Tuesday 19 April 2011

Greenwich Industrial History; Deptford dockyard archaeology

A possible date for the diary for fellow Deptfordians: the 10th May meeting of Greenwich Industrial History group will include a presentation by Duncan Hawkins about the archaeology of Deptford dockyard. Details of the full programme and venue are here (many of the other evening meetings have fascinating topics too).

Duncan Hawkins works for CGMS Consulting - or CgMs as they like to style themselves - which has been involved in investigations into the site archaeology over the last decade or so.

If you are planning to attend, you might want to read up on some background so you can have a few questions ready - either my previous post here, or the longer version on the Shipwright's Palace blog which it is drawn from.

2 comments:

shipwright's palace said...

www.convoyswharf.com/...Archaeology.../03._CW_2A_2-5_Archaeology_ Convoys_Wharf,_MoLA_report.pdf

shipwright's palace said...

Archaeology reports of the Deptford site from 200-2002 state, “The structures of the yard proper, the docks, slips, basins, mast ponds landing places and stairs, constitute a substantial architectural fabric that is currently extant, though largely invisible, being covered by superficial accretion or infill.” (David Divers. Jan 2001:12/ 3.5.14).

With regard to the impact of developments subsequent to infill Divers adds, “major dockyard features survive across much of the site and that later activities on the site have had relatively little impact on these remains.” (Divers 2001:69/9.1.4)

Divers concludes, “the evaluation has established that the major features of the dockyard have survived in their predicted locations with little evidence for widespread truncation by later activities on the site.” (Divers 2001:71/9.4.2)

These statements above have not been contested by the 2010 archaeology reports. Where truncation has occurred even at depths of more than 3m, this truncation proves to be isolated given the vast expanse and massive engineering of the majority of structures under consideration.