25th May 2015, 09:23 AM
Exposure to asbestos is something that has long worried me having been on building/demolition sites long before the current legislation. What's needed in archaeology is some guidance as to when and where you might encounter it which might be different from the standard Government advice.The Victorians loved the stuff and it crops up in unusual places. Railways for one, around the hot water pipes in the heating systems for stately homes another. As an archaeologists most of my encounters have been the result of old disposal/tipping on the sites of demolished buildings. I shudder when I think of the hours I spent stripping the artex off the walls in my own home in the early 1990s:0