The site of Drapers Garden was a rather boggy and smelly part of Roman London on either side of the Walbrooke (this stream is now hidden in underground pipes). It was an excellent site because whereas most of Roman London has been rebuilt many times since the fall of Rome, this bit was not built over until relatively recently. In fact in the very name Walbrooke the Wal bit had the same Saxon root as Wales, and probably a name that means something like the brook where the Brits used to live reflects the fact that the Saxons did not have any more relevant description for a place that they did not use. As regards the post-Saxon period, the Garden bit of Drapers Garden reflects the fact that for a long time it was a garden.

Thus when demolition started on an ugly post-war office block, under the concrete slab much of the Roman archaeology was astonishingly untouched.

Dr Gerrard gave a fascinating slide tour of the range of artefacts of all description that were found, with particularly excellent preservation of organic materials and even metals. A good book was available from with more details.

The preservation of metal objects was often particularly spectacular, and the site will probably be most famous for the discovery at the bottom of a well of a huge collection of metal cooking pots and similar items. This may ultimately warrant a special display in the Museum of London.
The range of dates spanned the entire Roman period. On the one hand a wooden 'feature' gave a very early dendrochronology date of Winter 61AD (a date famous for Boudicca's revolt), while the spectacular find of a hoard of metal objects at the bottom of a well could be dated to post 370AD (and possibly much later than that).

This great range of dates allowed some interesting comparisons. For example, some of the early wooden features were built with great 18 inch oak planks, showing how much wood was available to the earliest Romans to arrive in the Thames Valley, but later Roman construction would hardly ever include such fine timbers.

The dig had represented 9 months hard work for 75 archaeologists from Pre-Construct Archaeology, and working on a major demolition site had sometimes been a bit uncomfortable (and even frightening) but post-excavation work was now under way on what had been a quite remarkable opportunity.

Peter Brown