Hobley's Heroes

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  • Site Photos
    • 1974 New Fresh Wharf
    • 1974 - Seal House
    • 1974 - Trig Lane
    • 1975 - 48–50 Cannon Street
    • 1975 - Baynard's Castle
    • 1975 - GPO
    • 1975 - Ken Dash Photo Diary
    • 1976 - 160–162 Fenchurch St
    • 1976 - Milk Street
    • 1977 - Gracechurch Street
    • 1978 - Bridewell Palace
    • 1979 - 8–10 Crosswall, EC3
    • 1979 - Miles Lane
    • 1979 - Peninsular House
    • 1981 - Copthall Avenue
    • 1981 - Cornhill
    • 1981 - Pudding Lane
    • 1981 - St Peter's Hill
    • 1981 - Swan Lane
    • 1982 - Aldersgate
    • 1982 - Billingsgate Market
    • 1982 - Billingsgate Video Snapshots
    • 1982 - Foster Lane
    • 1983 - 3-5 Bishopsgate
    • 1983 - Fenchurch Street
    • 1984 - Leadenhall Court
    • 1985 - 94–97 Fenchurch Street, EC3
    • 1985 - Fish Street Hill
    • 1985 - Queen Street
    • 1987 - Moorgate
    • 1987 - St Bartholomew the Great churchyard
    • 1987-88 Merton Priory-DGLA
    • 1988 - Cannon Street Station North
    • 1988 - Dominant House
    • 1988 - Fleet Valley
    • 1988 - Friar Street
    • 1988 - Ormond House
    • 1988 - Pilgrim Street
    • 1988 - Thames Exchange
    • 1989 - Colchester House
    • 1989 - Leadenhall Street
    • 1990 - St Brides Lower churchyard
    • 1994 - Regis House
    • 2000 - Blossoms Inn
    • 2006 - The Walbrook
  • Ian's Insights
    • Archaeology through the lens
    • Abacus House, 33–39 Gutter Lane, EC2
    • Audrey Baines 'Trowel Blazer' in the City of London
    • Belle Tout Well Shaft
    • Belle Tout Well Shaft Update
    • Billingsgate memories or Mad as a hatter
    • Britain's first banana found in Tudor Rubbish
    • Clapton Logboat
    • Cricket
    • Denis Ballard - A Life Well Lived
    • Gladiatrix’: or hands up, who threw that banana skin into the arena?
    • Deptford Royal Dockyard (Convoys Wharf)
    • Early on-site assessment of archaeological competency
    • Extended tour of duty
    • From the Elephant Man to Bedlam
    • Goodness gracious, Great Fires of London
    • Grave expression
    • Heavy Metal on Regis House
    • In memory of Gina Porter 1957 -1921
    • Ivor Noel Hume-The end of an era
    • John the desk Byrne
    • Leaden Curse
    • Lloyds Register of Shipping
    • Lock, Shop, and Twenty Smoking Barrels
    • Low Down on Low Hall
    • Milestone or Millstone
    • Monument House BPL95 (2)
    • ‘Never trust a man with a balloon’: the aerial photography of the Guildhall amphitheatre
    • Oh No Mates
    • ‘Please Sir, can I have some more?’
    • Rebuilding London 1954 cartoon
    • Regis House Gantry Collapse
    • Remembering Eric Norton
    • Shortage of archaeologists'
    • That was then, this is now
    • The Fallen: remembering a lost generation
    • The home of the DUA
    • The Three Wise Men of Gotham
    • ‘The Two Sues: MOLA Managing Editors par excellence’: Unsung heroes of London archaeology No. 173
    • Unsolved archaeological mysteries No. 42:
    • Unsolved archaeological mysteries No. 311:
    • UNSUNG HEROES - Pat Connolly and Alan Gammon
    • Walbrook to Williamsburg
    • What goes around, doesn't always come around
    • What price an archaeologist?
    • When is a quarry pit, not a quarry pit
    • Welcome to the house of fun
    • Sunflowers and Polyspans
    • I keep saying another metre and that will be it, but I said that 2m ago
    • The Fallen: rediscovering a lost generation
  • Unstratified
    • An Eventful Week in Carthage
    • 40 Years On: The development of the Greater London Historic Environment Record
    • 40 Years On: Photograph Album
    • Archaeology of the City of London 1980
    • Bonfires at Trig Lane
    • Brian Hobley Appointment - 1973
    • From Jon Price 1979-82
    • Graham Troillet
    • Ian Betts Building Material Flyer and leaflet
    • Into the Jaws of Death .. Walked One
    • John Maloney's paper for LA50
    • John Maloney's Speak Up - Digging in the City
    • Kevin and Derek's Party Photos
    • Mike Copper Gift
    • Not Cricket
    • Paul Tyers Photo Album
    • The Big Dig
    • Trevor Brigham Days Out
    • Trevor Brigham Forum Model
    • Two photos taken in Smallhythe Kent
    • Whisper Dictionary from Jamie Muir
  • Round Ups and Articles
    • LA Round Ups
    • LA Articles
    • LAMAS Articles
  • Videos
    • Billingsgate Market (BIG82)
    • Geoff Egan Memorial Video
    • Discovering the Port of Roman London - Gustav Milne
    • Fleet Valley Project
    • Pudding Lane Video
    • Recording of Radio Programme in 1979.
    • The Rose Playhouse from Dafydd Davies
    • Peter Marsden's Roman Ship Dug up in Thames at Blackfriars 1963
    • TV News Clips
    • Trig Lane Archaeological Excavation (TL74)
  • Newsletters
    • Weekly Whisper
    • Hobley's Heroes
    • Underground
    • Radio Carbon
    • DUA Official
    • Closed on Mondays
    • Archaeology Matters
  • Elysium RIP
  • About
    • Contact Us

