The Greater London Archaeology Advisory Service

The GLAAS continues to provide the regional equivalent of a County Archaeological Service in Greater London. The main element of this work is the provision of planning advice on the archaeological implications of planning applications, facilitating the implementation of government policy as set out in PPG16. All of the Unitary Development plans prepared for the London Boroughs now contain strong policies on the protection of archaeological sites, reinforcing Government policy, and in all but one Borough the areas of greatest archaeological potential have been defined on the relevant proposal maps. Leaflets or booklets for the more archaeologically complex areas (including the Cities of Westminster and London, and the Borough of Southwark) have been prepared to explain the archaeological policies to developers and the local community.

Archaeological concerns are now addressed as a matter of course throughout the Greater London area. The GLAAS has seen a considerable increase in its workload over the past 12 months, and this has made it necessary to redirect resources from many of the strategic initiatives reported on last year into the handling of casework. Several thousand development proposals were reviewed in detail for their possible impact on buried archaeological remains, and over 260 fieldwork projects were initiated. Most of these involved the evaluation of a site's archaeological potential. It has become increasingly easy to secure the conservation in situ of important remains through the active support for such initiatives that is now coming from the development community, and as a consequence, although only a small minority of projects have progressed to full excavation, this has resulted in a varied programme of field-based archaeological research.

Projects developed in part or whole on the basis of GLAAS advice (all taken forward by the Museum of London Archaeological Service unless otherwise indicated) include the study of wetland landscapes at Beckton Alps (Newham Museums Service) and of a trackway of horizontally laid planks associated with a middle Bronze Age flint and pottery scatter at the Royal Victoria Docks (Wessex Archaeology). At the other end of London, excavations on a gravel extraction site at Cranford Lane, Hillingdon, explored a multi-period rural landscape. This included a rare Neolithic structure, middle and late Bronze Age field systems with farmsteads and cremation burials, and a late Roman field system. The study of Roman landscapes of the region has been further advanced by the discovery and partial investigation of a stockaded enclosure adjacent to the alluvial flood plain at Dagenham (Newham Museums Service), an inhumation cemetery overlooking the Thames at Corney Reach, Chiswick, a prehistoric and early Roman farmstead in Kensington, a section across Watling Street at Brockley Hill, and part of the roadside settlement at Croydon.

A series of important urban excavations is under way at key topographic locations in the Roman and medieval City and in Southwark. The approaches to London Bridge are being studied on both sides of the river, at Borough High Street and Regis House (where part of the Roman waterfront is also being excavated). The Roman forum has seen some further evaluation work in both the Fenchurch Street and Lime Street areas, and preparatory excavations have also taken place on the No 1 Poultry site. Some further work will take place on the early medieval waterfront at Bull Wharf, adjacent to Queenhithe, although most of this site is to be preserved. Important medieval sites which have recently been studied around London include an early Saxon settlement site at Tulse Hill, where eight sunken-floored buildings have been excavated, a group of thirteenth-fourteenth-century Surrey Whiteware pottery kilns at Kingston-upon-Thames, and part of the Cistercian Abbey and associated cemetery at Stratford Market (Newham Museums Services).

ACAD Plot of recorded Roman sites in Greater London

A concerted effort is being made to ensure that the results of this and earlier archaeological fieldwork, taken forward with the involvement of the GLAAS, are published promptly and the archives made publicly accessible. A significant proportion of the more important sites to have been dug since the introduction of PPG16 are at an advanced stage of study, and several have already been published in full. Shorter reports on a number of other sites, of less evident importance, have been published in The London Archaeologist. Procedures have also been established to ensure that the provisional findings of all evaluations and excavations will be entered onto the Greater London Sites and Monuments Record within six weeks of the completion of fieldwork. A computerised mapping system has been introduced, and has considerably improved the quality of the service the GLAAS is able to provide.