LONDON HISTORY... ON A PLATE Our old-fashioned English restaurant has been serving traditional food for over a hundred years. Classic dishes like Lamb Chops, Steak & Kidney Pie and Spotted Dick are available only five minutes from St Pancras International. The Quality Chop House, 92-94 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3EA Tel: 020 7837 5093 | www.qualitychophouse.co.uk Lunch: 12-3pm Mon-Fri | Dinner: 6-11pm Tues-Sat | 4-10pm Sun
Olympic preparations provide a last chance to assess the area Les préparatifs pour les JO donnent une opportunité d’étudier l’endroit It was a ghost area, a vacuum 10 minutes from the centre of one of the biggest cities in the world. But that has not always been the case. Before the fi rst bulldozer began transforming this urban desert into a bustling Olympic Village of stadiums, landscaped parks, re-energised waterways, fl ats and hotels, a team of archaeologists delved into trenches all over the site to discern the true history of the Lea Valley. And what they have found has transformed our understanding of London, shifting its prehistoric origins deeper into the hitherto unexplored east. Kieron Tyler, senior archaeologist with the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA), who carried out the excavation in conjunction with Pre-Construct Archaeology (PCA), says, “It’s the story of London in microcosm. It’s not about one piece of soil or bit of broken pottery. Take an item, give it context, marry it with other fi nds and you’ll begin to understand that story. The opportunity to look at an area as large as the Olympic Park reveals an enormous story that resonates throughout the British Isles.” Since work started in 2002, archaeologists have uncovered artefacts that date back 5,000 years, starting with a fl int axe from 3000 BC and including Bronze and Iron Age huts, Victorian buildings from the Industrial Revolution and gun emplacements from World War II. The need to chronicle the complete history of the area before it is transformed has meant the team have recorded even the location of electricity pylons that were constructed in the 1970s to supply the growing needs of London. What they’ve found shows that, far from being an inhospitable noman’s-land in the armpit of London, the Lea Valley was inhabited for 3,000 years before the Romans arrived. It experienced a dramatic rebirth 1,800 years after the Romans’ arrived, when the Lea became a key location during the Industrial Revolution. This is where plastic and petrol were invented, industries which have left their own legacy. “Because of heavy industry, the soil was completely contaminated,” says Tyler. “At one dig, I was watching as the scoop went in. The metallic smell came fi rst, then an opaque, dark-orange bubbly liquid started fi lling the trench. We’ve no idea what it was, but that was the end of that. Part of the challenge is // Avant les Jeux, il était facile d’ignorer cette vallée de la Lea, une zone désaffectée, parsemée d’entrepôts. Sur les cartes, un espace vide. Ni routes, ni parcs, ni maisons. C’était une zone-fantôme, un vide à 10 minutes du centre de la métropole. Mais cela n’a pas toujours été le cas. Avant que le premier bulldozer ne transforme ce désert urbain en un bouillonnant village olympique rassemblant stades, parcs paysagers, cours d’eau revigorés, appartements et hôtels, une équipe d’archéologues a creusé de profondes tranchées sur toute sa surface afi n de mettre à jour l’histoire de la vallée. Et ce qu’ils ont découvert a bouleversé notre connaissance de Londres en faisant remonter ses origines bien plus loin dans cet Est méconnu. Kieron Tyler, archéologue au Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) qui a mené les fouilles avec Pre-Construct Archaeology (PCA), explique : « Il s’agit de l’histoire de Londres en miniature. Pas seulement d’une poignée de terre ou d’un éclat de céramique, mais de Londres. Prenez un objet, replacez-le dans son contexte, associez-le à d’autres et vous commencerez à découvrir cette histoire. Étudier en une seule fois une zone aussi vaste que le parc olympique permet de découvrir une histoire riche, de l’ensemble des îles britanniques. » Depuis le début des travaux en 2002, les archéologues ont découvert des objets datant de 5 000 ans, à commencer par une hache en silex de 3 000 avant J.-C., des huttes de l’âge de bronze et de fer, des édifi ces victoriens de la Révolution industrielle et des emplacements d’artillerie
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