THREE CRANES
Gustav Milne
CONTENTS
1: THE DIG 2: A ROMAN QUAY 3: CLASSICAL MUSIC
4: SAXON BEACH MARKET 5: A SAXON SHIPYARD
6: DAILY GRIND 7: WAREHOUSE CONVERSION
8: MAKING MONEY 9: TIMBER BUILDING
1: THE DIG
We all know that in Leicester, archaeologists found a king under a small carpark. So what might we find in London under a major multi-storey carpark? A major multi-period site was the answer.
The site in question was at Three Cranes Wharf, in the heart of the major medieval wine entrepot in the City, taking its name from the large machines required to handle the heavy wine tuns as they were moved from ship to shore. Some 500 years later it was the focus of a major archaeological site, the results of which exceeded all expectations. The problem was that, in the 1960s, the multi-storey carpark was built on this large site, set on the north bank of the Thames. The only archaeological observation made during its construction in 1961 was by G Davies for the Guildhall Museum, of an E-W section of a medieval masonry river wall some 12m north of the present waterfront. Presumably much else was destroyed unrecorded in those distant days.
Twenty-five years later, when the site was scheduled for redevelopment, the Museum of London nevertheless thought it would be worth an archaeological investigation, since deeply-stratified waterlogged waterfront sites had been excavated with profit in the vicinity at for example, Baynard’s Castle and Trig Lane. Although it was uncertain what the Three Cranes Wharf waterfront site might reveal, or indeed, what if any archaeological features could have survived below such an unglamorous multi-storey building, preparations were put in hand for an archaeological investigation. It was given the formal site code TEX88, after name of the proposed new building, Thames Exchange.
Following the demolition of the multi-storey car park in 1987, the work began. This was a large 4000sqm site: its eastern edge butted against Southwark Bridge, it was bordered by Thames Street to the north, Bell Wharf Lane to the east and the Thames to the south. The developer was Kumagai Gumi, and they incorporated -and paid for- archaeological input from the outset by team from the Museum of London’s Department of Urban Archaeology.
As was the norm in that era of urban archaeology, we shared the site with piling rigs, mechanical excavators, jack hammers and loads being continuously swung overhead by tower cranes. It has to be said that the developers team and many of their onsite staff were generally helpful and accommodating, given their own tight budgets and complex work programmes: we also had access to portakabins, toilets and washing facilities as well as a welcome staff canteen.
Our work began in January 1988, when the machine excavations for a very narrow diaphragm wall which ran around the periphery of the entire site were monitored. This proved very enlightening, as Kieron Tyler’s persistent patience proved that the site did indeed contain thick waterlogged medieval deposits, representing at least eight to ten major reclamation events all before the 13th century. This suggested that a long early medieval sequence could be revealed.
Between October 1988 and March 1989, a controlled N-S excavation supervised by Chrissie Harrison was mounted on Area C, a large site some 86m long by 11m wide on the eastern side of the site, fully confirming Tyler’s appraisal. It revealed for the first time a sequence including an abandoned 3rd-century Roman quay overlain by a succession of 10th to 14th century medieval riverfront encroachments.
The contractors excavations on the western side of the site were also closely monitored by Jo Stevenson and Morag Colloquon, but no archaeological observation was possible in the centre of the site, the core of the demolished multi-storey carpark, where construction, delivery and storage were initially focused. Nevertheless the spoil from all areas that the Museum archaeologists were unable to access were screened off-site by dedicated Thames Mudlarks, a major project in its own right, which resulted in the recovery of many significant finds.
ABRUPT ENDING Site work concluded in September 1989, after which post-excavation analysis on the large body of data began. Although much of a major archive report had been compiled by 1991, regrettably this work had not been completed or prepared for publication when the DUA was suddenly closed down with many staff redundancies. However, a summary of the principal elements of the pattern of medieval encroachment over what was then open foreshore was published in 1992 (E4; E9 Milne 1992, 42-62), working from the archive report as it currently stood (Coloquon & Stevenson 1991) and the dendrochronological studies by Nigel Nayling (1991).
As part of a fruitful collaboration with the UCL institute of Archaeology, students were able to write up specific sections of the site as part of their dissertation projects, supervised by the former site supervisor. Papers were written on the Roman quay (see E2), a unique set of late Roman panpipes (see E3), reused Saxon ship and boat fragments (E5), a Saxon quernstone assemblage (E6) and the 12th-century warehouse foundations (E7). However, the vast majority of the very rich assemblage recovered by the patient work of the Thames Mudlark team regrettably remains unpublished, with the few exceptions including four rare 11th-century coin dies (E8) for example.
The aim of this illustrated summary of such an important site, is to encourage a new generation of archaeologists and researchers to re-examine the records and the many, many finds from this excavation, currently housed in the London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre (LAARC). This site records and those artefacts clearly demand more detailed study, merit a much fuller publication, and results need to be shared with a much wider audience.
A CHRONOLOGY As is the pattern on waterfront sites in London, the earliest deposits and features were recorded at the northern (landward) end of the site. Here the substantial remains of a Late Roman timber quay were uncovered. This was set to the south of the Roman riverside wall, part of the impressive defences of Londinium, which lay just beyond the limit of our excavations. A series of Saxon and later medieval timber structures were also recorded, erected over the foreshore deposits that sealed the dismantled Roman quay. They represented a succession of some thirty revetted encroachments extending the line of the waterfront ever southwards over the open foreshore into the tidal shallows of the Thames.
It proved possible to record the development of two waterfront properties initially set either side of an inlet aligned with the foot of a medieval lane, later known as College Hill or Three Cranes Lane. The earliest encroachments can be dated to the Late 9th or 10th century, the latest to the 14th century, and thus they represent the progress of waterfront extension over a distance of 100m in 500 years, from the very founding of Lundenburh in c AD900.
The size of some extensions was initially often modest, perhaps representing a refacing or repair, while others were clearly erected to win a significant portion of new land. This becomes very clear in the late 11th and 12th centuries, when over 50m was reclaimed from the river: this period coincides with the removal of the Roman riverside wall and the consequent opening up of the whole City waterfront for enterprising Londoners. The remains of associated buildings and other features were also recorded. By the mid-13th century, the inlet seems to have been infilled, transformed into the street later known as Three Cranes Lane, and the two properties on either side seemed to have shared a common frontage for at least part of the later medieval period. Perhaps it was on this newly-won quayside that the first large cranes were erected to handle the large wine tuns being imported here. At the extreme southern end of the site, part of the frame-base of the late medieval Three Cranes stairs was observed, a major river ferry terminal that functioned until the Great Fire of London, after which it was relocated to the southern end of the new Queen Street in the 1670s.
FURTHER READING
Milne, G, 2003 The Port of Medieval London, 18-28
Milne, G, 1992, Medieval Timber Building Techniques in London AD 900 to 1500,
LAMAS Special Paper 15, 42-63
Stevenson, J & Colquhoun, M 1991 TEX88: unpublished site archive report, MoL
2: A ROMAN QUAY
The earliest evidence for the construction of substantial timber quays of 1st-century date in Londinium was recorded in the bridgehead area around Miles Lane, Regis House, Pudding Lane and Peninsular House. By the 2nd century, such substantial structures had advanced the waterfront southwards and also westwards to the mouth of the Walbrook stream, and even some 100m beyond that.
PORT of ROMAN LONDON: 1st-century quay (PDN81) Left: note size of huge oak baulks forming the quay; Right: Roman quayside with remains of warehouse and main drain, at high tide.
There were further extensions in the early third century, recorded on sites as far east as the Custom House and as far west as our site at here at Three Quays, as well as on the neighbouring site at Vintry House. The active use of such infrastructure seems to have terminated when a major defensive wall was erected all along the Thames waterfrontage in the late 3rd century.
