Allotments in the Tower of London moat

[RubyToogood]

A friend just told me that during WWII there were allotments in the moat of the Tower of London, as part of the Dig for Victory thing.

Getty image of incredibly neat and healthy looking veg. The bones of slaughtered minor royalty must be really good fertiliser.

I bet they dug up some interesting stuff...

 

[ringo]

Nice pic. I spent 6 months digging in the moat in the late 90's just by that spot. Found loads of stuff, but never what I really wanted - a polar bear skeleton. It's there somewhere, from when London zoo was housed there, arising from the gifts of wild animals given to the Royal family as presents by visiting dignitaries.

 

[ringo]

Found another pic of the allotments

 

[ringo]

Another of the same place. The bridge crossing the moat in the distance is also the Royal family pet cemetery which is still in use by the current incumbents. I dug a fantastic 17th century sluice gate next to it, under the ever-watchful eye of an old lady who was horrified that I might dig up her dead dog.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

under the ever-watchful eye of an old lady who was horrified that I might dig up her dead dog.

A corgi?

 

[ringo]

A corgi?

Not that old lady

 

[_pH_]

Nice pic. I spent 6 months digging in the moat in the late 90's just by that spot. Found loads of stuff, but never what I really wanted - a polar bear skeleton. It's there somewhere, from when London zoo was housed there, arising from the gifts of wild animals given to the Royal family as presents by visiting dignitaries.

Was that London Zoo? Or just the Royal menagerie? I think it was King John who first established a menagerie there which pre-dates ZSL by a long time.

edit: here we go, it was the menagerie but the animals were transferred to the Zoo in the 1830s

 

[_pH_]

Also: large areas of the Royal Parks were turned into allotments during the war; there was a reconstruction of a wartime allotment in St James's Park when I was working there a few years back. As well as parts of it being dug up to grow food, Bushy Park was an American base in the war, Eisenhower set up his HQ there.

 

[RubyToogood]

Nice pic. I spent 6 months digging in the moat in the late 90's just by that spot. Found loads of stuff

Like what?

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

So are all the other animals that used to roam St James's Park (eg. elephants, crocodiles etc) buried in The Tower?

 

[_pH_]

So are all the other animals that used to roam St James's Park (eg. elephants, crocodiles etc) buried in The Tower?

They're still on the menu at Inn The Park.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

 

[ringo]

So are all the other animals that used to roam St James's Park (eg. elephants, crocodiles etc) buried in The Tower?

Don't know, seems to be the one of the few things detailed records don't exist for at the Tower.

 

[ringo]

Like what?

An earlier bridge across the moat built in the 11th century at the same time as the White Tower. Nobody knew it was there, but this colossal thing was lurking just beneath the turf. The Palace historians went to work and brought us photocopies of the original order from William The Conquerors court for 1000 trees to be felled in Sherwood Forest to be driven in to the clay as piles for the bridge to be built upon. It was a massive engineering mistake and the whole bridge sunk as soon as it was finished.

There was loads of stuff - too much & too expensive for the full excavation originally planned so that the moat could be re-flooded for the Millenium.

The sluice gate I dug was put together by top craftsmen, beautiful workmanship on the joinery. After I'd drawn it at scale the historians brought me a copy of the original plan for it from the records

One really stupid thing I did was fully excavate a section of a caisson - a wooden honey-comb structure which acts like a floating, raft like scaffold on which people could work on deep clay and water. Each section was about 80cm square and went down about 4 metres a bit like this:

I dug one out, then took rubbings of the maker's 'broken arrow' mark at the base. If the water pressure had been great enough the sides would have imploded and probably killed me. It's stupid the stuff you do when you're a nipper and think you're invincible.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Don't know, seems to be the one of the few things detailed records don't exist for at the Tower.

Royal Family are probably keeping the records secret so the taxpayer doesn't know how much their pets cost them

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

An earlier bridge across the moat built in the 11th century at the same time as the White Tower. Nobody knew it was there, but this colossal thing was lurking just beneath the turf. The Palace historians went to work and brought us photocopies of the original order from William The Conquerors court for 1000 trees to be felled in Sherwood Forest to be driven in to the clay as piles for the bridge to be built upon. It was a massive engineering mistake and the whole bridge sunk as soon as it was finished.

What a waste of 1000 trees

 

[_pH_]

What a waste of 1000 trees

Why?

 

[clicker]

Also: large areas of the Royal Parks were turned into allotments during the war; there was a reconstruction of a wartime allotment in St James's Park when I was working there a few years back. As well as parts of it being dug up to grow food, Bushy Park was an American base in the war, Eisenhower set up his HQ there.

