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Volume 3 : 1980 – 1984

Newsletter-128-October-1981

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Newsletter 128: October, 1981

HADAS CALENDAR

DON’T FORGET LECTURES START THIS MONTH

Weatherwise there seems little difference this year between summer and winter, so we will just say the lecture season has arrived. This year we have considerable variety, including a 3-part London series – Roman, Saxo-Norman and post-medieval.

Tuesday, October 6th. The Roman Port of London – the current excavation in the Pudding Lane area of the City. Speaker Gustav Milne, the site supervisor, who will give us a first-hand and up-to-date report on the Roman water front.

Tuesday, November 3rd. Excavations on Guernsey 1979-81, Dr Ian Kinnes MA PhD FSA.

Tuesday, December 8th. Dinner at the RAF Museum, Hendon, with private viewing of the Battle of Britain exhibition.

Tuesday, January 5th .Saxon and Norman London, Dr John Clark MA AMA FSA.

Tuesday, February 2nd. Marylebone: A Village Community 1500-1800. Dr Ann Saunders

PhD.

Tuesday, March 2nd. Frozen Tombs of Siberia, Kenneth Whitehorn.

As usual lectures will be at Central Library, next to Hendon Town Hall, on the first Tuesday of each month, excluding December. We start soon after 8 pm, with coffee and biscuits (price 10p) which gives members an opportunity for a chat. May I ask old members to welcome new ones and make them feel at home? For Our first two lectures, David Bicknell will be our projectionist – Liz Holliday regrets she has an evening class on Tuesdays this year.

For new members buses 183 and 143 pass the Library door. It is 10 minutes walk from Hendon Central station and only a few minutes from the 113 Edgware route or the 240 and 125 routes. There are two free car parks opposite. Members may bring a guest to one lecture, but guests who wish to attend further lectures should be invited to join the Society. DOROTHY NEWBURY

SUBSCRIPTIONS

The Hon. Treasurer has been doing his autumn review of the member­ship records and finds there are.136 members who have still not renewed their membership for 1981/2, although this was due on April 1, 1931.

To save him writing reminder letters, please send any outstanding subscriptions to him as soon as possible. His address is: Jeremy Clynes, 66 Hampstead Way, London NW11 7XX (Tel: 455 4271).

THE, OUTING SEASON

… ends as we go to press, with a re-run on Sept 20 to Bath and Laycock. It will be another full coach.

In spite of our bad summer all trips have enjoyed dry weather. Again I have been unable to accompany the groups, and would like to thank George Ingram, Tessa Smith, Paul Craddock, Maurice Canter, Ted Sammes and Jeremy Clynes for taking the trips so successfully for me.

DOROTHY NEWBURY

PRAYER FOR A TYPIST

Your Newsletter comes to you each month by favour of a number of your fellow members who volunteer to Write, edit and type it, roll off the stencils, prepare the envelopes and fill, post or deliver them. From time to time there are hiccups in each of these departments.

At the moment we are short of Newsletter typists. Some of our editors type’their own Newsletters; but one or two, who do not possess typing skill, need to call on a typist volunteer. We have two exceed­ingly helpful and willing typists, but we would like to find at least two more – that way we could spread the load and have a reserve when one of our “regulars” can’t do the job.

Could you type an occasional Newsletter for us? It would not be more often than once in 6 months, and if we had several volunteers the interval could be longer. You need, either to have a typewriter heavy enough to cut stencils; or to be prepared to spend the necessary time cutting the stencils (a job which presents no difficulty to any experienced typist) on one of the Society’s two machines’ (one electric, one manual) at our room in Avenue House, East End Road, Finchley.

All offers will be most gratefully received by our Hon. Secretary. Please ring if you can help.

CONGRATULATIONS to HADAS member Wendy Page, now Wendy Cones, on the birth of her first baby – Anthony. Wendy is now living at Woodbridge, in Suffolk.

TWO MORE BUILDINGS PROTECTED

As the Newsletter goes to press there comes news that two further buildings in the Borough. of Barnet have been added to the List of Buildings of Architectural and Historic Interest. Both are at Hadley: they are Pagitt’s Almshouses and-Pymlico House.

Both were on the original statutory List, but in.Grade III, which no longer confers any protection. Both have now been “spot-listed”an operation which usually occurs when a building is thought to be at risk- in Grade III.

ROMAN RESEARCH GROUP

Sun Oct 4 and Sat Oct 10. Two walks organised by the HADAS Roman Group will take place, in search of Roman roads. Any member wishing to take part should phone Helen Gordon (203 1004) for further details.

WEST HEATH DIG

Good weather and a gratifying number of diggers made the start of the 1981 season at West Heath a happy and invigorating occasion. Work has proceeded briskly and the questions left by previous excavations are well on the way to being answered.

Question 1: The-extent of the site. -A trench IXD on the southern -extremity of the enclosed area has proved pleasurably sterile (save for 2 or 3 flakes), Trenches IXE, IXF and IXG are now being excavated to make a. North/South section in which it is hoped to ascertain the point at which the site finishes in this area.

Question.2: Trenches XIVK, XIIH and XVM are being excavated to complete the pits found previously in XIVL, XIIG and XIVN, all of which contained large quantities of burnt stone. The fill of the pit in .XIVK has been completely removed and the pit drawn and photographed. (More burnt stone was removed from this pit than from any other on the site).

The continuation of the tailed pit from XIIH into XIIG does not appear to be as great as at first thought and it may well be that the burnt stones found in the baulk marked the extreme southern limit of the pit. Excavations in XVM have not yet advanced sufficiently to provide information.

Trial trenches have been dug on the northern and eastern limits of the enclosed area. The total count is not yet available for these areas, but the site appears to continue in both directions although the density of flakes does appear to be diminished.

Obliquely blunted points, micro,-burins, backed blades, scrapers, cores and even an axe continue to be found. Do come and add your trowel to the task and enjoy digging in one of the nicest sites the Society is ever likely to have. Digging, until the weather breaks each day (except Mondays, Fridays) 10 am-5 pm. DAPHNE LORIMER

LATE NEWS ON EVENING CLASSES. 7.30-9.30 pm at Ealing Road. Library, Wembley, on The Medieval Parish, Weds.Grange Museum, Neasden Lane, NW10, From Countryside to Suburb. Thurs.

Willesden Green Library, High Rd NW10, Archaeological Field Techniques

A LOOK AT MILL HILL

Last month we mentioned briefly the current exhibition at Church Farm House Museum, called “Mill Hill: Our Village, Our Suburb” which has been mounted by the Mill Hill & Hendon Historical Society.

It is an exhibition which has been put on with real affection for the subject – and that always shows. The material is interesting and covers a wide range. There are displays on notable Mill Hill houses, such as Moat Mount, Copthall and Belmont; on streets like Flower Lane and. Page Street; on churches; on pubs; of course, on Mill Hill School and less-obviously, there is a large display, with uniforms, on the Middlesex Regiment, which has its headquarters at the Inglis Barracks at Mill Bill, Above all, there are some fascinating side­lights- on the people who have lived in Mill Hill in the last 250 years from traveller and diarist Celia Fiennes; at Highwood Ash, to the first and only woman Mayor of Hendon, Clara Thubrun.

The displays are full of ideas – for instance, the one on Collinson, the botanist whose garden now forms part of the grounds of Mill Hill School, is flanked by actual examples (provided by the LBB Parks Dept) of some of the plants which Collinson introduced to Britain: hydrangeas, kalmias, larix decidua among others.

Next door a small display on Elgar describes how, when he lived at Hampstead in 1912, he used to wander round Mill Hill, Totteridge and Monken Hadley. Later, he produced 5 unaccompanied part-songs of which three (Opus 71, 72, 73) were subscribed with the names of the three places. A caption tells you that if you would. Like to hear Mill Hill,” all you have to do is to ask the Curator for a taped recording.

The exhibition continues until Oct 25, and a visit is highly recommended.


HISTORY OF LONDON’S POPULATION

This will be the main subject of the next LAMAS Local History Conference, to be held at the Museum of London on Sat Nov 28 at 2 pm. The principal speaker will be Mrs. Beatrice Shearer, of the Local Population Studies Society. Demography may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it is a study which throws a great deal of light on many local history problems.

The sessions after tea will have a definite North London flavour. Dr Dore will speak on the history of Trent Park; and two speakers will deal with the history and future development of the Crystal Palace.

The conference will open at 1 pm so that people can see the various exhibitions which are usually mounted in the Education Depart­ment of the Museum. HADAS intends to have a stand, and there will no doubt be many others – this conference is always a lively one.

Tickets cost £1.50 (which includes tea), and applications should go to Mr Robins, 3 Cameron House, Highland Rd, Bromley, Kent. Enclose a sae for the return of your ticket.

Footnote: Mrs Shearer is currently forming a Special Interest Group (under the wing of the LAMAS Local History Committee) for everyone working on, or interested in, population history in Greater London. “The Group would aim to provide guidance and encouragement to those researching topics related to the history of population,” she says, those working with manor court records, tax assessments, surveys, parish registers, census records, etc.” Any HADAS member who is interested in the group can get further information from Brigid Grafton Green.

WEEKEND IN WALES A report on the September trip by AUBREY HODES

On Friday morning, Sept 11, twenty-five intrepid HADASniks set off by minibus and car for an archaeological weekend in wild, woolly (and wet, as it turned out) Wales. The minibus route lay through the Cots­wolds, where we stopped to see the churches of Burford and Northleach. We lunched at Chedworth Roman villa and later looked briefly at Raglan Castle, on the Welsh border. Then on into Wales, with the landscape becoming wilder and emptier with rushing streams and rolling hills, until we reached Danywenallt, the study centre of the Brecon Beacons ‘National Park.

This converted farmhouse, whose name in Welsh means “below the fair wooded hillside,” was our base for the next two days. Run in an efficient, unobtrusive style by its principal, John James, it is an ideal springboard from which to explore the mountains of South Wales (we hope to provide a list of courses to be held at the Centre in 1982 in a subsequent Newsletter).

After dinner we had our first encounter with Peter Jones, our guide and mentor for the weekend. He gave us an eloquent description of the Roman army’s invasion of Wales, showing in words and slides how the second Augusta – the feared local Legion – organised its camps. Inter alia Peter threw out several thought provoking ideas. With all we know today about lead pollution, did the Roman Empire come to an end because lead was used so widely in their plumbing? Did the superior Roman road system spread disease as quickly and efficiently as it dis­tributed letters and food? We retired to bed lulled by the nearby River Usk and the, nocturnal munching of sheep, to think deeply about these suggestions.

On Saturday we set out early and drove westwards through the Brecon Beacons-to the Roman gold mine at Dolaucothi, near Pumpsaint. Here we were met by Dr Alwyn Allan, of the University of Cardiff’s Department of Mineral Exploitation, and his assistants. First we saw the general layout of the mine and the tanks, sluice gates and gullies used to process the ore. Dr Allan explained that the Romans used ‘ hessian and materials with a heavy pile to trap the flakes of gold, which remained behind on washing tables when the water flowed downhill.

After our packed lunch we put on miners’ helmets, complete with headlamps and batteries tied round our waists. When we were ready to descend into the Mines, we looked like a bunch of extras on the set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, or How Green Was My Valley. Plung­ing bravely into the depths, we set out to explore the tunnels, vertical shafts and quartz veins of the 2000 year old mine. When we emerged two hours later, we know exactly how a slave labourer in 200 AD felt at the end of the day shift. For most of us this was probably the high­light of the weekend.

Bidding farewell to Dr Allan and the other Cardiff geologists, we returned to Danywenallt, some to bathe their blistered feet, others to experience the nearest Welsh village pub (where, when the barmaid was asked what time it closed, replied “Oh, don’t worry. The nearest policeman is in Brecon, and that’s 6 miles awayl”)

Sunday was a very full day. Peter Jones took us first to Carreg Cennen Castle, in the foothills of the Black Mountains. This late 13th c building was demolished in 1462, during the Wars of the Roses. We explored the outer ward, barbican and inner ward, and could well appreciate Peter’s statement that he never tires’of the castle and could come here every day. It certainly casts a spell, even today, because of.its spectacular location and bloody history.

An unusual feature of Carreg Cennen is the cave under the cliff face. We crawled along a vaulted passage, bent almost double, until we reached the central cave. Its purpose remains a mystery. Neither the small amount of water that collects there nor the dovecote which still exists would seem to justify building such a structure. Some years ego four human skeleton sand a horse’s tooth were found in the cave, suggesting that it was occupied.in prehistoric times.

From here we went on to Y Pigwyn camp, near Trecastle, where the Roman legion held its training camps, and the Y Gaer fort, near Brecon, ex­cavated by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in 1924-5. Here we felt the might of the Romans pressing on the small, largely rural population of Wales. As Peter put it “the Romans came here to take what they wanted – gold, slaves and food.” Largely because of Peter’s Welsh gift of speech, we carried away with us an abiding impression of a peaceful land brutally exploited by a superior military occupying force – the gold of Dolaucothi being the potent symbol of this oppression.

Our last stop was at Pen Y Crug, an Iron Age hill-fort. Standing on its summit and looking over to the twin peaks of the Brecon Deacons, we felt we were beginning to understand the turbulent history of Wales, as expressed in its enduring monuments.

This outing was the pet baby of our Treasurer, Jeremy Clynes, who ran it with patience, kindness and efficiency. The guiding spirits of HADAS outings always do their job well (see Dorothy Newbury’s tribute to them elsewhere in this Newsletter) but we were doubly grateful to Jeremy because he was also our charioteer. Like Jehu (but much more safely) he drove one minibus from London to Brecon and then around Wales (where the second minibus was driven by Peter Jones); and he did it with the flair and roadsense one might expect from an advanced motorist who is also a member of the League of Safe Drivers.


SAGA OF THE BLUE PLAQUES

It is quite a long time to be precise, three years less one month – since we first announced in the Newsletter that the Borough of Barnet had agreed to embark on a project for erecting ten Blue Plaques, to commemorate either famous people who had lived here or notable events which had taken place here. The Borough had been inspired in this undertaking by four local societies, of which HADAS was one. The others were the Finchley Society, the Mill Hill and Hendon Historical Society and the Barnet & District Local History Society.

As we haven’t mentioned this proposal again in the Newsletter since November 1978, you might be forgiven for thinking that it had died the death: but you’d be wrong. We must admit that there have moments when the HADAS Committee thought the idea was dead, so beset was it with problems and difficulties. Plodding on, however – and with strong support, for which we are deeply grateful, from the Borough Librarian, David Ruddom – the obstacles (mainly financial) have been surmounted.

The project has not emerged from all this negotiation in precisely its original form: but it is still quite recognisable. It is now planned to erect 5 Blue Plaques; and it is hoped that at least one of these, possibly more, will be ready to unveil before Christmas.

Instead of the original ceramic plaques, such as the GLC puts up, these plaques (also blue with white lettering) will be of cast aluminium, and will be made by the company which provides plaques and notices for the Department of Environment and other bodies. The ceramic plaques, had we persisted with them, had risen so greatly in price (both for the plaque and for the cost of erecting it ) that we could have put up only two for the amount granted for the original ten in 1978 (those figures, incidentally, refer to the situation as it was 18 months ago: today I suspect we might bet only about half a ceramic plaque!)

The five plaques which will go up are all in what we called our “Top Ten” choices. They are;

1. The Tudor Hall, Wood St. Barnet, which is now part of Barnet College but originally housed the Free Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth, who granted its charter in 1573.

2. Joseph Grimaldi (1779-1837),the famous clown, who lived at Fallow Corner, North Finchley. His Y. is long since demolished; it is hoped-to place the plaque on the wall of Finchley Memorial Hospital, overlooking Granville Rd final approval of this site is still awaited from the health authorities.

3. The Rev. Benjamin Waugh, who founded the NSPCC but left his mark on our area as founder and first minister of Christ Church United Reformed Church, Friern Barnet Rd, N11, where the plaque will be placed on the old Church Hall, built 1883 when Waugh was minister.

4. Thomas Collins (1735-1830), artist and craftsman, noted for his elegant ornamental plasterwork, examples of which can still be seen in his house, now Woodhouse School, Woodhouse Rd, North Finchley. The plaque will be just to them right of the main school door.

5. Sir Thomas Lipton (1850-1931), millionaire grocer and founder of the Lipton chain of shops. He was also owner of 5 successive Shamrock yachts which tried to win the Americas Cup for Britain. He lived at Osidge House, Chase Side, Southgate. The house is now a hostel. It is set back from the road, so the plaque will be placed on one of the gate-posts.

THE PHYSIC WELL, BARNET

One thing leads to another. Originally it was intended to include the Wellhouse, built to protect the Physic Well (which is, in fact, a spring) at Chipping Barnet among the five sites for commemorative

plaques. The well has been known and used certainly for over 300 years, probably even longer.

However, when the Borough Librarian and a HADAS representative toured the proposed sites to consider the positioning of plaques,it became clear that, at the moment, the Wellhouse would be unsuitable as a site for a plaque. Built in the 1930s in mock-Tudor style, with black timbering and white rendered brickwork, the clean spaces between the timber uprights must have positively invited the attention of local youth armed with spray guns. There’s hardly an inch that isn’t covered with comment, facetious, ribald or just plain silly. Strangely enough, there is no official notice to say what the building is, nor why it is of historic interest; many of those living nearby must be unaware of its associations.

HADAS decided to ask the Barnet & District Local History Society if it would take up the cause of the Wellhouse, not only in order to have the building renovated but also, if possible, to make some arrangement, after renovation, for it to be used, if only occasionally. A building which is as this appears to be – kept locked and empty for years on end can only deteriorate.

We are happy to report that as a result of our approach Mr Bill Taylor of Barnet & District Local History Society has taken the matter up with the Borough, and HADAS has written supporting him. Responsi« bility for the Welihouse is vested in the Town Clerk; and his depart­ment, we are also’happy to report, is-proving most co-operative. The Borough Librarian, too, is much concerned at the condition of the building, with its historic and literary associations.

REMEMBER OCTOBER 17

when we need your contributions, please,
and your presence, at the Minimart at

ST MARY’S CHURCH HOUSE

(top of Greyhound Hill, a few minutes walk
from Hendon Library) on Sat. Oct 17 from

11 am-3 pm .

Coffee and ploughman’s lunches. available,

HADAS publications for sale

If you have any of the following saleable goods please phone or deliver to Christine Arnott 455 2751 or Dorothy Newbury 203 0950

CAKES, JAMS, PICKLES – SWEETS – FRUIT AND VEG – GROCERIES

BRIC-A-BRAC (not large items)

TOYS.-AND. BOOKS (not magazines) STATIONERY

GOOD AS NEW PENS WOMENS -CHILDRENS CLOTHING

HOUSEHOLD LINENS

UNWANTED GIFTS – HOLIDAY MEMENTOS – TOILETRIES – JEWELLERY

An easy way would be to bring your contributions to the lecture on

October 6

STAY FOR LUNCH AND AFTERWARDS VISIT CHURCH FARM HOUSE MUSEUM OPPOSITE, TO SEE THEM EXHIBITION ON MILL HILL (reported on p4 of this Newsletter)

Next mouth we hope to publish an interesting article from HADAS member Linda Barrow, describing her “digging” holiday in Israel. Contributions from other members who have had particularly interesting holidays will be very welcome.