A substantial length of the early3rd-century quay was recorded in 1989 at Three Quays, as shown on the plan below. The work took place partially in the area of the controlled excavation (Area C) and partially during the watching brief at the extreme northern end of the site, hard up against Thames Street.
Initially, an orange sandy foreshore had accumulated to a height of c -1.5m OD prior to the construction of the quay. On to this surface the timber structure was laid. It was made from oak, and ran across the northern edge of the site for at least 30m, extending beyond both the eastern and western limits of excavation. A composite plan of the structure as found during the course of the excavations was complied, and the sequence of construction and demolition suggested.
The lowest tier of the front wall of the quay was laid over squared piles, secured by tenons on their heads that slotted into mortices in the underside of the E-W baulks. At least two tiers survived one on top of another, joined together by mortices cut in the upper and lower faces of the timbers into which fillets of wood (free tenons) were inserted. Mortises cut in the upper face of the second and highest surviving tier show that the front wall must have comprised at least three superimposed baulks. The timbers were up to 7.9m long, and some 430mm wide by 350mm deep.
The front wall was supported from the north by unevenly-spaced horizontal tiebacks: all save the westernmost examples had been severed in antiquity. These were some 4m long, 260mm wide by 215mm deep, supported by vertically-driven piles to which they were joined by lap-joints. The tiebacks as found had been truncated and displaced, but once articulated with the front wall by half-dovetail lap joints, of which the housing survived in the upper face of the quay front members.
DELIBERATLEY DISMANTLED Lower members of front wall (0.5m scale) with severed tie-backs (0.2m scale), looking NW.
The height of the quay in its primary phase would have been at +0.43m OD by inference from the level of the highest surviving vertically-driven pile: this suggests that the front wall probably comprised five tiers of horizontally-laid baulks.
A group of irregularly-spaced vertically-set piles to the north of the quay did not serve a function directly related to the support of the front wall or the tiebacks. They were over 1.38m long, and some 265mm by 260mm in cross-section. These timbers are interpreted as supports for decking associated with the primary use of the quay. This suggests it was an open-work structure, since foreshore material was able to accumulate within the framework from the outset.
An approximate felling date was obtained from timber baulk 922, one of the front wall members which showed no evidence of reuse. Some sapwood rings were present, and our dendrochronologist suggests that the timber was felled in the early 3rd century, sometime between 201 and 237 AD.
Mixed sands and silts accumulated over the foreshore to the south of the newly-constructed quay, inside it and to the north of the front wall, again showing that the quay was an openwork structure. Indeed, when the tiebacks were subsequently severed at their southern ends and displaced from their retaining posts, they fell directly onto those primary silts, and not onto any later infill material.
The front wall members fell forward after the tiebacks had been severed. To the north of the now dismantled quay, building debris material was deposited behind an insubstantial timber fence. Foreshore deposits then accumulated over the collapsed baulks, the severed tiebacks and deposits that had built up to the north of the front wall. The retaining fence later collapsed southwards, and the demolition debris slumped riverwards, partially sealing the foreshore.
More foreshore silts accumulated to a height of -0.6m OD, overlain by another "slab" of demolition debris. This comprised grey sandy silts with painted and unpainted wall plaster, mortar, tile and opus signinum fragments, but very little masonry, suggesting the material had been sorted. This demolition deposit was derived from relatively high-status buildings, suggesting a residential rather than a commercial focus in this vicinity. In that case, our timber structure served as a landing stage rather than as a purely mercantile facility. It is possible that those buildings were demolished to provide stone for the major Roman riverside wall, constructed in the late third century with considerable quantities of reused building materials. The presence of relatively-fresh painted wall plaster suggests that the slab is of Roman rather than Saxon date. It may represent deliberate foreshore consolidation to provide a landing stage, rather than simply an area of waste ground. Finds recovered here included pottery, a boxwood scoop with a negroid head, a gold necklace decorated with glass beads, several bone hair pins, an amber intaglio and a set of boxwood panpipes, a rare find from Roman Britain (see E3).
The thick coarse grey sandy foreshore that gradually accumulated over the abandoned quay was not disturbed for several centuries, since the earliest structures built over are dated to the 10th century. Significantly, this shows there was little evidence for occupation of the City waterfront in this long period. The site of the once thriving town of Londinium, once the administrative capital of the Roman province of Britannia, had been abandoned for some 500 years.
FURTHER READING
Parry, J, 1994 ‘The Roman Quay at Thames Exchange, London’
London Archaeologist 7 no.10, 263-7
Brigham, T, 1990 ‘The late Roman Waterfront in London’,
Britannia 21, 99-183
Milne, G, 1985 The Port of Roman London
3: CLASSICAL MUSIC
A UNIQUE SET of panpipes (syrinx) was discovered in 1989 on the Three Quays site. Although initially considered to be of Saxon date, following conservation and study, they are now thought to be the only set of wooden pipes of Roman date found in Britain.
Panpipes have their origin in a simple bamboo reed tube stopped at one end. Several pipes of different lengths were used and sounded vertically. In classical times, panpipes often consisted of simple tubes of different lengths fixed together, made of pottery or a single block of wood with bored pipes: during the middle ages the latter form was more often used. The classical number of pipes is seven according to Virgil and Ovid, although there is evidence that some panpipes were made with up to thirteen holes
L: Site plan showing line of Roman Quay R: Making music: the London pan pipes
Our panpipes came from the foreshore formed after the Roman quay had been dismantled in a deposit of well-compacted grey-brown clay with straw-like twigs mated together (context no 1767). Above it was the first layer which physically sealed the dismantled Roman quay (context no 1764), a sandy foreshore deposit containing pottery provisionally dated to 850-1000 AD. This and the succeeding layers were themselves sealed by an embankment dated by dendrochronology to c. AD 950. The panpipes therefore came from a context which had formed sometime after c.AD 200, but before c.AD 900: they might therefore be either Roman or Saxon.
The London syrinx is sub-rectangular, some 118mm tall and 45-46mm wide: its top is 10mm thick, tapering to 9mm at the base. One edge is damaged, showing that it is an incomplete instrument, but a reconstruction shows its probable original shape. The panpipes have been smoothed on both flat sides.
The front of the instrument is decorated with incised parallel lines and concentric circles. The 1mm-wide shallow lines are partially worn away and would have been made by the tip of a round-ended knife cutting down twice making a "V" shape. The back is plain, apart from two incised crossed lines, one slightly larger and more definite than the other, perhaps a maker's or owner's mark. Near the base of the instrument is a round hole through which a cord could be passed for carrying the pipes, perhaps around the neck.
The lower edge is straight, as is the completely intact side edge, but the upper edge undulates where the openings of the pipes are. This set was made from a plank from a boxwood log at least 100mm in diameter, from which the pipes would have been drilled possibly with a spoon bit drill, a skilled job according to Damian Goodburn.
Left: The London Syrinx external view Right:Reconstructed X-section
Since boxwood is so hard, dense and close-grained, it allows such closely-spaced holes to be made into its end grain: the four surviving pipes are only 3mm apart. The diameter towards the top is about 7mm and about 1mm at the bottom. There is a slight lip at the top of each of the pipes. The depths of the surviving pipes, after cleaning and X-ray, proved to be 64mm, 72.5mm, 80mm and 90.5mm. These measurements were used to determine the notes which could have been played on them. The acetone/rosin conservation method used would not have distorted the instrument, since wood which has undergone this treatment is dimensionally stable.
The side nearest the round hole is clearly damaged but the remains of a fifth pipe some 52mm long can be seen, shown by the curved mark on the side. Study of the tree rings on the base of the pipes showed that the break in the instrument corresponds to what would have been the centre of the log that the plank was cut from, so it is possible that there could have been at least one extra pipe.
