Museum of London Archaeology

The building you are approaching at 46 Eagle Wharf Road is the headquarters for the Museum of London Archaeology, known simply as MOLA. While the name suggests a museum, this site functions primarily as a high-tech nerve center for the city's history, housing a massive archaeological archive beneath its office floors. It is a purpose-built facility where experts process, conserve, and photograph tens of thousands of artifacts unearthed from construction projects across the capital. The organization was born in the 1970s from the urgent need to rescue history from deep-basement office redevelopments in the City of London. It originated as a government-funded team of specialists who scrambled to document Roman and medieval remains before they were destroyed by modern foundations. Today, it operates as an independent charitable company, but its work remains tied to the pulse of city construction, often analyzing finds that have been buried for millennia until a digger accidentally brings them back into the light.