Bomb maps

One of the students from Birkbeck College did some research in the local archives on the bomb maps around Kentish Town school. She found that there had been some minor bomb damage to the school and the surrounding houses, with one or two suffering more serious damage.


Some of the burnt brick, metal and melted glass may have been from these bombs.

The excavation by Gentrit

Where we dug

In the school.

What we were looking for

Flint, bones, cholery, pottery.

What methods did we use?

Bucet, spoon, cive, trole, picter.

What did we find?

Brick, glass, ring.

What does it mean?

A house was ther in WW1.

The excavation by Cydney

Where we dug

We dug in the school.

What we were looking for

We were looking for briks that were bombed down in Victorian times.

What methods did we use?

We used a trowl, a siever and we done washing up.

What did we find?

We found briks, burnt briks and metal.

What does it mean?

Their were Victorian houses.

The excavation by Gloria

Where we dug

We dug at Kentish Town CofE Primary School.

What we were looking for

Very old stuff in the Victorian times.

What methods did we use?

Digging

What did we find?

Glass, rocks.

What does it mean?

It means digging deep and looking for stuff.

The excavation by Molly

Where we dug

We dug in Oak class pinec area.

What we were looking for

We were looking for bricks, pottery and diffent thinks.

What methods did we use?

We draw some drawings of flent. We got some dirt, some we sieved.

What did we find?

We found some bricks and dirt and more dirt, we fuond more dirt.

What does it mean?

There were Victorion houses.

The excavation by Edie

Where we dug

We dug in the school garden near a reception class.

What we were looking for

We were looking for bits and peaces from the victorian times, like brick, pottery and some things.

What methods did we use?

We did trowling and we did siving but my favourite was deffently trwling and I really wasn't a fan of washing the finds.

What did we find?

We found lots of brick, glass, dog bones and pottery and more.



What does it mean?

It means we have found out their were boms and victorian houses in and around it!

Translating the ring

A colleague in the council helped to translate the ring. The text appears to be a mixture of Hindi and Bengali. It is thought to be a woman or girl's name:

Mumta Dautro/Dalutro.

If this is you or someone you know who went to Kentish Town School, please get in touch.

Analysing the finds from the excavation

One of the most exciting artefacts we found was a silver ring. It looks quite modern and had writing on it in another alphabet.

I drew the writing as well as I could with Paint and I have identified it as Hindi. If anyone can translate it out there, please let me know!

Patience Pays Off

Students are learning by day three that archaeology is not always about unearthing ancient treasures and not quite as glamorous as it's portrayed in the cinema. Excavation requires a lot of patience and hard work between finds. From trowelling in the trench, to sieving the soil, and more pot-washing of artefacts, the students carried on working in teams. They also learned about using the level, in order to measure the depth of the site. In the afternoon, they will begin participating in "finds" photography and will also learn about stratigraphy, or how archaeological sites are formed. Students are looking forward to digging down to the next context level and to identifying artefacts from their last two days at the site.

Kentish Town School: Getting Their Hands Dirty

Day two of the excavation at Kentish Town School found the students busy digging in the subsoil, sieving the soil, and washing their finds. Their teamwork, energy, and enthusiasm for the project was infectious--perhaps the sunshine and biscuits helped! The plot thickened as teams found more bone fragments to be identified, along with coins, glass, brick, pottery shards, and seashells. Teams learned to use a level, trowel, and other tools of the trade, and had a go at labelling and drawing artefacts. In addition, students demonstrated confidence in identifying interesting finds (for example: flints and brick) and deciding which objects could go be thrown back into the pit.

Nice weather for digging

Just on my way in for the second day of digging and the weather forecast looks better than yesterday. We only had a little rain in the morning, but it's amazing how much mud it makes and mud gets everywhere.

We're getting down to the subsoil which is lighter in colour and quite hard. As yet, no masonry but we have had some small pieces of red brick, slate and window glass. A rib bone of an as yet unidentified animal also came up from the topsoil and we'll try to identify that today.

Setting up the excavation

We're almost done with the set-up of the excavation in Kentish Town School, which will start on Monday. The topsoil (and underlying rubber matting) is off, the tools are there and all the activities are planned.

We've had to move a compost bin that was attracting wasps and will find something to ward off the cats or foxes that may come in and leave a present in the trench overnight.

Tomorrow we'll be putting up a fence and surveying in the temporary benchmark. Look out for some photos of our finds!

Mood boards

One of the great outcomes from the Buildings and Patterns project was using mood boards with reception class to gather inspiration from around the British Museum.

The children used mood boards to collect colours and shapes they saw in the Great Court and Africa Gallery.

The mood boards were just pieces of A3 paper and the children drew colours with chalk and crayon and cut out pieces of coloured sticky paper and stuck those on as well.

The children had already learned on their earlier visit to pick out patterns from objects, rather than just draw the objects themselves. The colours and shapes they collected from the Great Court and the Africa Gallery were very different.

The children then used the mood boards to create woven pieces of art, but they could be used to create all sorts of artwork. See one of the mood boards and the finished woven pieces below.

Grand Opening of Georgian flowerbeds at Russell Square

Yesterday was the Grand Opening of Georgian flowerbeds researched, designed and planted by Year 5 and 6 of St George the Martyr School. The Mayor of Camden, Councillor Faruque Ansari, opened the garden and talked about the great achievements the children had made.

Despite the weather everyone enjoyed themselves, especially after ice-cream and juice from the cafe!

Google SketchUp

One of the great pieces of software that the Central St Martins students on the Buildings and People project used has been Google SketchUp, which is freely downloadable.