Making Notes The next stage of study was to determine what notes would have been played on the pipes. Two methods can be used to achieve this, of which the first is to play the pipe and compare the note sounded by ear, by comparison with tuning forks or an in-tune instrument, or by reference to someone with perfect pitch. The problems with this technique is that the instrument may now be distorted or truncated, or it could be under or overblown, and therefore made to produce a note sharper or flatter than it was initially designed for. An additional problem is that the instrument’s chemical conservation treatment, even though it left the syrinx dimensionally stable, makes it unpleasant to play.
For the London pipes, a new method was adopted which involved using a mathematical formula to calculate the frequency of the intended notes:
2f =(2n-1)C/2L
L = length of pipe in mm;
C = velocity of sound in air (3.3 X 105mms-I);
f = frequency in Hz.
In this calculation n=1 since the main note has the lowest frequency, using the least energy. The results are calculated in Hz and can then be compared with Table 1(below) which facilitates the identification of the note played by each individual pipe and also the interval between the notes played by all the pipes.
Using this London formula, the notes of our syrinx shown here were calculated as shown below in Table 2.
The panpipes came from a deposit with a wide date range, so we had to determine their date by comparison with similar sets. But such boxwood panpipes are rare: only three others are known from NW Europe.
Coppergate A similar instrument from Britain found in a pit with 10th-11th century material from Coppergate in York has been studied by Carole Morris. After cleaning, a five-note scale running from top A to top E could still be sounded. The C, D and E of the York set correspond to the same notes in the London instrument.
Shakenoak A syrinx of Roman date was found in Oxfordshire, made of redbrown baked clay upon which the names CATAVACUS and BELLICIN are scratched. The remains of seven pipes with conical ends survive, four of which are whole, but the complete syrinx may have had eight pipes. Its maximum surviving dimensions are 124mm by 96mm, with pipes between 7 and 8mm in diameter, spaced between 3 to 5mmm apart. The pipes are cylindrical for most of their length, but have tapering ends. The length of the pipes are I05mm, 102mm, 97mm, 86mm, 84mm, 71mm and 67mm. Using the London formula, the seven notes for this instrument were G, G#, A, B, C, D and D#.
Alesia A boxwood syrinx similar to the London set was found in a 2nd to 3rd-century well in Alesia, Mount Auxois, in France. The set is almost complete, having seven pipes, with evidence of an eighth. It is up to 115mm tall and 77mm wide, is 11mm thick at the top, tapering to 6mm. The back is smooth, the front is decorated with incised parallel lines and concentric semi-circles and there is a round suspension hole at the bottom. The pipes are 2mm apart, are 9mm in diameter at the top and are drilled into the wood, tapering to a point at the lower end. The lengths of the pipes are 71mm, 63mm, 55mm, 50.5mm, 43.5mm, 39mm and 35.5mm. The one missing pipe would have been about 31.5mm. The notes obtained from this instrument were determined by French flautists as D, E, F#, G, B, C and D: calculations using the London formula confirms those identifications.
Barbing-Kreuzhof The late 2nd or 3rd-century syrinx found in Germany was up to 100mm tall and 45mm wide, but only four pipes remain. As it is damaged on both side edges, it may have had another longer pipe as well as two or three shorter pipes. The holes for the Barbing-Kreuzhof pipes are cylindrical with a top diameter of 8.5mm and lengths of 65mm, 57mm, 5Imm and 47mm. Using the London formula, the notes for this instrument were calculated as E, F#, G# and A, so very similar to the Alesia syrinx.
All three boxwood pipes are decorated with incised parallel lines and concentric semi-circles. Indeed, they may have come from the same workshop, although Dr Wardle suggests that this may be a traditional form of embellishment for such items.
Left: Alesia panpipes Right: Barbing-Kreuzhof panpipes
Discussion The discovery of even a fragment of a small musical instrument such as the London syrinx helps to resolve how such instruments may have been constructed and also provides some insight into the music played on it. The ranges of these panpipes are all within about 1.5 octaves, from the G in the second octave above Middle C to the D in the fourth octave above Middle C. It would seem that the London panpipes are far closer to the Roman instruments from Alesia and Barbing Kreuzhof, as they clearly have the same decoration and the pipes have tapering, not conical, ends. It has also been suggested that the Alesia syrinx was a special type of Gallo-Roman panpipe with a possible distribution in the Celtic world. This type does not appear in Roman art in Italy or in the eastern Mediterranean, as Dr Wardle has shown, while the Barbing-Kreuzhof and London instruments were both found in northern frontier provinces.
Although the balance of evidence is very strongly in favour of a 3rd to 4th century-date for the London syrinx, the possibility of a later date cannot be entirely ruled out. Although the York panpipes are significantly different in decoration and manufacture, they are nevertheless similar in general form and, perhaps more importantly, in tuning: indeed, both the Roman and medieval pipes show a remarkable consistency with modern tuning. This suggests that some forms of music have a profound longevity, and have outlived the rise and fall of classical empires.
FURTHER READING
Clare, H., 1993 ‘Roman Panpipes found in London’
London Archaeologist 7 no.4, 87-92
Morris, C., 1993 ‘The Boxwood Syrinx from 16-22 Coppergate’,
Archaeology of York 17/13
Reinach, T., 1907 ‘La Flute de Pan d’Alesia’
Pro Alesia 11, 12, 161-9; 180-5
Ulbert, G., 1961 Romischer Brunenfund von Barbing-
Kreuzhof’ Bayerisch Vorgeschichtsblatter 26, 56-9
Wardle, A, 1990 Roman Musical Instruments unpublished PhD thesis, University of London
4: SAXON BEACH MARKET
More people owned a small boat than kept a horse and cart. All sorts could be bought, sold or bartered directly from boats pulled up on the open foreshore. Initially such a simple neighbourhood exchange centre needed no shops, stalls or warehouses: the market would open when the tide was out, and the boats would leave when the tide came back in. Everybody knew when the best low tides were, as they were governed by the phases of the moon, so no formal advertising was required. But what was required was safe, dry access to the foreshore, and suitable platforms or embankments just on or above the high tide mark to facilitate the shopping. Our archaeological work on the Saxon levels at Three Cranes Wharf recorded just such a location: appropriately enough, in the 20th century, the site was re-named Thames Exchange.
Current thinking suggests that river levels relative to the land dropped slightly in the late Roman period, which would have impacted upon the tidal head of the Thames. But by the 10th century the levels were rising again, and the Thames in the City reach was certainly tidal. In AD 900, the occupied area of the City within the old Roman wall was initially quite modest: just a block of streets between St Paul’s and the River Walbrook. The rest of the intra-mural area was given over to fields, part arable, part pasture.
As for the waterfront, this was still protected by the riverside wall, and studies by Tony Dyson have shown that it was only there that “Hithe”, the Saxon term for landing-place, occurs. Archaeological investigation show that this is also precisely the same area where the first evidence for waterfront development over the open foreshore is found: our Three Quays site sits between Aethelred’s Hithe (now Queenhithe) and Garlick Hithe.
Left: Roman waterfront wall with revetted embankments on foreshore (Portchester)
Right: Hithes in Late Saxon London: Three Quays is just W of Garlick Hithe
On the Three Quays site, we were able to record an extensive series of low Saxon timber and wattlework structures. They had been erected over the foreshore sealing the dismantled Roman quay, a succession of revetted embankments encroaching ever southwards over the open foreshore into the tidal shallows of the Thames. Each structure marked a usually modest extension of the waterfront embankments. The earliest of these developments is dated to the late 9th or 10th century, at the very start of the resettlement of London, following the abandonment of the mid-Saxon settlement of Lundenwic, in present-day Covent Garden.
