How to Carefully Construct a Hospital over a Roman Boat in Central London,UK

This paper examines the Roman boat, buried beneath Guys Hospital in London, UK. A small part was discovered in 1958, and has been carefully left free of disturbance since that date. In 2009, a proposal was made to construct a 14-storey building above the boat; clearly raising challenges for preservation, not to mention the philosophy of burying or excavating and entire ancient monument. A trial pit was opened to see if any remains of the boat survived and uncovered well-preserved timber planks and nails preserved five metres below ground level. Consequently, archaeologists worked closely with the entire design team, determined that more was required than the usual scheme of preserving and monitoring the boat. A legal agreement was secured, making this one of the few projects in the world to have a clearly structured and enforceable plan, if the monitoring data show demonstrable deterioration.