From Iron Age to Olympic gold

8:28am Friday 7th December 2007

DURING the 2012 Olympic Games, swimmers and divers will demonstrate their prowess above the spot where Iron Age settlers lived in huts.

Track and field athletes in the main stadium may give a passing thought to the Roman or Romano-Briton - a descendent of the founders of Londinium - who dropped a coin on that very spot.

Evidence of the presence of our forefathers has come from rescue archaeology', carried out in advance of building work by a team from the Museum of London and Pre-Construct Archaeology.

Their brief is to search for information about residents and visitors in the area from pre-historic times right up to the industrial development and wartime activities of the past three centuries - all without delaying the building programme.

They now know that the first EastEnders lived in thatch-covered circular mud huts where the Aquatics Centre, designed by Zaha Hadid, will stand in Stratford.

In the Iron Age, this was an area of dry land beside what is now the River Lea in a valley full of lakes, marshes and waterways.

They used the river to catch fish and cooked it in pots, parts of which have been dug up from the site.

At the point where the new centre will be built, the river is to be widened by eight metres as part of a programme to restore the ancient waterways.

The main Olympic Stadium will be developed over an ancient wooden river wall, believed to have been erected by the Romans and possibly used as a landing stage.

Not only have the archaeologists found traces of it, they also discovered a quantity of fourth century pottery and a coin dated 330-335, the era of Emperor Constantine II.

It has an image on one side of two soldiers and two standards and the other features inscriptions representing Constantine, Caesar (nob)Ilissmus (noble emperor).

This is an exciting find for the archaeologists, offering the first evidence of Roman activity around the rivers of the Lea Valley.

They are currently dating the woodwork and researching links with the Hackney Wick area, which would then have overlooked the valley and where other artefacts associated with the Romans have been found. They have long known that the Roman road, Ermine Street, which ran from London to Colchester, crossed the marshes.

The Iron Age and the Roman era are not the only period of history that the archaeologists are hoping to find new clues about in the Olympics Park.

In the late 9th century, King Alfred is believed to have dug the Channelsea River to divert marauding Vikings away from the Thames on the way into London.

The famous Langthorne Abbey, a Cistercian foundation in Stratford, developed water power on the Lea and the Knights Templar had a water mill at what is now Temple Mills.

The famous Bow factory, which produced the first porcelain in Britain in the 18th century, was on the river.

In 1904, William Yardley opened his cosmetics, soap and lavendar factory on the Olympics site.

As David Higgins, the Olympic Delivery Authority's chief executive, commented: "It is a story of change and transformation dating back centuries."

And the biggest transformation of all is now underway.

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