Recording remains of Saxon foreshore development at Three Quay
Unlike the uniform nature of the Roman quayside, Saxon waterfront development was rather more piecemeal. We were able to record the gradual growth of two distinct waterfront properties initially set either side of an inlet aligned with the foot of a medieval lane, later known as College Hill or Three Cranes Lane. Access to this inlet was recorded at the very northern edge of the site, in the form of a boarded walkway, a rare discovery.
Left: plan showing location of Saxon watergate Right: boarded walkway leading down to the Thames
The surviving 2m-long remnant comprised two roundwood oak logs laid N-S some 1m apart. They may represent two elements, a top and bottom log, cut from a young standard, less than 40 years old and no more than 6m in length. The planking was a series of twelve oak boards, each about 1m long, radially-cleft from a tree some 80 to 100 years old, according to Damian Goodburn our timber specialist. They were attached to the underlying rails with wooden pegs.
Saxon foreshore walkway & diagrams showing parent log and parent tree studies
This feature highlights the importance of safe access to the foreshore and to the river for Saxon Londoners from the earliest period of the new town’s foundation. A timber base plate which overlay the planked feature, together with roundwood piles and other features, show that the access route was maintained, raised and rebuilt on several subsequent occasions.
Collapsed Saxon wattle structure lying on foreshore, with 0.5m scale
Other features recorded included a 17m-length of 10th-century wattlework woven around collapsed earth-fast posts which subsequently collapsed. The horizontal rods, between 15 and 50mm in diameter, and the vertical stakes up to 120mm in diameter, represent a managed woodscape that was regularly coppiced, presumably close to the City.
A rather more elaborate example of Saxon waterfront carpentry was exhibited by another 10th-century structure. This incorporated a line of 2m-tall roundwood piles each some 0.4m apart into the foreshore. At least eight runs of cleft oak boards were set against the landward face of the piles, retained not by pegs or nails, but just by the backfill material packed against them.
Left: SE corner of 10th-century riverfront revetment, with 200mm scale
Right: semi-reconstruction of lap-jointed structure
At the corner junction of the N-S and E-W walls, the protruding ends of the planks were lapped together, while the head of one of the retaining piles was secured by a roughly-cut squared mortise in the southern end of a 3.6m long horizontally-laid anchor beam. The retained dumped deposits were sealed by a cobbled surface laid at +0.9m OD, with traces of the internal surface of a waterfront building some 9m to the north at c.+1.65m OD, presumably above contemporary high tide.
The waterlogged deposits not only preserved the wooden structures but also a range of organic finds included bone awls, needles and an antler comb. But there were also metal artefacts, such as a copper equal-arm brooch, a lead ring decorated with runes, coiled wire beads and some lead brooches. There were also the quern stones (E6,) in addition to the assemblages of ship timbers (E5). Clearly, the Saxon foreshore to the south of the Roman riverside wall (which still survived to its full height in this period) was a hive of activity, a dramatic contrast to the previous 500 years, represented just by a thick deposit of artefact-free grey silts.
FURTHER READING
Goodburn, D, 1992 ‘The Medieval Woodscape’ in G Milne (ed)
Timber building techniques in London 900-1400, LAMAS
Special Paper no 15, 115-121
Milne, G, 1992 ‘Thames Exchange’ in G Milne (ed) Timber building
techniques in London, LAMAS Special Paper no 15, 42-49
5: A SAXON SHIPYARD
The Saxon waterfront features described in Episode 4 provided relatively dry riverside platforms or landing places, with a working surface well above the contemporary low tide mark. In amongst them, and sometimes incorporating them in these low revetments, were at least fifteen broken timbers derived from several ships and boats. Dendrochronological analysis suggests that the timbers came from trees felled in the late 9th or early 10th century. This concentration of vessel fragments is seen as the detritus of a shipyard, in which older vessels were routinely broken up or repaired, and new vessels built, often reusing sound timbers from older vessels.
Left: Saxon revetment comprising reused ship timbers Right: Ship’s stempost, discarded on foreshore, with 100mm scale
Similar assemblages were found on neighbouring sites, suggesting a strong maritime element in this part of the new Saxon town. The nautical elements recovered from the Three Cranes site were clearly derived from different vessels, and included several examples of over-lapped planking from the hulls of clinker-built boats.
One still articulated section was over 15m long, and thus was unlikely to have been moved far from where it was last worked on. The various levels of planking were held together by iron clench nails, each one carefully driven though wooden pegs, which had themselves been tightly inserted through holes drilled in the planking. This elaborate technique was first identified on a late Saxon vessel recorded in detail at Graveney, Kent in 1970 .
There was also a 5m section of cleft-oak hull planking in which the plank overlaps were fastened with bulbous-headed poplar or willow treenails wedged with oak, as recorded earlier on the vessel remains from the New Fresh Wharf site in London in 1974. Another technique was exhibited on a 1m run of fragmentary oak planks, this time fastened with round-shank iron rove nails.
Left: Morag and Leslie record the battered remains of a Saxon keel Right: drawings of ship timbers from Three Quays, including (top) the keel
Other elements included part of a shallow, flanged oak keel over 5m long, running from just past the stern post junction (at rear of the vessel) to midships, representing a vessel some 10m long. Fragments of the lowest level of hull planking were still attached to the keel.
In addition there were two oak frame elements, one from a large clinker-built ship, the other a simple U-shaped element from a much smaller vessel, perhaps dugout logboat with extended sides. By far the most unusual element was a large well-sculptured oak timber with a 0.45m semi-circle cut out of one edge: if this was mast-partner to hold a mast upright, it represents a very large ship indeed.
Left: Alex holds a boat frame element photo: Niall Hammond Right: Morag records a huge ship timber
Arguably this assemblage was derived from English-built vessels, as were some of the ship fragments found on the neighbouring sites at Bull Wharf and Vintry Place, but those sites also included two unusual features. One was planking with moulded edges, using square-shank iron nails without rawlplugs, perhaps from a “Viking” vessel. The other was a small section of clinker planking caulked with moss but capped with a roundwood batten secured with small iron staples, a technique hitherto only recorded in the Netherlands.
Taken together, this superficially unassuming collection of timbers conjures up a picture of a bustling London beach market, with English and “foreign” ships of various size, being built, broken-up or repaired as required.
Foreign Shipping
Hull planking detail, maybe from Netherlands?
Hull planking from “Viking” vessel?
FURTHER READING
Goodburn, D.1994 ‘Anglo-Saxon Boat finds from London: are they
English?’ in C.Westerdahl (ed) Crossroads in Ancient Shipbuilding
6: DAILY GRIND
Bread was a major staple in the medieval diet. Although the rich agricultural soils of England produced a healthy harvest of wheat, the human stomach simply can’t digest the grain without further processing: the tough cellulose shells that surround it have to be thoroughly crushed into flour first. That’s a job that can be performed on an industrial scale by a miller in a watermill or a windmill. Alternatively, the domestic option was to use a pair of abrasive basalt lava quern stones. By rotating the upper stone, the grain on the lower stone was (relatively) quickly ground down into useable flour. Unsurprisingly, fragments of such quern stones are a common find on archaeological sites in London. But what made the quern stone assemblage found at Three Cranes so very unusual was its size: no less than 235 fragments, the largest group of such items yet found in Britain.
Some of the 235 broken lava quern stones collected for study
The quernstones were discarded on the foreshore between two dendrochronologically dated revetments representing development between c.AD 970 to the north and c AD 1070 to the south. Tony Barham, UCL’s geoarchaeologist, examined the surrounding clays and suggested they were laid down under conditions of slow moving water which partially buried the fragments. Given the lava’s weight and bulk, their clustered distribution suggests a series of broadly contemporary basket-loads dumped on the foreshore clays, and a close association of the fragments prior to their deposition.
