LONDON’S WATERFRONT 1100–1666: SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS FROM FOUR EXCAVATIONS THAT TOOK PLACE FROM 1974 TO 1984

Abstract

The area around the north end of the medieval London Bridge in the City of London has attracted much archaeological attention. This article summarises the main findings for the period 1100–1666 from four excavations, recently published. In doing so, it explores a number of key issues: the main characteristics of this waterfront area in the medieval and Tudor periods; the sources of the pottery and artefacts incorporated into reclamation units, and any significance in their locations behind waterfront revetments or on the foreshore; what the medieval and post-medieval artefacts say about culture, fashion and religious beliefs; the functions of the buildings and open areas, and to what extent these can be linked to owners or occupiers specified in the documentary record; and how the port of London fits within its European trading network. The article also examines if and to what extent the area south of Thames Street was an industrial suburb of the medieval City. Here also lay the parish church of St Botolph Billingsgate, destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 and not rebuilt, many details of which can be reconstructed from archaeology and rich documentary evidence. Sixty-nine human burials in the church include one of a man in his sixties who may be John Reynewell, mayor of London in 1426–7. The several thousand artefacts and several hundred kilos of English and foreign pottery (the latter now analysed into over 100 separate wares) from the four sites in the study deserve further research by scholars, who can use this article as a stepping stone into the archive held at the Museum of London.