Jane Sidell is English Heritage Inspector of Monuments for London, which she said was a fantastic job, protecting and monitoring approximately 150 monuments throughout London.

Jane described some of the sites in her care.  RAF Kenley Aerodrome Croydon, where spitfires were hidden during WWII although not ancient, is important.  The fabric will be surveyed and the aerodrome interpreted.

The conduit which supplied water to Eltham Palace has been frequently vandalised, so an interpretation panel has been put in to give it a more “loved” air.  Both of the old water conduits at Kingston have been listed and scheduled.  Kingston Society looks after Combe Conduit; the staircase in the other, which supplied water to Hampton Court from Wolsey’s time, was in a parlous state.

There are some prehistoric sites in London, such as earthworks;  Pinner Park Pale is a hillfort.  They tend to be badly protected and can involve working in partnership with for example managers of golf courses - the moated site at Enfield is in the middle of the ninth green.  Volunteers help to keep sites cleared of vegetation. At the Rose Theatre site, at present located under a modern building, a dedicated group put on performances: this is where Shakespeare actually stood and played.  With lottery funding they are relaying the protective surface and producing an interpretation of the site.

Jane’s department is also responsible for London’s Roman Wall, built c180-190AD (bastions were added 50 years later).  This crops up in a number of places – under bars, in cupboards, basements, and on the surface.  In one basement at Vine Street/Old Jewry there is a bit of wall and bastion.  As the building above is going to be rebuilt, it is hoped to use this opportunity to tidy up the site and open it up to the public.

Although the department doesn’t deal with churches currently in use, the 14th century Ruxley Church, at present attached to a garden centre, has a roof which is falling in.  They are trying to suggest to the garden centre that the church would make a nice café.  

The buildings at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, are part of a World Heritage Site.  More information is being obtained about the layering within the buildings.  The Painted Hall will be conserved, the 1980s kitchens will go and the site will be opened up, revealing original doorways etc.  Underneath is the Palace of Placentia where Elizabeth I was born.  One keyhole excavation revealed a previously unknown burial ground with ca 15th century burials, possibly Henry VIII prisoners of war.  

When it was confirmed that Greenwich Park would be the centre for the Olympic equine events, EH decided to ‘work with it’. It was worrying that 70,000 people would be coming to watch;  there is a lot of archaeology in the Park.  Apart from the significant buildings of the Old Naval College and the Queen’s House, there is a not-very-visible Anglo-Saxon barrow cemetery – some of the 31 barrows are only 10cm high.   These were ripped into by antiquarians in the mid-18th century, and were the subject of a public outcry in 1844, with complaints about the wanton destruction of the monuments.   For the Olympics they put an exclusion zone around the barrow cemetery: Jane herself sat on a barrow for five hours to make sure it was okay.  Some of the jumps were in the form of a Saxon village.  The site is now protected.  The Romano-Celtic Temple in Greenwich Park was discovered in 1902, when rare ivories were also found.  It was the subject of a Time Team excavation in c2000.  The Olympic people re-landscaped it with a new interpretation panel. 
In the middle of woods in North London is the well-defined Camlet Moat.  One of the issues here is people who think it is Camelot and cover it with ribbons, crystals etc.  The local authority wanted to build a centre suggesting it is Camelot.  Volunteers will help to clear it.  

At Merton Priory in South London work will be done on the Chapter House.  At Lesnes Abbey at Bexley there is some astonishing survival such as a 4 metre high wall, the Lady Chapel, Rear Dorter, Kitchen etc.  With lottery money, there will be a small Visitors Centre. MoLA excavated at Bermondsey Abbey up to 1980s-90s; PCA then took over and have been excavating here for at least 10 years.  It is an enormous complex, originally a wealthy Cluniac monastery.  Some of the material is only 6 inches below the modern surface, with phase upon phase of fabric.  Part of the Chapter House has been found plus some burials between it and the South Transept.  There may have been two towers at the West End of the Abbey Church;  there is an upside down skull carving in the foundation of a tower base.  Plus there is post-medieval fabric in houses subsequently built on the site.  

When Cannon Street station was first built c1868 Roman masonry was removed with dynamite.  During excavations by Peter Marsden in the 1960s the Roman buildings became known as “the Governor’s Palace”;  there were at least 60 rooms with a Great Hall and an internal courtyard with fountain.  Some of the features found at the time have been seen again (by MoLA) and better planned, and are being published.  During the new development of the station they started to find corners of rooms, etc., plus pre-Palace material: clay and timber buildings underneath.  This allows an understanding of the North terracing work in London. If there is future work on the station, there will have to be a lot of negotiations re. the placing of piles.  But the substantial ragstone and brick Roman masonry is well preserved, in situ.

 Excavations took place at Winchester Palace in Southwark in the early 1980s.  Now there is a lot of regeneration going on around the area: one range of the Palace has been found.  A typical monastic quadrant was attached to the South plus orchards and gardens.  One can now see the Rose Window wall from both sides, plus the phasing in the wall, most of which is of Reigate stone but the Rose Window may be of Caen stone, lime washed.  Drains were made of Purbeck slabs.   New cobbling has been laid around the Palace.  Adjoining the SW range of the Palace a 1½ metre thick medieval wall has been found, plus a wall and surface from a very fancy and extensive Roman building: it provided 16 crates of wall plaster.  This will all be published in due course.

At Fulham Palace a community excavation took place in 2012 in the walled garden.  A Trust has been formed to run the Palace.  As the new management wants to turn the walled garden into a productive area, they were looking for former garden features: it was originally square with four quadrants, with bedding trenches at an angle to the centre plus other linear features;  tree pits were lined with puddled clay to retain water.  A carved (c17th century?) torso was found in a rockery, plus a piece of church fabric.  In a series of excavations during laying of power cables traces of service buildings were found.  A lot of information has been gained.  The (now filled in) moat is one of the largest in the country.  Part of the lottery scheme being to open up part of it, during this work some 13th century timbers were found in the base of the moat.  A sluice mechanism, used to regulate water flow into the Thames, was also studied.  

In 1958 a Romano-Celtic barge of Northern European type was found at Guys Hospital.  4½ metres down, it hadn’t been seen since 1960.   A cancer centre is now to be built over the top of it.  The plan is to leave it in situ, but it can be excavated out sideways eventually if necessary.  

Kings Observatory/Shene Charterhouse site in Old Deer Park, Richmond, the last and greatest of the Charterhouses (a double house) was not scheduled.  Bob Cowie has been digging there and has exposed a cloister, North range and East range,  ca 1 foot below ground, plus individual monks’ cells and gardens.  More fieldwork was due to be done at the end of November 2012.  It will be added to the London Schedule.  

Yvonne Masson