An initial survey by Jonathan Parkhouse followed by a detailed study of the ninety-two more diagnostic fragments by Tom Freshwater at UCL suggests that the material represents debris from a lava quern finishing workshop. This was not actually in situ on the foreshore, but must have been close by, as such bulky items cannot have been carried too far.
Plan showing quern stones in situ
The London querns were fashioned from basalt lava, a non-native rock with a distinctive soft, brittle and vesicular appearance. It was these vesicles, or bubbles, which made it a popular material for querns and millstones, as a rough grinding surface was always present. European sources for this lava have been identified in Italy and Sardinia, although the main sources for British querns are central France and the Eifel region in Germany.
UPPER or LOWER?
Diagram showing differences between upper and lower quern stones
Diagram showing differences between upper and lower quern stones
Most of the London forms conform to the early medieval types represented at the 7th- 9th century trading emporia of Dorestad in the Netherlands. All were intended to be non-mechanically-operated rotary querns, where the upper stone rotates on a static lower stone, centred and spaced with the use of a projecting spindle from the lower stone, and with a rynd (a bridge across the central hole) in the upper stone. Because of these basic differences in form, it was possible to sub-divide the majority into either lower or upper stones. For example, lower stones have a smaller central hole (10-30mm) than the upper stones (40-70mm). Where a central hole was present, twenty-nine of the London querns were readily identified as upper and thirty-seven as lower stones.
FINISHED OR UNFINISHED?
Unfinished upper and lower quern stones
None of the stones was complete, and all had been broken before deposition. But was that just a sign of over-use? Significantly, none of the querns displayed a seating for the rynd, the rynd chase, an element which would be produced at a late stage in the manufacturing process. There was also no evidence in any of the stones of a hole to accommodate a handle or a long staff to provide the motive power for the querns: again such items would be added towards the end of the manufacturing process, shortly before use. Thus it is argued that the London fragments were from unfinished quern stones that had been broken. Or perhaps, had been broken and were therefore unfinished.
The chamfered nature of many of the edges of the stones indicates stress at this point, possibly as a result of upright storage or transport. Also notable is that some fifty stones were broken at or close to the central hole, another point of weakness: there were also six partly-drilled fragments, again emphasising the risk in that part of the manufacturing process. That such a large number of fragments should have remained in close association after deposition suggests that the manufacturing process must have occurred nearby.
Drawing of quern stone showing partly drilled, but broken over central hole.
COMPARABLE WORKSHOPS Large lava quern assemblages from Europe comprise used as well as half-finished material, but our London group is unusual in that it only contains part-finished stones. Dorestad produced 700 identifiable quern fragments in addition to some 400 seemingly unworked fragments. A number of different quern types were identified, including 'blanks', discs of lava not classifiable as either upper or lower stones. Hedeby in Denmark produced over 5,000 fragments, with both finished and half-finished querns represented. When compared with the London material, they were generally of similar dimensions, although it may be worth noting that the upper stone radius peaks at c 300mm in London, somewhat larger than those of either Dorestad or Hedeby.
Apart from our London site, there is little British evidence for the finishing of lava querns, due in part to the undistinguished nature of the archaeological material. The most widely recognised indicator of quern processing is the presence of the small lava chips, found in such abundance at Hedeby and Dorestad. Chips have, however, been recovered from a mid Saxon Hamic (Southampton), while excavations at Fishergate, York have produced seventy-six 8th to 9th-century fragments and twenty-four of late 10th to12th-century date. One of these is of a type unique in Britain: a piece of deliberately-shaped lava tapering conically towards its top and bottom with a dimple at one apex. Such fragments have been recognised at Hedeby as part of the finishing process, being the removed central hole perforation.
Left stone: grinding surface; Right: non-grinding surface
Winchester has the only other British example of an unfinished lava quern worked to the same stage as those from London and was, as so many of the London fragments were, broken across the central hole. Clearly the successful drilling of this hole was a particularly difficult task, and one which resulted in the loss of many presumably valuable objects.
For this reason, lava stones were usually transported from source to the workshops as more robust blanks. Indeed, the 10th-century boat excavated at Graveney in Kent in 1970 was carrying two lava quern blanks of comparable size to the finished products recovered from Three Quays. Taken with the Winchester and London evidence, this shows that lava querns were finished, not at the quarry site, but many miles away, close to their final consumers, or at least after the major part of their cross-channel voyage had occurred. The London querns must therefore have been intended primarily for a local, or perhaps, a regional market.
10th-century Graveney Boat Hull (Kent): its cargo included lava quern blanks
IN CONCLUSION The quern fragments excavated from Three Quays are thought to represent the debris of a finishing workshop of the late 10th or 11th century, the first such facility identified in the City. There was clearly a great demand for these querns, and the need to import blanks in quantity produced a unique specialised industry. The workshop is likely to have been located close to the contemporary foreshore, given the challenge of moving just over I metric tonne of lava. The clustering of the fragments recorded on site indicate a series of separate deposits on the foreshore, but taken together, perhaps all reflecting the end of the workshop's operative life, with the protracted but wholesale clearance of associated material.
Quern stone finds from Saxon London
The importing of such querns is one aspect of the developing trade which London saw in this period, when beach markets were gradually giving way to a more formalised system of quayside warehouses and market places. Those late 10th or 11th-century lava querns provide some of the earliest evidence for the emergence of more organised foreign wholesale trade in the City: indeed the querns arguably reflect that trend before it is clearly identified in the ceramic evidence. For example, it was not until the 11th century in London that locally produced Late Saxon Shelly ware was gradually replaced by pottery from coastal manufacturing centres such as Kent and Essex together with the introduction of imports from the Rhineland, the Meuse Valley and France. It is worth noting that our London quern assemblage is later than the other major European lava quern groups, since Hedeby, Dorestad and mid-Saxon Southampton largely cease to be active by the early 10th century.
Our research has therefore tried to illuminate, not just the manufacturing process conducted in the workshop, but also the wider commercial and industrial base of a changing late Saxon London. Clearly the amount of lava excavated at Three Quays must have been a modest fraction of the total which passed through the quern workshop and the transshipment centre, although the extent of the associated hinterland, local or national, is uncertain: the Hedeby material has been set in its context as part of a countrywide distribution in Denmark.
However, English quern stones have not been reviewed since 1973, well before the fruits of the excavation boom in the late 1970s and 80s. It is now time that that work was updated, and it is hoped that this summary of the London evidence may prompt a national study.
FURTHER READING
Freshwater, T., 1996 ‘A lava quern workshop in Late Saxon London’,
London Archaeol 8.no2 39-45
Parkhouse, J, 1990 An assemblage of lava quernstones from the Thames Exchange site, unpublished archive report, Museum of London.
7: WAREHOUSE CONVERSION
There are several ways the archaeologist can date the change from the rough-and ready beach market to the more complex merchant port. The study of the changing proportions and sources of imported pottery is one, the change from all-purpose boats to capacious custom-built cargo carriers is another. And a third is the introduction of riverside warehouses, a symbol of a new merchant class and the arrival of wholesale markets. It was this aspect that the Three Cranes site provided the evidence for, with the recording of just such a riverside building, now seen as a waterfront warehouse, complete with a secure calendar date for its construction.
12th-century warehouse, location plan
12th-century warehouse footings looking S, visible on both side of modern concrete foundations
The building in question lay some I0m south of the present-day line of Upper Thames Street on land which had been progressively reclaimed from the river between the 10th and the late 12th centuries. It lay within a property plot bounded to the east by an alley later known as Brickhill Lane, while to the west in the 12th century was an inlet at the foot of the street now called College Hill, lying on reclaimed land on north bank of river.
