62nd Annual Conference of London Archaeologists

Description

Details of the 2026 Archaeology conference are being finalised.

Tickets for this hybrid event (priced £20) will be made available via the LAMAS website. Space will be available for exhibitions and bookstalls; contact Jon Cotton to book a space (joncotton1956@gmail.com)

The programme includes the presentation of the 2025 Ralph Merrifield Award.
Confirmed titles and speakers for the morning session starting at 11am
includes:

• —- A view from Londinium’s Northern Hinterland: The farmstead at Marlowe Road, Ellen Green, AOC Archaeology Group
• —- Imperial Suburbia: New Excavations on The Highway, Shadwell, Harry Platts, PCA
• —- Some new finds from the Thames, Kate Sumnall, London Museum
• —- Post-medieval finds at the Segro site, Wapping, Alex Blanks, MOLA
• —- Recent excavations at Woolwich Arsenal, Isca Howell, MOLA

The afternoon session is Highgate Wood and its Roman pottery industry:

During the summer of 1966, a trial excavation revealed that a Roman pottery manufacturing site had been located in what is now called Highgate Wood. Excavations continued every summer until 1972. One of the dozen or so kilns discovered, (kiln 2), was conserved and lifted by the Horniman Museum in 1968. It spent time in the Horniman and later the Bruce Castle Museum but was returned to the wood in 2024 as part of a three-year programme funded by the Heritage Fund.

The intention was to display the kiln in the wood as the centrepiece of a project providing opportunities for the public to engage in educational activities related to the woodland in Roman times and beyond. That project is currently underway, and its next stage involves the reconstruction of the building in which the kiln will be displayed.

The afternoon speakers will discuss various topics relating to the excavation, experiments in making pottery and building kilns in the wood and the public activities taking place and planned. They will include:

• —- Nick Peacey, who has been involved in experimental archaeological projects in the wood since 1971
• —- Harvey Sheldon, who co-directed the excavations from their inception in 1966
• —- Isobel Thompson, who will discuss what is thought to be the earliest pottery made in the woodland
• —- Charlie Andrew, who will examine the educational activities associated with the project
• —- Shem Morgan, who led the reduction firing of a replica Highgate Wood kiln in the wood during 2025
• —- Graham Taylor, who will discuss archaeologists’ understanding of Roman pottery kilns constructed in Britain.