sites and finds onto the national grid and Nathalie Cohen of TAS talked about the documentary research covering the Saxon period, by studying place and church names. It was interesting to note that nearly all the churches adjacent to the Thames were dedicated to either St Mary or All Saints, with the odd St Nicholas here and there.
The Thames was a hive of maritime industry and Jon Binns of TAS had the evidence to prove it. His researches had revealed that between 1700 and 1915, some 2,000 vessels had been built on the Millwall stretch of the river alone. Many famous boat yards started their life on the Thames: Stewarts, Jarrow, and Thornecroft, to name but a few. The only up-standing trace of this major industry is one disused yard with dilapidated boat shed at Brentford. Some of the gridirons have been found and preserved, as that of the Great Eastern. Jon turned the long-lost art of boat building and repair into a fascinating subject through his in depth knowledge. He told us of how trees were grown to shape; repair yards were the equivalent of service centres, with even a mobile AA type service available. When huge ships were broken up, little was wasted, their material being reused in other vessels or used in the fabric of the boat yard itself be forming landing places and gridirons etc. There are 150 different types of nail used in a ship and surveying them can reveal not only what type or size of ship was being worked on, but whether it was being built, repaired or broken.
After a sumptuous buffet lunch, it was the turn of Ali Taylor of the Thames Explorer Trust to give a flavour of how the Thames is being used as an out-door classroom. Surprisingly, the city kids were not keen at first and didn't want to get muddy, but shortly after first setting foot on the foreshore, they loved it!
Both Alex Bayliss of English Heritage and Sophie Seel of the Institute of Archaeology talked about the natural landscape along the Thames, especially the trees. Southern Britain has a tree ring chronology going back to 5,000 BC, but there is a gap in the 5th century, owing to the mass deforestation undertaken by the Romans. Problems occur when studying the more ancient remains, for there seems to be a marked difference in the tolerance to growing conditions between modern and ancient varieties. Today, you would never find a yew tree growing in wet peatland, while in prehistoric times there are plenty of examples of yew growing right on the river margins.
With all this talk of trees and woodland, Damian Goodburn was the natural choice for the next speaker, being MoLAS's 'wood' expert in the growing, management and use of timber in construction. In ancient times, managed woodland was primarily used for fuel, with construction coming second. The Romans, as witnessed by the first century quays, soon used up the big 200-year-old oaks. Thereafter they were using timber from coppice woodland, especial Chestnut and Stone Pine, which they introduced to this country. The smelting of iron ore required huge quantities of wood and intensive management was needed. All this resulted in the deforestation of southern Britain. But after the Roman decline, massive re-growth occurred throughout the London area.
Nick Merriman spoke on the importance of getting the public and local communities involved with the Thames again. The survey has been successful on many levels; it has revitalised local Societies and brought them together in a worthwhile project. It offers just about the only access to practical archaeology that volunteers in the region currently have. It has brought together many environmental agencies as well and provided the opportunity to open up the Thames into a whole new public resource. The Thames is easy to put into many contexts: transport, trade, and immigration. It is hoped that a floating interpretation centre will be built as a mobile classroom, hosting travelling exhibitions through the Thames Explorer trust. Safe public access could be provided to certain areas of the foreshore and interpretation boards placed along the Thames path at regular intervals. Nick saw the way forward led by community based monitoring and interpretation, backed up with floating interpretation centre, walkway signs and a travelling exhibition.
The concluding speaker for the formal sessions was Gus Milne whose posed the question - Where Next? 1995-96 has seen the pilot study. 1996-99 is the period of the Alpha studies and the report will be written up between 1999-2001. Gus could see 4 options for the future: preserve everything; excavate everything; do nothing; realise the potential of this remarkable resource. We all agreed the fourth was the best option! Gus then explained the Survey would continue in the form of a rolling programme of selected excavation based on bi-annual conferences held between 2000-2010. In 2000, the theme would be fishing and the Thames. In 2002 - nautical archaeology; 2004 - Palaeolithic landscapes; 2006 - river stairs; 2008 changing river levels; 2010 - quays and flood defences. The conferences would present their findings as research papers for publication.
The Sunday morning field-walk started opposite the Globe, Fiona Haughey and Mike Webber led a short walk downstream, past the Winchester place site and St Saviour's dock. We say remains of stairs, prehistoric forest, found masses of clay pipe stem and other odds and sods. A very enjoyable end to a great conference. Thank you Mike Webber for organising it.
There was to be a special exhibition about the Thames and the Survey at the Museum between 2nd July - 17th Aug this year.
Nigel Sadler