The foundations were substantial, of an unusual type, and were located in the eastern half the Vintry, the area at the heart of the Anglo-Norman wine trade. Such a closely-dated building was a rare find on the waterfront, and a study of this enigmatic building was made by Thomas Rutledge (University College London).
Although disturbed by trenches dug to insert modern steel girders, it proved possible to recover the plan of the building. In its first phase, its foundation trench enclosed an area of between 2m and 2.8m east-west by 11m north-south, although there is evidence that the range continued northwards. The foundation trench was cut into peat-like material which had been dumped over much of the site, sealing a series of late Saxon embankments. Most of the top edge of the cut had been truncated, but where the full depth survived, it was some 0.7m deep, and cut from the contemporary ground level which sloped from north-west to south-east, from +2.02m OD to +1.68m OD.
Left: 12th-century warehouse: beech foundation plan Right: SW corner of 12th-century warehouse with 0.5m scale, showing beech foundations
The actual foundations were unusual, and merit detailed description. A layer of radially-split beech logs up to 1.2m long and 0.3m wide had been placed over the floor of the foundation trench and the area between the ends of the cleft wood and the edge of the cut was packed with chalk rubble. This horizon was sealed by a levelled layer of gravel and chalk packing up to I00mm thick
Left: 12th-century warehouse, oak foundation plan.
Right: 12th-century warehouse, oak foundations with packing, 0.5m scale
Over the cleft beech logs were set large timber baulks up to 6m long and over 0.5m wide: all were boxed-halved and of good quality straight-grained oak. They were laid in pairs at right angles to the beech members, the outermost baulks being wider and longer than the innermost. Although the oak baulks only survived on the northern and eastern sides of Building A, it is assumed that the same pattern once continued to south and west.
The first phase of the superstructure of the contemporary building was raised over those baulks, but had been largely robbed out. The north wall seemed to have been up to I.54m wide at its widest point, although all that survived was the lowest 0.2m course of chalk blocks up to 0.35m across. The fragmentary nature of the surviving remains makes interpretation difficult: the chalk may have formed a rough foundation course or served as a rubble core for an ashlar wall, the facing of which was subsequently robbed. The internal surfaces only survived in two small isolated areas, comprising a sequence of levelling layers 0.Im thick separated by grey silt deposits 30mm thick. Finds from these levels included bone, a little pottery and a bone pin.
A later modification may have seen the east and west walls rebuilt with ragstone blocks set in a yellow/orange mortar, of which only one course survived. This phase may have been contemporary with the extension of the building by I5m to the south. The original north and south walls were probably retained as internal partitions.
12th-century warehouse: the timber footings once supported a (now robbed) masonry wall, of which just the chalk rubble core survives: 0.5m scale
CALENDAR DATING Our building lay on land reclaimed in the late 11th to late 12th century, stratigraphically later than the construction of the TX2 structure, which incorporated timbers felled in 1066. The building could not therefore be earlier than the 11th century, while a cess pit containing a large group of 17th-century finds had been cut into it. The beech and the oak timbers from the foundations were sampled for the Museum’s dendrochronological laboratory by Ian Tyers and Nigel Nayling. The only dated sample from the oak baulks had all the sapwood removed, but the outermost surviving ring was dated to 1088. Allowing for between 30 and 60 years for the missing sapwood rings, an approximate felling date range of between 1118 and 1148+ could be suggested.
Greater success came with a pioneering study of the beech planks, which were radially- split and retained all their sapwood and bark. Our warehouse foundations were one of the first features in London to have been successfully dated using a beech, rather than an oak, chronology: a felling date in the winter of AD 1135-6 was suggested for the tree from which they were derived.
Dendrochronologist Ian Tyers at work
CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES The use of cleft beech logs in a foundation is an unusual technique. It is at present only known from three waterfront sites, all of them are in the Vintry area. One was observed in a tunnel under Upper Thames Street to the north of Three Quays in 1978, another was in the Vintry House excavations on the western side of Southwark Bridge in 1989, where a foundation trench 1.4m wide was recorded. This contained split beech planks identical in size and placement to those in our building, while above them a second layer was laid over them at right angles, supporting a chalk block wall. Dendrochronological samples from those timbers have been dated to 1106, a generation earlier than our building, the third example.It is possible that it was not a native technique, but was perhaps introduced into London by the Anglo-French community which lived and worked in the Vintry area.
Firm Foundations: 12th-century masonry wall constructed on a raft of cleft beech logs supporting oak baulks
FORM AND FUNCTION It has been shown that the foundations of our building represent the footings of a substantial masonry-walled structure, presumably of more than one storey. Although no evidence of a doorway or threshold was found, it was probably entered from the east via the alley later known as Brickhill Lane. To the north, it may have been joined to a less robustly-founded building. To the south was the Thames, although after further reclamation pushed the waterfront forward in 1170, by some 30m. It is possible that the ground floor of the London building was used for storage and the upper floor for living accommodation for the merchant. A broad parallel could be sought in the Canute’s Palace building in medieval Southampton, which had a counting house on the first floor.
The storage capacity of the ground floor of our building in its first phase was some 44 cu m. That figure can be compared with that of medieval merchant vessels: the 11th-century ship Skuldelev 1 excavated in Denmark in 1962-3 could carry 40 cu m of cargo, but the larger 12th-century Lynaes vessel twice that figure. By the late 13th century, cargo ships such as that represented by the timbers recorded on the Bryggen site in Bergen, Norway, had a capacity seven times that of Skuldelev 1, demonstrating how such specialised cargo-carriers were developing during the period that our warehouse was operative and expanding.
IN CONCLUSION This study of a 12th-century building from the Vintry has identified a unusual construction technique, possibly of foreign origin, and described a class of building that was just appearing in the merchant city and on the waterfront in this period. Our warehouse building can therefore be seen as one of the new generation of secular, rather than ecclesiastical, masonry structures which began to appear in London in this period. This group includes the late 12th-century arcaded masonry warehouse 10.3m wide by at least 10.3m long which was recorded on the Hansa Steelyard site at Cannon Street, in 1989.
Masonry buildings were more than status symbols, since they also protected valuable goods from theft, riot and conflagration: the Building Assize of 1189 recommended their use against fire hazards for example. The number of masonry buildings constructed no doubt increased after serious fires such as that which swept through the City in 1136. Indeed, our building may represent just such a case, given the felling date of 1136 suggested for the timbers used in its foundations.
FURTHER READING
Rutledge, T, 1994 ‘A 12th-century building on the London Waterfront’, London Archaeol 7 no.7, 178-183
8: MAKING MONEY
It was simply not possible for the professional archaeological team to excavate the huge Three Cranes site by hand in the time available. As a compromise, one third of the site was excavated by the DUA team, the rest was excavated by machine, but under the watchful eyes of the archaeologists standing by.
As for the spoil removed by the contractors, that was screened off-site by metal detectorists. Their hard work recovered many, many interesting finds, including no less than FOUR coin-dies from the 11th-12th-centuries. These rare metal objects were used in the stamping of silver blanks of what then officially became legal tender in the form of silver pennies. Two dies were required to mark each coin, one die for the obverse (with the head of the king) one for the reverse (with the name of the mint and the moneyer). The four from Thames Exchange were all official reverse dies for silver pennies of King Cnut, William I, Henry I and Stephen.
Left: Plan showing line of 12th-century waterfront exposed at Three Cranes (DUA site code: TEX88) Right: Mechanical excavator fills a “muck-away” lorry with spoil from the Three Cranes site.