Newsletter-127-September-1981

By | Past Newsletters, Volume 3 : 1980 - 1984 | No Comments

Newsletter 127: September 1981

HADAS CALENDAR

Extended, summer outing season: Saturday, September 26, to Bath and Lacock

As mentioned in the August newsletter, the Bath excavation and Lacock Abbey outing in July was heavily overbooked. Reaction to a re-run has been favourable and the trip IS ON, writes Dorothy Newbury. I hope members will try to make it a full coach. If you would like to join the outing please complete the enclosed application form and send it, with cheque, to me at once.

Weekend in Wales: September 11 to 13 This is fully booked with a short waiting list – but names can still be taken for last-minute cancellations.

Autumn Minimart and Get-together: Saturday October 17 at St Mary’s Church Hall, at the top of Greyhound Hill (near Church Farm House

Museum), Hendon, NW4, from 11am to 3pm. Come and have coffee or ploughman’s lunch and meet old friends and new members. 1982 is HADAS’s 21st anniversary year and as there will be special activities to mark it, we have decided to hold our fund-raising market before Christmas instead of next spring. We make an appeal to members for their contributions to our usual stalls:

Cakes, groceries and preserves

Bric-a-brac (not large items)

Good-as-new clothing

Toys and books (not magazines)

Unwanted gifts, holiday mementoes, toilet goods, etc.

Please phone or deliver to Christine Arnott, 455 2751, or Dorothy Newbury, 203 0950.

Winter programme: Here is advance notice of the pre-Christmas events – full details will be in the October newsletter.

Tuesday October 6 at Hendon Library, The Burroughs, NW4, 8pm for coffee, 8.30pm lecture. The Roman Port of London: Members will have read about, or seen on television, the Museum of London’s excavation in the Pudding Lane area of the City, now extending into Fish Street This is revealing timber structures associated with the revetments and Roman water front. There is a possibility of timber being four, which formed the northern end of the London Bridge of that time. Evidence of Roman warehouses and baths have been unearthed on the Pudding Lane site. Mr Gustav Milne, the site supervisor, is coming to talk to us on this latest Roman London discovery.

Tuesday November 3 at Hendon Library: Excavations on Guernsey 1979-81 by Dr Ian Kinnes, MA, PhD.

Tuesday December 8: Dinner at the RAF Museum, Hendon, with previewing of the Battle of Britain exhibition.

West Heath Dig: The area under threat of erosion has finally been excavated at West Heath, but there are still one or two problems needing answers in this our last season, writes Daphne Lorimer. The 1981 season started on Saturday August 29 and will continue throughout September and October, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays as well as Saturdays and Sundays. As many people as possible are wanted (beginners need have no fears as they will receive training). Do come and make 1981 as happy and successful as all the other seasons.

Calling Junior Members: Just a note to remind you that there will be a meeting for junior members at my house on Saturday, September 5, at 2.30pm, writes Bryan Hackett. At this meeting I hope we will be able to discuss what activities we would like to do. Please write to me, or telephone, if you can come. Can you also tell me Whether or not you would like to go on the walk looking for the Roman road in Mill Hill on Sunday, October 4. Please contact me at 31 Temple Fortune Hill, Hampstead Garden Suburb, NW11 7XL, or telephone 455 9019.

Research activities: There are meetings this month of two of the research groups, documentary and Roman, to which any interested members are invited. The documentary meeting is at 88 Temple Fortune Lane, NW11, on Thursday September 3, at 8pm. Please phone Brigid Grafton Green (455 9040) beforehand to guarantee there’s enough coffee to go round. The Roman meeting is at 13 Sunningfields Road, NW4′, on Tuesday September 29, at 8pm. There’s no need to phone Helen Gordon (203 1004) beforehand, but anyone contemplating going on the walks on October 4 or October 10 in search of Roman roads would be well advised to. The walks, she warns, are for the dedicated-as the terrain is unlikely to be rewarding.

EVENTS ELSEWHERE

The current exhibition at Church Farm House Museum, Greyhound Hill, NW4, is titled Mill Hill – Our Village, our Suburb and has been organised in conjunction with the Mill Hill and Hendon Historical Society. It traces the development of Mill Hill from early times to the present day, with emphasis on important buildings and institutions and prominent’ people who have lived in the district.

HADAS members are invited to a lecture organised by the Anglo-Israel Friendship League of Finchley at Avenue House, East End Road, N3, on Tuesday September 8 at 8pm. The sepaker is Mr Alexander Kinder, chairman of the Nautical Archaeological Society and an eminent under­water archaeologist, and his subject is An Underwater Archaeologist in Israel.

The University of Leeds is running a weekend course, on September 11 to 13, on New Work on the History of Mining and Ironworking in North East England; The CBA Group 7 (Essex, Herts and Cambs) annual general meeting and conference on Saturday October 3, in Cambridge, has the Stone Age as its central subject; and the ninth York Archeological Weekend, organised by the University of Leeds and the York Archaeological Trust, on November 20-22, has as its subject the Great Cities of Medieval Britain. For more details of any of these, contact this month’s newsletter editor, Liz Sagues, 868 8431.

ARCHAEOLOGY IN WINTER, Part two:

There are more courses which may interest members, following on from last month’s listings.

Among local WEA classes are: GOLDERS GREEN: Roman Archaeology (Thursdays, 8pm to 10pm, Unitarian Church Hall, Hoop Lane, NW11, from September 24) and London Life and London Buildings (Mondays, 8pm to 10pm, 44 Rotherwick Road, NW11, from September 21). Fees for 24 lectures £14.50 (pensioners £10.50). More details from Mrs F. Michaelson, 452 8850.

MILL HILL AND EDGWARE: Geology, a practical approach (Wednesdays, 8pm to 10pm, Mill Hill Public School, The Ridgeway, NW7, from September 30), The Drama and The State in Ancient Greece (Mondays, 8pm to l0pm, Edgware Library, Hale Lane, from September 28) and Regency to Edwardian Houses and Interiors (Tuesdays, 10.30am to 12.30pm, Primary Hall, Union Church, Mill Hill Broadway, from Sep­tember 29). Fees for 24 meetings £15. More details from Peggy Davies, 959 3505.

THE BARNETS: Local History (Fridays, 8pm, Wimbush House, Westbury Road; N12, from October 2, 12 meetings), London Life and London Buildings (Thursdays, 8pm, South Friern Library, Colney Hatch Lane, N10, from September 24), The” Beauty of old Churches , Queen Elizabeth’s Girls School, Meadway, Barnet, from September 21), Ancient Egypt – Religion, Gods and Myths (Thursdays, 10am, Assembly Rooms, 1st floor, 321 Colney Hatch Lane, N11, from September 24) and Britain in the Roman Empire (Fridays, 10am, Owens A.E. Centre, by 60 Chandos Avenue, N20, from September 25 – lecturer Tony Rook). Fees for 12 meetings £8.25, 24 meetings £16.50 or £15, reductions in all cases for pensioners. For more details phone Mrs S. Neville (Barnet) 449 6682, Miss E.F. Pearca, (Finchley) 446 2143, or Mr J. White (Friern Barnet) 368 6612.

HENDON: Nineveh and Babylon in Biblical Times (Wednesdays, 7.30pm’ to 9.30pm, Hendon Library, from 30 September). Pee £15. For more details ring Helen Adam 202 7961.

The NORTH LONDON POLYTECHNIC is running two short courses, plus a geology workshop, before Christmas. London’s Parks And Gardens is on Wednesdays, 2pm to 4pm, from November 4 to December 9; An Appreciation of the National Parks of England and Wales is also on Wednesdays, 6.30pm to 8.30pm, same dates; and the Geology Workshop, also Wednesdays, 6.30pm to 8.30pm, from October 7 to December 9. Fees for the courses are £10, for the workshop £16. For more information ring the poly’s Department of Geography and Geology, 607 2789.

The CITY UNIVERSITY is also planning to repeat its two courses on Surveying and Photogrammetry for Archaeologists this autumn. Phone N.E. Lindsey of the Department of Civil Engineering, 253 4399, for more details.

ROMAN EXHIBITION

Members of the Roman Research Group staged a week-long exhibition last month at Grahame Park comprehensive school’s Centre Point community centre, on the theme of Where did the Romans Live? It attracted a good deal of interest but did not, as its organisers had hoped, bring to light any back-garden finds of Roman material,

NORTHAMPTON AND AROUND

Julia Rawlings and Robert Michel report on the August outing

Another day damned bright and clear for the August HADAS outing, and some 45 members set out to explore the historical delights of Northampton and surrounding area.

Roy Friendship-Taylor met us at Piddington and led us to the site of a large Roman villa on which he and his friends from the Upper Nene Archaeological Society are currently engaged. Work has been going on for approximately 2½ years following the rediscovery of the site by a metal detector wielded by the local vicar. While much damage has been caused by treasure hunters and farming methods, there is still a great deal to be learnt from the site.

A vast quantity of tessera has been collected and many pieces are of good quality and are in various colours. Plaster fragments have also been found and are thought to have come mainly from decorated ceilings in the villa. Roman roof tile fragments abound, and all these finds are useful in dating the levels, as so far relatively little other material has come to light.

The villa was probably started in about AD 100 and it covers an ex­tensive area some distance from the parameters of the current exca­vation. The number of rooms with evidence of a heating system leads us to suppose that this must once have been a particularly grand villa. Perhaps one of the most interesting features is a corridor floor with tiles set herringbone fashion in alternating bands of yellow and red, and the quality of this floor strengthens Mr Friendship-Taylor’s opinion of the importance of this villa.

With the decline of the Roman Empire, the villa was used variously as a store for domestic goods and as an industrial site.

Next on the programme was the Eleanor Cross on the outskirts of Northampton. This is one of the three remaining original crosses and it is such a pity that monuments like this prove so popular with the “Fred was ‘ere” brigade. Nevertheless, Edward I’s engaging memorial to his dead wife was enthusiastically recorded by HADAS photographers who expertly times their masterpieces to coincide with the occasional gaps in the traffic.

Hunsbury Hill Fort, sadly overgrown, must have presented a stiff challenge to the average member’s imagination. The task was not an easy one: it was necessary to sweep away the undergrowth, fell the circle of dense trees and banish the adjacent picnic tables to reveal an early Iron Age single ditch and bank hill fort, badly damaged by 19th century ironstone quarrying.

In Northampton, members were free to wander as they pleased. Ted Sammes’ annotated maps identified Northampton’s attractions: the Leathercraft Museum, the Central Museum, the rare, round church of the Holy Sepulchre – we seemed spoilt for choice. We, ourselves, elected to visit the round church, which proved a fascinating mixture of ecclesiastical architecture of all ages.

Assembly in the Co-op restaurant for tea brought together a selec­tion of church and museum guides as well as second-hand books and other shopping – testimony to the many and varied interests of the members and evidence of how much could be achieved by so few in so short a time.

Grateful thanks are due to our leader for the day, Ted Sammes, and to Dorothy Newbury and the other people without whom the day would not have been the sweltering success it was.


A SMALL BOY’S RECOLLECTIONS OF THE START OF HENDON AERODROME

As an appetiser to Bill Firth’s report of the HADAS visit to Hendon Aerodrome as it is now – delayed for approval by the RAF authorities – we print an account of the aerodrome’s earlier days. It comes from Mr George Johnston, who some weeks ago wrote to the local paper from his home in the country saying he remembered the development of the aerodrome. HADAS wrote and asked Mr Johnston to put his memories on paper – and this is the result.

I was born in 1903 at Priory Hill, 63 Sunny Gardens, and the family moved in 1907 to St Ann’s, Sunningfields Road. At that time there was a field in Sunningfield Road which overlooked the Midland Railway and the land that was to become the aerodrome. It was used as a playground by the local boys to whom it was known as Hepple’s field after Miss Hepple who ran a small girls’ school in the road and where the girls played hockey. The field became allotments at the beginning of the 1914-18 war and has now been built over.

It was also possible to see the aerodrome from the gardens of St Ann’s but more especially from the “house in the tree”, a wooden building constructed around a large tree. The building had a proper staircase, was some 10 feet by 8 feet by 8 feet high and was some. 15 feet above ground.

It was from these three spots that I was able to see the development of the aerodrome.

Until the building of hangars for the planes started the site was fields and quite rural. The land was farmed by a Mr Dunlop and was part of Church Farm. He and my father used to go partridge shooting over it every September. Later on each winter there used to be meetings of the drag hounds at The Greyhound. The run was across the fields to Mill Hill and back on the west side of the railway to their original starting point.

The fact that Church Farm had a 40 acre field although it was not entirely clear of trees brought flying to Hendon. It had in fact a few oaks and on the north western edge there was a spinney with a small pond.

I cannot be certain which was the first plane to come to Hendon. It may well have been Louis Paulham’s Farman or it might have been a Bleriot belonging to Messrs Everitt and Edgecomb, an electrical engineering firm whose factory was in Colindale and where my brother Rutherford worked in 1915 for l¼ (old money) an hour. The chances are that the first plane to fly was Paulham’s Farman. In 1910 it was entered for the Daily Mail £10,000 prize for the first person to fly from London to Manchester. After waiting all morning in Hepple’s field I saw it take off in mid afternoon.

It set off in the direction of Hampstead as Hendon was not considered part of London. Then it came back and set off on its way. It had to land once but took off again and late in the evening landed at Manchester.

The only other competitor was Claude Grahame White. As soon as he heard that Louis Paulham had taken off he too started and although he tried to fly guided by car headlights he had to land and did not reach Manchester until the next morning, by train.

rom that time onwards, thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of Grahame White and supported by handsome prizes presented by the Daily Mail, the aerodrome made good progress.

In 1911 there was a round Great Britain competition. The race started from Brooklands on Saturday and the planes were due to reach Hendon in the afternoon. The Daily Mail recommended to onlookers to go into the churchyard of St Mary’s and this they did in their thousands. They then spread into Sunningfields Park or fields as it then was. It was an exceptionally hot day, with little breeze. As we were looking over the garden fence someone asked if we could give them a glass of water as they felt very faint. Immediately we were besieged with people so much that jugs of water were insufficient and we had to lay on a garden hose to satisfy the demand.

The competitors had to take off at dawn on the Sunday and as it was a perfect summer’s night hundreds of people camped out in the fields ready for the morning flight. The noise of laughing and shouting was devastatingly increased by the sound of a one-string fiddle being played as it was on this and every Saturday by someone on Greyhound Hill. So disturbing was the uproar that the police were contacted, only to get the reply: “They are passing the police station (then in Brent Street) in droves.”

During the three years before the war the number and types of planes using the aerodrome increased greatly. There were Henri Farmans, Maurice Farmans with their large front elevators, Deper-dussins, Valkyries, a monoplane with a front elevator, a main plane with a propellor behind it and a tail plane with two rudders. This plane was designed by two enthusiasts, Barber and Prentice, who afterwards built the Viking. This was probably the first bi­plane with two pulling propellors driven by chains from a centrally placed engine. It was not a very great success but it started a style which was to lead to considerable developments.

Then there were Grahame Whites, Bleriots, Caudrons made in France, and occasionally S.F. Cody would fly his heavy biplane over from Farnborough.

After a year or two displays of night flying became common on summer Saturday nights. The planes, lit by a row of electric lights on their wings, flew around the aerodrome about 200-300 feet off the ground.

Another event in 1911 was the first aerial post from Hendon to Windsor. This went on for a week, the planes taking off every day carrying the mail. It was more of a curiosity than serving any useful purpose. Still, everything has to have a start. The week was not without its excitements as one plane, a Maurice Farman, could not reach the aerodrome on its return flight and had to land in a field next to the present Sunningfields Park. After some servicing it was able to get back to its starting place.

In the 12 months before the war a Frenchman called Pegout had looped the loop in France. The first man to do so at Hendon was, I think, B.C. Hucks. Another celebrated pilot was Gustav Hamel and he flew often from Hendon.

In the early weeks of the war he disappeared on his way back from France. No-one knew what happened to him. One suggestion, probably correct, was that his plane landed in the Channel, the other was that he was a German spy and had gone home when things got too hot in this country.

Text Box: 4.All during the years the aerodrome had been developing flying schools had been increasing and more and more pilots had been turned out. When the war’started-there was. a. tendency for civilians to be re- placed by Army and Navy officers and later, of course, by the Royal Flying Corps.This. andother wartime activities lead to more flying, especially during the week and as my generation of boys grew up there was less timet to devote to watching planes and :our general interest in. what was., happening on the other side of the old Midland Railway declined.

It was once more stimulated when in about 1915 a Zeppelin dropped some bombs one night in the fields close to the Silkstream and one actually in the aerodrome near to the railway line.

POTTED HISTORY

Members who have followed-the excavations by Harvey Sheldon and Tony Brown of the Roman pottery production site in Highgate Wood will be happy to know that some of the fruits of their labours will soon be permanently on display locally.

One of the five kilns they uncovered has been presented to the Bruce Castle Museum in Tottenham on permanent loan and work has just finished on restoring it – after being split into sections for removal it was, in the words of museum curator Claire Tartan, “in a slightly fragmentary condition”.

Now she and her colleagues are working on the display of which the kiln will be a principal feature. They’re preparing background material and waiting for more examples of the Highgate Wood pottery – still being studied prior to publication of the final report on the site-. but hope all will be ready early in the new year,

Meanwhile, the museum is happy to show the kiln to specialists, keen amateurs or organised groups. But make arrangements first, by writing to the museum, in Bruce Grove ,N17,.or phoning 808 8772.

BOOKSHELF

Brigid Grafton Green reviews Ancient Agricultural Implements by Sian E. Rees (Shire archaeology,£1.95)

Shire Publications has recently added three titles to its archaeology list, and this is one of them. The book opens by stating that-“by-the end of the-Roman period in Britain all the agricultural implements that were used in Britain until the industrial revolution had been invented”. There were, it continues, improvements – but by 400 AD the basic shape of each implement had been developed.

The author then. takes the three main areas of agriculture – preparation of soil and ploughing, care of the crop during growth and harvest — and describes, in a short text, the evolution of tools in these three departments during the prehistoric and Roman times.

After some 25, pages of text come eight pages of photos and some 30 pages of figures, showing ards, coulters, yokes, hoes, mattocks, spades, sickles, bill-hooks, scythes and rakes.

Newsletter-166-December-1984

By | Past Newsletters, Volume 3 : 1980 - 1984 | No Comments

NEWSLETTER 166 December 1984

HADAS DIARY

SATUTDAY December 1 Christmas Party – An Arabian Night

At the Meritage Club, Hendon. There are

Still places available if anyone would like to join us. Don’t worry about costume if you haven’t time. Do come – if you have lost your application form, ring Dorothy Newbury on 203 0950

SATURDAY December 8 9.30am – 12.30 pm. End of sale at Hillary Press, 75 Church Road, Hendon NW4 (rear of Hendon Times newspaper office.) There are still quite a few books and other odds and ends left from the minimart – everything at cut price.

