Pitt-Rivers and London: draft report

Image: A Romano-British ceramic vessel from the site of Broad Street Station (now Broadgate, EC2 - behind Liverpool Street Station) collected on 17 July 1868, probably by General Pitt-Rivers himself; from the founding collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum (Pitt Rivers Museum accession number 1884.37.27)

The Excavating Pitt-Rivers team has now completed documenting the c. 1,016 archaeological objects collected by General Pitt-Rivers from London - a collection that represents just under one tenth of the c. 10,763 archaeological objects acquired by the General from England between 1851 and 1880.

Our draft report on the material from London, and the sites from which they were collected, is now published, and is online here. Through our documentation of the artefacts, we have identified a range of sites from which material was collected, largely through early instances of salvage archaeology, undertaken during groundworks for railways (including the London underground) and warehouses during the 1860s.

Image: Ceramic bowl recorded as 'found in London', collected by General Pitt-Rivers before 1881; from the founding collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum (Pitt Rivers Museum accession number 1884.37.27)

Most of the material from the City of London comes from the site of the Gooch and Cousens Warehouse on London Wall, which Pitt-Rivers published in 1867. However, further objects come from (in order of the number of objects) sites at Queenhithe Dock/Thames Street (SE1), Cannon Street & Cannon Street Station (EC4), Lothbury/Tokenhouse Yard (EC2), Bishopsgate (EC2),  Broadgate (EC2), Lombard Street (EC3), Poultry/Mansion House Street (EC2), Old Jewry (EC2), Moorfields (EC2), Bucklersbury (EC4), Clement’s Lane (EC4), Mansion House (EC4), Walbrook (EC4), Billingsgate (E14), Birchin Lane (EC3), Lower Thames Street (Brewer’s Quay) (EC3), Minories (EC3), Finsbury Circus (EC2), Bell Yard/Fleet Street (EC4), Holborn Viaduct (EC1), Smithfield (EC1), Bartholomew Lane (EC2), and Cripplegate (EC2).

Beyond the City of London, there is a large collection of Palaeolithic material from Pitt-Rivers' pioneering survey of the Thames Valley near Ealing undertaken in 1869-1871. Alongside this material are objects collected or excavated from  sites as diverse as Southwark Street and Borough High Street, Walthamstow; Hampton Court; Lincoln’s Inn, Serle Street;  Queen Square, Camden; Yeading Brook, Hounslow Heath; Charing Cross Station; Wormwood Scrubs; Mill Hill, Barnet; Grays Inn Road; Sanderstead - and even from a cesspool at Homerton.

Many of the objects have specific dates from the 1860s, when they were collected, recorded. We hope that publishing this draft report will help us contact museum professionals, archaeologists, historians and others with knowledge of the context of the archaeology of these sites, and the history of construction at them, to add to our knowledge of Pitt-Rivers activities in early 'rescue' archaeology, from Roman, Palaeolithic and other sites in London. To contact the project, please read the report, and email dan.hicks@prm.ox.ac.uk

Image: a sherd from a Romano-British Samian ware bowl, marked as collected during excavations for the new railway station at Cannon Street in 1864; from the Pitt Rivers Museum founding collection. The potter's mark - 'OF.SEVERI' - has copied onto a label stuck to the sherd  (Pitt Rivers Museum accession number 1884.41.114)

Image: Ceramic jug from Bishopsgate acquired by General Pitt-Rivers on 22 February 1878; from the founding collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum (Pitt Rivers Museum accession number 1884.37.39)

Image: a sherd of Romano-British Samian ware pottery, marked as collected from New Southwark Street on 10 December 1886 by General Pitt-Rivers (then known as 'A.L. Fox') (Pitt Rivers Museum accession number 1884.41.106)

Image: a sherd of Romano-British Samian ware pottery, collected during excavations at the Gooch and Cousens warehouse on London Wall, and evocatively marked in Pitt-Rivers' own hand as found at a depth of 13 feet 'in roadway, Dec 28 [1866], by me' (Pitt Rivers Museum accession number 1884.41.109)

Image: A Palaeolithic implement, collected from Clapham Rise, Battersea by General Pitt-Rivers on 25 September 1869. (Pitt Rivers Museum accession number 1884.122.356)

Image: Base of a sherd of Romano-British pottery, collected during excavations at the Gooch and Cousens warehouse on London Wall, and evocatively marked in Pitt-Rivers' own hand as found at a depth of 13-14 feet 'in peaty earth in roadway, Dec 28 [1866], by me' (Pitt Rivers Museum accession number 1884.41.42)

Antler and Bone

We have finally completed Sussex, the largest assemblage from a single county.  It mainly consisted of ceramic sherds and stone tools.  However the last few objects we looked at were a complete change; three beautiful weaving combs of antler from Lancing [PRM 1884.46.11-13].  Two of the objects photographed are decorated, one of which [PRM 1884.46.13] is broken where the handle was perforated for a rope or leather thong to pass through to allow the comb to be attached to the wearers belt. 

