Crossrail archaeology exhibition - Bison to Bedlam

Tunnelling through London for Crossrail isn't just an major engineering project.  While the boring is going on the building of the new railway has uncovered some important and interesting achaelogical remains. Yesterday I was lucky to visit the launch of a one day exhibition Bison to Bedlam of what has been uncovered.


The new railway passes through the heart of the West End of London and along the north edge of the Roman and Medieval city. The finds on display include prehistoric animal bones, Roman finds, human remains from the infamous Bedlam psychiatric hospital and remnants of Britain's industrial past.

 I loved this old chamber pot uncovered at Stepney Green which dates back to the 19th century.  The decoration inside the pot has a shocked male face saying "Oh What I see, I will not tell"  and on the outside once can make out "when you in it want to p-ss, remember they who gave you this"

Crossrail said "One of the core objectives of the Crossrail archaeology programme is the dissemination of archaeology information to the wider archaeological community, together with a focused education and outreach programme for local communities."

The bison remains pictured above were found at Royal Oak and are around 68,000 years old.  I learnt that Royal Oak bison were exceptionally small when compared to other Pleistocene bison. 

A number of archaeology projects have already taken place at Crossrail worksites at Liverpool Street, Tottenham Court Road and Stepney Green.

The tableware above is from Paddington station and was found at Old Oak Common train maintenance depot where trains were cleaned and stabled.

The exhibition opens to the public today, Saturday 7th July 2012, and runs from 10am to 5pm at The Music Room, Grays Antiques, 26 South Molton Lane, W1K 5LF.

Talks will be given on the day by Crossrail contractors from Museum of London Archaeology and Ramboll at 11:00, 12:00, 14:00 and 15:00.  More details here.

Update - London City Nights also went along to the exhibition on Saturday & have blogged about it too with more photos. I'll update you, if (hopefully) /when the exhibition goes to other parts of London.

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