1985

Tuesday January 8 The hero of Regent’s Park, John Nash by Dr. Ann Saunders.

Tuesday February 9 Writing in Roman Britain, evidence from Vindolanda and Bath by Mark Hassall

Tuesday March 5 West Heath Excavation by Daphne Lorimer

Tuesday April 2 Aerial Photography by Christopher Stanley

THE DISAPPEARING DOCKLANDS

BILL FIRTH reports on the November lecture

The lecture was given by Dr R J M Carr, Docklands History Survey officer of the Docklands History Group. His subject – the industrial archaeology of London Docklands – is topical following the closure of the docks and their redevelopment, since a great deal of the physical remains of the Port of London is rapidly disappearing. This explains Bob Carr’s appointment – it is heartening to know that there is such an awareness of the need to record as much as possible before it disappears. As a specialist and an enthusiast, Dr Carr did not disappoint us.

Essentially he took us on a slide tour of docklands as they are today showing us the points of interest. Ironically, when the docks were operating security demanded that they were surrounded by high walls and there was little to see from the land side. Now they are closed, the walls have come down but unfortunately other features have gone too in this demolition,

There is, however, still much to see, it is a pity that the docklands cover some 20 square miles and are therefore not partic­ularly suitable for exploration on foot, so it is difficult to follow in Dr Carr’s trail. He said that he does occasionally organise cycle tours.

The docks, were originally built to relieve congestion on the river where all ships were anchored and the goods trans-shipped to lighters for landing at the customs quays. Some authorities have also suggested that pilfering was rife, but it is now thought that this is a doubtful premise. There is little evidence that the merchants concerned complained of pilfering and even when the docks were built there was a great deal of goods out of the docks by water with considerable possibilities for the illegal acquisition of goods, There is no evidence of much loss then.

Dr Carr reminded us that because of the proximity of Lloyds underwriters, London was also a major shipbuilding centre up to the 1860s when the railways made access to other centres easier,

At that date shipbuilding but not ship repairing – in London declined quite rapidly.

Dr Carr gave us good time for questions and the lively discussion which followed his talk showed the interest which he had generated.

APOLOGETIC POSTSCRIPT: The November Newsletter forgot to say who was the author of the lively report of our first lecture of the 1984-85 season. -It was LILLY LEWY. We thank her very much and apologise for omitting her by-line – she deserved much credit for her excellent reporting job.

MESOLITHIC STATISTICS

MARGARET MAHER provides a round-up of the 1984 digging season at West Heath.

It seems a good time now that digging is finished for 1984 and the site backfilled to produce a few statistics for the mathematically inclined.

Seventy-four people have been involved with the site this season, nearly one half being new members, including two Institute of Archaeology and five extra mural students. Three non-members came along to discover what archeology was about.

Twenty-one square metres were excavated- and although final figures are not yet available flint artefacts and burnt stone should each reach totals of c.6,000. Possible stake holes sectioned late in the season have yet to be evaluated. Anyone interested in finds processing or chart drawing whose names I do not already have could give me a ring (907 0333) as a session/s will be arranged for late January onward.

The high spot of the year was of course the thermoluminescence date of 9625 +/- 900 years BP received from Mrs Joan Huxtable of the Research Laboratory for Art and Archaeology, Oxford. Respectability at last:The date, calculated by counting the alpha particles which have accumulated since flint artefacts were burnt, suggests that the site belongs in the early or earlier Mesolithic periods somewhere between 6,600 and 8,600 BC, HADAS was most fortunate that Mrs Huxtable agreed to accept samples for dating, and we are grateful to her for her work on behalf of the site.

I’d like to thank also the many people who assisted in various ways. Mr Craig, area manager for the GLC Department for Recreation and Arts, kindly gave permission to excavate, and Mr. Challen, his deputy Mr. Taylor and the staff of the parks department, Golders Hill Park, have shown continuing interest and offered unfailing help and co-operation throughout the year.

Barry Martin laid out the trench grid before digging commenced and Dan Lampert undertook a partial survey of the bank and initiated the extra mural students into the mysteries of surveying.

Joan Wrigley organised the most important task of all – the teas – very efficiently. It has been said many times this summer: “The archaeology’s OK – but the catering’s SUPERB!” Her able deputy in this department, Irene Owen, also stepped in to take over the finds recording full time when a bad back forced Laurie Gevell to give up early in the season. Thanks to Laurie’s organ­isation and the spacious working conditions of Dave King’s Mark II processing hut but there were no problems in the change-over.

Mr Bowman and Howard Boudler gave their time and metal detectors so that we could recover a lost TL monitor, which wasn’t really lost at all!

Then there are all the diggers – without whom there could have been no excavation. Ages ranged from 14 (I know) to 75 (I think)’ and the youngest, Emma Green, made a very promising start on this, her first, excavation. It is impossible to name everyone individ­ually, but many thanks to all the regulars especially those who

dug late in the season when the weather was a little less idyllic.

We now have permission to continue excavation in 1985 and dates will be announced in the Newsletter in the spring.

Now that the area beside the Leg of Mutton Pond has been cleared of undergrowth, more members of the public visit the site than ever before. Perhaps it is a natural progression – first the
goats and deer, then the bird enclosure, then the archaeologists. Whatever the reason we’ve met come very interesting people and made some friends among the regulars – including a couple of police horses.

Some people ask extremely pertinent questions, some entertain us, others leave us speechless! One lady informed her companion that it was all a hoax – that she had seen us burying bones every evening so that we could dig them up each day! Another (who proved to be an even greater attraction than we were for nearly 10 minutes) loudly issued dire warnings about crossing ley lines and prophesied wrath and doom from the Druids if they found out what we were doing. One lady cut us all down to size as, after a brief look over the fence, she remarked dismissively to her husband: “Oh, those silly people are back – they never find any­thing; you know. THEY’VE BEEN HERE FOR YEARS AND THEY’RE STILL LOOKING

More seriously – talking to the public is a pleasure and the interest displayed by people is gratifying. But more volunteers are needed to help with the explanations – perhaps members who

could offer one morning or afternoon per week during the season.Sheila Woodward will be happy to update anyone who feels he or she could help in this way – contact her on 952 _3897.

DIG IN COPTHALL FIELDS

PADDY MUSGROVE comments on a Greater London Archaeological

Service project,

Having learned at the November HADAS meeting that the GLAS was that week excavating at Copthall Fields, Rosalind Batchelor and I went there on Friday November 9. We first visited the area close to the eastern boundary where in the 1960s HADAS uncovered sections of a Roman Road, as we understood that this was the features that interested the excavators.

There was no sign of any activity there, but eventually we located a site many hundreds of yards to the west of the line of the Roman road where a large area of grass close to the stadium had been churned into a sea of mud by heavy equipment of some sort. A borough employee working nearby remarked that the diggers “had found nothing except that the ground was too wet” and so they had gone away.

I write for the benefit of any other HADAS members who have been

unsuccessfully searching Copthall Fields for signs archaeological

In the light of Paddy’s report, BRIGID GRAFTON GREEN adds:

The GLAS is the professional body-(described by Ted Sammes in the June 1983 HADAS Newsletter) set up by the GLC to do rescue arch­aeology in the outer London boroughs. It came into being on April 1 1983, since when it has been keeping an eye on some sites in our borough. This is, we believe, the first dig that the GLAS hsmounted Barnet: it is certainly the first of which the unit has informed us,

It told us, on October. 31 that it would be digging on Copthall Fields from November 5 to 9 and HADAS members would be welcome to go along. If any members accepted that invitation and we passed it on to as many people possible in the few days’ notice available – it sounds, from Paddy’s description, as if it must have been something of a disappointment.

We shudder slightly at Paddy’s graphic phrase describing the aftermath of the dig it’s a churned-up “sea of mud”, and we hope that the authorities of the London Borough of Barnet appreciated beforehand what was coming to them. Having ourselves spent many years building a friendly and helpful relationship with those same authorities we have a niggling doubt at the back of our minds about whether leaving a “sea of mud” behind is the best way to win friends and influence people.

Later the GLAS confirmed what Paddy had been told their workers had given up the dig because they realised it was hopeless.

THE FOURPENNY PESTS

NELL PENNY’S researches into Poor Law records – on which she is preparing a booklet for Barnet. Libraries service ­have brought to light some verminous facts.

At one time or another English farmers have waged war against beasts and birds which they have seen, or thought they have seen, destroying their crops and attacking their stock. In 1566 an Act of Parliament authorised church wardens of parishes to pay for the slaughter of foxes, polecats, weasels, stoats, otters, hedgehogs, rats, mice, moles; hawks, buzzards, ospreys, jays, ravens and even kingfishers.

Hendon church wardens paid for corpses from 1712 to 1833, save for a handful of years. They began with paying 2s6d for the deaths of “eight hedghoggs” and ended with £ 7s 4d paid for the corpses of 57 hedgehogs and nine polecats, and these two animals were almost the only vermin offered to the church wardens.

Hedgehogs were worth 4d each and so were polecats for most of the time. At the end of the period polecats were valued at 9d each. Hedgehogs were supposed to milk cows in the fields during summer nights, but it is difficult to see what other damage they were thought to do. Nevertheless over two thousand perished for the sake of the fourpences. Polecats, less numerous than hedge­hogs, are carnivores they could have been accused of eating eggs and killing chickens and rabbits.

In 1754 154 hedgehogs and 125 polecats were slaughtered and paid for. It is not possible to be sure who collected the money, -In 1728 A stonecutter employed on parish church repairs got 6s8d for hedgehogs and polecats; but the majority of the hunters must have been day labourers looking for beer money or something extra for their families.

Many labourers would have liked to kill a fox – the 2s6d paid for this animal was a great deal of money in 1732. There were only three such payments made and none after 1750. Perhaps the hunting gentry discouraged the unsportsmanlike shooting of foxes. 1758 saw the most pathetic record – 9d paid for four dozen sparrows.

SUTTON HOC 1984

ANN TREWICK had the chance to dig at Sutton Hoo for several weekends during the early part of this year and for three weeks during her summer holiday. Here, she describes the dig and its aims,

Although I had seen the treasures from the ship burial at the British Museum, I had no idea of the extent of the grave-group. There were originally at least 16 barrows, of which nine may be intact, and moreover there is the possibility of more boat burials, although probably none with the degree of wealth found in mound 1.

However, apart from the grave group, there is also evidence for possible occupation of the site and surrounding area from Neolithic times onwards.

The initial year’s excavations have aimed at mapping the extent of human disturbance in and around the grave-group site.

With this end in view a number of trenches were opened in the fields on the periphery of the site. Mound 2 was also opened, to explore the extent of the excavation carried out by Basil Brown in 1938.

In the field excavations pottery has been found, dating probably from Neolithic to iron Age, Also three skeletons were uncovered, two of which have been removed for dating. It is hoped they may be Saxon. Evidenoe for ditches and palisades has also been found,

Plentiful amounts of burnt flint/stone occurred in several trenches and there was also some evidence for hearths. Some beautiful arrowheads have turned up as well as worked flint and flint flakes. Much work still remains to be done on the finds and on dating, before a picture of the Sequence of events can be built up.

I spent a lot of my time in an anti-glider ditch, excavated right across the site during the last war (how COULD they do it). It was a trench 100m in length – on a misty day I could hardly see the other end. Quite a contrast to the one-metre-square trenches of West Heath this year.

A lot of time has been spent trying to sort out changes of colour in the extremely sandy soil and to interpret these. Most of the changes in the anti-glider ditch seemed to me to be due to rabbit action and bracken root disturbances. The bracken has caused quite severe problems of soil disturbance with its probing roots and is giving much cause for concern on a site that is supposed to be protected. Within days of being mown down the young shoots were raising their heads again,

Another very interesting sight was ploughmarks nearly half a metre below modern ground surface in one trench. They were so clear they could be excavated like a series of very shallow parallel ditches.

Various “bodies” are sponsoring the dig, including the BM, the National Maritime Museum, the Society of Antiquaries, Suffolk County Council, the BBC and the University of Birmingham, whose field archaeological unit is responsible for the excavation, under Martin Carver, the director. I’m most grateful to him for letting me have the chance to dig on such a fascinating site.

The excavation is being regularly reported in the Bulletin of the Sutton Hoc, Society and it is possible to go on to its mailing list (write to the society at Sutton Hoo, Woodbridge, Suffolk),

I really enjoyed working at Sutton Hoo – sometimes in the hot sun in the anti-glider ditch and sometimes among buzzing mosquitoes in a ditch among the pine trees. I hope to do some field walking there during the winter and to take part in the excavations again next year.

n

CLAUDE GRAHAME-WHITE AT HENDON

In July members of HADAS, the Croydon Airport society the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society took part in a combined visit to Hendon Aerodrome. Two American enthusiasts also joined the group and so did DAVID GEORGE of the Manchester Region Industrial Archaeology Society. Mr George has kindly sent this report of the visit.

Much of the aerodrome and factory, founded by aviation pioneer Claude Grahame-White and taken over by the Air Ministry in 1925, is now occupied by the Grahame Park Estate and the RAF Museum.

But the roundabout near the main RAF gate marks the site .of Louis Paulhan’s shed, used by him for the first London to Manchester air race in 1910.

The first building visited was the hotel built in 1917 for VIPs in black and white half-timbered style. This is a three-storey building and now serves as the officers’ mess. Inside is much light oak wood panelling and in the ladies’ lounge are timber posts, beams and a stone fireplace. The entrance hall exhibits a number of Grahame-White plaques and illustrations of the Fairey Hendon night bomber, etc.

Also surviving are the gates, gatekeeper’s house and 1915 company office with portico and roundels plus G,W. insignia. Of the factory – perhaps one of the earliest purpose-built aeroplane. works extant – about eight single-storey workshops remain. They have slate and glass roofs, partly fabric covered, and were the woodwork, dope and fabric shops.

In front of the works blocks overlooking what remains of the aerodrome and hangars is the original control tower and flight office. These are faced in pebble dash but not as yet listed buildings. Below the tower there is an upper balcony or roof grandstand. —Inside is Grahame-White’s observation lounge with the monogram C.G.W. in iron letters above the fireplace. French windows open out to a covered balcony with balustrade used by distinguished visitors at the air pageants.

Another important survival though somewhat derelict, is the tall four-bay corrugated iron assembly hangar with admin. offices at the end opposite the doors and an internal balcony giving access to further rooms/offices, on which is painted THE GRAHAME-WHITE COMPANY LIMITED in large white letters. At the opposite end is an extension supported by a four-section Belfast roof truss part resting on and part bracketed to the side walls. Of the former flying school sheds or their later replacements on the same line as the hangar six bays split in two halves, painted green, exist.

From 1930, the RAF added new stores, a barrack block, etc, in Georgian brink style. Grahame-White’s buildings were used as part of an operational air base up to the 1950s, but it is believed they are all now to be surrendered and would become available as possible extensions to the RAF Museum

POSTSCRIPT: HADAS member PAUL WERNICK, who took part in the visit, has kindly donated an excellent set of slides of the old and not­ so-old buildings to the society. Bill Firth hopes to have a chance to show them to members – possibly after an AGM. Thank you very much, Mr Wernick.

London Centre of Communication

LAMAS held its 19th local History Conference at the Museum of London on November 17.The theme was the history of transport and communications in the capital, and it was taken up by the speakers and in the displays put on, by many local societies.

Michael Robbins set the scene with a comprehensive survey of sources for the study of every aspect of transport history. After lunch specialist lectures covered civil aviation (by Douglas

Clue of the Croydon Airport Society) transport in medieval
London (John Clarke, one of the Museum of London’s leading medievalists) and the 18th-19th century port of London (Chris Ellmers also from the museum).

Many thanks to VICTOR JONES and BILL FIRTH who manned the HADAS stand and were respectively responsible for book sales and for mounting a display about Hendon Aerodrome, One forthcoming event publicised at that conference vies a Historical Association forum on the subject of Archive Services in Danger, to be held on Saturday December 8 at the Historical Association headquarters, 59a Kennington Park Road, SEll.

“The proposed abolition of the GLC and the metropolitan county councils threatens the archive services of these authorities,” says the association. “The Greater London Record Office over the years has developed a comprehensive service for London as a whole. Since 1974 the metropolitan county archive services have been involved in the rescue and conservation of records of historical significances. Some of these services too are developing work with schools and local history societies and pioneering exciting computer projects relating to records management and the improvement of information services for users.” All this is now at risk.

The forum (a £4 ticket, obtainable from the HA, includes the cost of lunch and tea) begins at ll.l5am and ends about 4pm. Speakers will outline the present work of the threatened archive services and will answer questions, then representatives of the archive users will have their say, and a general discussion will follow. It should be a lively occasion.

SITES TO WATCH

Planning application lists for the last five weeks don’t contain details of any new sites which look as if they might be of any archaeological interest although one or two sites that have already been mentioned in past Newsletters crop up again with amended or more detailed information.

However, planning approval has been given recently for development on several sites which we had noted at the application stage. This means work may start fairly soon, so if you notice signs of activity please let either John Enderby (203 2630) or Christine Arnott (455 2751) know. The approved sites are:

Elizabeth Allen School site, Wood Street, Barnet: 20 two-person almshouses

Land adjoining 4 Parsons Crescent, Edgware: detached house

4 Farrington Cottages, Moon Lane, Barnet: semi-detached house

Land at Glengall Road, opposite Cramer Road, Edgware: primary school

Old Fold Manor, Old Fold Lane, Hadley: clubhouse, landscaping, etc.

LAST OF THE LINE…

BILL FIRTH provides some industrial archaeology news flashes.

An item in a recent planning application list is: Cricklewood Station – erection of a new ticket office to replace existing.” Replacement is presumably a planner’s euphemism for demolition. It means that a rather charming little building – and the last significant Midland Railway building in the borough will be disappearing. At least HADAS has a good photographic record of this site.

Another planning application mentions the-redevelopment of Carlton Forge on the Edgware Road. This is all that remains of the locomotive depot serving Brent Yard, where the engines from the coal trains dealt with in the yard were maintained. At present, “redevelopment” suggests that this building will remain’. .again, HADAS has a good photographic record.

As many members in the south west of the borough will know, there was a seriousfire on the Cricklewood Trading Estate at the end of August. One of the early Handley-Page factories was destroyed. Fire is an ever-present hazard to our monuments (not only industrial ones, of course). One of the famous aviation hangars at Croydon was lost by fire earlier this year.

NEIGHBOURLY NEWS

Now on show at Burgh House, New End Square, Hampstead, is a collection of the latest items to be donated to the Hampstead Museum, run by Christopher and Diana Wade. The exhibits include a map of Hampstead a century ago, showing the improvements planned to link Fitzjohn’s Avenue to the High Street, and another dating from the 1930s drawn on his return home by an Australian visitor. There are also lots of photographs, paintings and other memorabilia. The exhibition continues until December 21 and Burgh. House is open from noon to 5pm, Wednesday to Sunday.

BY NO MEANS INACTIVE

TED SAMMES, from distant Maidenhead, reports on his current activities.