Our original aim and raison d'être, was to document the life and times of the hundreds of largely forgotten archaeologists who worked for the Department of Urban Archaeology (1973 – 1991), but this has been expanded to better reflect the story of the archaeologists, from the early pioneers to the present day, who excavated London.

 

'The Fallen: rediscovering a lost generation'

Ian Blair

In August 2018 I wrote a short post ‘The Fallen: remembering a lost generation’ which detailed a journey I made to a Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at St Amand in France, to mark the 100th anniversary of the death in World War One of my Great Uncle George William Alfred Blair.

Read more: The Fallen: rediscovering a lost...

‘I keep saying another metre and that will be it, but I said that 2m ago’:  The excavation of the massive Roman wells and their bucket chains at 20-30 Gresham Street

Ian Blair

Read more: I keep saying another metre and that...

An Eventful Week in Carthage

Chrissie Harrison

 Sometime in the spring of 1990 whilst shopping in Habitat, Tottenham Court Road, I bumped into Paul McCulloch. We sat on a sofa and had a chat about the archaeological excavations in Carthage which he would be supervising in the coming summer. This conversation led to a welcome invitation to visit the site.

Read more: An Eventful Week in Carthage

 40 Years On: The development of the Greater London Historic
Environment Record 

Peter James

 As many will know, the Historic Environment Records (HERs) which now serve the information needs of archaeologists, planners, and academic or amateur researchers across the UK are the successors to the ‘Sites and Monuments Records’ (SMRs) which local authorities first began to develop in the 1970s.In 1982 plans were drawn up and the foundations were laid to create such a record for London. 2022, then, marks the 40th anniversary of the Greater London SMR/HER.

Read more: 40 Years On: The development of the...

Sunflowers and Polyspans

Written by Ian Blair

Calverts Buildings, 15–23 Southwark Street, SE1 (15SKS80)

Photographs from Robin Densem

Read more: Sunflowers and Polyspans

Unsolved archaeological mysteries No. 42:

‘Could I have worked at Sutton Hoo in 1939, but have no recollection of it?’

Written by Ian Blair

I recently spent a pleasant couple of hours watching the film ‘The Dig’, which details the discovery and excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship burial in 1939, on the eve of the Second World War.

Read more: Unsolved archaeological mysteries No....

 

Kevin Flude and Derek Gadd Photos

 LORD MAYOR'S SHOW, DAY OUT and PARTIES

 

Read more: Kevin and Derek's Party Photos

Archaeology of the City of London

1980

Department of Urban Archaeology

Read more: Archaeology of the City of London 1980

 THE WHISPER DICTIONARY

[Devised at the Custom House, Seal House, Angel Court, Trig Lane, St Magnus, and New Fresh Wharf Sites 1974-5
Edited by Jamie Muir who writes,
"A lot of [misplaced] youthful energy went into the devising of the attached. Everybody had a hand. I don’t think it’s libellous."

Read more: Whisper Dictionary

 

Graham Troillet

Writer Archaeologist Coastal Ambassador
Australia

27th July 2014

Read more: From Graham Troillet

Into the Jaws of Death ... Walked One

Ivor Noël Hume

From LAMAS Special Paper No.2 1978 p.7-22
Collectanea Londiniensia

Studies in London archaeology and history presented to Ralph Merrifield

Read more: Into the Jaws of Death .. Walked One

  Trevor Brigham Days Out

In 1991, in the dying days of the DUA, an intrepid group of Heroes set sail on the good ship 'June' into unknown territory - well, the River Trent -
to search out new lands and have a last bash at experimental archaeology.

Read more: Trevor Brigham Days Out

 Paul Tyers Photo Album

28 fantastic photographs

Lord Mayors Show, Envirnemental Department, Upstairs at the Globe Pub, Gill Craddocks (Scarlett) leaving Do, Finds Department Party and Pudding Lane Excavation photographs from Paul Tyers

Read more: Paul Tyers Photo Album

‘Never trust a man with a balloon’: the aerial photography of the Guildhall amphitheatre

Written by Ian Blair

For inexplicable reasons now lost in the mists of time, a man with a balloon (with I assume a camera slung beneath it on an umbilical), as opposed to a Montgolfier brothers style balloon launch from the Guildhall Yard, had been booked to take aerial photographs of the Roman amphitheatre, something that perhaps for very good reason, had never been tried before on an archaeological site in the City of London.

