The Lloyds and Lloyds Head

Canute-like, Telford and Wrekin Council is attempting to prevent geological subsidence at the Lloyds in Ironbridge. This year’s scheme is a much more ambitious project than last year’s, although along the same 150-metre stretch of the 10 kilometre Ironbridge Gorge.


Last year, several million pounds were spent sinking a series of piles into the geology to try and stop the road slipping into the river. The life-expectancy of this work was 30 years, but the current works supposedly will last 100 years. Quite what happens when this short stretch of riverside stays where it is, and the rest of the gorge quietly slips into the river, is not clear.

This is an impressive bit of engineering work, involving 30-metre piles on both sides of the river. These go down into the underlying bedrock, such as it is, and thus retain the overburden which is suffering from rotational slippage exacerbated by 500 years of mining and other industrial activity. The main beneficiaries of this seem to be the ‘Black Swan’ pub and a few other houses, plus of course the roads themselves. This view is from the Lloyds side, looking across to Lloyds Head (‘Black Swan’ on the far right on the opposite bank).


We did a special visit last week with some Museum and Institute colleagues, with a very interesting presentation by Neal Rushton, the Council’s chief engineer on the project. Here is Roger White with the rapidly subsiding Lloyds Cottage in the background.


The cottage itself was compulsorily purchased by the Council a couple of years ago. There is an idea afoot to convert it into a visitor centre, but many of the project team would be quite happy to see it disappear, it would seem. The problem for engineers is that historic structures like this aren’t built of mega reinforced concrete and so they move naturally with the landscape, which is not at all in accordance with modern building regulations.

Here is one of the piling rigs.



These alone weigh 90 tons, and so a great deal of temporary reinforcement of the river bank has been needed just to allow the work to proceed! The current project is costing tens of millions of pounds. One wonders whether this scheme would actually be undertaken if this was not a high-value property area in a World Heritage Site. As someone who is prone to consider whether even relatively ordinary conservation of some historic structures is worthwhile, I have to seriously question these attempts – however noble – to try and arrest what is, after all, a natural geological process. Moreoever these natural processes are what made the Gorge in the first place. I am sure that people affected by equally unstoppable coastal erosion in other parts of the country might have something to say. Proposals are afoot for further work in the future.

West Mids Show

After a couple of years' absence we made another visit to the West Mids show at the weekend. This time the atmosphere seemed much less agricultural and much more like a fun fair. However Moss certainly enjoyed herself, inspecting various animals... here she is with some Dorset sheep:


Due to bluetongue various animal parades were a bit thin on the ground, and there were hardly any horses at all. Pigs, on the other hand, were in abundance. Those cattle which were able to make it put on a good show:



There were some quite entertaining side shows, including some Civil War re-enactors and some jousting. However the very high winds made it very difficult for those presenting as well as those watching, and by the end of the day a number of exhibitors had already taken their tents and stands down.

Crossing Paths, Sharing Tracks

This was the title of the Leicester conference in April which attempted to coalesce some of the rather disparate strands of historical archaeology in the UK.

The organisers very bravely tried to bridge a number of gaps by bringing together the four major bodies concerned with historical archaeology in the British Isles – the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology (SPMA), the Association for Industrial Archaeology (AIA), the Irish Post-Medieval Archaeology Group (IPMAG) and the Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory group (CHAT).

Subtitled "future directions for the archaeological study of post-1550 Britain and Ireland", there seemed to be two main thrusts. The first of these was in trying to locate UK and Irish historical archaeology in a broader global context. The second was trying to bring together the very separate traditions of 'industrial' and 'post-medieval' archaeology.

Despite brave attempts, the meeting only partially succeeded in the first aim, and, to my mind at least, largely failed in the second.

To deal with the second aspect first: the whole premise of the meeting was slightly Quixotic. There isn't really quite the 'clash of cultures' that was highlighted as a problem in UK archaeology. Rather there are a few on the fringes of mainstream archaeology who maintain a distinctly atheoretical and technocentric stance to the study of the industrial past. Needless to say, those people were largely absent from the conference and so will remain obdurate. The fact is that 'industrial archaeology' has never been more mainstream, and is now being undertaken regularly in all sorts of places. The only slight worries which I have - and, in fairness, these were rather overlooked at the conference - are a rather widespread ignorance of even rather basic technological processes on the part of many archaeologists dealing with industrial remains, and the generally rather patronising attitude which many academics have to non-academics.

The first aim was closer to being achieved, although contributors from outside the British Isles were exclusively from the United States. This meant that the many vibrant and interesting historical archaeologies of Europe, south America, Africa, Australia and even non-anglophone Canada, were absent. In addition there was no-one from the world of maritime archaeology - another glaring absence given the number of references to 'Atlanticity', colonialism and so-on - none of which are possible without a boat. And a boat is, of course, an example of industrial technology.

Another notable omission was the absence of data from developer-funded projects. It would therefore have been nice to have had more input from some of the contracting units who are doing excellent work every day on this period.

So a mixed bag therefore, but much food for thought. Of course now I am in the throes of writing up my own deeply flawed contribution, which will doubtless be too long and too unwieldy for the proceedings. Let's hope we can do better in 2009...