This morning we went to the London Archaeological Archiveand Research Centre (LAARC), where we were given a tour by the assistant
curator. LAARC is associated with the Museum of London,
which displays some of the artifacts that LAARC has found and preserved. In
addition to the prehistoric collections
and the archives, there are social and
working history collections, which archives everyday objects, like telephones
and tools. Anything that has been used in London
is up for the collection, provided they don’t already have an example. The
purpose of the collection is to preserve humanity, has it has been in the past
and as it is today. They had a ton of old phones, which really reminded me of
my dad’s insistence on keeping all of our old cell phones. They also had a
switchboard from Buckingham
Palace. We also saw the
Royal Urinal from Covent Garden (Really!) and
a Furby, so it’s a wide ranging collection.
We asked Daniel about strange anecdotes about the
collection, and he told us that he once had a request to see the “Psycho.” He
searched through the catalogue, and it turned out that the Psycho was an old
fortune teller machine, like the thing from the movie Big. According to the special note on the item, it’s only viewable
to members of the Magic Circle,
because the mechanisms are magicians’ secrets. They took it out of storage and
tried to clean it up, but it as still frightening to look at. So they tried
putting a towel over it, but that just made the whole thing worse, because
people would walk by and peek under the towel and get absolutely terrified.
We then made our way to the processing area of LAARC.
Apparently, LAARC gets a lot of human remains, and there are currently 16,000
humans under the Museum
of London, right now. We
learned that when human remains are reburied, and can’t be put back where they
came from, they’re buried in Corporation of London graveyards. We got to see
some artifacts that had just been recovered and were being cleaned,
including a porridge dish from the 17th
century, and a lot of spoons.
The LAARC collection was started in 1830, and now has over
10.5 km of shelving of artifacts. The collection is partially managed by a
volunteer system, which has won awards. Volunteers spend time going through the
collection, getting it all properly packed and catalogued. They’ve been trying
to standardize everything, including the labels, boxes, and even where staples
are placed. LAARC is an active part of its community, hosting presentations and
lectures for the public, as well as at schools. They also have public digs,
such as the one they recently had at the house of the Duke of Northumberland,
which apparently was used for the exterior Hogwarts shots… ALL OF ENGLAND
IS HARRY POTTER.
We visited the LAARC archives, which are neatly stored in
identical boxes. There was a momentary scare, when we started cranking the
moving shelves, and hadn’t checked to make sure they were empty. Ooops. Safety
first guys! I was surprised to see that they still had a large card catalogue,
though I suppose it makes sense to have a physical back-up, since boxes and
boxes of artifacts could be misinterpreted if their catalogue data was lost. The
LAARC has huge reference collections for researchers, where they store examples
of brick, pipe, and building materials. Others can compare their finds to the
LAARC collection, in order to date sites or identify types of materials.
The building was previously a steel tubing factory, so
there’s a sprinkler system in place. We were told that the sprinklers couldn’t
hurt the artifacts, but it would damage their boxes. And there’s apparently
about a million pounds (the money not the weight) worth of cardboard on the
shelves.
We finally reached my favorite room, the glass and pottery
collection. They had everything from ancient Roman pot shards to Tudor era
drinking vessels, and Wedgeworth tea cups. My favorite was the collection of
Royal Family commemorative cups and plates. I got really excited thinking that
a new cup might be added soon to celebrate the Royal Baby!
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