The working life of Museum of London

Welcome to the Visitor Service team’s first blog entry! The Visitor Services team here at Museum of London aims to engage and enthuse every visitor that walks through the door with our passion for London. We hope that this extends into our blog posts. In the coming months we’ll be making our recommendations for all things London plus a few highlights from our travels elsewhere. We hope that through our blog you’ll get to know us better, our personal obsessions, interests and past times – basically what we’re into each month.

If you do follow up a recommendation let us know what you thought of it either by …

• Popping in to see us in the galleries, you can’t miss us – we’re usually walking around with a chainmail hood, hand axe or similar – oh and the uniform’s a bit of a give away too!
• Sending us a letter – we love post! 150 London Wall, EC2Y 5HN
• Commenting on here, the Museum’s Facebook page, Tweeting at us… etc
• Dropping us an email – hosts-mol@museumoflondon.org.uk

So here are the things we’re into this month ….

A couple of the gang went to Tower 42. Amazing views – including out across the Olympic site, great service, nice Tapas type food. Very chic. Book a couple of weeks in advance though.

Chris visited Greenwich on a sunny Monday – recommended for a week day because area is much quieter then. Begin the day by having milkshakes at a café which promises over 100 flavours of milkshakes just down from the Cutty Sark. Visit the Maritime Museum and learn about British sea voyages, the telescope and take in a show at the Planetarium. Have lunch at one of the cheap Thai/Chinese places around Cutty Sark aimed at students – you get the £ to portion ratio!! Top tip - to try get in on the kids’ session at the Maritime Museum as they come up with some classic lines and are clearly legends in the making.

Rachel, Ashley and Leigh finally made it to a Jack the Ripper walk (having been promising to go for ages). They went on a walk organised by London Walks with Donald Rumbelow. A good one to go to with a bunch of mates and he really knows his stuff. When you’re done head for a curry in Brick lane. You can also buy Donald’s book, The Complete Jack the Ripper, in the Museum shop.

Our newest discovery is Jen’s Café in China Town – head there for ‘bubble tea’. Any flavour is good.

Ashley visited the Imperial War Museum and recommends the special exhibition on espionage.

A bit further afield, Kareen went to a cool coffee place in Stockholm on Sveavägen which is one of the main roads in the city. The place was full of strange antiquities and had a view out onto most of the city. Well worth a visit.

And Rachel headed to Paris - visiting the catacombs. Walk through the old underground quarries deep beneath the city streets that hold the remains of (allegedly) over six million Parisians.

And finally we have to give ourselves a quick plug … we (of course) recommend our brilliant Gallery Highlight Tours at 12.00 and 4pm every day – come and hear about 450,000 years of London history including Roman bikinis, medieval castration tools and prehistoric trepanation.

Post by Rachel Kuhn, Team Leader

LAARC VIP5

We’re back! And refreshed after the coldness of January, we’re revitalised and ready for the fifth LAARC Volunteer Inclusion Project (VIP5)

Over the next few weeks we shall be recruiting 20 new VIP volunteers for 10 weeks of finds handling, archive improving and skill acquiring work. Sites that we intend to improve this time around include the huge Trig Lane site from 1974 (TL74), the London Docks site, also from 1974 (LH74) and the excellent Chaucer House site from 1975 (CH75)

In addition to the new 20, we welcome back 6 VIP Graduates, who have all volunteered in previous VIP programmes. Their work will also include a focus on leather finds, in an attempt to improve a large quantity of our leather collection.

The VIP project is slowly transforming the Museum’s archaeological collections, taking neglected finds from the 1970’s, objects that never had the funds to be housed properly, and giving them a new home, in a clear plastic bag with two legible labels and numerically organised neighbouring objects in new sturdy, standard sized boxes.

The previous projects have seen volunteers improve 1245 boxes of general finds, audit over 10,000 individually registered finds, move archives from 353 sites excavated between 1972 – 1987 on to new shelves in our metal store and complete work on the whole finds archive from 2005’s community excavation in Shoreditch Park.

As per previous projects, we have organised four specialist workshops which aim to provide volunteers, both VIP and throughout the Museum of London, with basic background knowledge of the material they will get to handle

Find out how we progress by viewing these blog pages which are kept updated each week as well as our project photos on Flickr.

Skeleton suit boy is still being mended so I thought I’d tell you what I’ve been doing last weekend.

For some time now I’m obsessed with vertically striped socks because we had to find some for one of our Pleasure Garden gents. Meet William Oxtoby, 23 years of age, dandy on the make, trying to find love, preferably with a rich heiress. He is wearing his best suit: blue-green shot silk suit with silk embroidery from the 1770s, which no doubt he would have accessorised with vertically striped hosiery.

