Thames Discovery Programme - Thames Archaeological Survey. It was not until the early 1990s that the stratified archaeology of Thames foreshore deposits began to be explored more rigorously. Gustav Milne said: It was a survey being conducted in 1993 at Bermondsey by Richard Hill which became the catalyst for the next phase of development.
Hill’s examination of the foreshore as part of a study for the Institute of Archaeology revealed prehistoric peat layers containing faunal and lithic artefacts, and the remains of a post-medieval shipyard. Prehistoric structure at Vauxhall, photo by Ken Walton Also in 1993, investigations began on the foreshore at Vauxhall. These projects further demonstrated the enormous potential for surviving archaeological deposits on the foreshore and led to the initiation in 1995 of a Pilot Study jointly instigated by the London Archaeological Research Facility and the Museum of London. Alpha survey record by the Thames Archaeological Survey Bermondsey foreshore Photo by N.
Photo by Museum of London. British Archaeology, no 33, April 1998: Regions. Frontier territory along the Thames The Thames valley today is the epitome of a peaceful landscape. It was not always so, writes George Limbrick Today we think of Oxford as lying at the heart of a homogeneous geographical region formed by the Thames valley, but for much of the last few thousand years this part of England was an area of intense political and economic rivalry and territorial dispute. In the Iron Age, and perhaps earlier, the River Thames and its northern tributary the Cherwell appear to have served as political, tribal boundaries.
The story was to be repeated in Anglo-Saxon times when the Thames again divided kingdom from kingdom, Mercia to the north and Wessex to the south. The political map of the Iron Age is complex, but distributions of coinage for this area suggest that the Catuvellauni occupied the area to the east of the Thames / Cherwell, the Atrebates to the south of the Thames, and the Dobunni to the west (with a possible `sub-Dobunni' group to the south-west). Thamesandfield.co. Wreck in the Thames Princes Channel. Founder of Royal Exchange linked to 16th century shipwreck Bow section safely on boardOver the summer, the Port of London Authority has been working with Wessex Archaeology to excavate and recover the bow and part of the side of a late 16th century merchant ship. The shipwreck was first located in April 2003 when the Port of London Authority was undertaking survey work in advance of dredging to deepen the Princes Channel to allow safe passage for the increasingly large ships using the Port.
The ship’s timbers have been dated to 1574, and amongst the artefacts recovered is a cannon that has the maker’s marks ‘T G’. The Royal Armouries, Fort Nelson, have identified those marks as belonging to Sir Thomas Gresham, merchant, skilled financier and Royal Agent to Elizabeth I. He was the principal figure in the founding of the Royal Exchange in 1565. Cannon showing the mark of Sir Thomas Gresham Extract from the hydrographic survey. To view an online exhibition of this site download the pdf below. Time Team.