People often ask me what else I am doing nowadays in addition to being chairman of the Maidenhead & District Archaeological & Historical Society (which I find to be an active, almost full-time job).

In recent months I have been working with the Boxmoor (Herts) Residents Association. The group was celebrating its 21st anniversary this year and among the many items in a display at St John’s Hall, Boxmoor, were copies of about 60 photographs of people and places in the area taken by my late father during the years 1900-1915.

I was amazed at the interest expressed by people-attending the exhibition, held on Saturday October 20. Jeremy Clynes drove me down to the place where I lived until my parents moved back to Hendon in December 1931. I suspect that as a result of this interest a lot more will evolve, probably in the shape of a joint publication.

And, on another subject, Ted continues: When, earlier this year, Philip Venning became the secretary of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings I was in the throes of preparing a talk on wind and watermills. On talking to him it seemed wise to join that section of the society which specialised in such things.

To date I can say that I have found it very useful and when on November 17 I attended a day meeting on watermills at Holborn Library I was very pleased with the range of subjects.. They ranged from a talk on the Norfolk Windmills Trust, which also looks after watermills in that area, to the Chilworth Gunpowder Mills – This latter subject is very topical because of the work being undertaken by Phil Philo, of Gunnersbury Museum, on the Hounslow area mills. Some members also gave short talks, the day ending with a talk on the restoration of Crowdy Mill; Devon, by Martin Watts,

HOW ABOUT A BOOK FOR CHRISTMAS?

Autumn is a peak publishing time so that bookshops can catch the Christmas trade. Here are details of just two recent publications which might help with Christmas present problems;

Post-medieval Pottery 1650-1800 The latest in the Shire Archaeology-series, by Jo Draper. The book covers a wide field: there are chapters on local and fine earthenwares, on slipware, Delft and stoneware and on cream ware and porcelain, as well as a further-reading list and a note on museums which have good collections. It is plentifully illustrated with photographs and costs £1.95 – and don’t forget you can buy this and other Shire publications through HADAS: send your order to Joyce Slatter, 5 Sentinel House, Sentinel Square, NW4 2EN, with an extra 25p for postage.

The Royal Palaces of Enfield By Ian K. Jones and Ivy W. Drayton,

this is Research Report No 4 of the Enfield Archaeological Society and costs £3.50, plus 50p postage and packing, from Geoffrey Gillam, 23 Merton Road, Enfield.

Enfield rejoiced in two royal palaces, Elsyng Palace (demolished in the 17th century), which stood near Forty Hall, and Enfield Palace, opposite Enfield town market place and demolished in 1937-38.

Elsyng was largely rebuilt in brick in the 15th century on the site of an earlier timber-framed building. It was here that Lambert Simnel – one of several unsuccessful pretenders to Henry VII’s throne- ended his days as a servant – He had once been “crowned” in Dublin as Edward VI. Here, too, the real Edward VI heard the news of his accession to his father’s,throne, and his sister Elizabeth lived for a while as a girl.

The site was excavated in the 1960s by the Enfield Archaeological Society and much documentary work has been done by the Edmonton Hundred Historical Society. The results of both pieces of research are included.

Queen Elizabeth I lived at Enfield Palace also for a while before her succession – it was for her that the already ancient manor house was substantially rebuilt.

This booklet of 62 A4-size pages is beautifully produced by Alan Sutton Publishing and is illustrated with maps, line reproductions and photographs.

Newsletter-165-November-1984

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NEWSLETTER 165: November. 1984. Programme News.

Tuesday November 6th, Industrial Archaeology of London Docklands. Dr.R J.M.Carr.

The Port of London has always been of great importance in the history of Great Britain and the Empire. To-day many Docks are closed and the future of others is uncertain. Large areas are under development and in the last few years much evidence of the Port’s history and Archaeology has disappeared or remains at risk. In the early 80’s a Docklands History Group was formed and Dr. Carr was appointed Dockland History Survey Officer. The Survey is supported by various groups including the National Maritime Museum and the Museum of London.

Dr. Carr is a very active Member of the Greater London Industrial Archaeological Society – in fact a lady Member of that Society has ‘phoned from Acton to say she has heard about our November lecture, and having heard it before, was so enthralled she wants to know where it is to be held so she can come and hear it again.

Saturday December lst. Christmas Party. “An Arabian Night” at The Meritage Club, Hendon. N.W.4.

See separate insert for particulars and send in your application for tickets as soon as possible.

Tuesday January 8th. The Building of Regents Park – (3rd in the series) Dr.Ann Saunders.

MINIMART. – We’ve done it again – takings have reached the staggering figure of £825 and are still creeping up. Really sincere thanks must go to our many various generous Members who bake cakes and send in such good saleable items for us to sell, and for giving their whole-hearted support on the day, both by manning the stalls and coming to buy. Tessa Smith would specially like to thank the cooks who so kindly provided quiches for the Ploughmans’ Lunches.

The quality of our goods is coming over to the public and of the 200 odd who attended the event, a very large proportion were non-Members, and this is one of our aims – to raise money from outside the Society, as well as enjoy it as a social gathering ourselves.

THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD short courses

The University of Oxford External Studies Department are offering two very interesting short courses, one on Medieval Moated Sites (14th – 16th December) and the other on the re-use or monastic buildings after the Dissolution. This is from 18th – 20th of January. Each offers a range of lectures, drawing on evidence from other regions (one on Lincoln’s use of monastic buildings by David Stocker) and at least one field visit.

Details from: The Archaeology/Local History Course Secretary, Oxford University Department for External Studies, 3-7, Wellington Square, Oxford. OX1 2JA.

FIRST AUTUMN LECTURE. OCTOBER. 1st. 1984.

No one who was privileged to take part in the epic HADAS trip to the Orkneys in 1978 will ever forget the visit to the cliff-top grave site at Isbister; leaving the coach some distance away, we pilgrims plodded along farm tracks of ever – decreasing quality until finally, having trekked over smooth untouched turf, we came to the very edge of the sea.

There the waves glittered under the sun, while the colour of the water deepened from turquoise to a dark steely blue; a few seals sunned themselves on the narrow rocky shore, and – directly beneath our feet, it seemed – the sea-gulls swooped and screeched. “We’re facing the Westward Ocean, where lie the Isles of the Blest, and the sunset where the spirits of the dead deport” breathed one poetically-minded Member, as

we gazed out over the Infinite………………………. On Tuesday night we learned that the cliff in
fact faces South, towards the mainland of Scotland. But let it pass….

This was but one detail in the fascinating and complex account given authoritatively by our Lecturer, John Hedges, who has studied and evaluated the site in great detail (and moreover was our very helpful guide when we visited it), having been entrusted with this task by the owner of the site, a local farmer who had himself done much of the digging.

In its final stages some 4,400 years ago a ‘horned’ tomb with wide stone-built arms embracing a large open area (for ceremonies?), the site had started ca.3,200 B.C., as one small cell, later extended into an elongated ‘stall’ tomb (so called because of the huge stone slabs partitioning it rather like cow-stalls in a dairy); other small cell-like additions had been made branching off this central passage; and then, after an active life of some eight hundred years, the whole complex had been deliberately and carefully filled-in, presumably closed down and abandoned. No one will ever know why; nor will we ever know whether a small cist, inserted hundreds of years later and containing a mere three or four burials, was built here by mere coincidence.

Than principal deposits yielded some 13,000 human bones, most of them skulls and large bones which an expert in Sheffield was able to allocate to 342 distict individuals. As Mr. Hedges stressed repeatedly, these were people, whose remains allowed us to speculate about their life-style, health and religious beliefs.

Isbister people had to struggle for their living: in fact many leg-bones showed changes which could be due to the over-development of specialised muscles such as had to be used in cliff-climbing (in search of ‘sea-birds’ eggs and young to eat); many of the women’s skulls were flattened and rounded as though deformed by the pressure of carrying many heavy loads.

Minor but interesting variations in bone structures, e.g., big toes, cervical vertebrae and sacral bones promised material for the study of genetic variations in localised populations.

Both men and woman had bad teeth, grossly worn down by the sand and grit left in their food, or introduced while grinding grain; but caries, which plagues us so much to-day, was not present. On the other hand, there was much evidence of impacted wisdom teeth and long-standing dental abscesses which must have caused life-long pain.

No injuries due to violence were found in any of the bones; but where bones had broken in accidents and subsequently healed, osteo-arthritis, which plagued these people anyway, had struck with particular fierceness.

Because so few of the smaller bones were found in the tomb, Mr. Hedges argued very cogently that dead persons were first “excarnated” (cleaned of flesh by exposure to the elements and wild animals) and then at some appointed season brought into the tomb together with sacrifices (good joints of prime meat, whole small fish, charred grain and deliberately broken pots had all been found); and finally, perhaps when the identity of the dead had been completely forgotten with the passage of time, the ancestral remains were moved away from the centre and laid on the shelves of the ossuary-type cells branching off the ends of the complex.

One very interesting point was that large numbers of bones and claws of White-tailed Sea Eagles had been found with other deposits, even “foundation sacrifice” under the large slab floor of the very first to be built. From this discovery Mr Hedges deduced that these eagles (for long extinct on Orkney, but now staging a tentative come-back) may have been the tribal symbol of the people who built this tomb complex and lived in the surrounding area. Similar concentrations elsewhere, but of different animals (in one case, no less than two dozen sets of Red Deer antlers) might indicate different totems for different tribal groups.

Further calculations, of the man-hours thought to be needed to construct tombs for any given size or complexity, and their distribution over the area of the Orkneys, had led Mr. Hedges to speculate about the relationship of small tribal groups with neighbouring, possibly larger and more powerful units; a theory finding some support in the fact that the largest and most complex tombs on Orkney are each at the centre of an area dotted with smaller sites.

Touching briefly on the problem of population control (via abortion and infanticide) Mr. Hedges indicated that though the life of Orkney Man was nasty, brutish and short by modern-day standards (hardly any males surviving to age 45), that of Orkney Woman was considerably shorter and probably infinitely more disagreeable.

The demographic conclusions reached (via some fearsome-looking graphs) were challenged, at Question Time, by Mr. Andrew Selkirk, to whose pointed remarks Mr Hedges replied with grace and humour.

A book on the site (“Tomb of the Eagles” by John W. Hedges) has been published and is available at just under £13. Everyone – whether present at this most enjoyable talk or not – will undoubtedly find it of considerable interest. Our Librarian, June Porges, joined the queue to buy a copy for the HADAS Library and was delighted to find it inscribed :For the HADAS Library, in remembrance of splendid field trip of 1978.

COMMITTEE. CORNER.

The Committee met in mid-October after a longer interval than usual, due to holidays. Among the items discussed were:

Life Membership. The August Newsletter mentioned that, at a Member’s suggestion, our Hon. Treasurer was looking into this possibility. After full discussion of pros and cons the Committee decided life-Membership was not a feasible operation.

Subscription Renewals, The Membership Secretary reported that 63 Members have not yet renewed nor have they informed her of resignation; no further Newsletters will therefore be sent to them. Nine new Members have joined in the last. month.

The Society will celebrate its Silver Jubilee in 1986 end suggestions for commemorating this event are under consideration.

HADAS has been invited to comment on the latest Borough Topic Study – on Transportation.

Newsletter arrangements. We have now said farewell – with great regret and much gratitude for her past work – to Irene Frauchiger as Production manager of the newsletter. The October issue was her final fling. The new production arrangements (which will bring you this November issue) were summarised for the Committee: Dorothy Newbury has found a home for the duplicator at the Hillary Press. Christopher Newbury kindly organised the transport of the machine and paper stocks from Edgware to Hendon. Edgar Lewy nobly offered to Roll-off each month; Eileen Howarth and Nell Penny between them will collate pages, stuff envelopes and stamp and post them. Enid Hill who has for many months organized envelope-addressing and keeping the mailing list up-dated will continue with that excellent work. You will realize from all this that- as usually happens in a HADAS crisis – we have had excellent and immediate response from Members prepared to help and we thank all of them most warmly, as we are sure you will also wish to do: it is due to them – and also Isabel McPherson and Joan Wrigley, who are respectively editing and typing this issue – that you have a November newsletter to read.

Steps are being taken to make sure that HADAS poster are still on display in such places as the public libraries of the Borough. Suggestions for busy indoor sites where a poster could be permanently displayed will be welcomed: if one please tell one of the Society’s Officers.

The LAMAS Local History Conference will take place at the Museum of London on Saturday November 17th (11a.m. – 5:30p.m.). The theme as we mentioned in the last Newsletter, will be transport. The Committee discussed HADAS’s arrangements to organise a display and bookstall.

ADDITIONS TO THE LIBRARY.

It is many months since we had a list of additions to the Library list, but I hope it may become a regular feature of the Newsletter again. The books listed here have been generously contributed by many Members including Mrs. I. Worby, Miss V Sheldon, Eric Wookey, Philip Venning and Sheila Woodward, and some purchased by the

Society. If any Member would like to borrow a book please ring me on 346-5078
(evenings) or come to Avenue House on Wednesday 31st October between 8 and 9 p.m.

JUNE .PORGES.

Whiting J E Golders Hill, Hampstead. 1909.

Ancient Monuments Board for England. Committee for Rescue Archaeology. Principles of publication in rescue archaeology. 1975,

Farquhar. J.V.C. The Saxon Cathedral and Priory Church of St. Andrew, Hexham. 1935.

Goddard. L. Coalhole rubbings: the story of an artifact of our streets. 1979.

Clough. T.H. Mc. and Cummins, W. A. Eds. :Stone axe studies; Archaeological,

Petrological, experimental and ethnographic (CBA research report No.30.) 1979.

Lyne, M.A.B. and Jeffries, R.S. The Alice Holt/Farnham Roman pottery industry (CBA research report No.30.) 1979.

Wymer, J. The Palaeolithic age 1982.

Fairservis. W.A. The script of the Indus Valley civilization. (Scientific American)

Barnett. J. Prehistoric Cornwall; a field guide to and analysis of Cornish stone circles, chambered tombs, barrows, standing stones and other ancient monuments 1982.

Romer. J. Romer’s Egypt; a new light on the civilization of ancient Egypt. 1982.

Milne. G. and C. Medieval waterfront development at Trig Lane London: an account of the excavations at Trig Lane 1974-6 and related research (LAMAS special paper No.5.)

Gordon. C.H. Forgotten scripts: their ongoing discovery and decipherment 1982.

Savory. H.N. Spain and Portugal: the prehistory of the Iberian Peninsula 1968.

St. Clair. W. Lord Elgin and the marbles 1983.
Fowler. P.J. The farming of Prehistoric Britain 1983.

Wardman. A. Religion and Statecraft among the Romans. 1982.

Lloyd. S. Foundations in the dust: the story of Mesopotamian exploration 1980 (revised edition.)

Snowden. F.M. Before color prejudice 1983.

MacGregor. P. Odiham Castle 1200 – 1500: castle end community 1983.

,Nriagu. J.O. Lead and lead poisoning in antiquity. 1983.

Grayson. D.K. The establishment of human antiquity 1983.

Speth. J.D. Bison kills and bone counts; decision making by ancient hunters 1983.

Brennan. M. The stars and the stones. ancient art and astronomy in Ireland. 1983,

Gregory. K.J. Ed. Background to palaeohydrology: a prespective 1983.

Carter. H.. An introduction to urban historical geography. 1983.

SITES FOR WATCHING.

Here is this month’s list of sites which might be of some Archaeological interest if the applications for their quite extensive development are approved:

Land rear of 23/25 Hankins Land NW7. Land bounded by Stafford Rd/Stapylton/ Carnarvon Rd. Chipping Barnet plans for 4 detached houses, road, etc. library carpark and access.

67 Hadley Highstone Barnet plans for a detached house garage, access

If: any Member notices building activity on these sites, please notify either Christine Arnott (455-2751) or John .Enderby (203-2630.)

LISTED BUILDINGS.

The Borough Planning Officer has recently sent us a monitoring report on how events in the last three years have affected the Council’s Environment Topic Study.

Topic Studies (they cover a number of subjects such as Housing, Transport, etc.) provide guidelines for the Council in its conduct of the Borough’s affairs until such time as an overall Borough Development Plan covering every aspect is produced. The first Environment Topic Study came out (after consultation with many interested bodies, including HADAS) in July 1981, and this monitoring report says, in effect, how the original guidelines are working.

The paragraph on Listed buildings is of interest

Listed. Buildings

“The revised Statutory List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic interest was confirmed by the Secretary of state for the Environment in April 1983 and this produced a major increase in the number of Listed buildings in the Borough, Ten buildings were ‘spot-listed’ during the monitoring period by the Department of the Environment and several additional buildings accepted for inclusion in the revised list. No Listed buildings were demolished between July 1981 and July 1983. Grants were made for the restoration of Lawrence Campe Almshouses, by the Heritage of London Trust to which the Council is affiliated, and for repairs to St. John the Baptist Church, Chipping Barnet. Further consideration is being given to the desirability of setting up a Building Preservation Trust to promote the repair and restoration of Listed buildings in the Borough.”

Two other items from the monitoring report are worth recording. First a pamphlet “dealing with the general heritage of the Borough and outlining the history and pattern of its development” is, being prepared. Secondly, in association with local societies the Council is in the course of producing a leaflet on ecology. These are two publications which will be worth looking out for.

PEOPLE IN THE NEWS

HELEN GORDON and her husband, long-time Members of HADAS (Helen first joined in

1971, and is one of our now many Diploma. holders) have recently moved from their Hendon

house. Their new address is 1, North End Road, NW3 – right on the Hampstead/Hendon border. Helen is leader of the Society’s Roman Group, and Members may like to have her new telephone Number: 458-5316.

We would also like to seize this chance of thanking Helen publicly for so kindly allowing HADAS to store equipment for many years in her garage at Hendon. She bore most patiently with a horrible assortment of unshapely and unlovely objects – such as our wheelbarrows.

COLIN EVANS is another long-time Member – he and his late wife, Ann, who died tragically young in 1980, first joined in 1972. The Society has not seen much of Colin lately, as he has been living in France, but he has kept in touch by letter. He married again last January, a French girl: and now reports, with great joy, the birth of his daughter Vanessa Caroline Ann. Congratulations to Colin and Josyan and best wishes to young Miss Evans.

News comes (via JUNE end HANS FORGES ) of AUDREY HODES, now established as a teacher of English at Hua Qiao University, Quanzhou, Fujian, in the People’s Republic of China. He writes to June and Hans:

“I feel very happy and acclimatised out here. The people couldn’t be kinder or more helpful. My 80 students (3 classes) couldn’t be more delightful – so keen! Have a modern room in the foreign teachers’ guest-house: bed, fridge, bookcase, the all-important tea-cupboard, large balcony with magnificent view of mountains, bathroom and toilet en suite. Food here is totally Chinese – suits me! Only concessions to Western. tastes are warm milk and coffee for breakfast – as you know, Chinese dislike dairy products. Breakfast is at 6:30, lunch 11:30, dinner 5:30.

