2 July 2009
Day 3 of the community dig saw children from Years 2, 3 and 4 at Virginia School take to their trowels. Al, Dan and Jackie were there to show them how to dig, helped by Mark, Glyn and Tom.
All the children turned up interesting finds, but often, even the most humble of objects can tell us a great deal about the past such as what people ate. Was it different to today? Everyone found oyster shells of all shapes and sizes. Back in the 1800s, oysters were a cheap source of food and would have been commonly eaten by the people of the Old Nichol Street Rookery and all over London and the country. Unfortunately, over-exploitation and pollution of the oyster beds led to them becoming scarce and expensive, which is why we usually only associate oysters with fancy restaurants today.
Many clay tobacco pipe were excavated as well; these were what people used to smoke tobacco before cigarettes. Clay tobacco pipes can come in all shapes and sizes and were very common until 1900 when cigarettes took over. Local worker Robert Bradshaw came to visit the site and was particularly interested in the pipes. Because pipes are made from baked clay, they can survive very well in the ground. Also, because the shape and size of the pipes changed over the years they can be very useful to archaeologists for dating purposes. Specialists can examine the pipes and from knowing what style of pipe was common for a particular period, they can then be used to help to date other objects or features that are found with them. To find out more about clay tobacco pipes, please visit the Museum's Clay Tobacco Pipe Maker's Mark website (external link).
Another visitor to the site had a very personal story to tell. Councillor Peter Herrington from Chingford told us that his grandmother had lived in the area before the slum clearances; Mary (PDF 364kb) lived in the area from 1855 to 1891 when the slum was cleared and she and her family moved from number 5 New Nichol Street, literally a stone’s throw from the site, to Walthamstow.
In the photo to the right, Councillor Herrington holds an 1861 copper halfpenny found by the archaeologists on the dig; could this halfpenny have once passed through the hands of his grandmother? Archaeology can sometimes provide a very close and tangible link to our ancestors, it can help us to get to know and understand them better, and through doing so, it can often help us better understand ourselves.
