About the excavation

This excavation is organised by the Tertiary Research Group (TRG), a group of amateur fossil collectors and professional palaeontologists who also work with the Natural History Museum in London. They're looking for fossil remains of birds, reptiles and mammals. Participants can keep the other finds (shark teeth, fish bones and shells) for their own collections.

There's more about the area's geology and fossils on the Abbey Wood locality page.

Arriving at Lesnes Abbey

The main exit from Abbey Wood station in London.

The nearest station is Abbey Wood. From there, it's about a ten-minute walk to the park where the ruins of Lesnes Abbey stand.

This was once a monastery. According to the abbey's history, Cardinal Wolsey closed it in 1525, before the wider dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII. Judging by the ruins, it must have been quite a building in its day.

The ruins of Lesnes Abbey in the park — The abbey ruins stand in the park, beside the woods where the excavation took place.

Another view of the ruins of Lesnes Abbey — The ruins give an idea of how large the abbey once was.

Into the woods

The woods begin just behind the abbey, with paths winding between the trees and fallen leaves underfoot. There's a more direct route to the excavation, but it has steps. I was dragging my little trolley along, so I took the longer, flatter way round.

A woodland path at Abbey Wood — The path through the woods.

At the entrance, a notice announced that the site would be closed to the public on Sunday, 4 October, while the TRG carried out a scientific excavation. Next to the sign, a little creature stood guard.

Notice for the TRG excavation on 4 October 2026, beside a model of a mammal(?) — The notice at the entrance to the excavation site.

The excavation

The place was full of buckets, tubs, sieves and bags. People were working down in the mud, some at their sieves, others bent over the material, looking for fossils.

Behind the fence was a small hired digger, brought in to reach the fossil-bearing layers below. The excavated material was heaped into a little mound. Everyone went over with their buckets, shovelled them full and carried them back for sieving.

The fenced excavation site among the trees — The excavation site, seen from outside the fence.

Participants sieving and sorting material at the excavation — Buckets, sieves and muddy fossil hunters.

A small digger behind the fence, with participants and their equipment in the foreground — The digger at work in the background, with sieving going on in front.

Washing and sieving

The idea was to wash the sand away from the fossils and bag up the finer material left behind (fragments, little stones, everything) to take home and sort through. I picked out the larger pieces, such as big teeth, shells and bones, and put them in the containers I'd brought along.

A tub of cloudy water and a sieve holding pebbles and shells — The water tub and the material left in the sieve, ready to sort through.

The finds

The photos show two containers of finds: one with teeth and other vertebrate remains, the other with shells. The shark teeth stand out in the first, with their shiny points and forked roots. There are also a few vertebrae, a small piece of turtle shell and a little bone from a fish's tail (a hypural bone).

A container of shark teeth and other small vertebrate remains — Shark teeth and other vertebrate finds.

Selected vertebrate finds. From left to right: vertebrae, turtle shell fragments, a scale from a Lepisosteus fish (upper right), and a hypural bone from a teleost fish (lower right). — Selected vertebrate finds. From left to right: vertebrae, turtle shell fragments, a scale from a *Lepisosteus* fish (upper right), and a hypural bone from a teleost fish (lower right).

I put the shells in a separate container. There are both gastropods and bivalves, mostly complete; there were plenty of broken bits that weren't worth picking up. Even the common finds have something to show you if you give them a little attention.

A container of fossil shells of different shapes and sizes — The shells gathered in their own container.

Packing up and heading back

Eventually it was time to pack up. All the buckets, sieves, bags and containers scattered around the site had to go.

Packing up the equipment at the excavation site — Packing up at the end of the excavation. Quite a lot of mud after we tipped all that water out.

I loaded my things onto the trolley and headed back along the path. I still don't know how many kilos of material I brought home from this adventure, but I was very glad of those wheels!

A loaded trolley on the woodland path on the way back — Heading back through the woods, with everything on the trolley.