PRM 1884.46.11-13 (left to right) were collected in Lancing by James Medhurst and purchased by Pitt-Rivers in 1879.

London, our next county, has a great variety of objects and is proving to be very interesting.  The animal bones excavated from London Wall were identified by Professor Richard Owen, the first director of the Natural History Museum.  His name is written on a number of objects as seen below.  

PRM 1884.140.271 is a metatarsal identified as Red Deer by Richard Owen.

Lane Fox (1867: lxxvi) described some of the bone implements from London Wall as being of “ruder construction...cut through in the middle and roughly squared at the small end”.  He goes on to say that:

Professor Owen and Mr. Blake concur in thinking these implements may possibly have been formed with flint, but I cannot ascertain that they were found at a lower level than the Roman remains, nor have any flint implements, to my knowledge, been found in the place.

PRM 1885.118.260 is an example of a pinners bone found at London Wall. 

The objects are in fact pinners bones from the Medieval and Post Medieval period.  The shaft was worked into four flat facets and a saw used to make the grooves for holding the pin in place whilst it was filed and sharpened (MacGregor 1985: 171).

Other bone and antler objects excavated in London include chisels, points, knives, mattocks, bobbins, scoops and skates.

PRM 1884.118.190 is a mattock made from antler, excavated in August 1869 from peat bogs in Walthamstow.

PRM 1884.118.257 is a scoop made from the metatarsal of a horse, found in the excavations at London Wall in January 1869.

References

Lane Fox, A.  1867. A Description of Certain Piles Found near London Wall and Southwark, Possibly the Remains of Pile Buildings.  Journal of the Anthropological Society of London, Vol. 5 (1867), pp. lxxi-lxxxiii

MacGregor, A.  1985.  Bone, Antler, Ivory and Horn: The Technology of Skeletal Materials Since the Roman Period.  London: Croom Helm

Excavations at Cissbury

Pitt-Rivers has a long history of archaeological work at Cissbury, first visiting the site whilst surveying the hillforts of Sussex in 1866-1867, returning later in 1867 to carry out excavations at the site, which continued for a second season in 1868.  Seven years on the General revisited the site in 1875 to reopen a number of pits and resume his excavations.

White patinated flint core (PRM 1884.131.19) excavated from Pit 13 on January 31st 1868 by Lane Fox. 

We have started work on the Cissbury archaeological assemblage which is dominated by stone tools.  The majority are recorded as having been found by Lane Fox, however a few are attributed to local people who provided assistance to the General during the excavations.  Mr. Tupper the gamekeeper is named on a number of stone tools yet to be catalogued, as is Mr. Charles Ballard the miller, who provided tents and labour for the excavations (Lane Fox 1876:385, Harrison 1877: 431, 437).  He also collected an iron chain (PRM 1884.140.558) which he presented to the General in 1877.

Iron chain (PRM 1884.140.558) found by Mr. Ballard and presented to Lane Fox.

References

Lane Fox, A
.  1876. Excavations in Cissbury Camp, Sussex; Being a Report of the Exploration Committee of the Anthropological Institute for the Year 1875. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 5: 357-390

Harrison, J. Park.  1877.  Report on Some Further Discoveries at Cissbury.  The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 6: 430-442

Watercolour of Barrow Excavations at Whitmoor Common, Surrey in May 1877

Yesterday we published a transcription of Pitt-Rivers' account of his excavations in May 1877 of Bronze Age and early medieval barrows - 'On Tumuli near Guildford'. Above is an additional item related to that post: a watercolour view of the excavations, described in that account, of the two Bronze Age barrows at Whitmoor Common, near Whorplesdon, Surrey. 

The watercolour is held by the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum (Pitt-Rivers papers, item R7e), and is one of the earliest examples of Pitt-Rivers' technique of combining accurate, measured recording of excavations with more artistic or playful colour depictions of the excavation process - and, in this case, even one of the excavators!

Further Reading
English, J. 2011. Excavation of two Bronze Age barrows on Whitmoor Common, Worplesdon by General A H Lane Fox (Pitt Rivers). Surrey Archaeological Collections 96.

Gardner, E. 1924 Bronze Age urns of Surrey. Surrey Archaeological Collections 35: 1-29.

Lane Fox, A.H. 1877. On some Saxon and British Tumuli near Guildford. Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, pp. 116-117.