And Did Those Feet

The following quote appeared on the Museums And Heritage Show web site: "The Old Operating Theatre Winner, PROJECT ON A LIMITED BUDGET 2007, for 'Tales from the Crypt' Grabbing the judges’ attention, the winner in this category was felt to be a model of what museums are all about – pulling together, against the odds, to ensure that obstacles and challenges were overcome. A particularly cheering initiative the judges were delighted to learn that it had resulted in a bright future for the museum."

I had a chat to Frances Grew of the Museum of London while filming a short film on Boudicca and he was able to give me better context about some recent discoveries. Firstly, the St Martins in the Field burials (see earlier in the blog). The burials recently excavated are not new - it was known a cemetary was here, but previous finds were Saxon, and the Roman sacophagi found were thought to be reused. The recent discover of the burial from about 410AD shows that the cemetary probably goes back to the Roman period, and the discovery of finds dating to AD500 suggests there is no gap in the use of the cemetary (a 90 year gap in fact but this may just be because of lack of dateable objects). We discussed the implications of this - it means the end of the model of Roman London whereby there is a clear break between Londinium and Lundenwic. Now it suggests the continuity is based around St Martins - there are early saxon finds dating to c 500 in St Martin's Lane, so it might seem that a...

Today I filmed a short section of a documentary about the Boudiccan revolt in the Museum of London and another scene outside by the Roman Wall in Fore Street. It is hoped it will appear on Channel 4. Battlefield Britain - Boudicca's Rebellion Against The Romans archaeology

The Great Court at the British Museum is getting very cluttered - the beautiful space created by the Norman Foster millennium project is getting ruined by the curatorial, marketing and ticketing staff wanting to get their hands on it. It is beginning to look a mess.

I arranged a meeting at Central Saint Martins for a group from the Architectural Department Siberian Federal University and South Federal University – Russian Federation. They are from Krasnoyarsk in Siberia (click here for more details of the university ). The photos of the town and region suggested a lovely location with a town with some very attractive buildings. The architectural practice seemed of the traditional kind abandoned in Britain but with strengths that might well be valuble - their students are taught to draw - they do life classes throughout their architectural career and have a thorough grounding in drawing, draftsmanship and technical drawing. They showed drawings of Mercury, and Palladian villas as well as Russian style concrete utopias. This was in contrast to the British way of teaching which is much more conceptually based - seems they is lots for each side to learn.

A statue that mimics the poses of passers by has been opened in Bankside Animatronic statue comes to Bankside [20 November 2007] ICT

This is a virtual tour of Parliament using 360 degree panoramas - quite effective but very ugly! Virtual tour of 10 Downing Street ICT