Although most of Crossrail lies deep below any previous human habitation, to get down there, some of their buildings and shafts have punched through the “archaeological layer”, and some of the findings have been put on display.
Some horses heads, some human heads, some pots and some old leather shoes are the highlights, along with a lot of pottery and Roman coins.
And a huge pile of iron chain found from docklands where some old docks used to be. A Roman cremation urn, flint tools used by Londoners approximately 9,000 years ago and objects found in a suspected Black Death Plague burial ground.
The display of some 50 objects is only a small sample of what has been found, but it is a good choice selection.
Adding to the display though are some good descriptive boards about the areas where the find have been recovered from.
The exhibition is open in the easy to spot Crossrail office in the street just behind CentrePoint and is open until 15th March.
- Sun/Mon – Closed;
- Tues – 11am to 7pm;
- Wed – 11am to 5.30pm;
- Thur – 11am to 7pm;
- Fri – Closed;
- Sat – 10am to 5pm
The exhibition is free of charge.
In addition to the exhibition, Crossrail’s archaeologists will also be running a series of lectures each Wednesday evening discussing:
- 19th Feb – The Urban Realm – Buildings Archaeology by Julian Munby from Oxford Archaeology;
- 26th Feb – Crisis and The Black Death by Sam Pfizenmaier from MOLA;
- 5th March – Beyond the City Walls – Recent finds from Liverpool Street Station by Alison Telfer from MOLA;
- 12th March – London’s Last Great Shipbuilder – The Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company by Danny Harrison, MOLA.
Lectures start at 6pm. No booking is required to attend the lectures but are limited to a maximum 50 people. They recommend arriving early so as not to be disappointed.
