Meet the archaeologists who uncover the incredible history of Southwark’s Roman and medieval remains

Southwark is one of the most valuable places in London for archaeological discoveries. That’s according to Alistair Douglas, and he should know. In his 39-year career as an archaeologist, he’s unearthed countless finds from the Neolithic to the Roman to the medieval across the country, writes Rich Brann...

But a large part of his time has been devoted to the borough of Southwark, where some of the most fascinating ruins of pre-modern London have been discovered over the 50 years.

Alistair said: “You get deep stratigraphic archaeology in Southwark and the City, and you don’t find that everywhere – that’s quite special.

“It was part of the Roman trading network…it had warehouses, it had shops, it was a busy place, extending right up Borough High Street."

Alistair's a senior archaeologist at Pre-Construct Archaeology, a company that's been working in Southwark for decades - their team of researchers and archaeologists are usually contracted by private developers to conduct digs on old land where new construction is happening.

And that's a common necessity in a borough with a history like Southwark's.

Being close to the river, Southwark was once adjacent to Roman Londinium, meaning it’s been an urban area with a huge amount of buried history for far longer than most parts of London, according to Alistair.

He said: “A lot of these ruins are what we call multi-phased, so they go from the pre-historic period until right through to the relatively modern – obviously, this part of London, the docklands, was heavily bombed during the war, so sometimes you’ll find bomb damage too.

“And it’s all in layers - you can see everything from the Neolithic period right through to what we call the modern era, concentrated around the area where London Bridge is today.”

Ireneo Grosso, senior project manager at Pre-Construct Archaeology, described Southwark as ‘unique’ among London boroughs in how many different layers of civilisation could be found beneath its surface, with excavation between Harper Road and Swan Street in Old Kent Road revealing some magical finds.

https://southwarknews.co.uk/news/rare-roman-coffin-found-harper-road-go-public-display/

He said: "South of Long Lane is basically a Roman cemetery, it's full of plots...and people like to be buried with a display of wealth, so we found a mausoleum and even a Roman sarcophagus.

"We found evidence that the sarcophagus had even been looted during the medieval period - the lid to the original sarcophagus had actually been moved."

https://southwarknews.co.uk/history/in-depth-history/new-exhibition-shows-us-through-dead-romans-that-southwark-was-a-very-different-to-the-rest-of-londoninium/

A reconstruction of what Bermondsey Abbey might've looked like. Credit: Jake Lunt Davis

Pre-Construct Archaeology has excavated sites across the borough, with their main project being Bermondsey Square, the former site of an abbey that was first founded more than 1300 years ago, in the Anglo-Saxon era.

Other sites in the borough have included digs at Long Lane and at Brandon House in Borough, as well as incredible Roman ruins of a temple complex at Tabard Square, where traders and travellers would have gathered on the road to Londinium.

One of Alistair Douglas’s most exciting discoveries came there.

He explained: “One of the most extraordinary finds from Tabard Square was a tin with a lid, and when you unscrewed it there was a cream in it - and it still had the finger marks of the last person who was taking that cream out…we think they were using it for make up.

“It was as if it had been done yesterday.”

On top of that find, pottery and olive oil from Gaul (now France) and North Africa provided evidence of Southwark’s integration into the complex Roman trade network, with exotic stone and marble brought over from Egypt.

At Bermondsey Square, a Neolithic pot was found, evidence of farming from well over two thousand years ago, and other curios of medieval life were found too.

Alistair said: “We found an oyster shell that was being as a palette, for mixing ink – it would’ve been used for writing their books."

Bermondsey Square was, for a long time, an enormous excavation site. It started when Professor Grimes first observed that bombs dropped during the Second World War had exposed medieval ruins beneath Bermondsey Abbey.

Alistair said: “They very quickly discovered the borough had this urban archaeology – it’s why since then and until today, Southwark employs their own archaeological officer, unlike other London boroughs.

“They are very well of the resource they’ve got, and they try to make use of that resource for the benefit of the community as well.”

Bermondsey Abbey was excavated slowly throughout the 1980s and 1990s, finding part of the ancient eastern wall before the major excavation from 1998 to 2018, which Pre-Construct Archaeology led, since compiling their findings and sending their relics off for analysis.

https://southwarknews.co.uk/history/history-plus/when-bermondsey-was-an-island-for-medieval-pilgrims/

Alistair and his team discovered the medieval foundations had been used to build a Tudor mansion house in Southwark, relics of which also survived the centuries buried underground as successive houses and developments were built at the square.

He said: “The level of preservation in parts was extremely remarkable.

“There was a huge amount of pottery and worked stone – we know so well now how the inside of the church looked.”

Bermondsey Square itself is actually mapped onto the original inner precinct of the abbey – a ‘fossilisation’ of the old complex, as Alistair described.

Medieval graffiti and script carved into Southwark’s stones was common to find too, with funerary monuments having more detailed descriptions while in other places, walls can be seen with carvings of weapons and armour, or signs to ward off evil.

One of the best-preserved finds there was a highly detailed medieval carving that Pre-Construct Archaeology have been examining.

Medieval Graffiti found in Bermondsey. Credit: Rich Brann

Alistair said: "It was done onto the wall of the church, and what you can see is a knight, a shield, and a sword...graffiti like this was not uncommon in medieval churches, and we can even date it to the 14th century from the style of the knight's helmet.

"We got very excited about that one."

Much of what has been found at Bermondsey Square is still being processed, but will be available for viewing at the Museum of London from 2027, if all goes to plan.

Pre-Construct Archaeology also engage with the local community, offering talks to local societies, open days to the public where anyone can see the work they're uncovering, as well as work with local schools to spark interest in the local archaeology of the area.

https://southwarknews.co.uk/history/history-plus/london-bridge-has-a-secret-entrance-hidden-behind-centuries-of-history-and-a-2000-year-old-roman-surprise/

On the local area, Ireneo Grosso said: "Southwark is fantastic - in terms of archaeology, it's unique.

"You've got everything from the prehistoric, to the Roman, to the Saxon, to the medieval periods... you can see how Borough High Street has been here forever, all the way back to the Romans."

https://southwarknews.co.uk/area/borough/council-approves-plans-to-display-extremely-rare-roman-mosaics-to-the-public/

Such a massive range of cultures just beneath the borough's surface have provided countless moments of magic, when something incredible was discovered - both archaeologists agreed that actually, the industry really could be as exciting as people imagined.

Over the course of his nearly 40-year-long career, Alistair Douglas still remembered fondly those moments of discovery, where he realised what he had on his hands.

He said: “You do have those big ‘wow’ moments…On Bermondsey Square I can remember peeling off the tarmac and realising right underneath that there was medieval masonry surviving, part of the main entrance to the church, or when I found the second biggest Roman bathhouse in London, in Shadwell – it was just incredible.