This type of fancy stocking seem to have been particularly fashionable in the 1770s and 1780s, check out the fashion plates below and also Charles James Fox in this print of 1788 (one of my favourite Museum of London objects).

They have also been mentioned on fashion blogs for a while now and even appeared in Alexander McQueen’s 2009 autumn RTW collection (that’s probablywhy they’re so hot at the moment). Nevertheless the only stockings we found that would have worked well with the colouring of the suit were from a re-enactment site in the US and … they were out of stock (haha).

So I turned to the dress curator’s best friend: ebay. Thankfully Emos and Goths also seem to be fond of vertical strips and I found two pairs for only £3.50 each with high cotton content. The last bit was important because I thought we might have to do some customisation.

The black stripes turned out to be too harsh for the suit and the fuchsia was just ludicrous and too 21^st century. Hilary heard that theatrical costumiers sometimes use bleach to get different colours so I thought I’d have a go.

Apparently thin bleach without additives is best, which is actually not that easy to find but I eventually got lucky in Waitrose. So on Saturday I assembled my bleaching kit. I am actually quite scared of bleach (well, one should be) so I wasn’t looking forward to this. HEALTH WARNING: bleach can be dangerous so do not try this at home without following the guidelines on the bottle.

I took all the necessary precautions: I had gloves (never do washing up without my Marygolds), a poking stick (well, a cooking utensil, really) and I kept my bathroom well ventilated, not much fun in this kind of weather.

According to one website, the recommended mix is 4 parts water and 1 part bleach, which seemed a bit excessive, so I started with a much lower dose. Apparently things were supposed to happen within 15 minutes but I poked and poked and watched and watched but the black stripes stubbornly stayed black (I started with the b/w pair, didn’t want to ruin them both). After 30 minutes or so and after increasing the bleach content several times, I just left the stockings to their own devices, occasionally checking up on them and doing a pit more poking.

After more than an hour the black seemed to slowly turn into brown and once the process started the socks lightened up quite quickly. After a good wash we now have stockings with medium brown and white stripes, still not ideal, but an improvement. After another trip to Waitrose the next day (the glamour!), I had a go with the fuchsia ones, but the dark pink dye was even more difficult. Have a look at the result.

I think the stockings are still too bright but I have not yet held them against the suit yet. If it doesn’t work we might have to dye the brown/white ones, maybe purple, or blue-green-ish to match the suit but I think I will spare you the description of that process.

So, when you come to the Pleasure Garden display in our new gallery (open from the end of May), look out for fancy hosiery and, if you like, tell me what you think.

Like a number of my colleagues in the Museum of London’s Department of Archaeological Collections and Archive, I belong to the Society of Museum Archaeologists (SMA). 

At last year’s annual SMA conference, I (along with many others!) enjoyed an excellent presentation from Detective Sergeant Vernon Rapley about the work of the Metropolitan Police Service’s Art and Antiques Unit. D.S. Rapley discussed several recent cases of fakes and forgeries, such as the infamous case of Shaun Greenhalgh.

D.S. Rapley’s talk provoked a lot of interest and discussion amongst SMA members, and we recently had the privilege of learning more about the world of fakes and forgeries with a guided tour of the ‘Fakes and Forgeries’ special exhibition put together by the Metropolitan Police Service’s Art and Antiques Unit at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Of particular interest to me were the archaeological artefacts that had been forged, including a number of Anglo-Saxon coins.

Walking around the exhibition and listening to our guide, Detective Sergeant Ian Lawson, you couldn’t help but be struck by the lengths that people had to gone to in order to establish a history or ‘provenance’ for the objects they had created. In many cases, documentation ‘proving’ the authenticity of the objects had been forged, including letters from Museum curators.

The special exhibition and work of the Metropolitan Police Service’s Art and Antiques Unit has really brought home the need to work closely with other museums, particularly in London, to tackle fakes and forgeries.

That was the general reaction when we tried out one of the dress objects for the pleasure garden display last week. The object is a so-called ‘skeleton suit’ from the late 1780s.

In 1839 Charles Dickens remembered the skeleton suit as ‘an ingenious contrivance for displaying the full symmetry of a boy’s figure, by fastening him into a very tight jacket, with an ornamental row of buttons over each shoulder, and then buttoning his trousers over it, so as to give his legs the appearance of being hooked on, just under the armpits.’

Well, our suit is not quite like that, but you can see his points about the buttons. If you look closely, you can see a boy wearing such a suit on the right of this painting. Our suit is made from printed cotton, which has now much faded, but originally might have looked a little bit like denim.

