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A Tv prog a time team special on Sunday the 29 of October 2006.
Time 6.40 pm to 7.40 pm.
Buried by the Blitz: A Time Team Special
Shoreditch Park is a welcome green oasis on the northern edge of the City of London. Most people who use it today have no idea that under the grass lies the physical evidence of an extraordinary story – the story of Britain’s darkest and, in the words of Winston Churchill, finest hour.
At the beginning of the 1940s, the area now covered by the park was crammed with terraced houses. And between 7 September 1940, when the Nazis’ aerial blitz on London began, and 11 May 1941, when it reached its bloody climax, the sky was swarming with German bombers. The consequences for the people who lived in these terraces were catastrophic. By the time the bombing was over, barely a single house had escaped being damaged; many were completely destroyed.
In the summer of 2005, and again for a shorter period in 2006, archaeologists from the Museum of London carried out a pioneering ‘community excavation’ to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. They were searching for what was left of some of the houses that once stood on the site.
The excavation was pioneering in two senses. First, its target was the sort of ordinary 19th and 20th century remains that archaeologists normally dig through to get to the older layers underneath. (Martin Brown, one of the archaeologists working on the project, said he was aware of only one other archaeological excavation that has looked at housing bombed during the Second World War.) And second, the dig aimed to involve as many people as possible from the local community, including past and present residents, in exploring buried aspects of their own recent history.
Time Team was present to film the excavation and the finds, to help to uncover the history of the area and to talk to some of the hundreds of people – both young and old – who played a part in this unique archaeological project.
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Related links
20th century
Time traveller’s guide to the 20th century
Other websites
Further reading
D-Day
By: Moggy C - 30th October 2006 at 15:41
The cat skeleton (Fluffy) was different!
I hope he was reburied with proper respect. 😡
Moggy
By: adrian_gray - 30th October 2006 at 15:38
Ah, must have missed that bit in the thirty seconds or so where the father-in-law was fiddling with the remote. Ta for clearing that up!
Adrian
By: Arm Waver - 30th October 2006 at 15:35
The jaw bone was deemed to have been brought in when soil was deposited on site following some event and was thought to date from 1800’s IIRC and the jaw plus other bones came from at least two different people.
The cat skeleton (Fluffy) was different!
By: Drem - 30th October 2006 at 14:47
Seem to remember them saying it had been brung in from somewhere else.
By: adrian_gray - 30th October 2006 at 14:23
I accept what you say Bruce thanks.
With this in mind, did Tony Robinson really have to come out with the little “this is’nt real Archaeology” comment.
Probably yes, given that he is NOT an archaeologist so can be used to ask the stupid questions! Think of him as a fall guy who is there to say stupid things and be proved wrong, and you have the right idea.
Personally I thought it needed a better editor – the final CGI sequence was quite something, but it dragged in a number of places without seeming to go anywhere. Did we ever find out about the jawbone, or did I miss that straight after the add brea when someone was fiddling with the remote?
Adrian
By: Drem - 30th October 2006 at 14:09
I accept what you say Bruce thanks.
With this in mind, did Tony Robinson really have to come out with the little “this is’nt real Archaeology” comment.
By: Bruce - 30th October 2006 at 13:34
By all means make it a community project but I will bet there were a few disapointed people around when they turned up to (note spelling), find Time Team members not there.
I doubt it – if you read the blurb at the top of this page, you will note that it wasnt a time team dig at all – it was done by the Museum of London. As sometimes happens, Time Team were invited to see what was going on, and made a programme on what was found. There have been a number of these ‘specials’ that don’t involve the team.
Bruce
By: JDK - 30th October 2006 at 12:05
… and I can remember one of the key ‘Time Team archaeologists on the Spitfire dig being quite ‘sniffy’ about this WWII stuff.
