The Thames Iron Works 1837-1912: A Major Shipbuilder on the Thames Daniel Harrison is a Senior Archaeologist at MOLA and author of our new Crossrail publication ‘The Thames Iron Works 1837-1912: A Major Shipbuilder on the Thames’. In this blog he discusses the history of one of the Iron Works’ most unusual ships, the Cleopatra, which transported Cleopatra’s Needle to London.
I was seven or eight when I first saw Cleopatra’s Needle. The ancient obelisk standing on its plinth by the Thames left me in awe. How had such a huge and ancient thing found its way through three and a half millennia and thousands of miles to rest by Embankment station in the heart of London?
In 2012, Crossrail’s ambitious plans to build a new high capacity rail line across London gave me the opportunity to revisit the Needle and finally uncover its story for myself. At Canning Town, further downriver from where the needle now stands, we undertook excavations within the footprint of two massive shafts needed to provide access for the tunnel boring machines. The excavations revealed extensive archaeological remains of the once world-renowned Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company. It was whilst writing up our findings for the publication that I, somewhat unexpectedly, finally found out how Cleopatra’s Needle came to London.
The obelisk actually predates Cleopatra by about 1,400 years, having originally stood in Heliopolis before being moved to Alexandria in 12BC. Having toppled, it lay in the sands, which protected it through the centuries. In 1819, then Pasha of Egypt and Sudan, Muhammad Ali, presented Cleopatra's Needle to the British Government in honour and recognition of the victories at the Battle of the Nile the Battle of Alexandria. The obelisk however remained moribund for the next 78 years due to the expense and difficulty of moving it.