Before I go on, I should introduce myself. My name is Beatrice and I am one of two curators responsible for the Museum’s large fashion collection. For the last two years we have been working on preparing the 70 outfits and more than 150 accessories that will go on display in our new galleries. Most will be displayed on ‘cut-outs’ (more about that some other time) but for the pleasure garden we have decided to use full-figure mannequins.

Pleasure Gardens were a bit like amusement grounds today, and were particularly popular in the second half of the 18th and early 19th centuries. The most famous gardens in London were Vauxhall and Ranelagh.

We will show 16 outfits from the 1740s to the 1840s in two cases in the new display. Of course you would never have seen them together originally, but we wanted to highlight particular gems from our collection. The main outfits, suits and dresses, will be original and so will be many of the accessories. To help us put together the right objects we invented a character for each figure. Our little boy is the three-year old Charles Winter, who has come to the gardens with his sister and father, Captain Winter.  Charles is very excited, has even suffered his hair to be curled because the gardens are so fun but is keen to get rid of his starched collar.

Speaking of which, we did not have an appropriate shirt for Charles in the collection, so we asked Amy, who is studying Costume Interpretation at Wimbledon School of Art to make us one. That’s what you see in the photo. It works perfectly and Charles will look even cuter once he is wearing his read shoes. In case you are wondering why he has a plastic bag over his head, we are worried the paint will scratch so are protecting it until installation.

Unfortunately we found that Charles’ arms were a little short (maybe not, what do you think?) so they have now gone back our mannequin makers for a quick fix. I will show you pictures of the finished Charles in a few weeks and I will write about some of the other figures we are working on.

Paget ’s disease

A major difficulty when diagnosing pathological disease in archaeological skeletal remains is that many conditions may only affect the soft tissues of the body, such as the skin or organs. This may result in the death of a person before bone changes took place, leaving no visible traces on the skeleton to be observed. Some diseases, however, may directly affect the bones. The way that bone responds and the distribution pattern of changes throughout the skeleton, enable certain pathologies suffered in life to be identified.

One such pathology occasionally encountered in the osteological analysis of archaeological human bone is Paget’s disease. During life, the human skeleton constantly remodels, repairs and grows. Paget’s disease disrupts this normal routine and results in an increased bone turnover. This can affect single or multiple bones and involve the entire skeleton, resulting in severe deformity and enlargement of affected areas. The skull, spine, sacrum and upper legs are the most commonly involved.

This rare condition was first described by James Paget in 1877. Today the exact causes remain unknown and multiple origins are thought likely. In modern cases, the disease is more common amongst males than females and tends to affect older individuals.

The osteological analysis of post-medieval population from Bow Baptist Church, London by MoLA revealed one individual who displayed bone changes consistent with a diagnosis of Paget’s disease.

An older male aged 46 years or over displayed thickening of the cranial bones with new bone formed to the internal and outer surfaces that was porous and pumice stone like. Examination of radiographs revealed enlargement of the bone cortex with areas that displayed a ‘cotton wool’ like appearance.

The vertebral bodies also showed enlargement and this was more apparent in the lower lumbar regions of the spine. Radiographs showed sclerotic areas (thickening) at the margins of the vertebral centra and areas of porosity to the internal trabecular structures. This gave a ‘picture frame’ appearance in radiographs. The disease had also resulted in deformity and enlargement to the clavicles (collar bone), scapula (shoulder) upper legs and pelvis.

Pathological fractures are a common feature of this disease due to weakening of the bone structures that may cause bowing of the limbs. This individual had suffered compression fractures to several vertebrae. This had also resulted in degenerative joint disease and osteoarthritis throughout the spine. Osteoarthritis was also recorded in the hands and shoulder joints.

This individual may have been unaware that he had such a disease during life as many cases are asymptomatic. However, some people can suffer bone pain, headaches and hearing loss.

For more information see:

Brickley, M, and Ives, R, 2008 The bioarchaeology of metabolic disease, Oxford

Ortner DJ, 2003, Identification of pathological conditions in human skeletal remains. London

Roberts, C A, and Manchester, K, 2005, The archaeology of disease, Third edition, Stroud

I have just started working on the Museum’s exciting London: World City project which is part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Young people all over London will be taking part in creative projects to reinterpret museum collections and put on exhibitions. Other museums involved include Geffyre, London Transport Museum and Horniman. Along with partnering smaller museums, each will look at different theme to explore how London became the amazing world city it is today.

Here at the Museum of London we are looking at the theme of place and focusing on the legacy left by the Romans. Between now and March 2011, we will be doing lots of exciting work with young adults, ranging from films, archaeology, podcasts, art and drama in a series of five key projects. Young adults are at the heart of the project and through this work we hope more of them find our fabulous Museum relevant and fun.