Lessons are from 7:30 to 11:30, then siesta till 2:30 – total shut-down, nothing moves outside. .Noel Coward got it exactly right in Mad Dogs and Englishmen! More lessons from 2:30 to 4:30. In the evening a popular pastime is ‘let’s visit our English teacher.’ I had 10 students here last night, impromptu. I played them Mozart and Schubert – first time they had really heard Western music. 10.p.m.:campus asleep.

Here are a few historical items I hope you will like. I am looking forward to a stimulating year in China, now that settling in is over and lessons in full swing….”

A ubrey’s thistorical items’ were as interesting as his letter: postcards of a 14c Buddhist temple and a 13c Chinese ship in the Museum of Foreign Trade where, he says regretfully ‘language is a.barrier no Museum staff speak any English. He included a printed leaflet (in English) on the history of Quan Zhou, which

explained the importance of trade:

“This. historic city of renown was built in the early 8th Century … foreign merchants -swarmed here for business and missionaries and travellers shuttled in and out. Their entrances, exits and appearances. in the streets were infestation of the prosperity of the city which had thus become the departure port of the Old Silk road as well as one of the largest seaports of the world in the medieval age,”

The city was renowned also for the temple of Kai Yuan, with its twin pagodas. Of it Aubrey says ‘we watched people worshipping and lighting candles – not only old people, young ones too, hoping for happy marriage blessed by Buddha. Religious freedom guaranteed under new constitution. In courtyard two trees (banyans) said to be 1,000 years old. Huge stone tortoises and lions, wooden dragons on building …. crowds here all day long.’

Bridges, too, are among the sights of Quanzhou – the city is on the estuary of the Jin river. One bridge, the Anping, is said to be so long that it was called ‘There is no bride under the sky that is as long this one.’ Nearby are ancient kilns ‘for burning export porcelain’ and a recently excavated shipwreck. ‘All these’ says the leaflet ‘are seemingly splendid pearls inlaid on the ancient city. Making it all the more attractive… tourists, domestic and foreign, are streaming endlesslyinto this city of envy.’

Before he went out to China Aubrey Hodes promised to send us back some articles for the Newsletter. We hope ho will remember…and that this, therefore is just a fore taste with more to follow.

HADAS POST-BOX.

Newsletter correspondence recently has been pretty varied. Here’s a selection:

From the Curator, Church Farm House Museum,

It was good to see the Philip Temple article on Hendon Churchyard reprinted in the Newsletter.

Is it worth mentioning in the next Newsletter that there was some correspondence arising from Temple’s piece printed soon after? A lengthy would-be refutation of the article was followed up by a pretty convincing – and quite amusing re-statement of the case by Temple himself. The relevant details are Times Literary Supplement December 2nd, 1983. p.1347 and TLS Dec 9th 1983 p. 1216. The TLS for 1983 is available on microfilm at the Central Library at Hendon.

Best wishes,

GERRARD ROOTS.

From HADAS Member Eugene Loeb.

One wouldn’t think to look for Archaeology in a Supermarket, but…..

In Tesco’s window in Ballard’s Lane is a photo of Broadway, Church End, N.3 at the turn of the Century or thereabouts. Between the 3rd and 4th windows (first floor) of the building just South of what is now the Abbey National Building Society, the

photo shows a sign, LADIES’ HAIRCUTTING AND ….painted on the wall.Prompted by curiosity, I visited the site (5 minutes walk to the South of Tesco’ on the opposite side of the road); and indeed there are faint traces of the painted sign still to be seen there!

With best wishes,

EUGENE LEEB.

From the Bishop of Edmonton

Over the years I have been receiving and reading with pleasure the Newsletter of HADAS. I have much appreciated this and the honour of being Vice-President of your Society. I write now to ask if you will very kindly accept my resignation from this Office as at the end of the year I leave London to become Bishop of Peterborough. It is, as.you know, a City and area rich in History but I must say that I shall miss reading about the findings and research carried out by your Members and I will admit, as I leave, that frequently quotations from your Newsletter find their way both into the files of Parishes and into the occasional sermon of the Bishop!

Thank you for letting me have this so regularly and the honour of your Vice-Presidency.

With all good wishes to the Society in the years ahead.

Yours sincerely,

BILL EMONTON.

As a tailpiece to our paragraphs last month about Ralph Gill, 17c Keeper of the Lions at the Tower, who lived at the Clockhouse, East Barnet, Gillian Gear writes:

At Barnet Museum we hold of a copy of a letter addressed to the Earl of Salisbury (courtesy of the Archivist at Hatfield house) which mentions Mr. Gill in respect of the birth of two lion cubs at the Tower, dated 29th July, 1605. It includes the following:-

‘Mr. Gyll hath hertherto Feede them with rackes off motton and Heenes, and hath procured water in a Cesturne set in the spacious place for them to drincke at, which they contynually use to that purpose, wherein as he hath used his best indevours to preserve them, so will hee omitte noe occasion that maye servo for their good.’

Some of our letters have come from very far afield. One, from the Library of the Church of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City Utah wanted HADAS’s publications. Another, from a young Finnish Archaeological student, asked about coming to England next summer to join a dig. He wrote in the hope that HADAS might be able to offer the opportunity he seeks.

The postmark on the envelope looks like Tunku (or perhaps Turku)

The address was incredibly simple:

Hendon and District Arc Society,

Hon Secretary,

England.

It reached us within a week, going first to N.W.4, and then to the N.W.11 address of our former Secretary. That’s either fame or uncommonly neat footwork by the Post Office or perhaps a bit of both:

Newsletter-164-October-1984

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Newsletter 164: October 1984

SALUTE TO SUMMER PAST

That was a summer that was: a long, warm, pleasant season and one into which, HADAS managed to cram quite a lot.

First, of course, we dug again at West Heath, all day every day for the six weeks of June and July; and then, in slightly less concentrated vein, four days a week for part of August and September.

The season kicked off, back on April 1, with the memorable unveiling of the Grimaldi plaque on Finchley Memorial Hospital by Spike Milligan and sundry other clowns: a zany and never-to-be-forgotten occasion.

In May came a highly enjoyable walk round Hampstead with Christopher Wade, followed later in the summer by three outstanding outings – and this year they were all real vintage stuff – to York (where we got in right at the start of the Jorvik exhibition), to West Stowe and to Repton, finishing off with a smashing weekend in Lincoln (see elsewhere in this Newsletter for a report on that). Sandwiched among those was a local trip of considerable interest – to see the historic installations and layout of Hendon airfield, one of the cradles of flying.

We put up exhibitions at Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute and at Church Farm House Museum (the latter still on view, don’t forget); and lent material for a display at Burgh House, Hampstead; and the Roman Group organised a pottery weekend at the Teahouse.

Meanwhile, in the background, research of various kinds continued; most noteworthy, of course, the final frenetic stages in getting the West Heath (Phase I) report ready and deposited with its sponsoring publisher. Finally (we wouldn’t dare say this ourselves, but as someone else said it for us we pass it on): the Newsletter has continued to appear each month and has kept up to standard. It still brings forth accolades of appreci­ation, recently from as far afield as Australia!

Not a bad HADAS summer, on the whole.

WHAT’S ON IN HADAS

Lectures

Tues Oct 2 Orkney: Isbister ‘The Tomb of the Eagles’ by John Hedges

(for further details, see the September Newsletter)

Tues Nov 6 Industrial Archaeology of London’s Dockland by Robert Carr

Lectures are at Hendon Library, The Burroughs, NW4. Coffee 8 pm, lecture 8.30 pm.

Minimart

Sat Oct 6 at St Mary’s Church House, top of Greyhound Hill, NW4, opposite Church Farm House Museum. 11.30 am-3 pm. Will all members please publicise our only fund-raising event of the year as much as possible and come along themselves, to meet friends old and new, and to buy, eat and chat. There will be books, bric-a-brac, gifts, clothing and home-made food, coffee and an excellent ploughman’s lunch.

Help is needed from strong-arm car owners for transporting goods from Church Road to the hall (only about 100 yards). Ring Dorothy Newbury if you can do a couple of runs between 9-11.30 am. We are a bit short on selling staff too, so anyone who can give a hand please phone Dorothy or Christine Arnott (455 2751). The crucial time is the first hour, from 11.30 to lunchtime.

Last minute contributions of goods can be brought to the lecture on October 2 and poster slips for display on cars or in local shops will also be available then. Contributions of fresh food, savoury or sweet, will be warmly welcomed at the food stall on the day.

WEST HEATH

As the Newsletter goes to press this year’s West Heath dig is drawing to its close. Even if it is not completely finished by September 30 it will not continue for more than a few days into October. ‑

We hope to publish a summary of what has happened this season in a forthcoming Newsletters

NEWS ABOUT PEOPLE

Birthday Greetings this month to our President, Professor W F Grimes who celebrates 79 years on the last day of October. We would all like to wish him very happy, and especially those who enjoyed our 1983 long weekend in Wales, to which he contributed so unforgettably.

A member who journeys far afield at the moment is our ex-Treasurer, JEREMY CLYNES, now off in Zambia on a trip that is part business, part pleasure.

This seems a good place to record the Society’s thanks to ERIC WARD ­one of our top photographers – who went along to the Grimaldi plaque cele­bration last April (despite being hampered by leg trouble) and recorded it splendidly. He has now presented the Society with a set of slides and some Colour enlargements for exhibitions; all prepared at his own expense both will be invaluable, and we are most grateful. We were sorry to learn, when he rang to tell us about this generous gift, that his legs are no better and that he is greatly hindered in movement: a wretched problem for someone who has always been as active as he has.

The Council for British Archaeology is currently compiling a Handbook of Historic Farm Buildings – barns, granaries, cattle houses, stables and dovecotes – built before 1900, plus any related machinery or equipment. We were interested to learn that the compiler is a HADAS member – NIGEL HARVEY, who joined us back in the 1960s and has helped with various Society projects. Farming is, of course, his thing: until he retired a few years ago he was a bulwark of the Ministry of Agriculture; and he published “A History of Farm buildings, of which there is a copy (kindly presented by Mr Harvey) in the HADAS Library.

CONSERVATION NEWS

The Archaeology Section of the UK Institute for Conservation has, over the past 18 months, published three leaflets the start of a series called Conservation Guidelines. Others, we are told, are in the pipeline.

No 1 (four fine-printed octavo pages) deals with the general principles of conserving excavated artefacts, summarising what should be done before, during and after excavation.

No 2 is concerned with the packaging and storage of freshly-excavated artefacts. There are 4 pages covering general principles, documentation and how to deal with individual materials. Various metals are to be kept dry; other artefacts – including glass, low-fired or flaky-glazed ceramic, bone, ivory, amber, jet, shale and painted plaster – should be packed damp. This is because, for instance, mud on glass or silt on painted plaster becomes almost unmovable when dry, and both remain malleable in damp packing. This leaflet also contains a separate graphic chart for the finds hut wall, showing how – and how not – to do it: well worth having, on its own.

No 3 (4 pages) has the title Environmental Standards for the Permanent Storage of Excavated Material. It is divided into Minimum Standards (for temporary storage) and Target Standards (for longer term) and each of these is subdivided into Basic Store and Sensitive Material Store; and sub­divided again as to detail – humidity, temperature, light and particulate pollution (i.e. dust to the uniniated).

Copies of all these are obtainable free from UKIC, The Tate Gallery, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG (send an sae, 9″x6″).

On a wider aspect of conservation – this time of something larger than finds – a new post-graduate diploma, Planning for Conservation, is being launched after Christmas by the Polytechnic of North London. It is described as ‘the first course of its kind,’ and is said to be designed for both amateurs and professionals who are concerned with conserving ancient build­ings or historic landscapes.

It will be a 2-year part-time course, starting January 1985 – one evening a week and occasional day visits and a residential long weekend. Further details from Dr R Millman, Dept of Geography, Polytechnic of North London, Holloway Road, N7.

Some months ago the following article appeared in The Times Literary Supplement. Three HADAS members drew our attention to it, so we asked the Editor of the TLS if we might reprint – And he very kindly replied ‘Do.’ Here, then, by courtesy of the TLS, is:

THE ORIGINS OF DRACULA

By Philip Temple

‘And then …. He took a key from his pocket and held it up. And then we spend the night, you and I, in the churchyard where Lucy lies. This is the key that locks the tomb. I had it from the coffin-man to give to Arthur.’ My heart sank within me, for I felt that there was some fearful ordeal before us. I could do nothing, however, so I plucked up what heart I could and said that we had better hasten, as the afternoon was passing …”

As readers of Dracula – rather than viewers of Dracula films – know some of the tale’s most bizarre action takes place in a churchyard near London. Lucy Westenra, who falls victim to the Count and becomes one of the Un-Dead, is entombed in the family mausoleum at ‘Kingstead.’ By day she sleeps in her coffin: After dusk she preys on small children in the Hampstead neighbourhood. Several such children are found, one of them on “the Shooter’s Hill side of Hampstead Heath each has been bitten in the throat. It is in the Westenra tomb that her fiance Arthur Holmwood –helped by Professor;Van Helsing, Dr.Seward and Quincey P Morris – exorcises her soul by putting a stake through her heart and cutting off her head.

It has generally been thought that Stoker’s model for ‘Kingstead Churchyard’ was Highgate Cemetery but this theory is soon disproved. In the process some interesting light was thrown on Stoker’s sources for the story

Factual accuracy of geography and even train timetables— characterises Dracula , a device which makes the story more credible to the reader. Stoker goes to some lengths to pinpoint Kingstead, and the place he evidently had in mind was Hendon, which lies between Hampstead and Kingsbury, and was still a large village in the 1890s.

Seward and Van Helsing set off about ten from Jack’s Straw’s Castle in Hampstead.“It was then very dark, and the scattered lamps made the darkness greater when we were once again outside their individual radius. The Professor had evidently noted the road we were to ‘go, for he went on unhesitatingly: but as for me, I was in quite a mix-up as to locality. As we went further, we met fewer and fewer people, till at last we were somewhat surprised when we met even the patrol of horse police going their usual suburban round. At last we reached the wall of the churchyard, which we climbed over.”

As Seward refers to, Jack Straw’s Castle and later to the Spaniards Inn familiarly enough, it is obvious that they were not going to Highgate: the road would have taken them past the Spaniard’s, in which case Seward would have known the way. Nor can they have been crossing the Heath to Highgate because there were street lamps on the way. Nor can they have been going to Hampstead churchyard (which does resemble the description of the church­yard at Kingstead): as this would have meant going further into Hampstead village. The inference is that they were going along North End Road, through Golder’s Green and along Brent Street to Hendon parish church. The route was straightforward, once the right direction had been taken at the inn. The area was still largely countryside. Evelyn Waugh, writing of his childhood at North End, described Golders Green as having been ‘a grassy crossroad with a sign pointing to London’, Finchley and Hendon; such a place as where ‘the Woman in White’ was encountered. By the 1890s Hendon was large and growing: 1,400 houses in 1879; 2,636 in 1893, the year in which Dracula is set. It was said in 1894 that Hendon.

‘though within seven miles of St Giles’ Church, retains much of the aspect of an old Middlesex village. An exquisite view is seen from the churchyard …London might be hundreds of miles away, and the village-like church strengthens the illusion.’.

Near the east end of St Mary’s is the tomb of Philip Rundell, who died in 1827. This tomb described by the architect W P Griffith in 1838 ‘as a massive mausoleum constructed of stone’ must have been the model for the Westenra tomb in Dracula. Mausoleums, of course, are rare buildings in churchyards. Although other nearby churchyards contain plenty of vaults, they have no actual mausoleums.

It would have taken only about an hour to reach Hendon from the inn, a ‘distance of about three miles. This fits in well with Stoker’s times, for it was just midnight when Seward and van Helsing, having opened Lucy’s coffin and found it empty, took up their hiding places in the churchyard to await the return of the UnDead.

Despite alterations to the church by Temple Moore in the early twentieth century, the general look of the churchyard is much as it was when -the sculptor and one-time Pre-Raphaelite Thomas Woolner was buried there in 1892: “The graves are sheltered from the blasts by spreading cedars, ancient yews, and lovely evergreen trees. The old church walls are covered ‘with ivy, and there is an avenue of limes arched overhead, from the entrance gates to the south door.” Ivy and lime-trees have gone, but the village churchyard character remains. Even in Stoker’s day it was something of a survival. There were large buildings overlooking the churchyard, which was hardly the remote place described in Dracula:

“Lucy lies in the tomb of her kin, a lordly death-house in a lonely churchyard, away from teeming London; where the air is fresh, and the sun rises over Hampstead Hill, and where wild flowers grow of their own accord.”

Incidentally, the sun as seen from the churchyard does rise over .Hampstead. This would not be the case with Highgate Cemetery, which lies east of Hampstead.

Stoker may well have had some link with Hendon, perhaps through, Woolner who had lived at St Peter’s Ouvroir in Brent Street. Stoker knew Rossetti, and lived near him in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. Sir Hall Caine, who was, after Sir Henry Irving, probably Stoker’s closest associate, was one of Rossetti’s closest friends, and his companion until Rossetti died in 1882. It has been credibly suggested that Caine may have written the final draft of Dracula for Stoker. There may well have been a closer link with Hendon: the Hendon & Finchley Times reported as local news in 1893 the publication of a souvenir booklet to mark Henry Irving’s revival of King Lear at the Lyceum where Stoker was manager. At all events, Hendon was a convenient location for ‘Kingstead.’ But something happened at the churchyard in 1828 which may well have been Stoker’s inspiration for the exorcism in the first place, which he then fitted into the story and turned into a classic piece of vampire horror:

“Arthur took the stake and hammer, and when once his mind was set on action his hands never trembled or even quivered. Van Helsing opened his missal and began to read, and Quincey and I followed as well as we could Arthur placed the point over the heart, and as I looked I could see its dint in the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might. The Thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, blood-curdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed to­gether till the lips were cut and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. But Arthur never faltered. He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake, whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it. His face was, set, and high duty seemed to shine through it; .the sight of it gave courage so that our voices seemed to ring through the little vault.”

The first part of the exorcism over, Lucy’s head was severed and the mouth stuffed with garlic,

In November 1828 a man called Holm of an old Hendon family asked the vicar’s permission to open a vault in the churchyard of St Mary’s. His son, a Medical student, wanted to collect up bones in the vault. Eventually the vicar agreed to allow the vault to be opened for just an hour the next morning. The coffins, he said, were not to be tampered with. But at 7.30 in the morning a local saw three men in the vault. One of them – ­the medical student Henry Holm – pulled the shroud off a body, then cut off the head which he put into a bag. The body was his mother’s: she had died about twenty years before. Holm and his companions – the sexton’s son and a man called Wood. – were found guilty of breaking open the vault and sever­ing a head from one of the bodies ‘to the outrage of public decency’. Because their purpose was allegedly scientific – Holm wanted to carry out a phrenological examination with a view to tracing a hereditary disorder – they got off fairly leniently. Holm was fined £50, the others £5 each. The vault in question was near the Rundell mausoleum, and the inscription can still be read. Henry Haley Holm died at 39 in 1846, his mother Hannah Maria died at 36 in 1809.