Significantly, none was found on the eastern side of the site, the medieval property lying on the eastern side of the inlet (later infilled to become Three Cranes Lane). That was the area excavated by professional archaeologists, but their spoil was additionally screened by members of the Thames Mudlark Society. Had such an assemblage been discarded there, it would most certainly have been recovered.
Metal detectorist systematically searching
By contrast, the four dies which were found came from deposits associated with the quite different property on the western side of the inlet, where the spoil from the reclamation deposits and the underlying foreshores was excavated by machine. The material was then trucked off-site to secure sites in Kent and Essex, where it was then carefully searched by metal detectorists.
So, although none of the dies can be described as securely stratified, all have a clear general provenance as being from 11th-12th century riverside deposits from the north-west corner of the Thames Exchange site. Such an assemblage is unique in England, and must represent the detritus from a relatively long-lived London die-making workshop in the immediate vicinity. Marion Archibald from the British Museum made a detailed study of these unusual items, summarised here.
All four dies were for striking silver pennies. The shanks were made of wrought iron or mild steel, whereas the diecaps contained a higher proportion of carbon, and can thus be classed as steel. At least three of the examples had clearly been used, but none had been defaced or cancelled: perhaps they had been stored awaiting re-forging for new coinage.
Die-face; die-face drawing; die-face impression Top to bottom: Cnut; William I; Henry I; Stephen
CNUT 1016-1035 The first die discovered was the earliest one in the series. It was found by David Morgan on the Crayford site in Kent and had been cleaned of its heavy encrustation (presumably representing foreshore deposits) before it was purchased by Mr O. Hara. It had been made for the Norwich mint, for the moneyer Thrulf who operated between 1030-1036.
WILLIAM I 1066-1087 This was the second die found at Crayford, this time by Ian Smith, but this one had no encrustation. It was taken to the Museum of London, who persuaded the British Museum to acquire it for the nation. The die was for the Wareham mint, for the moneyer Aethelric (1080-83), and at least two coins stamped by it have been identified.
HENRY 1 1100-1135 This die was recovered in 1990 from the spoil dump in Dartford by Anthony Yendall, and had no encrustation. It was made for the Southwark mint, for Algar the moneyer (1103). There is a long line of London moneyers with the name Algar: one is recorded in 1086 (Domesday Book) for example. This particular Algar may have been the son of Deorman, Canon of St Paul’s who died in 1104. He was celebrated for the length of his foot inscribed on a pillar in the church which became the standard linear measure, “the foot of St Paul’s”, still in use today for those of a non-metric persuasion. The die was presented to the British Museum in 1995 by Dr and Mrs WJ Conte.
Coin Die: Henry I (c. 5cms long)
STEPHEN 1135-1154 The final die was found in 1991 at the Beckton spoil dump by Patrick Connolly, was heavily encrusted, and therefore presumably from foreshore deposits. This one was probably for the Northampton mint, for the moneyer ?Wulfnoth (1142-5)
Coin Die: Stephen (top): note encrustation showing it was discarded on the ancient foreshore
DISCUSSION
Such an assemblage suggest a relatively long-lived die-making workshop somewhere in the area. It also proves, for the first time, that dies for provincial mints where obtained from and that they were made here in London. It seems that the office of die-maker for the nation was a hereditary position under the Normans, held initially by Otto I who held a manor in Lisson Green (Marylebone). His son Otto II, died by 1127: they or their family may well have been the die-makers responsible for some of the dies discussed here.
Given that the actual dies were all derived from dumped or foreshore deposits on the western side of the Thames Exchange site, the workshop which discarded them most probably lay, not on the waterfront itself, but just to the north of Thames Street. This was an area in which, in a later period, the Cutlers “were of old time” operating as smiths, forgers of the finest blades (Wheatley 1956, 219), and thus an area with all the skills and all resources required for making dies.
We also now know that in 1127 Theobald, who held the manor at Lisson Green and was the cutter of the dies for the money for all England, held a fabrica (smithy) in White Tawyers Lane. But medieval street names in London are notorious for changing and disappearing, and this one is no exception. However, the White Tawyers are leather workers (for eg gloves). The focus for many leatherworkers and shoemakers in the medieval City was Cordwainer Street (Ekwall 1956, 79), the southernmost end of which is now known as Garlick Hill, just to the west of the Three Cranes site. So might not the now forgotten White Tawyers Lane, with our die-cutters workshop, lie just north of Thames Street between Cordwainers Street and College Hill, between the churches of St James and St Martin in the Vintry ?
FURTHER READING
Archibald, M, Lang, R and Milne, G, 1995
‘Four Early Medieval Coin Dies from the London waterfront’
Numismatic Chronicle, 165-200
Ekwall, E, 1954 Street-names of the City of London
Wheatley, H,(ed) 1956 Stow’s Survey of London
9: TIMBER BUILDING
To say the Museum of London’s Department of Urban Archaeology recorded over 100 well-preserved medieval timber structures only tells half the story: each and every waterlogged waterfront site produced examples of these revetments, sometimes surviving virtually to full height. The dates range from c AD900 to AD1500, but the quality of the work varied, reflecting the pockets of the owners of each waterfront tenement: the good, the bad and the arguably ugly.
Map showing many of the medieval waterfront sites excavated in London 
Surviving medieval revetment structures were often taller than archaeologists
Taken together, this large assemblage provides an insightful record of the changes in timber-building techniques over five to six hundred years. And changes there certainly were. Above ground today,there are so few surviving timber structures earlier than the 13th century that the full story of England’s medieval timber buildings cannot be told. The detailed recording of desiccated terrestrial sites helps, but the real meat for the missing chapters was discovered in the rich three-dimensional archive provided by these waterfront sites.
We know that our London waterfront revetments were not built by shipwrights or other specialists, but by the same carpenters responsible for all the City’s timber buildings. In his magisterial volume, Building in England Down to 1540, LF Salzman records that the only named carpenter known to have built revetements in the City was Richard Cotterel (1347): significantly, he was also employed to construct sheds, a fence and a jetty. Again, the three carpenters working on a Southwark wharf (1389) also rebuilt the millhouse and two watermills.
It therefore follows that, although we were recording humble riverfront revetments, we were also cataloguing well-dated examples of the wider generalities of vernacular timber building practice: cleft planks being replaced by sawn boards, the scantling of timbers becoming more uniform, regular studding replacing the irregular, the use and shape of baseplates changing. We saw how joinery developed as squared timbers replaced roundwood, and the square through-holes which passed as mortices in Saxon times were replaced by the neat rectangular pocket mortices ubiquitous in fully framed structures (eg Brigham 1992). And so on and so on.
CHANGING BUILDINGS
But key questions needed to be answered; how, when and where did we change from a long-lived earth-fast tradition to fully-framed timber buildings? Unequivocal answers were revealed by the excavations at Three Cranes.
Left: Earthfast single-storey building: large roundwood posts dug into ground support ringbeam for hipped roof. Mud, wattle or other wall cladding then applied. (FWB Charles) Right: Fully-framed two-storey buildings utilising squared timber framework set above damp ground on dwarf stone wall. (Richard Harris)
CHANGING WOODSCAPES
And it wasn’t just building and carpentry techniques that changed, it was also the availability of parent trees from which the timbers were derived as Damian Goodburn’s pioneering work has shown. Even the wider woodscapes that were being exploited changed. By the end of the 12th century the tall, 200-year-old oak standards were becoming rarer: such trees with their straight-grain were in demand for long cleft boards, which were produced, not by sawing, but by splitting the logs in half, quarters, 8ths and 16ths. The smaller roundwood poles and posts often came from stands of coppice stools, cut in regular sustainable periodic cycles. Such a woodscape of coppice-with-standards was very much the norm in much of medieval England, providing sustainable supplies of firewood, hurdlework, charcoal and building timber. Woodlands were not recreational facilities but hard-working, highly productive industrial landscapes.
