Under the grass

Roy Stephenson of the Museum of London describes how the Shoreditch Park community excavation project helped to put people in touch with the area's past.

Destroyed by bombing
To mark the 60th Anniversary of the end of the second world war, the Museum of London undertook an archaeological dig at Shoreditch Park, Hackney, in east London. The park was formerly the site of high-density housing. During the war much of it was destroyed in bombing raids. After 1945, in response to a nationwide housing shortage, some of the site was used for temporary 'prefab' houses until the whole site was turned into a community park in the 1980s.

The area was first damaged during the Blitz of 1940-41 by aerial mines and incendiary devices. In 1944-45, Hitler's V1 and V2 rockets also hit the area. By the end of the war some houses were still standing while others were in ruins; the area was not completely cleared until the 1980s.

A new discipline
The study of the archaeology of 19th and 20th century London is a relatively new discipline. Traditionally we have used historical records to tell the story of this period, and used archaeology to understand the distant past. Recently, however, it has been recognised that by using archaeological practices, the study of people through the remains of their possessions can help us learn about any historical period.

London in the 19th and 20th centuries was one of the most important cities in the world. Through this dig, carried out as a ‘community excavation’ involving past and present residents of the area, we discovered more about everyday life in London during these historically important periods.

The main excavation
The excavation took place between 4-24 July 2005. The main trench, in theory, covered the area from the pavement to the back gardens/yards of three and a bit properties on the north side of the lost road of Dorchester Street. These properties were known to have been standing, but damaged, post-war and therefore were not likely to have been truncated by prefabs found on other parts of the site.

The excavation revealed the same basic arrangement in each building, consisting of a front parlour and rear dining room. All the remains at the front of the buildings were below floor level, the foundations apparently consisting of rough and ready rubble dumping. There was no clear evidence of the road surface or the pavement. The front of the buildings proved to be quite fruitful in terms of finds, presumably objects that had fallen between the floorboards.

Beyond this arrangement of rooms was the kitchen, with clear signs of drainage and support for a range or hearth. Adjacent to the kitchen, the solid yard surface led to the external washroom and outside toilet. As the excavation progressed it became clear that the kitchen was a later build, and superseded an earlier smaller kitchen and a complex of soakaways and culverts. The rear garden or yard area was clearly used for the disposal of ash from coal fires, but also proved to be an ideal area for later finds.

Other trenches
Two other trenches were dug. One was located to investigate the area associated with the impact of a V2 missile, and the other to look at the fronts of two houses on the south side of Dorchester Street, which on the bomb damage map were shown as being totally destroyed. In fact, the buildings showed signs of having been dismantled and were in a more robust state than those on the north side, possibly because different contractors had erected them in the 1830s.

'Milk came in bottles?'
'Milk came in bottles?' was a question asked by one of the children from local primary schools who visited the site, as they helped wash finds from the dig. Altogether, 700 schoolchildren and large numbers of residents, both past and present, participated in the project, which attracted a wide range of interest. Again and again, people said their eyes had been opened to the historic past of their neighbourhood.

In the words of Neil Cossons, 'Where the historic environment is nurtured and harnessed for good it creates real social and economic benefits offering everybody characterful, desirable and distinctive places to live.' In the environs of Shoreditch Park there is little remaining of the historic environment above the surface but there is now an increased awareness of what was once there and what remains under the grass.

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