Did Stoker know this story? The chances are that he did. It was pub­lished as an item of interest in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper 1892. On the same page was a long ‘rave’ review, with illustrations, of Irving’s pro­duction of King Lear at the Lyceum. The play ‘evoked one of the heartiest and most spontaneous demonstrations of unalloyed satisfaction ever heard within the walls of the Lyceum’. As Irving’s manager, Stoker would almost certainly have seen the review and therefore no doubt the Hendon story. This would explain not only the name Holmwood, but why the churchyard at Kingstead figures in the novel at all. The similarity of the factual and fictional events is obvious. In one case a son cuts his mother’s head off, to trace an hereditary disorder, in the other a man helps to cut off his fiancee’s head to cure another disorder. In fact, Stoker puts far more emphasis on cutting off the head than on the staking of the body, although the staking is the thing most people remember:

“‘Good God!’ he cried. What do you mean? Has there been any mistake? Has she been buried alive?’ He groaned in anguish that not even hope could soften.

‘I did not say she was alive, my child; I did not think it. I go no further than to say that she might be Un-Dead.’

‘Un-Dead! Not alive! What do you mean? Is this all a nightmare, or what is it?’

‘There are mysteries which men can only guess at, which age by age they may solve only in part. Believe me, we are now on the verge of one.

But I have not done. May I cut off the head of dead Miss Lucy?'”

A final curious point concerns the child found on the ‘Shooter’s Hill side’ of Hampstead Heath. Shooter’s Hill, of course, is miles away from Hampstead across the Thames. Surely what was intended was the ‘Shoot-up Hill side.’ ‘Shoot-up Hill is the stretch of the Edgware Road going north from Kilburn, just to the west of Hampstead. In the 1890s the fringes of the Heath extended almost to this point, certainly as far as West Hampstead and the Hampstead Cemetery at Fortune Green. It was therefore in this area that the child was found. This reinforces the idea that Lucy Westenra was entombed up the road in Hendon. But it also seems to be a reference to Wilkie Collins’s novel “The Woman in White” Stoker was clearly influenced by the book, particularly in his use of letters and diary extracts to form the narrative. There are other interesting similarities: the stories both involve private asylums, for instance (they also have villains known as ‘the Count’). It was on the Shoot-up Hill side of Hampstead that Walter Hartright first met the Woman in White. Stoker must have known this, and Lucy would, of course, have been dressed in white grave clothes. The link must have been in his mind.

Even without final proof it seems likely that part of the inspiration for Dracula came not only from books and tales from Transylvania, which have always been known as its sources, but from something that happened in Hendon churchyard in 1828.

Note: the TLS published the article in its issue of November 4, 1983.

Perhaps it is as well that by then the HADAS project of recording the inscriptions in Hendon churchyard had been completed. Otherwise we might have found volunteer recorders rather thin on the ground, specially towards dusk! With the tale of Henry Holm (not to mention Lucy Westenra) Hendon churchyard in the gloaming takes on a certain creepiness.

FRIEZE ON THE TALLY-HO GAUMONT

Last month’s Newsletter mentioned that the Borough Planning Officer had been asked to ensure that the frieze on the soon-to-be-demolished Gaumont at Tally-Ho would be preserved. Subsequently HADAS member BILL FIRTH sent us this note:

With reference to the fate of the frieze on the Gaumont, it seems that there have been a number of different approaches on this. The August 1984 GLIAS Newsletter carries an item indicating that Markheath Securities PLC (the company proposing development) are intending to remove the frieze carefully for re-use on one of the new cinemas in the proposed development.

Another member rang to ask us ‘what the frieze portrayed; it is an Art Deco stone mural in low-relief, and it shows the cinema arts: about nine or ten figures, from the waist up, filming, producing and acting, with lights, cameras and other equipment.

We also had a follow-up to last month’s article on Elias Ashmole’s links with the Borough of Barnet. This came from Gillian Gear, co-author of the booklet East Barnet Village, published in 1980.

She rang to say that the Keeper of Lions at the Tower in the mid-17c, Ralph Gill, had actually lived in East Barnet, at a house called the Clockhouse. Gill’s daughter married Mr Green, who in 1639 owned Mount Pleasant, the house at which Ashmole had stayed in East Barnet four years earlier. No doubt Mr Green and Miss Gill met because they were such near neighbours.

‘The Clockhouse stood close to what is now the junction of Churchill. Road, Cat Hill and East Barnet Road (TQ 2720 9535), where there is today a small shopping parade called Clockhouse Parade. The clock tower above. the present shops once stood on the Clockhouse – it shows in an early photo of the house reproduced in Mrs Gear’s booklet.

The Clockhouse, built in the reign of Henry VIII by Thomas Dudman, appears to have been divided into two houses round the mid-1830s, and one part was then called Arlington Towers. It was finally demolished about 1925, when a builder from Golders Green called Percy (whether this was his first or second name is unclear) built the shopping parade.

One question which sticks in the mind is why someone holding the office of Keeper of the Queen’s Lions lived as far away from the Tower as East Barnet. He might perhaps have been expected to live over the shop, as it were, so that if one of his charges got fractious he was at hand. Maybe this office had become, in the 1630s, a sinecure? Perhaps some HADAS member knowledgable about the Tower can enlighten us?

SITES TO WATCH

Applications for development approval which might be of some archaeo­logical interest have slowed down in the last month or so. These are two of possible interest:

Land at Rookery Way, rear of properties in industrial units,

Rookery Close, NW9 vehicle access etc.

Part of W.Hendon hospital site, Fryent erection of primary

Grove, NW9 school (outline)

(Both the above are near enough to the line of Watling St to be worth looking at)

Should you be passing and notice signs of activity on either site, please let Christine Arnott (455 2751) or John Enderby (203 2630) know.

Recent applications for changes to Listed buildings include:

‘Alterations (internal and external) and a new porch at Garden Hill and its adjacent ‘cottage’ (formerly the stable block) in Totteridge Village. The house is dated c 1730, built of pink brick with a slate mansard roof. It has a panelled hall with a carved overmantel and a stair case with barley-sugar bannisters, both features contemporary with the original house.

At Lawrence Campe Almshouses in Friern Barnet Lane, one .of the oldest buildings in the Borough, improvements and restoration have been going on for some years, and are continuing. Latest plan is for amended alterations to interiors and to the rear elevation. Most members will doubtless know this fine row of seven 2-storey red brick cottages facing the North Middlesex golf course, originally built about 1612 and renovated in 1843 and 1899. They have casement windows with stone mullions, Tudor arch doorways and an interesting line of stone plaques at first-floor level. The Heritage of London Trust – a charitable organisation set up a little while ago with GLA encouragement ‘to conserve and enhance Greater London’s architecturally significant buildings’ – made a contribution of £15,000 towards, in particular, halting and repairing the erosion of -the stone and brickwork.

WHAT’S ON ELSEWHERE

Sat Oct 20 CBA Group 7 whose territory marches with the northern boundary of LBB, and to which several HADAS members belong) is holding its AGM and Annual Conference at Campus West Theatre, Welwyn Garden City. This year’s subject is the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, with half-hour talks on each of them, starting with the Pyramids and ending with the Pharos at Alexandria. Chairman will be an old friend of HADAS’s, Dr John Alexander. AGM 10 am, epilogue 4.30. Tickets £3.20 from E J Heathman, 92 Charmouth Rd, St Albans, before Oct 10 if you want them sent by post.

Sat Nov 17 LAMAS Local History Conference, Museum of London, 11am-5.30 pm.

The theme this year (for both talks and displays) will be transport in

London, from medieval times to twentieth century air transport. Bill Firth will be arranging an exhibit for HADAS based on the contribution made by our area to the beginning of aviation. Tickets, £2.50 including tea, from Keith Bailey, 52 Revelstoke Rd, Wimbledon Park, SW18 5DP (please enclose a large sae).

Sat Nov 24 The Oxford University Dept for External Studies is organizing a day school at Bulmershe College, Woodlands Av, Earley, Reading on Historical Photographs, 10 am-4 pm, fee £6, £4.40 for OAPs – including coffee, lunch and tea. Although the afternoon sessions look specially at local (Berks & Oxon) photos, the morning sessions are on general subjects – techniques for interpreting and dating photos and the conservation and care of historic photos. Enrol with the Tutor in Charge, Woodley Hill House, Bracknell College, Eastcourt Av, Earley, Reading.

·

NEW DEPARTURES

Clay Tobacco Pipes

The first Newsletter of the Society for Clay Pipe Research has recently been published. To get a sample copy and further details of how to join this new society (subscription £3), send a large sae to Mrs Philomena Jackson, 13 Sommerville Rd, Bishopston, Bristol.

Farmland .and Building. Another new society which aims to launch itself

soon is the Historic and Farmland and Buildings Group, Its inaugural meeting will take place during a weekend conference on the history and conservation of farm buildings, organised on Nov 16-18 by the Oxford University Dept. of External Studies at Rewley House, Wellington Sq, Oxford (from whom further details are obtainable).

A VIEW DOWN TWENTY-ONE CENTURIES JEAN SNELLING

Reports on the final weekend outing of 1984

Our visit to Lincoln (Sept 15-16) was packed with memorable interest thanks to Dorothy Newbury’s meticulous planning and the generous guiding of Michael Jones, David Stocker and John Welford of the Lincoln Archaeological Trust, who shared with us some archaeological highlights and problems of this remarkable city. Lincoln has so much that I can hope to give only a few outstanding impressions of a weekend that was crammed with exciting events.

The city’s position fills a river-worn gap in the north-south ridge of Jurassic limestone and climbs the northern heights. The fortified hill and inland port give splendid views from, above and below; for us, alas, lost in mist. Our hotel was high on the green hillside which provided Romans and Normans with building stone. Ermine Street, struggling up the steep slope, still forms the spine of the upper and lower Roman and medieval cities and their suburbs south of the river.

Through the medieval and sometimes regrettable modern city, the Norman castle, cathedral and ruined bishop’s palace rear up high on the hill; old fortifications all of them, built within the walls and gates of the Roman upper and lower cities. Norman stone houses for Jewish financiers and a Norman guildhall remain in the lower city and southern suburb. Deep below are the Roman remains, now emerging in excavations. The Hadrianic forum and upper city, overlying the old fortress of earth and wood, lie under castle bailey and cathedral; Roman town houses and workshops yield fragments through both cities and suburbs.

Between Romans and Normans in the lower city is a 10c Viking settlement. Lincoln being one of the five Danish boroughs. Here were wooden houses, metal workings and potsherds from the near east and from China, the result of Viking track, Below them, near the waterfront – somewhere – are thought to be the first Roman fort and the earlier Iron Age Tribal settlement.

From Norman times the medieval city flourished, keeping up its old walls and gates, making diagonal streets for short’cuts in disregard of the regular Roman plan below, building 47 churches, spreading over and beyond the old suburbs. The wool and cloth trades brought the height of prosperity, then they and the city declined together from the late 14c. Great and small buildings suffered severely in the Civil War.

Highlights for us included a descent into a house cellar in Bailgate, revealing the bases of three great columns of the Roman forum and a homely collection of mosaics and pottery. There was the sight of the Roman city wall discovered underlying the foundations of the cathedral only 2-3 weeks ago. There were all the gates to sort out – city gates, cathedral close gates sates of castle and palace, and ‘gates’ that were Danish street names. There was our discreet entry into the Vicars Choral private garden, surrounded by their lovely medieval houses. There was the extraordinary 18c chapel of the old town prison; tier upon tier of boxed cells enabling each prisoner to see no more than his own feet and the preacher’s head.

Perhaps most remarkable was the church of St Paul in the Bail. Recent excavation on this Victorian site revealed several pre-Conquest levels of a Saxon church, set low in the middle of the Roman forum. It was hoped that the undated lowest church would be the one mentioned by Bede as having been founded by Paulinus in 625-632 AD. It contained graves, one perhaps an altar-tomb with bones and an enamelled hanging bowl of a type sometimes found in Anglo-Saxon burials. Now radio-carbon dating indicates a late 4c date for the earliest bones. This raises the question of a Romano-British origin for the church, perhaps 5c; though adult burials within city walls would then have been prohibited. At present this is a puzzle with no answer.

We ended our visit at the exhibition ‘Lincoln Comes of Age’ (open for about another month) in the Greyfriars museum. Here were gathered Lincoln treasures, some usually housed far away: the bronze parade shield of Iron Age date from the river Witham; Roman inscriptions; the hanging bowl from St Paul in the Bail; the 8c Witham Pins in silver gilt, the cathedral’s original copy of Magna Carta; Jewels, tools, documents, arms and illus­trations of ancient and modern life and work in Lincoln, with reminders of Lincoln Green and scarlet cloth. The exhibition reinforced our impression of the strength of archaeology in Lincoln today.

STOP PRESS

We had an SOS just as this Newsletter went to press – from Stephen Pierpoint, Finds Officer of the Greater London Archaeology unit (northern section). ‘Im writing in the hope that through your Newsletter we might get some publicity for our finds processing work,’ he says.

At the moment he is working on what he describes as “exceedingly” prolific finds from the very large Roman cemetery at Tenter Street and the site of Clerkenwell nunnery:” so there is Roman and Medieval material to be handled. There are also a few Iron Age finds from Clerkenwell Work is mainly washing and marking but there is some cataloguing.

Work takes place every Tuesday evening from 6-9 pm at the Museum Of London’s Department of Greater London Archaeology at 42 Theobalds Road, WC1. If HADAS members would prefer to help during the week, however, in normal working hours, that could be arranged.

The need is urgent. Perhaps we could form a small HADAS group to go down together regularly once or twice a week: if you would like to help, please ring Brigid Grafton Green and we will see if we can arrange a day and time when it would be convenient for several members to go together. (455 9040).

Newsletter-163-September-1984

By | Past Newsletters, Volume 3 : 1980 - 1984 | No Comments

Newsletter 163: September 1984

A DATE FOR WEST HEATH

With something very close to a sound of trumpets DAPHNE LORIMER, who is co-author with DESMOND COLLINS of the final report on West Heath, Phase 1: 1976-81, announced last week that the HADAS site at West Heath now has a definite date. This is her statement for the Newsletter:

Members may remember that 18 months ago, through the good offices of Margaret Maher, Dr Joan Huxtable of the Research Laboratory of the Dept. of Art & Archaeology, Oxford (whose help HADAS greatly appreciates) under­took the positive dating of West Heath by thermoluminescence. Six samples of burnt struck flints and their surrounding soil were taken from the area of trench XVM at varying depths.

Initial results were promising, so calcium fluoride capsules were buried on the site for one year to obtain the environmental dose. In July this year the probes were removed and dates for each sample were calculated. These varied from

12000 years plus or minus 1500 years BP to

7300 years plus or minus 750 years BP

There was no evidence from the buried soil that the flints were not coeval. The average age calculated for the site from the 6 samples is:

about 9625 plus or minus 900 BP, or about 7675 BC

This result puts West Heath in the relatively select group of Mesolith­ic sites which have an absolute date and provides a most satisfactory con­clusion to the report which is now in the hands of Dr Hugh Chapman at the Museum of London.

Note: Those members wishing to read more about TL techniques are referred to papers by Joan Huxtable & Roger Jacobi (1982) in Archaeometry 24.2, 164-9; and Aitken & Alldred (1972) Archaeometry 14.2, 257-267.

PROGRAMME NEWS

Sat/Sun Sept 15/16 trip to Lincoln. 35 members are booked for this weekend to see the Lincoln “Comes of Age” exhibition, showing 21 centuries of living history. We have no waiting list – and fortunately no cancellations, though one member may have to cancel at the last moment. So if anyone might still like to come (cost £39) please ring Dorothy Newbury (203 0950).

Autumn Programme. The new season of lectures begins next month at Hendon Library, The Burroughs, NW4. Coffee 8 pm; lectures begin 8.30 pm.

Tues Oct 2 (not 22 as printed in programme card). Isbister, Tomb of Eagles: lecturer, John Hedges. The 48 members who went on our memorable 10-day Orkney trip in 1978 will have fond memories of Isbister and of John Hedges, who is that rare bird, a professional freelance archaeologist.

We are lucky that he can come to talk to us and show his slides of the excavation. His publication on the subject is due out this October. He well remembers our visit and looks forward to meeting us again.

Sat Oct 6 (please note change in originally advertised date). Minimart St Mary’s Church House (top of Greyhound Hill, Hendon NW4, opposite Church Farm House Museum). The initial flood of goods for sale seems to have subsided during August, so please start turning out now and bring your goodies to Dorothy (203 0950) or Christine (455 2751). If you can’t deliver please ring us. For further details see insert in this Newsletter.

Tues Nov 6. The Industrial Archaeology of London’s Dockland by Robert Carr

Lecture Information (for new members): buses 183 & 143 pass the Library door which is 10 minutes’ walk from Hendon Central Underground station and only a few minutes’ walk from the 113 (Edgware) bus and 240 & 125 (Quadrant, Hendon) buses. There are 2 free car parks opposite the Library. Members may bring a guest to one lecture, but guests who wish to attend further lectures should be invited to join the Society. Will old members please welcome new ones, and make them feel at home? New members please make yourselves known.

MORE DIGGING AT WEST HEATH

The initial 6-week dig at West Heath closed on July 31, but digging has now resumed once more on 4 days each week: Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday. Volunteers will be most welcome, particularly those who can make a regular commitment. Don’t be shy about coming, though, even if you can put in only an occasional day or half-day.

Times as before – 9 am-6 pm.

At the moment it is uncertain how long the dig will go on, but certain­ly well into September. We are anxious to complete the trenches which have been opened this year, and shall continue ‘till that is accomplished. Any­one who wants to check whether digging is continuing should ring either Margaret Maher (907 0333) or Sheila Woodward (952 3897).

ANGLO-SAXONS AT REPTON A report on the Aug 18 outing by MARGARET TAYLOR

Beautiful weather, a full coach and a prompt start heralded a day of great interest for all. We were guided off the Ml through narrow lanes by Mr and Mrs Kitching of the Repton Local History group and were received at Repton School by Professor Martin Biddle, who gave up the morning to conduct us round the complicated sites that he has been excavating for 10 years.

The Anglo-Saxon monastery stands on a low bluff overlooking the valley of the Old River Trent where there has been a long sequence of human activity from Mesolithic times, ending with over 1200 years of Christianity. The Anglo-Saxon monastery existed for two centuries – 670-873 AD. It came to an abrupt end when the Vikings used it for a defensive fortress in the winter of 873-4.

The 1159 Augustinian Priory was suppressed by Henry VIII but Repton School was founded in 1557 using the buildings which have since featured in the two films of ‘Goodbye Mr Chips’ in 1938 and 1984.

The excavation around the east end of the church of St Wystan has uncovered massive stepped foundation plinths and the Anglo-Saxon doorway, but across to the building when it was a mausoleum has not been revealed. We went into an atmosphere of mystery, murders and miracles associated with this mausoleum. A large defensive ditch from the Viking occupation has been traced encircling the church and the mound cemetery west of the church. The Prior’s Hall overlooking the Old River Trent is one of the earliest brick buildings, dated 1430, showing. Dutch influence.