Read more: ‘Never trust a man with a balloon’:...

‘The Two Sues: MOLA Managing Editors par excellence’:
Unsung heroes of London archaeology No. 173

Written by Ian Blair

The two Sues as they are fondly known, arrived as a pair at MOLA in 2000 as Managing Editors for the Greater London Publication Programme funded by Historic England to deal with selected sites from pre-1992,and remained with MOLA for the next 21 years.

Read more: ‘The Two Sues: MOLA Managing Editors...

‘Please Sir, can I have some more?’

Written by Ian Blair

 

A lovely photo of Geoff Egan, Penny MacConnoran, and Anne Davis at the Guildhall Christmas lunch around 2008.

Read more: ‘Please Sir, can I have some more?’

 

The Big Dig

Archaeology and the Jubilee Line Extension

1992 - 1998

Read more: The Big Dig

‘Welcome to the house of fun’

Written by Ian Blair

The dynamics of any archaeological excavation is largely driven by the personalities of the individuals who participated. This was amply illustrated on a small DUA site at 61 Queen Street in the City of London (QUN85), supervised by Mark Burch

Read more: 'Welcome to the house of fun'


Two photos taken in Smallhythe, Kent, by Rysz Bartkowiak during the making of Time Team Episode 6, Series 6 (1999)

From Trevor Brigham

Two photos taken in Smallhythe, Kent, by Rysz Bartkowiak during the making of Time Team Episode 6, Series 6 (1999), where Time Team were looking for a 15th-century dock next to the River Rother, one of a number of episodes with MoLAS involvement.

Read more: Two photos taken in Smallhythe Kent

Early on-site assessment of archaeological competency

Written by Ian Blair

 

Peter Hinton with luxuriant flowing locks to rival those of Gustav Milne* in the Department of Urban Archaeology (DUA), seen relaxing at Chaucer House in Southwark in 1975/76, musing if the archaeologists toiling away in the background, might qualify for ‘Practitioner (PCIfA)’ level membership of a future Chartered Institute for Archaeologists.

Read more: Early on-site assessment of...

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Latest Comments

  • Janey said More
    Really interesting and well written article  :D 4 weeks ago.
  • john maloney said More
    Memorable account! Friday, 31 December 2021
  • John Maloney said More
    A Brian Hobley update from John Maloney.
    I thought that you might be interested to know... Friday, 24 December 2021
  • Douglas Killock said More
    I'm not 100% certain bit I'm pretty sure that the guy in the background behind Dave Dobson... Thursday, 16 December 2021
  • Douglas Killock said More
    That would be Dougie Killock and Jessica Fletcher. Thanks for the lovely photo Thursday, 16 December 2021
  • Paul Travis said More
    Just found this site and can't believe this terrible news.  I worked with Gina on the... Friday, 10 December 2021
  • jamie said More
    Thank you for sharing this, Ian. I dont know how long it's been online, but I was thinking... Saturday, 02 October 2021
  • John Maloney said More
    Eric was a fine addition to the DUA Excavations Office negotiating team ~ generally, very... Friday, 03 September 2021
  • John Maloney said More
    Gina was a fine archaeologist and had so many attributes. Not afraid to speak her mind... Friday, 03 September 2021

Latest Articles

  • The Fallen: rediscovering a lost generation
  • I keep saying another metre and that will be it, but I said that 2m ago
  • An Eventful Week in Carthage
  • 40 Years On: Photograph Album
  • 40 Years On: The development of the Greater London Heritage Environment Record
  • Sunflowers and Polyspans
  • Into the Jaws of Death .. Walked One

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HH email address

Waterfront excavations Front Cover

London’s Waterfront 1100–1666
by John Schofield, Lyn Blackmore and Jacqueline Pearce with Tony Dyson.
Published 2018
543 pages (37.6MB)

Available for download now thanks to
The City of London Archaeological Trust (CoLAT)

PS. Check out the 'COLAT bookshelf' page for useful article downloads.

The Ken Dash Photo Diary
1975 - 1977

GPO75 group shotGOOGLE PHOTO ALBUM

Kevin Fludes
Party Photographs

Kevin Flude party photoGOOGLE PHOTO ALBUM

Brian Hobley - Chief Urban ArchaeologistBrian Hobley
Chief Urban Archaeologist
1973 - 1989

Sunday Times Magazine
Article 29th January 1989

Sunday Times MagazineGOOGLE PHOTO ALBUM

DiSCOVERIES
London 1970-1986

Discoveries booklet compiled by Hugh ChapmanGOOGLE PHOTO ALBUM

 IF YOU HAVE ANY PHOTOS TUCKED AWAY OR
MEMORIES YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE
PLEASE CONTACT US.

citizan logo

The Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network (CITiZAN) has been set up in response to these dynamic threats to our island heritage. We are a community archaeology project working in the areas of England exposed at low tide but covered at high tide. We are actively promoting site recording and long-term monitoring programmes led by our active volunteers.

Click here to go to CITIZAN.org