COPPICE-WITH-STANDARDS
Recently-cut coppice stools with large standards in background, surrounded by uncut coppice stools.
Young poles harvested from coppice stools, while older standards look on.
A sample of the timber waterfront revetments recorded on the Three Cranes site is presented below in chronological order. The earlier structures were rarely more than 1m in height, but the later examples were rather taller, as revetted encroachments advanced southwards into ever deeper tidal water.
10th-11th CENTURY REVETMENTS
Many of these comprised earth-fast roundwood piles up to 180mm in diameter, derived from coppiced woodland. By contrast, the boards had been cleft (not sawn) from larger and taller oak standards (D. Goodburn)
Left: revetment (TX1) retained by earth-fast piles
Right: contemporary woodscape from which the components were derived
12th-CENTURY REVETMENT
Excavation of 12th-century revetment TX7
This earthfast structure comprised substantial squared principal oak posts up to 3.45m tall, dug c.0.7m into the foreshore, set at 1m intervals. These posts were derived from c. 200-year-old standards, c.1m in diameter, which had been split into quarters. Rebates 70mm wide were cut into their east and west faces to accommodate the tapered ends of radially-cleft oak planks, cut to 1.2m lengths. The parent logs were c.1.3m in diameter, derived from another 200-year-old oak. Intermediate posts were from c.35 year-old oaks. Further support was provided by 4m-long diagonally-set back braces, which was joined to the west face of the main post with a pegged notched lap joint (D. Goodburn)
TX7 revetment: front elevation
TX7 side elevation: front and back-bracing
contemporary woodscape from which TX7 components were derived
EARLY 13th CENTURY REVETMENT TX4
Front-braced earth-fast revetment TX4 from river looking N.
This is a remarkable “transitional” structure (TX4) which although clearly earth-fast (below ground) above ground also has many timber-framed elements, such as squared timbers and well-cut joinery. Even the feet of the irregular front-braces were cut to form chase-tenons, pegged into mortises in the upper faces of the equally irregular N-S baseplates. Not only does this structure combine earth-fast with framed elements, but also both new and clearly reused elements too.
Left: detail of principal post from TX4 Right:side elevations of TX4 revetement
Left: detail of principal post from TX4
This shows the roughly shaped, earth-fast post base set into the foreshore. However, above foreshore level, it is neatly squared and is articulated with the notched lap joint on foot of the back-brace (with 20mm scale).
Right: side elevations of TX4 revetement
The principal posts were supported from the landward side with complex diagonally-lapped back-braces, and to south (riverwards) with simple front braces of irregular scantling, the feet of which were retained by pegged baseplates.
On the Three Cranes site, this was the very last in the long line of earth-fast structures. The latest felling date for one of the timbers incorporated in it had bark and sapwood surviving, so our dendrochronologist was able to suggest a felling date of precisely AD 1200.
EARLY 13th CENTURY TIMBER-FRAMED JETTY
Left: Remains of a timber-framed jetty stand on foreshore to S (right) of front-braced TX4 revetement Right: Cross-braced timber frame for the jetty.
Constructed over the foreshore that had accumulated against the face of TX4 revetment (ie later than c. AD1200) were the surviving remains of a jetty structure that ultimately functioned with TX4.
For the first time in the Three Quays chronology, this jetty employed all the elements of early fully timber-framed buildings: squared timbers of regular scantling incorporating baseplates and principal vertical posts secured with mortise and tenon joints; applied diagonal braces articulated with lap joints; clear evidence for prefabriction in the form of assembly marks.
Left: Location of TX4 and TX5 structures at S. end of controlled excavations. Right: A fully timber-framed waterfront structure. Side elevation of TX5 jetty, semi-reconstructed, erected over foreshore accumulated against TX4 revetment.
Our dendrochronologist advanced a felling-date in the winter of 1228/9 for the timbers incorporated in this jetty.
LATE 13TH-15TH CENTURY
Side elevation of late 13th century TX6 structure.
From this point onwards, all the timber waterfront revetments (that hadnt been superceded by masonry riverwalls) employed elements such as baseplates, squared principal post and braces, usually of more uniform scantling, with pegged joinery. and clear evidence of prefabrication in the form of incised assembly marks.The only earth-fast elements were the roundwood piles retaining the squared baseplates.The back-bracing technology was essentially the same as in a contemporary terrestrial framed building (see TX6 revetment above).
So sometime between AD1200 and AD1228, the first fully-framed timber buildings in London were introduced, a truly significant event. Unlike earthfast buildings, the new arrivals could be multi-storey, perhaps with shops on the ground floor, accomodation on the first floor with rentals on the second. This dramatically expanded economic use of the intial urban footprint allowed Londoners to grow richer.
Then again, once raised off the damp ground on a dwarf stone wall (unlike the old earthfasts) these new buildings could last for generations (Great Fires permitting): consequently it was worth investing in the fabric. And such longevity also impacted on the woodlands, since a building constructed with, say, 50-year-old timbers that didn’t need to be replaced for 100 to 200 years, allowed time for a new generation of oak standards to grow.
And by looking at changing elements in later medieval revetments, its possible to suggest contemporary changes in the framing of the City’s dry-land buildings.
Reconstructions of medieval houses based on joinery from contemporary riverfront revetments:
Left: early to mid 13th-century two-storey house incorporating long passing braces articulating with applied lap joints. Right: mid 14th-century framing for a jettied building
ALL CHANGE
Left: Front elevation of late 17th-century revetment and its associated woodscape (D. Goodburn)
By the late 17th-century the timbers used for a riverfront revetment from the BOY86 site included a baseplate made from an imported pine (few tall English oaks available), the posts came from modest 40-year-old oak standards,while the sawn planking was resued from an old carvel-built ship.
Right: Carpenters tool kit had also changed during the medieval period.
Gone were wedges to split straight-grained oaks (A) and the T-shaped axes (C): even late medieval see-saws (G) were replaced by pit saws (I & H) (D. Goodburn).
The medieval period was one of many changes, not just in its buildings, but in its economy, its language, its politics and its landscapes. Alfred the Great would not have recognised much, if anything, in the City he founded way back in the late 9th century. Would he have seen it as progress, inevitable change, or necessary adaption? All we can say, with all the hindsight we can muster, is that “the medieval period” is really a misnomer-, suggesting as it does an epoch of statis and stablity: but the 10th century was as different from the 12th century as it was from the 14th: our archaeological investigations can clearly highlight the changes: even the study of changing riverfront revetment construction has deeper stories to tell. But it will be other others to suggest the reasons for what changed and what didn’t, and why it was so. But change it most certainly did.
FURTHER READING
Brigham, T, 1992 ‘Reused House Timbers from Billingsgate Site’
in G Milne (ed) Timber Building Techniques in London, 900-1400,
LAMAS SpecialPaper 15, 86-105
Charles, F, 1982 ‘Construction of buildings with irregularly-spaced posts’
in P. Drury (ed) Structural Reconstruction BAR 110, 101-112
Colquhoun, C & G Milne, C, and Stevenson, J,1992 ‘Thames Exchange’
in G Milne (ed) Timber Building Techniques in London, 900-1400,
LAMAS SpecialPaper 15, 42-63
Goodburn D 1992 ‘Woods and Woodland: Carpenters and Carpentry’
in G Milne (ed) Timber Building Techniques in London, 900-1400,
LAMAS SpecialPaper 15, 106-130
Harris, R, 1978 Discovering Timber-framed Buildings
Hewett, C, 1969 Development of Carpentry 1200-1700: an Essex Study
Salzman, L, 1954 Building in England Down to 1540
