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UCL Institute of Archaeology students can participate in fieldwork on a variety of London sites.
On the Thames Foreshore
The UCL Institute of Archaeology has long carried out evaluative fieldwork on the Thames foreshore. Since 2023, it has been collaborating with the City of London Archaeological Society on a community-based project called CRAFT: the Causeways, Riverstairs and Ferry Terminals. This initiative is concerned with Thames foreshore archaeology, studying over 200 Thames causeways, river stairs and ferry terminals between Vauxhall and Greenwich.
The project builds on the successful Thames Discovery Programme, but is currently focussed on the river stairs in the City reach of the river. The sites of particular interest include Trig Stairs, Canon Street, Swan Lane and Custom House. The work incorporates a modern survey of relevant features currently exposed on the open foreshore. These details can then be compared with work conducted in previous years on the dynamic, ever changing foreshore. At low tide students record the form and materials of exposed structures, create a photographic and drawn record, propose probable phasing of the structures, and note any changes to the structures over time.
Greenwich Park
In collaboration with the National Lottery Heritage Fund project Greenwich Park Revealed, the UCL Institute of Archaeology has carried out a series of training courses in the Royal Park. These investigations have involved magnetometry and topographic survey, and the excavation of several trenches across different features in Greenwich Park.
In 2023 fieldwork focused on a large Second World War air-raid shelter on One Tree Hill. One of four constructed in the park, records suggest the shelter was built in 1938 and pulled down in 1946. Excavations exposed the entrance steps, connecting corridors and main corridors of the northeast end of the shelter. Built into the natural gravels, the shelter comprised a brick entrance and reinforced concrete panelled walls. The roof had been ripped off when the site was decommissioned and the interior was backfilled with rubble and rubbish, the latter including glass bottles, a Victorian lead soldier, military plates, and cups (some with RAF markings) and the concrete posts from the neighbouring barrage balloon base.
In 2024–5 fieldwork has explored areas around the Roman temple on the eastern side of the park. First identified in 1902, the temple has been subjected to numerous excavations, including by Time Team in 1999. These earlier excavations have revealed the main buildings of the temple and objects hinting at the ritual purposes of the site. The most recent dig has investigated the area east of the temple, where the team uncovered evidence for a series of enclosures, dividing up the land around the temple precinct. They excavated ditches full of Roman pottery and roof tiles. Interestingly, the whole site had been sealed by a layer of gravel to create a level surface, at the end of the Roman period. This was perhaps used to trade on or hold fairs and meetings, and indicated by large numbers of unstratified coins and portable objects.
3D Modelling
