Archaeologists Sent to the Tower

'We have tried to do something exciting at the Tower Hill Pageant: the City and its Port. But instead of being our celebratory monument it is an epitaph', said archaeologist, Gustav Milne.

It is a bitter irony that he and fellow archaeologists from the Museum of London who have masterminded the historical elements of London's first underground museum, which opened at the beginning of September, are losing their jobs. The recession is biting hard just as the results of years of digs along the banks of the Thames have carefully been put on display for the public.

Gustav Milne will spend the next year teaching at the Institute of Archaeology. The Museum of London's archaeology units will lose the skilled teams which have nurtured through a rolling programme of exciting Thames-side excavations. That loss of talent would surprise the tourists who visit the new Tower Hill Pageant with its animated scenes.