Being ‘sniffy’ about items “outside my field” or of lesser interest to the specialist is an endemic problem – in academia and in vintage aviation. Often it’s self-evidently silly; such as the Celtic expert disparaging the Anglo Saxon, or the W.W.II aviation enthusiast slagging off ‘biplanes’; but it seems to be a human twitch. “I look down on him because…”
Unfortunately the the viewing figure returns pay the wages. 😉
At least it’s encouraging a LOT of people around the world to realise that history and archaeology are worthwhile, important, and accessible – or we could have further (un)reality programmes to ‘enjoy’. 😡
Point made Drem; however the idea of a ‘celebrity archaeologist’ is as odd as a ‘friendly LAME’. 😀
By: Moggy C - 30th October 2006 at 12:03
.. I will bet there were a few disapointed people around when they turned up to (note spelling), find Time Team members not there.
Speaking personally I would have been far happier meeting the nice blonde lady from the local area than either the hairy bloke or the wurzel. 😀
Moggy
By: Drem - 30th October 2006 at 11:00
By all means make it a community project but I will bet there were a few disapointed people around when they turned up to (note spelling), find Time Team members not there.
Yup, the CGI scene at the end was very well done, one of the best bits of work for a long time.
By: Mark12 - 30th October 2006 at 09:50
It was made clear this was a community project and that the professionals were not there. The suggestion that the team are too good (note spelling) is stupid, the one that I know quite well is one of the most decent people I know.
… and I can remember one of the key ‘Time Team archaeologists on the Spitfire dig being quite ‘sniffy’ about this WWII stuff.
Unfortunately the the viewing figure returns pay the wages. 😉
Mark
By: Melvyn Hiscock - 30th October 2006 at 09:40
Noticed also that all the usual suspects kept out the way, to good to spend time with the normal people?.
It was made clear this was a community project and that the professionals were not there. The suggestion that the team are too good (note spelling) is stupid, the one that I know quite well is one of the most decent people I know.
By: Moggy C - 30th October 2006 at 09:25
Watched it earlier and I must say, am I the only one to think that Tony Robinson came across as a bit of an arrogant **** by saying that this was not real archaeology?
I think this was just a script device as, at the end he appeared to have been ‘converted’ into believing it was a different, but still valuable form of archeology.
I thought the wrap up scene, three of the crew walking across the park, which fades into them walking down a CGI recreation of the street as it was pre-war, which then fades into the street after it had been blitzed, then back to the park was one of the most brilliant bits of TV I’ve seen for a while.
Moggy
By: G-ORDY - 30th October 2006 at 07:34
Growing up in Coventry in the 1950’s we didn’t have to dig – we played on the “bomb sites”. I do remember when the foundations for a new building were dug on one such site (in Craven Street) it exposed the cellars of the houses which had stood there. Another time I nearly s**t myself when we uncovered a dodgy-looking cylindrical metal object … until we realised it was an old vacuum cleaner!
By: Drem - 30th October 2006 at 06:49
Noticed also that all the usual suspects kept out the way, to good to spend time with the normal people?.
By: Arabella-Cox - 29th October 2006 at 21:56
Oh no… dont start the Bader debate again EN830!!!! Andy Saundes
By: EN830 - 29th October 2006 at 20:11
Just mention digging Bader’s Spitfire for a debate on real archaeology. 🙂
I thought the programme was OK, but lacked something.
By: Drem - 29th October 2006 at 19:57
Watched it earlier and I must say, am I the only one to think that Tony Robinson came across as a bit of an arrogant **** by saying that this was not real archaeology?.
Never heard him saying this about the Spitfite dig and other aircraft digs the programme have done.
By: Andy Mac - 28th October 2006 at 22:55
I’m looking forward to this – thanks for the heads-up ! 😀
By: WP840 - 28th October 2006 at 19:59
EXCELLENT!
Whilst I love Time Teams olde worled excavations more modern stuff can be equally as interesting when they dig it all up. I can remember several years ago when they dug up the remains of a WW2 B17 bomber that had crashed, easily one of their better digs of the year in my opinion.
Archaeology isn’t always boring!
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October 28, 2006 at 7:23 pm