In the Vicarage garden the excavation of a large mound has uncovered a major 2-cell building which looks like a Christian foundation. Finds included disarticulated bones of 250 skeletons associated with 10C objects: iron axe, iron sword. Eighth century silver coins were placed over the clay of the collapsed ceiling of the building. Further inhumation burials were dug into the mound. It is not certain yet whether this discovery is associated with the Viking army which ‘drove King Burgred across the sea and conquered all that land.’ When the new vicar arrived this year he must have been startled to find his lawn covered with bones and to be asked would his wife mind if the skulls were dried off in her airing cupboard?

A second excavated mound has revealed a fine Anglo-Saxon carved stone grave cover. Northeast of the church later burials have been cleared and have revealed a stone channel leading into the crypt, possibly suggesting an early use as a baptistery.

The visit to the crypt was for me the most moving experience of the day, it is the earliest complete building in England, and has unusual -‘barley sugar’ pillars. The crypt had been filled with rubbish and unknown for many centuries and there are still unsolved problems about access when it was a mausoleum, as no doorway has been found. A future investigation of the west wall may solve this but there are structural hazards involved.

We were conducted round part of the school and were amazed at the size of the huge piers of the Norman tower. These, which now partly lie under a modern building, compare in size with Southwark Cathedral.

The Prior undercroft is now an attractive museum. One wall incorporates many carved stone fragments, while another has medieval tiles. We visited the library above the undercroft, where documents and manuscripts would have detained some HADAS members all afternoon. The library was once a teaching room and has the old headmaster’s desk and a fine set of 18 stained glass windows, copies of some now in the British Museum showing the adven­tures of an Anglo-Saxon soldier, Guthlacus, of 697- AD.

Our guides, Mr Kitching and Mr Ash, gave us much information and fascinating stories of various ‘characters,’ including one of a drunken steeplejack who was rescued when tiddly (presumably from his steeple) by his 12-year-old daughter, Bessie. We were indeed grateful to them and to the ladies at the Village Hall who provided an enormous and delicious homemade tea which revived us for our 2-hour journey home. Many thanks to Dorothy Newbury for the excellent arrangements for such a worthwhile visit.

BEHIND THE SCENES AT A ROMAN POTTERY by TESSA SMITH

Early in August two HADAS members set up a further small display in one of the downstairs rooms at Church Farm House Museum, Hendon. We used some more of the finds from the early Brockley Hill digs, and this time our chosen theme was Techniques and Technology in Roman Pottery. Oddly enough, we had to adopt some new techniques and technology for setting up the exhibit, too.

Part of this display centres around the now somewhat fragile model of a Roman kiln, made some years ago by a member of HADAS. It has now to be treated with respect, which means your heart is in your mouth when handling it: but it is still an excellent reproduction in miniature, showing the pedestal and raised floor, the flue and stokehole, the pebble platform surround and the domed top. It’s in section, so you can see inside.

It was decided to fill the kiln with clay miniatures of Brockley Hill ware, flagons, bowls and mortaria. Making these out of modelling clay, in what we christened the Brockley Hill (Miniatures) Pottery, suddenly made quite normal sized fingers seem elephantine. It needed diligent use of fine wooden tools to fix the tiny handles, manipulate the minute flagon rings and stamp the potter’s name on the miniature mortaria. The kiln was then stacked and arranged with the tiny pots, like a doll’s house for archaeologists.

According to excavation reports, charcoal of oak, ash and hazel was found in the flues and stokeholes of some Brockley Hill kilns. Therefore a search was made beforehand to try to find evidence for these trees growing at Brockley Hill today, and sure enough both ash and oak were flourishing on almost the exact sites of kilns of potters such as Melvs and Matvgenvs. Whilst searching the undergrowth, hoping either for stray sherds or at least for twigs of oak and ash, this archaeologist encountered a ditch digger who said, with apparent inside knowledge, that he knew all about the Roman potteries round here. It was a bit eerie. Could he have been the ghost of a potter past? Or had he just read the blue plaque which is now, thanks to the Borough Planning Department, renewed and re-erected after vandalism?

The ditch that this possible phantom potter was clearing measured the entire length of Brockley Hill southwards, but even better it was trenched in parts to a depth of 4 ft. He issued an invitation to help yourself’ to any soil samples needed; and before you could say Sulloniacae one intrepid HADAS member was down in the ditch gazing with questioning eyes at the stratified layers of the section. A clear cut across this bit of Claygate Beds down to the ditch bottom showed top soil, dark and loamy, then a layer of hard clay, below this 6 ins of pebble and under this patches of softer yellow clay. Samples were scooped up avidly.

Later the, natural yellow clay was easily moulded into small and simple bowl-type and cylinder-type forms. These, together with the kiln model, some excavated Brockley Hill ware which had been selected earlier, the clay miniatures and all the other equipment needed for mounting an exhibition were gathered together at the museum. In case you’ve never thought about it, the ‘other equipment’ means rulers, scissors, captions, writing imple­ments, maps, drawings, typewriter and paper, polish and duster, bluetack and assorted sellotapes, lining paper, card, stands, pine of different shapes, hammer and screwdriver: the list is practically endless and the only sure thing about it is that the thing you forget is the vital thing you’ll need.

It was thought somewhat naively by one of the setter-uppers that it would take a couple of hours to do the two display cases. Those of you who normally mount our exhibitions will smile knowingly.

One of the Church Farm House Museum display cases is what is known as ‘a challenge.’ It has an angled display area, the front of which drops away steeply and is almost impossible to reach from behind. (It’s totally -impossible to reach from the front because the glass is fixed).

This was the point at which a small sinuous cat burglar would have come in very handy; instead we had to make do with the top half of a reasonably well-endowed HADAS member, inserted through the aperture of a sliding panel about 8 ins by 12 ins. Groping blindly she sought to affix charts, captions and drawings on the awkward front slope (and of course halfway down that slope was the one place where the unruly oak and ash twigs could be most tastefully arranged). The only guidance, as she could see nothing, was the hissed instructions of her accomplices out in front. Up a bit, right – no, my right, your left! Down a bit that end. Right a bit. That’s it … now Press! If there’d been an aisle, we’d have been rolling in it. As there wasn’t we just had quiet hysterics from time to time.

Final highlight of the exhibit is the fire. Cunningly concealed inside the arched flue of the model kiln is an amazingly lifelike red glow (provided it has been switched on). We do hope it remains safe and secure, or else there could be another firing of Brockley Hill ware, this time at Church Farm House! Anyway, do go along and have a look. Our small HADAS display will be on show until early October at least, in the downstairs room on the left as you go in.

Upstairs at the Museum, from now until October 21, you will find an excellent exhibition under the title ‘From the Slade to the Somme,’ It consists of paintings and drawings by Philip Dadd (1880-1916), nephew of Kate Greenaway and descendant of several other well-known Victorian artists and illustrators. Artistic talent alighted on Philip, too, as this exhibition of his magazine and book illustrations, posters, etc. shows.

SITES TO WATCH

We didn’t have space in the August Newsletter for our usual list of sites to watch, so this month there’s double measure.

The following sites, which might have some archaeological interest, have appeared on recent Borough of Barnet planning application lists. Some have been mentioned before in the Newsletter, so for them this is just a reminder; Applications for a site often appear several times in the lists: at first, perhaps as an ‘outline;’ then, ‘amended’ or ‘with additions;’ and then possibly with ‘details’ which did not need to be itemised at the outline stage, e.g. landscaping, tree-planting, access roads, etc. Those to which we want to draw your attention now are

Grounds of the Norwegian Barn, Edgwarebury Lane, 18m high radio mast & Elstree radio base station

(An amended plan for a development we noted earlier: all this area of Edgwarebury is worth keeping an eye on for signs of Roman occupation; it’s pretty close to Brockley Hill)

16 Grass Park, N3 Side/rear extensions & a new portico

(An amended application originally put forward in 1982. This is near the site of the original Grass, or Grotes, Farm – a moated farmhouse as early as 1315. Demolished in 1923.)

Land fronting The Hyde, Edgware Rd, NV9, NW of the Industrial/warehouse

Silk Bridge building, roads

(An outline application: all sites as near as this to the line of Watling St are worth watching. Same applies to the following site)

Edgware General Hospital, Burnt Oak Broadway 2-storey extension to the Path Lab

Land at Old Fold Manor Golf Club, Old Fold Single-storey Artisans Lane, Hadley club house, parking, access:

(Amended application. Near site of original moated manor of the Frowyke goldsmith family, the moat of which still remains around the 18th green. The manor house existed at and before the time of the Battle of Barnet in 1471)

4 Farrington Cottages, Moon Lane, Maxon St, semi-detached dwelling

Barnet house

(second amended application which- we originally noted earlier this year. Any building in this crowded centre of Barnet is worth observing for possible medieval evidence)

Planning applications for the following sites, noted in previous Newsletters, have now been approved:

Land adjoining 53 Ashley Lane, NW4 3 houses

Land bounded by Springwood Cres, Burrell Cl, 53 houses, access

Knightswood Cl, Edgware roads, etc

Convent of St Mary Hale Lane, Edgware (approved by LBB, still subject to

GLC approval) houses, flats, etc

It has been agreed that the Eleanor Palmer Trust should proceed with detailed plans for the Elizabeth Allen School site in historic Wood Street, Barnet.

‘Should members notice signs of development activity on any of the sites mentioned, please let Christine Arnett (455 2751) know. She and John Enderby have taken over jointly as organisers of our site-watching operations,

LISTED BUILDINGS

Recent planning applications which affect listed buildings include:

Two applications for Holy Trinity Church hall, Church Lane, East Finchley. The church hall is not itself a Listed building, but it stands in close proximity to Holy TrinityChurch, which is listed, and to its quiet ­surrounding churchyard. The-church was built by Anthony Salvin, Victorian architect and one of East Finchley’s most notable inhabitants, c 1849 of ragstone with freestone dressings. One application, for change of use to a community centre, would not involve demolition of the hall.’ The other would: it is for the erection of 13 2-storey terraced houses, which would certainly affect the setting and amenity of the Church.

There is an unusual application for the barn at Laurel Farm, Totteridge, Green, N20: to take down and refurbish it, and rebuild it to form a dwelling house. Laurel Farm is a Grade II Listed building – a 17c timber-framed house with a later timber-framed rear addition. The 18c barn is also Listed – a 4-bay timber-framed barn with a modern roof. We have mentioned this application to the SPAB (whose current Barn Survey was noted in the August Newsletter) in case it would be of interest to them to watch the re-jigging of an ancient barn to serve a new purpose.

St Mary’s Abbey, The Ridgeway, NW7, has applied to use part of its chapel for the storage and distribution of religious educational material. This is a Grade II building designed by G Goldie c 1888 in red bricks: a cruciform aisleless chapel with a central tower and 3 side chapels.

Approval has been given for various maintenance projects at the Old Forge, Holcombe Hill, NW7: the replacement of a door, repainting of window frames and demolition of a porch and re-erection of a new one. The Old Forge and its attendant cottage form a picturesque 18c group of two 2-storey cottages with a one-storey forge building between.

It was interesting to see that the Town Planning and Research Committee of LBB has asked the Borough Planning Officer to bear in mind a request that the fine frieze on the front of the -Gaumont cinema at Tally-ho should be preserved when the cinema is demolished. We are glad to say that HADAS member KEN VAUSE kindly went out in various lights to photograph the frieze for record purposes some 18 months ago.

House of History: ASHMOLE TO BETJEMAN by Brigid Grafton Green

The current issue of Antiquity carries a lively account of the junketings last year for the tercentenary of the oldest museum in the Country, Oxford’s Ashmolean, which opened to the Public on June 6, 1683, the first institutional museum in Britain so to do, antedating the British Museum by 70 years.’

Anyone who has links with Oxford must have a soft spot for the Ash­molean. It’s the museum on which I cut my infant academic teeth if that’s not too mixed a metaphor.; and much later, when embroiled in the second year of the Diploma in Archaeology – which in those days encompassed, believe it or not, in a single year the vast field of Western Asia, Greece, the Aegean, Anatolia and Egypt – I remember an entrancing week spent among one of the Ashmolean’s great glories: its Minoan material from Arthur Evans’ digs in Crete , particularly its Middle and Late Minoan pottery and seals.

Elias Ashmole (1617-1692) from whom the Ashmolean takes its name, has a tenuous connection with our London Borough of Barnet, though when he lived between Cockfosters and Barnet in the 1630s a system of local authorities like ours wasn’t even a gleam in a governmental eye. Elias was described by a contemporary as ‘the greatest virtuoso and curioso that ever was known or read of in England.’ He had an ‘insatiable curiosity for knowledge’ and great zeal in research; and he was, in 1661, one of the 114 founders of the Royal Society, who agreed ‘to meete together Weekely to consult and debate, conderning the promoting of Experimentall
learning.’ When his diary describes how he cured himself of ague by hang­ing three spiders around his neck, the gulf which lies between 17C experi­mentation and science today certainly shows,

In his youth Ashmole was an alchemist, an astrologer and an antiquarian; though as time went on the first two interests gave place to the last. He was born at Lichfield, the son of a saddler, though rather an upmarket saddler, as the boy was educated at Lichfield Grammar School and then joined the London household of one of his mother’s relatives, a baron of the exchequer. It was at the age of 18, while he was in process of becoming a solicitor – an aim he finally achieved in 1641 – that he spent a summer at a house named Mount Pleasant in East Barnet. Frederick Cass, in “East Barnet” quotes the relevant entry from Ashmole’s diary: ‘July 11 1635. Came to live at Mount Pleasant, near Barnet, and stayed there all the summer’ (Diary of Elias Ashmole, pub 1717; it is the main authority for our knowledge of Ashmole),

Elias was a royalist, and was appointed by the King a commissioner of excise in Lichfield; later his employment brought him to Oxford, and he became a student, reading physics and mathematics, at Brasenose

He had married at 21;’ his wife died in childbirth within a few years. ‘In 1647 he married again, this time a well-heeled lady 20 years his senior, thrice widowed and with grown-up sons one of them as old as Elias. It seems to have been 4 cat and dog union, both with the lady and with her disapproving family.

The Restoration brought him honours and preferment. He became Windsor Herald and wrote the standard, and much acclaimed, work on the Institution, Laws and Ceremonies of the Order of the Garter. He had become friendly with John Tradescant, a great collector of rare specimens of natural history and ethnography and keeper of the botanic garden at Chelsea; when Tradescant died his ‘museum’ was bequeathed to Ashmole, who decided eventually to offer it, with additions of his own, to Oxford, provided a suitable build­ing could be provided. The Old Ashmolean was completed in 1682, 12 wagons of ‘curiosities’ made their way from London to Oxford, Dr Plot, Professor of Chemistry, was appointed as first curator and in 1683 the Ashmolean Museum opened its doors, primarily at first as a scientific institution. Today art aim archaeology are its highlights.

The house in which Ashmole spent that summer of 1635 remained, though no doubt much altered from time to time, until 1932, when it was demolished to make way for a new estate. It stood on the corner of today’s Freston Gardens and Leys Gardens, at TQ 2805 9577, so, it must virtually have strad­dled what is now the boundary between the Boroughs of Barnet and Enfield.

The house had several changes of name in its long history. The earliest reference that has been found is dated 1533 (again, it comes from Cass) when it was owned by Robert Rolfe. When Ashmole was staying them a century later it was called Mount Pleasant. In 1639 a Mr Green took it over. His principal claim to fame seems to have been that he married the daughter of the keeper of lions at the Tower. No doubt the lion-keeper, Ralph Gill, visited East Barnet on occasion. In the late 18c the property was owned by William Henry Ashurst.

The house was first called Belmont in 1811, and it was known under that name probably until 1914 It appears on the OS map of 1860 as Belmont, which is the reason that its site can be pinpointed so precisely today. In 1826 it Wes the home of David Bevan and then of his son, Robert Cooper Lee Bevan, who succeeded in 1846, He was a banker and became head of the great banking house that is now Barclays. Later R C L Bevan owned Trent Park, and Belmont was sold to Henry Alexander and then to Mr Hanbury.

In 1914 came the final change of name, when it became Heddon Court prep school for boys – and that is what it remained until it was pulled down before the Belmont estate was built between 1932-34. Now a complex of roads north of Cat Hill recall all the names: Mount Pleasant curves round to join Cockfosters Road; Belmont Avenue, Heddon Road and Heddon Court Avenue are all nearby. About a mile and a half to the south east, in Burleigh Gardens, N14 (again, close to the LBB boundary) is a school called the Ashmole School, It would be easy to jump to the conclusion that this was the site where Ashmole had lived; but the fact which is commemorated by the name of the school is merely his general link with the area.

As Heddon Court the house attracted another notable: John Betjeman, later Poet Laureate, was cricket master there in the 1920s and one of his poems (Cricket Master: an Incident) commemorates the fact. It opens

My undergraduate eyes beholding

As 1 climbed your slope, Cat Hill:

Emerald chestnut fans unfolding,

Symbols of my hope, Cat Hill.

What cared I for past disaster,

Applicant for cricket master,

Nothing much of cricket knowing

Conscious but of money owing?

Somehow I would cope, Cat Hill.

Then the tale is told of how a non-cricketer tries, disastrously, to teach cricket, and the final stanza paints the fate of Cat Hill:

Shops and villas have invaded

Your chestnut quiet there, Cat Hill

Cricket field and pitch degraded,

Nothing did they spare, Cat Hill.

I am thirty summers older

Richer, wickeder and colder,

Fuller too of care, Cat Hill.

Note: grateful thanks to Douglas Austin, East Barnet local historian, for much real information which has been used in this article;’ and thanks, too, to Gillian Gear’s and Diana Goodwin’s booklet, East Barnet Village (pub; 1980), which filled several gaps in the story. See Cass, Frederick, East Barnet (1885-92); and for general

Reference on Elias Ashmolean, see C H Josten’s pamphlet of that name, published by the Ashmolean Museum (1978); and the DNB.

ELECTRONIC ARCHAEOLOGY

The Newsletter is grateful to HADAS member ANN KAHN for the- following paragraphs from a journal with the horrific title ‘Communication Technology Impact. Archaeology is not a subject which graces CTI pages very often but researchers at the University of Toronto are utilising advanced word processing technology to reveal the secrets of the 5000 year old writings of Mesopotamian scribes. The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, believed to be examples of the world’s first written language, are being tracked down, edited and published with the invaluable help of computers. Dr Kirk Grayson, project leader, explains that the tiny wedge-shaped cuneiform symbols – ‘the most complicated writing system ever invented next to Chinese’ – are translated into the Roman alphabet through the use of five word processors with 256K of memory; and specially formulated Unix software, developed by Bell Laboratories, New York,

The translation project, which hopes to publish twenty volumes by its year 2001 deadline, has received a tremendous boost by the technological breakthrough, for printing of the symbols is made a lot easier by computer­ised photocomposition. Moreover, with the data in machine-readable form, other researchers worldwide will have access to the Inscriptions. Over 0400,000 per annum is being provided, by the University of Toronto and the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, for the non-profit making project; and with the use of computers speeding up translation of ‘all the official inscriptions of all the kings of Assyria, Babylonia and Sumeria over a period of 3000 years,’ the end-product looks likely to make a significant contribution to late 20c archaeological and ancient history research.”

