Digging Dad’s Army, a group of conflict archaeologists affiliated with birkbeck and negus are digging up various parts of eaglesfield park this week as part of their ongoing investigations into wartime archaeology in this part of london. they have chosen their digging spots based on some aerial photos and some geophysics, which indicated where wartime trenches might have been dug, and thus where they might find evidence of what was happening in the last two world wars. they also used geophysics to look for anomalous features relating to magnetic fields and other physical properties of the ground, and apart from using this to look for concrete and metal associated with military installations, they did on the dig for time team stumble on some late bronze age early iron age remnants of iron smelting activities, which was a bit odd considering that there’s no iron in the area, plus why would whoever was working with it wish to carry all the ore to the top of a hill? anyway, this was written up in a wessex archaeology report as the time team dig it was found on didn’t really have scope to include this in the program. significantly however, this discovery also gives shooters hill the interest of being one of the few if only parts of london with evidence of human activities stretching back to this epoch 2-3 thousand years ago.
they can be approached all week, but they will probably have the most to talk about when then get to the end of their dig on saturday during the treasures of eaglesfield park day. this event is also being staged to support the refilling, fencing and educational use of the lilypond as a natural habitat for various local species and is not unrelated to the wild london scheme with its fondness for ponds, which are being promoted as being good for london and its inhabitants.
Hello,
Somebody from English Heritage mentioned this particular group of archaeologists to me, concerning my find of a second world war bunker in my garden in Streatham.
The bunker is quite substantial & well made, from reinforced concrete. It would, I think, have some significance to having been perhaps a communication base, besides operating as a shelter. South London Press featured it in an article around 2017? It is housed in a Victorian garden, dating to 1879. The property 8s owned by London & Quadrant Housing Association. I am no longer resident there, but would love to see a full & proper excavation done, with a thorough report written up. I believe the site to be of some historical importance, and so did the official from English Heritage, who came to see it.