One of the earliest observations of archaeological deposits on the Thames foreshore is to be found in the diary of Samuel Pepys. During excavation in September 1665 for a dock in Blackwall, were found

perfect trees over-covered with earth. Nut trees, with the branches and the very nuts upon them…. Their shells black with age, and their kernell, upon opening, decayed, but their shell perfectly hard as ever…

It seems likely that the excavations had encountered the remains of a prehistoric submerged forest, similar to the deposits recorded at a number of locations along the foreshore, such as at Erith.

Eliott Wragg at Erith
Photo by N. Cohen

However, active collection of artefacts by antiquarians only really began during the 19th century: Victorian infrastructure development such as the rebuilding of London Bridge during the 1830s, the sewer improvements of the 1860s and dredging of the Thames to maintain and improve navigation channels, led to an increased number of finds being retrieved. The circumstances of recovery and acquisition of artefacts from the river paralleled those on land, where artefacts recovered by chance were sold to collectors. For example, Charles Roach Smith collected Roman and medieval items recovered during the reconstruction of London Bridge and Thomas Layton acquired an enormous collection of (unfortunately poorly provenanced) prehistoric material from the river between Richmond and Wandsworth.

During the early 20th century, the newly formed London Museum was active in obtaining riverine artefacts, employing the noted collector G.F. Lawrence who later donated much of his assemblage to the museum. During the early 20th century the London Museum also undertook the excavation of a Roman boat found during the construction of County Hall, while the antiquarian Sir Montagu Sharp described stakes he observed on the foreshore near Brentford Ait and suggested that Brentford was the location of Julius Caesar’s Thames crossing in 54 BC.