You can use it to design buildings and create animations through your design. I had a practice with it this morning before using it at Parliament Hill School. These are just cubes decorated with images and textures. Look out for the pupil's work, which will feature their own images.

Buildings and Patterns 2nd Celebration Event

The teacher of reception class at St George the Martyr wanted to give her pupils a chance to show the whole school, their parents and the teachers all the fabulous work they had done when they went into the British Museum and worked with Katharine Hoare.

So this morning we had a full school assembly and went through a PowerPoint of images of the children collecting inspiration from the galleries in different ways, drawing, creating mood boards and taking digital photographs, and then using their inspiration to create wonderul artworks - prints, woven pieces and dance. Look at this woven piece, it's not quiet finished.

Forensic Architecture # 2

Students from Central St Martins ran the Forensic Architecture workshop again at the Hunterian Museum on 1st July. 22 gifted and talented pupils from Haverstock School came down to design and model a sculpture inspired by the collections and architecture in one day.

Once again, the creative response was brilliant, and the pupils also wrestled with the tricky engineering problem of getting a model to stand up. Pictures to follow.

Pupils' reaction to planting

“It was a bit boring doing the garden designs, but it paid off. It was all worth it in the end!”

“It’s nice--really fun. I’ve never done anything like this.”

“I like gardening. I do a lot at home/ We grow tomatoes and potatoes, so I am used to this.”

“I’ve never done this…it’s quite fun. I may become a gardener one day.”

“This reminds me of planting herbs in my country (Bangladesh), so I’ll definitely tell my family about today.”

"It’s quite good fun.”

When asked, will you bring friends and family back to see your garden? “Most definitely!”

Planting in Russell Square

Well, we've just finished two days of planting the final Georgian garden designs prepared by Years 5 & 6 of St George the Martyr School. We'll post some pictures here as soon as we get them.
The kids worked so hard and got the beds planted so quickly, which was really impressive, especially in the hot weather!

We got lots of questions from the public about what was going on, and the boards around the beds are really useful for giving the public more information now we're not there.

Camden Parks and Open Spaces department and their contractors, Glendales, provided all the plants, lent us tools and helped us out on the two days and so a massive "THANK YOU" to them for all their help.

Visit to Paul Mellon Centre and Bedford Square

Monday, June 1st:

Year 5 and Year 6 pupils from St George the Martyr School visited the Paul Mellon Centre for the Study of British Art as part of the Buildings and Spaces project. Once inside this magnificent Georgian building, the pupils became architectural detectives, looking for interesting details and shapes that might provide inspiration for their garden design project. Pupils photographed interior details, from fantastic fanlights to blossoming balustrades, and considered how the rooms were once used. Afterwards, pupils enjoyed a rare opportunity to visit the private, leafy, green gardens of Bedford Square, sketching the plants and shapes around them.

Visit to Foundling Museum

Wednesday, June 3rd:

Pupils from St George the Martyr did a bit of "time travel" during their Buildings and Spaces project visit to the Foundling Museum. Beginning with a walk down Hogarth's Gin Lane, the pupils then visited galleries that are virtual time capsules of Georgian art and architecture to record ideas with their cameras and sketchboooks. After a lively discussion of Hogarth's grim and gruesome depiction of Bloomsbury, the pupils began to make connections with life 250 years ago. Reading aloud parents' letters from the Foundling Hospital's archive, pupils had the opportunity to act as Governors and vote for one child to be admitted to the Hospital based on evidence from the letters. Teams of pupils explored the collections, while investigating stories of eighteenth-century life, in order to apply these ideas to their garden designs.

3D models from Buildings and People on YouTube!

The four 3D models the pupils from Parliament Hill school created using Google SketchUp during the Buildings and People project during the Easter holidays can now be viewed on YouTube as an animation.

Take a look!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da2ocu-wibk

Buildings and Spaces - Visit to Hampton Court Palace 19/05/09

Year 5 and 6 of St George the Martyr School visited Hampton Court Palace as an introduction to the Buildings and Spaces project.



Pupils gathered inspiration from the decoration of the King's Apartments and even got to weed the Privy Garden! Eventually, they will use what they learned to design and plant a Georgian garden in Russell Square. Here's a picture of the Privy Garden that was taken by one of the pupils .



They finished the day off with a visit to the maze. Luckily, no-one got lost!

Forensic Architecture 11th Mar 2009

22 secondary school pupils from Camden went to the Hunterian Museum to work with Central St Martin's students.

They explored the Georgian and modern architecture around Lincoln's Inn Fields and were then given the brief of creating a piece of sculpture advertising the Hunterian Museum relating the museum's collections to architecture.

Here are a couple of the maquettes they created.

Buildings and Patterns Spring term 2009

Reception class pupils from a primary school in Camden have been visiting the British Museum as part of the Buildings and Patterns part of the project.


They have been gathering inspiration from the museum galleries in the form of sketches and mood boards. Back at school they choose their best idea to work up into a piece of art.


On the second visit they created mood boards based on the African galleries and created a piece of conceptual woven art based on the colours and textures they saw. Here's one of their mood boards with the final woven art.

Buildings and People Easter 2009

The first Buildings and People part of the Living Heritage Project took place over the Easter holidays 2009.


Four secondary school pupils attended and worked with Central St Martins students on paper theatres and 3D digital models inspired by photographs they took on visits to the Sir John Soane's Museum and the British Museum. Here's a photograph taken by one of the pupils of the Great Court of the British Museum.


After six days of hard work, the pupils got to display their final work in the Great Court of the British Museum.

Welcome to the Living Heritage blog!

The Living Heritage Project aims to engage children and young people with buildings in Camden. It is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and run by the London Borough of Camden.