Key to the success of this project is our ability to involve young adults in the planning and development. We are also setting up a youth panel (called Junction) so that members can act as consultants and advise us on what young people want. There are two open recruitment afternoons in early February and we are looking for young adults ages 16 - 21 from all backgrounds.

Find out how you or anyone you know who may be interested can get involved (PDF 142kb, opens in a new window)

Well I am back in the office after just over a week and have finally managed to go through all the emails and urgent updates on the websites and staff Intranet, I thought I’d take a few minutes to wish you all a very Happy New Year from everyone at Museum of London and tell you that some wonderful new things are happening this year, so watch out for them.

If you don’t yet know, we will be opening our new Galleries of Modern London at Museum of London in May and as of the 1st of January, we are revealing daily, the 1919 Diary of Oscar Kirk, a young messenger boy employed by the Port of London Authority. You can follow daily tweets from Oscar at http://twitter.com/oscarkirk1919.

Also coming soon is a new gallery, “War, Plague & Fire“, telling the story of London from the Elizabethan times, through the ravages of the English Civil Wars to the Great Fire of 1666 at Museum of London, and a display of post abolition commemorative stamps from around the world at Museum of London Docklands.

All that and so much more to look forward to this year, so stay tuned to find out more!

Every year Museum of London employees get to attend a staff Christmas lunch for a small amount towards costs at the Guildhall with the Lord Mayor. Since I started working for Museum of London, I have been attended these lunches every year, and this year was even more special as I had many new colleagues who have joined the Museum, with whom I was able to spend some time.

The day started off very excitedly with many people doing last minute finishing touches to their hats that they will bring along to the lunch where the Lord Mayor and the Mayoress would judge them, and the owner of the best hat creation would win a prize. We make our way down to the Guildhall around 12.30pm, hoping to find the best seat, choosing the person we wish to sit next to (or not!) and generally starting the ‘party’.

Some people bring along Christmas crackers and party poopers, and the very brave even bring along squeaking balloons that they compete to try and get the balloons to go as high as possible.

We start of with starters (this year it was artichoke soup), then continue the meal through a main course until desserts (yum!). Finally, we stand up to toast the Queen and the Lord Mayor and the City of London. Inevitably, by the end of the lunch and the many toasts, some people are a little worse for wear and head off home (we’re not allowed to go back to work after drinking alcohol, so most people take the afternoon off).

Throughout the lunch, the Lord Mayor and Mayoress look around and decide on the best made hat. I am proud to say Museum of London has won this competition on and off for many years, but have held on to the title consecutively for the last three. Each year, only one winner stands out, and ladies and gentleman, the prize for the best hat this year went to…

Carol Thompson and Tanya Pollard of Museum of London!

Both did so well that the judges decided to make a first and make them joint winners. Carol especially was thrilled as she had won the hat competition two year ago as well.

I started volunteering at LAARC back in 2003, was employed here in 2004 and have been here ever since. On a day to day basis I get to handle some of the world’s best objects. But forget all them at this time of year, as there’s one annual object that get’s me more excited than any other – the LAARC Gingerbread house!

The history of Gingerbread seems to go back over 500 years with Germanic/Swedish origins, arriving in Britain in the 1500’s and being widespread by the 1700’s. But I’m not here to write about the history of Gingerbread, but instead the Archaeological Archive’s tradition of making a Gingerbread House each Christmas.

Back in 2003, LAARC had a full time conservator, Jannicke who came from Norway. It was she who first introduced the Gingerbread house to the archive. Keeping with Scandinavian tradition, the house was decorated for Christmas and sat proudly as the centre piece at our Christmas party. Decorated with an abundance of sugary sweets, bonded together with icing sugar, it’s a dentist’s worst nightmare, but looks a dream. Its true moment of glory however, is when it gets smashed, revealing even more sweets and chocolates inside.

Ever since then, despite Jannicke leaving in 2005, we’ve kept up the tradition of decorating a house each year and along the way have watched it evolve into one of the highlights of each Christmas party.

The smashing of the house is now preceded by two events; the decorating and the competition to determine who gets to smash it. The decorating gets done by LAARC staff in a creative morning session, where we let our artistic skills flow. The competition’s vary and have previously included a Christmas caption competition, a Christmas catapult competition and a Christmas song quiz. This year, we were very lucky to have Jannicke join us at our party and as our guest of honour, she along with her 1 year old daughter and volunteer Chris (he volunteered the most this year)  got to be the smashers.

We may not be as grand as the recent Obama Gingerbread WhiteHouse, but it’s a nice little tradition we have and long may it continue!