Come Manhandle Documents With Us in the Archives of London
Our First Overseas Stop in Our Goonies Adventure
When we last parted ways, Chris, Amanda, and I boarded a red-eye to London on a quest to locate some long lost treasure. Chris was pounding on his keyboard, Amanda had slumped into a restful slumber, and I voluntarily went into a drug induced coma.
The Mission
We had our several hundred year old map of Panama. Unfortunately, in the late 1600s, Google Maps had yet to hit the scene. So, we couldn’t punch “bURieD TreASure plZ” into the GPS and be sent on our merry way. One river had a name, which could very well have been changed, and our closest clue on the hand drawn map was the way it bent and forked.
We also had the small matter at hand of the partial destruction of said map. In the forties, the map lived rolled up inside a metal tube in the attic of Chris’ grandfather. Unfortunately, this house then caught fire, which left us with the barbecued version we are now working with today. Over the years, it was partially restored and transposed and the old Welsh that was written on it was translated.
So, to reiterate, we had a somewhat burned map with a solitary river name and some kinked out looking twists and turns in it. I’m sure you aren’t doubting our credibility for even a moment. Needless to say, before we could go looking at the maps of today we needed to keep our feet planted firmly in the past, and so far the only places to do that were the British National Archives and the Society of Antiquaries.
Step 1: Do Your Homework
Shocking as this may be, you can’t actually just waltz on into archives or museums and go rummaging about looking for whatever you wish. You almost could, surprisingly enough, but you do still have to do a minimal amount of leg work… or as it were, a minimal amount of sitting on your ass filling out an online form with the alphanumeric codes to your desired maps.
The Society of Antiquaries proved to be even easier, as all you had to do was ask. More or less, we had a minimal email correspondence in which a rendezvous time and place was determined with ease.
“Hi, I’m Rachel, you have an old chart book from 1700; can I take a gander?”
“Sure Rach! Come on down. We often allow the great unwashed to meander in here from the streets and go pawing through historical documents no questions asked.”
Obviously, I’m paraphrasing.
Step 2: Map Your Path to Your Map
We landed at Heathrow Airport on the hottest day on record. The second we stepped off the plane and onto the ramp that would deliver us into the airport, we were hit with a wave of humid, chewable air. To say we were hit in the face with hot air is a gross mischaracterization of events. We weren’t hit with hot air, we were bitch slapped with hot air. Nay! We were punted back to our middle school graduations with hot air.
The airport itself offered a brief reprieve from such torment; this merely served as a cruel tease of the disgust yet to come.
We were really short on time. Treasure hunting is, as you might expect, not exactly an exercise in frugality. We had one long weekend with set appointments that had to be met, and London, though a beautiful city, isn’t exactly a cheap one… Or a small one. We had four main points we needed to hit — Airport, Archives, Hostel, Antiquaries. And so that’s what we did in that order.
Just to bring you along for the ride for a moment, imagine you’re Ant Man and you’ve just met Sasquatch. But plot twist — you’ve shrunk yourself down, flown into his armpit and can’t return to your normal size. That was what this felt like. Being trapped in Sasquatch’s hairy, sweaty, and probably smelly armpit. Day One consisted of us stumbling from the airport to Kew, where our first set of maps lived. From there, we would continue down the same train line and be able to crash at our hostel. This left Day Two to go from hostel to Picadilly for our second set of maps.
Step 3: Glove Up & Dig In
Words often spoken by proctologists and treasure hunters.
The British National Archives
You’re probably thinking that being able access the British National Archives is a difficult and arduous process which entails ages of planning, mountains of ID, and maybe even special permission to be able to view documents that are hundreds of years old and should exist behind glass, protected by lasers. But, you’d be wrong. Aside from going online and clocking in what maps and documents we wanted to view, basically we schlepped in, the motley crew that we were, and threw a passport, license, and free readers ticket in front of the people at reception. No armed guards, no laser beams, no nothing.
Up a flight of stairs, we staked out a table, grabbed some foam blocks and velvety weights, and from that point on spent a couple hours continually harassing the guardians of British Archive maps to go and fetch us the items on our list.
The Society of Antiquaries
Day Two was automatically off to a better start. I mean, at least from my standpoint, I had a full night of sleep, and from everyone’s standpoint a markedly shorter subway ride. The previous day, we went from Heathrow to Kew, to Islington. On this day, we only had to move between Islington and Piccadilly. We waded through tourists after taking a double-decker bus part of the way. If you ride them only once in a great while, sitting in the top front row and ‘driving the bus’ doesn’t get old. So sue us.
We plodded along for a few blocks after reaching our destination and passed through a great gateway and into a stone cobbled courtyard that housed several buildings. Sort of like Gringotts but without the dragon, ̶u̶n̶f̶o̶r̶t̶u̶n̶a̶t̶e̶l̶y̶ obviously. It was in here that I was able to locate Heather, the woman I had corresponded with via email. You know when you’re in the presence of someone who is clearly of a refined background and you involuntarily start shoving words with extra syllables into your speech? That was sort of the vibe I had with Heather.
After Heather nodded in acceptance that yes, these three gremlins were in fact here to go rifling through her chart map, she wandered over to her desk and picked up an ancient book. We parked ourselves at table 8–13 and looked expectantly as Heather made her way over to us. She swung the book with one hand and frisbeed it onto the table. Not really, but the cavalier nature in which the book was handled mirrored the previous day’s experience at the archives. It felt like years of archaeological scenes in spy thrillers had betrayed me.
“Should we go through this in a certain way?” We asked as she began to return to her desk.
Heather looked back on us, “Just keep it on the foam blocks.”
That’s it. Once again. Just keep it on the foam blocks. What was special about this particular book was that it was found by Henry Morgan and his men all those years ago in Panama and later used by them to navigate their way through the country. Not only were we able to hold something that he once had, but we were able to use it to confirm the appropriate names of the rivers we had suspected we needed to follow.
When we eventually returned to Boston, I’d repeated this in disbelief to my French coworker. Her response? “Ehh, what is a few hundred years?” Well, fair enough. My point of view of a country’s time is around the 243 year mark, but I suppose if growing up, history class began in the 920s, you may feel differently.
So, how successful were we? Answer… successfulesque. We ended our second day with nothing clearly laid out, but so far, that’s what this whole adventure has been. A lot of bumping around in the dark. We had the name of two rivers and one day left in London. We didn’t even know where the next day would take us, let alone our barbecued old map and two river names. But, we also hadn’t made it down to Panama… yet.
Catch up on Operation Goonies so far:
The Start of My Real Life Goonies Adventure
The Three Kinds of Red-Eye Travelers You’ll Meet
This story is published in Writers on the Run. If you’re interested in submitting your travel stories please visit our submission guidelines.