Hello again PH! Yes, i remember the St James Park reconstruction...I took this of the perfect celery planter.....

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Why?

It was a massive engineering mistake and the whole bridge sunk as soon as it was finished.

 

[_pH_]

An earlier bridge across the moat built in the 11th century at the same time as the White Tower. Nobody knew it was there, but this colossal thing was lurking just beneath the turf. The Palace historians went to work and brought us photocopies of the original order from William The Conquerors court for 1000 trees to be felled in Sherwood Forest to be driven in to the clay as piles for the bridge to be built upon. It was a massive engineering mistake and the whole bridge sunk as soon as it was finished.

I think a lot of the building works round there had the same problem - the Postern Gate that was uncovered when they dug the subway at Tower Hill is evidence of that. The first one sank and collapsed in 1431:

the same yere, in the monythe of Juylle, the xvij day, the posterne be-syde the Towre sanke downe into the erthe vij fote and more

(from Gregory's Chronicle)

and the replacement was so shoddy that John Stow wrote in 'A Survey of London':

such was their negligence then, and hath bred some trouble to their successors, since they suffered a weake and wooden building to be there made, inhabited by persons of lewde life

It always makes me think of this:



Great post btw ringo, thanks for that.

 

[_pH_]

Oh right fair enough, I thought you were just being all 'oooh, save the trees! won't someone think of the trees!'. Sorry minnie.

 

[_pH_]

Sorry, going a bit off topic, but there was once a menagerie on the Strand, in the early 19th century, at Exeter Exchange. Apparently there were hippos on the 2nd floor, how did they get them up the stairs?? There was an elephant called Chunee who went a bit mad and rampagey and was shot by soldiers sent for from Somerset House

 

[_pH_]

Hello again PH! Yes, i remember the St James Park reconstruction...I took this of the perfect celery planter.....

That's a good idea! Although some of the people I worked with at the Parks, I wouldn't want to eat celery grown in their boots...

I liked the allotment, I was running the Royal Parks apprenticeship at the time and it was a good resource for the apprentices to learn a bit about veg growing, when most of what they learned was more on the amenity side. It was a great resource for school groups too. A shame when it went.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Oh right fair enough, I thought you were just being all 'oooh, save the trees! won't someone think of the trees!'. Sorry minnie.

Not at all

Was thinking of all the poor sods involved in dragging those trees from the forest and the poor builders that used them, only to see a massve failure

and of course for the waste of trees. If they'd done the job, all grand. No objection to cutting them down, but they were wasted. Wonder what happened to them. Did they retrieve them all, dry them out and use as wood for the fireplaces?

 

[ringo]

Just remembered I also found a lady's sewing kit and the metal part from a halberd, probably not owned by the same person :

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Sorry, going a bit off topic, but there was once a menagerie on the Strand, in the early 19th century, at Exeter Exchange. Apparently there were hippos on the 2nd floor, how did they get them up the stairs?? There was an elephant called Chunee who went a bit mad and rampagey and was shot by soldiers sent for from Somerset House

Big window, tranquilised hippo, hoist? Or train the hippo to go up stairs

There was a menagerie on Birdcage Walk as well, although I suppose the name sort of gives it away

 

[twentythreedom]

ringo how did you come to be digging holes at the Tower?

 

[clicker]

Why put hippos on the second floor?? Unless they had elephants on the ground floor? That still leaves the empty first floor though...unless they had giraffes on the ground floor and took out the ceiling...

eta - loving this thread

 

[_pH_]

Not at all

Was thinking of all the poor sods involved in dragging those trees from the forest and the poor builders that used them, only to see a massve failure

and of course for the waste of trees. If they'd done the job, all grand. No objection to cutting them down, but they were wasted. Wonder what happened to them. Did they retrieve them all, dry them out and use as wood for the fireplaces?

The effort of digging them up when they'd been driven them into the sticky London clay probably made it too difficult so maybe they're still there, unlikely to decay if they're beneath the river. Get your spade out minnie!

Archaeologists still sometimes dig up old hollowed elm trunks in London that were used as water pipes, they don't decay very quickly either.

 

[_pH_]

Why put hippos on the second floor?? Unless they had elephants on the ground floor? That still leaves the empty first floor though...unless they had giraffes on the ground floor and took out the ceiling...

eta - loving this thread

I don't know. I might be wrong about that tbf, I'm going by what I remember of a lecture about that I went to with mango5 at King's a couple of years back. Maybe she'll remember better than me.

This is my favourite type of thread.