Thank heavens for the variety of HADAS members’ interests and for their keen eye for a good archaeological story!

SAD NEWS FOR THE NEWSLETTER

A few weeks ago we learnt, with great regret, that RENE FRAUCHIGER has decided to move from the Borough of Barnet. Various legal arrangements still have to be completed, so the move may not take place for a little while yet. We are -glad to say too that Rene won’t be going far – only from her present house in Edgware a mile or two north to Radlett, where her daughter and grandchildren live. We hope that HADAS will still be able to keep in touch with her.

She has been one of the most important people in the Society, so far as the Newsletter is concerned, because for years she has housed our duplicator; and since January 1977 she has ‘rolled off’ every Newsletter that members have had – that’s 92 issues, counting this one you are reading. And having rolled them off, she has been in charge too of paging them up, ‘stuffing’ and stamping the envelopes and seeing they all get to post 400-plus every month. When I say the newsletter is going to miss her horribly it’s a masterly understatement.

Although the change is not imminent, this seems the right moment to ask our readers whether any of them feel able to help us cover the work which Rene has done so long and so responsibly.

For instance, is there anyone prepared to take over the ‘rolling off’ job their own house ‑that would mean giving house-room to the Gestetner duplicator (Rene kept it in an empty garage, an ideal place) and being prepared to operate it towards the end of each month? The stuffing, stamping etc. could be done elsewhere, if necessary.

Alternatively, if we can find some central spot where the duplicator could live (e.g. in Hendon) is there a member (or members) either well-versed in the habits of such a beast, or prepared to learn them, who could give a morning or an afternoon (rolling off takes about 2-3 hours) each month to this job? If. we could find more than one person it would be onerous. Volunteers for stuffing and stamping – either on a regular or an occasional basis – would also be most welcome.

Should any of you feel able to help in any of these ways, please give me a ring on 455 9040. –

BRIGID GRAFTON GREEN

MORE AUTUMN CLASSES

One of- the HGS Institute autumn courses which we did not mention in last month 1B round-up of winter classes will be on ‘Modern London and its Transport Systems. That May not sound all that archaeological, but anyone with a leaning to Industrial Archaeology is likely to find it rewarding, -and so will local historians

The lecturer is John .Freeborn, who is hear of Interpretation•& Display at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. HADAS members may recall, the excellent lecture he gave to the Society in October 1980 on the Transport Museum. He assures us that the Institute course (20 lectures, 2 visits) won’t be just dry technology;’ he is particularly interested in the interaction of transport and people and how this has caused the growth of London outwards. Mr. Freeborn lives in the Borough; and transport is the key to local history in Barnet for the last 77 years. The visits he has planned include a special underground railway journey and an inside view of the Transport Museum. Lectures will be on Weds, 7.30-9.30 pm, starting Oct 3. Enrol now at HGS Institute (455 9951)..

Another course that sounds intriguing is on Thursdays from Oct 4 at 6.30 pm at the Museum of London. It is on Clothing and Fashion in London from medieval to modern times, and the lecturer is Kay Staniland. Further Details from the Museum Press Office 600 3699, ext 240/280. Finally, a reminder about two course 7 with which HAMS is particularly involved, and for which we hope many members will enrol:

1. The first year of the Certificate in Archaeology at HGS Institute on the Prehistory of SE England, Thurs 2-4 pm starting Sept 27. Lecturer Tony Legge. Holding this course in the afternoons is experimental: please help to make it a success by joining.

2. At the Old Schoolhouse, 136 Tottenham Lane N8, at the invitation of the Hornsey Historical Society, 4 HADAS lecturers will again take a course in basic archaeology. This is of 12 lectures, starting Oct 1; on Mons from 7.30-9.30 pm. Any HADAS member who feels, a bit shaky about basic chronology will find these lectures helpful; and the speakers plan to cover new ground, so even if you have been to this course before, it will be worthwhile to sign on again.

Margaret Maher will be dealing with Paleolithic subjects; Daphne Lorimer with Mesolithic and Neolithic; Sheila Woodward with the metal ages; and Brigid Grafton Green with the Roman period. Enrolment will be at the Old Schoolhouse on lecture nights, preferably October 1. Any further informa­tion can be obtained from Brigid Grafton Green (455.9040).

OTHER FORTHCOMING EVENTS

The Lutyens/Elgar son-et-lumiere celebration at St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead Garden Suburb, which was postponed from the spring, will now take place on Sept 20, starting 8 pm. It’s one of the London events arranged in connection with the Royal Institute of British Architects 150th anniversary celebrations. Tickets £4.50, obtainable from the New HGS Trust, 862 Finchley Road, NW11 (455 1066).

The Museum of London has some interesting Thursday Workshops lined up this autumn. Workshops are at 1.10 pm in the Education Department, and are ‘led’ by specialist members of the museum staff: main pleasure at most of them lies in being able to handle objects. This is the programme:

Sept 20 Prehistoric Treasure from the Thames

Sept 27 Tudor Knitwear

Oct 4 The Quacks of London

11 Roman London: Model of the Waterfront

18 Roman London: Reconstructing the Forum

25 Roman London: New Finds from Southwark

Nov 1 Film: The London Blitz

8 Roman London: New Finds from the City

15 Feminine Foundations: Lingerie for the Edwardian Lady

22 Christmas Cards

29 Heraldry & Archaeology

Dec 6 Restoration of Charles II

Incidentally, there is a new restaurant at the Museum called the Fountains Restaurant which looks most attractive – especially on a summer day, when there are tables outside overlooking the Rotunda garden with its 18c drinking fountain. Seats for 70 inside, too: snacks, cold drinks, wine. Open Mon-Sat, 10-6.30; Suns 12-6.30.

JOURNALS FOR LOCAL HISTORIANS

Interest in local history has been growing steadily for at least the last decade – witness the increasing numbers who flock to the LAMAS Local History Conference each November, and the founding two years ago of the British Association for Local History.

Perhaps it is a natural economic consequence that we should now get an upsurge in the publications catering for this interest. Apart from the various Family History publications, two new local history journals have seen the light of day this summer, neither of them with very imaginative titles. One is called Exploring Local History, the other just Local History. When you bear in mind that we have for many years had an admirable little quarterly called Local Historian and that the Newsletter of the BALH, hitherto mysteriously called NAB, is about to re-christen itself Local History News, it looks like a confused future for local historian readers.

A comparison of the first issues of the two new magazines is quite illuminating. Exploring Local History (hereafter referred to as Exploring), first issue April 1964, is a monthly, published in Bristol at 75p a copy. You can’t buy single copies, however – it is obtainable only by post at £9.50 for 12 issues.

Local History (hereafter LH), first issue July 1984, is published every 2 months in Nottingham. —You can buy a single copy of that at £1.50, of which 25p is for postage; an annual subscription for 6 issues costs £7.0, incl. postage.

You might expect that the 2-monthly LH, at £1.50, would be larger and longer than the monthly Exploring at 75p but you’d be wrong. LH is 20 pages (including 4 pages of cover) and is quarto size. Exploring is a trifle largerabout A4 and contains 32 pages, including 4 pages of cover.

The only reasons I can deduce for the surprising difference in price ­one issue of Exploring, with 32 pages, costing half one issue of LH,. With only 20 are that LH carries no commercial advertising and has a few ads- for hotels, travel firms, publishers. Also LH is printed on a heavier, coated paper. This provides it with one advantage: its photos reproduce more clearly. Exploring’s photos are a bit fuzzy and so are some of its line reproductions. The first issue might just as well not have tried to reproduce a 1736 plan of Sheffield, because it is unreadable.

Both magazines declare roundly that their main aims are to provide the amateur historian with a platform for his/her opinions, to publish his/her future articles and to offer a forum for the exchange of his/her ideas.

The content of both first issues seems scrappy and uncoordinated, with Exploring carrying a bit more news and paying a trifle more attention to archaeology than LH. Neither, however really seems to come off. However, it may be unfair to judge on a first issue, which probably went to press in fairly fraught circumstances: perhaps we should reserve judgment until we have seen how later issues shape up.

Any member who is interested in becoming a subscriber to either of these magazines can find out further details from Brigid Grafton Green.

MOVE TO MATLOCK

The British Association for Local History, to which HADAS is affiliated, has now moved out of London. Its new address is Manager’s House, Cromford Mill, Cromford, Nr Matlock, Derbyshire.

BALH has become a tenant of the Arkwright Society, and shares part of the buildings which that Society acquired in 1979. Both the buildings, and the site on which they stand, have a considerable interest for industrial archaeologists, for it was here that, from 1771 onwards, Richard Arkwright built up his business, creating in Cromford. the world’s first successful water-powered cotton spinning mill – the ‘cradle of the industrial revolution.’

Newsletter-162-August-1984

By | Past Newsletters, Volume 3 : 1980 - 1984 | No Comments

Newsletter 162: August, 1984

HADAS DIARY

Sat Aug 18. Repton Derbyshire – our last day-trip this summer. Colin Ditching of the Repton Village History Group will meet the coach as it leaves the M1 and take us through country lanes to the ancient village of Repton, where he will guide us through its long history; Excava­tions have been conducted here for the last 10 summers and are going on this August under Martin Biddle, who will show us the site and tell about their discoveries. If you wish to go on this outing please com­plete the enclosed form and return it to me with your cheque as soon as possible.

Sat/Sun Sep 15/16.
The Lincoln weekend has proved very popular with too many for minibuses, so we are having a coach to take and fetch us. The whole weekend will be spent in Lincoln itself so transport won’t be needed there. We have filled the original small hotel and spread to two others. There is no waiting list, so any late-comers please ring me in case there are cancellations.

Sat Oct 6. Minimart (don’t forget the change of date). We are getting off to a good start collecting goods. Several members are moving house and HADAS is benefitting from their overflow. Please start turning out now and ring me or Christine Arnott (455 2751) when you have anything ready: unwanted gifts and toilet goods, clothing for all ages and sizes, all sorts of bric-a-brac, pictures, crockery, household utensils, curtains, linens, toys and games. If in doubt, ring and ask us. If you are making jams or pickles, make an extra jar for Brigid on the food stall. Thanks, everyone, you always do a grand job and I am sure you will do it again! Excellent ploughman’s lunches on the day, as usual.

DOROTHY NEWBURY (203 0950)

LIGHT RELIEF AT WEST HEATH by SHEILA,WOODWARD

The 6½ week dig at West Heath, due to end on July 31, has been blessed for the most part with dry, sunny weather and, in true British style, some of us have been complaining about the heat! In fact the site is a very pleasant place in which to spend a summer’s day.

HADAS members have responded well to our call for volunteers and to date over 50 have taken part in the dig. We are particularly grateful to those who have been able to give us regular help for several days each week. Special thanks are also due to our surveyor, Barrie Martin, who helped us to lay out the trenches and to Dan Lampert who, with our extra­mural students, carried out a contour survey of the site.

The site is being dug in one-metre squares and 17 squares are at present open. The flint flakes and burnt stones so familiar to all West diggers are being found, but it is too early yet to make any general assessment of these finds. Both dry and wet sieving are being operated. We have received several compliments from members of the public on the neatness of our trenches. However, it was rather disconcerting to hear one lady observe to her husband: ‘Isn’t it amazing, after all these years, how wonderfully preserved those steps are?’ and to be asked by another whether we were landscaping the Heath and making a series of steps down to the Leg of Mutton pond!

Other comments and questions we have cherished include ‘Are you the sketching party from Westfield College?’ ‘Have you found Robin Hood?’ and a dire warning against crossing ley lines for fear of incurring the wrath of the Druids. It was a 5-year-old who administered the Coup-de-grace with a dismissive ‘I know all about the Stone Age. We’ve read the book at school and we’ve finished it.’

Joking apart, it’s pleasant to have so much public interest and support. Two school parties have had a conducted tour of the site, and other visitors have included GLC Area Manager Malcolm Craig, members of the GLC staff and Mark Newcomer and some of his post-graduate students from the Institute of Archaeology. It was also delightful to welcome Dr Joyce Roberts, our ‘resident botanist’ of the earlier dig, who was on a fleeting visit to London from her Berwick home.

A final story: a party of 9-year-olds, gazing at our showcase flints, were told that they might find something similar if they looked carefully further up the Heath. ‘Like this, you mean?’ asked one little lad, casually pulling a core from the ground outside the fence!

AND WEST HEATH – THROUGH OTHER EYES

One of the school parties which Sheila mentions above was of 8 and 9-year-olds from the Hall School. They represented The Hall Express, the school’s wall newspaper. Afterwards we saw some of the reports filed by those budding journalists. Here are a few: the spelling is original (in more than one sense!):

From reporter Andrew Jackson: On Wednesday I went with the newspaper group to a dig where there trying to find out the way people lived in the ice age. I am not quite shure wereabouts it is but I do now that it is nere Hamstead. It is in an inclosher and there is string round all ‘the trenches so that you will not spoil the spicel layers. They dig in layers so not to miss anything and after that sieve it all once in a big sieve once in a medium sieve and once in a small sieve and then they put the remaining stuff in some water if any of the flint is covered in earth.

Reported by E Bell: On Wednesday June 27 the Hall Express went to Hampstead Heath to see an archaeological dig made by Hendon & District Archaeological Society.

The Site was about 30’ feet long and 30ft wide. The archaeologists were studying so carefully, but it looked as if they were looking for some mysterious treasure But to them it probably seemed as if flint was treasure. We were shown a box full of flint tools and then she showed us some newly dug up tools which someone was studying. Out of the whole 30 foot their were 2 diches each going down down like stairs. Each person who was digging dug very carefully with a very small trowel. They have this small trowel so they don’t miss some flint. They put it in a square sieve and pour the soil into the seive and the flint is left in the seive; but if the flint is dirty it is nut into a bucket and washed.

And by Ben Slater: We went to the Archaeologist dig. They had not dug f. r down threw the sand and stones. They started Digging in 1976 and ended at 198. They found quiet a lot of stones on the surface outside the area. When they dig stones up they put them in a bucket and tip it out in the sive and strain it. The area they are diging was lived in about 6000 years ago. The people who lived there used to make tiny tools from small pieces of flint. They used to live in small hollows.

The reporters’ stories were accompanied by graphic drawings which alas we can’t reproduce. But I’m darned if I’d like to meet on a dark the kind of rampant , Mesolithic West heather a Hall school Journalist portrays, bearded, starko and stone axe in hand!

COMMITTEE CORNER

At its July meeting the Committee welcomed a new colleague – Michael Purton, elected at the AGM; Another pleasant duty was to pass a vote of thanks to our Hon. Auditor, Ron Penney, and to agree to send him a small token of our appreciation for his help, always most willingly given.

Phyllis Fletcher retorted that membership is keeping up well this year with 1983. To July, 272 members had paid their subscriptions. That includes several new members enrolled as a result of West Heath, However, Phyllis still has over a hundred names on her ‘unrenewed’ list, and would dearly like to see it grow smaller.

The Committee has been asked to investigate the possibility of life membership, so the Hon. Treasurer is looking into the actuarial implications and seeing what action would be necessary under our constitution.

Some members with long memories may recall that back in 1980 a young man named Steve Herman (who was for a time a member of HADAS) began, with funding from the GLC and encouragement from the Borough of Barnet, to make a film on the early history of the area, which he called Barnet before Domesday. A lot of his material came from HADAS People and HADAS digs. So long, however, has been the film’s gestation that everyone had almost forgotten it. Mr. Herman has now surfaced again and hopes the film may be ready for showing this summer.

The Society was recently asked to trace the whereabouts of a Victorian horse trough which used to stand at the corner of Wellgarth and North End Roads, in Golders Green. In fact the Research Committee of the mid-1970s had followed the tribulations of that particular trough quite carefully. It had been removed by the Borough Engineer’s department for safe-keeping while flats were built on the corner site. The entrance– through which large lorries constantly delivered bricks, stone, cement, etc – was beside the trough and the chances of it being knocked about were considerable. At the time the Borough Engineer informed HADAS that it would be kept safely at Summers Lane depot until it could be reinstated: so we are now going into a huddle with the Borough Engineer about it.

The Committee heard a report on the continuing work (now mainly administrative) -which will, in due course, result in the first West Heath report. : The virtually complete text (over 250 pages) has been typed: only the final summary – into which it may be possible to put a TL dating as a finishing touch – remains to be done. Work is also well advanced on the illustrations; and a Plan is under way to raise grants from as many interested sources as possible towards the cost of publication, which we hope will be undertaken by LAMAS, either as part of the Transactions or as one of their Special Papers.

Members will recall that Elizabeth Sanderson, our site-watching co-ordinator, had to give up that work a couple of months ago. Christine Arnott and John Enderby have now agreed to share the job between them. The fact that John has a pretty encyclopedic knowledge of the layout of the Borough will be a great advantage. No doubt as soon as they get into their stride there will be reports from them in the Newsletter.

Advance notice was given that our neighbours in Hampstead propose to celebrate their millennium in 1986. They base their 1000 years of history of Westminster Abbey Charter which defined Hampstead in 986. We look forward to hearing more about their celebrations.The Committee has arranged, to relieve our hard-pressed publications secretary, Pete Griffiths, of some of his workload. Joyce Slatter has kindly agreed to take charge of dealing with book orders, either from members or non-members. Should you want to buy any publications, please get in touch with her at 5 Sentinel House, Sentinel Sq, NW4 2EN (phone

202 4397).

NEW SHIRES

It may help in ordering if we list some of the latest Shire titles. Six volumes in the Shire Archaeology series have not yet been reviewed in the Newsletter:

Aerial Archaeology in Britain by D N Riley

Archaeology of Gardens by Christopher Taylor

The Gods of the Roman Empire by Miranda J Green

Greek Coinage by N K Rutter

Post-medieval Pottery 1650-1800 by Jo Draper

Roman Forts in Britain by D J Breeze.

These cost £1.95 each. Such names as Chris Taylor, Miranda Green and J D Breeze are themselves a guarantee of a well-handled subject. In the Shire Album series “Clay Tobacco Pipes”, by Eric G Ayto, originally published in 1979 (and reviewed in the Newsletter) has just been reprinted at 95p it is a good buy.

GLASS AND GOLDSMITHS

The Newsletter has mentioned before now the remarkable find of coloured enamelled glass made at Foster Lane in the City a couple of years ago. Some fifty fragments were found, probably of early 14c date. These have now been pieced together as far as is possible, in the Museum of London’s Conservation department, and a fascinating small exhibit has been mounted. Next time you are in the Museum, do have a look at it – it is to the left of the bookstall.

Enamel is coloured glass which fuses at a lower temperature than Ordinary glass. Ground up, it can be applied like paint to a glass vessel and then fired to fix it permanently. The technique was in use in Syria well before it got to Europe, but certainly by 1300 enamelled glass was being made in Venice.

The site on which the glass was found, in Foster Lane, is just south of Goldsmiths Hall. There is documentary evidence that the area, at the west end of Cheapside, was a centre of goldsmithing from certainly the early 1200s. It was rich in rubbish and cess-pits, and in one of the latter – a square, chalk-lined pit – accompanied by domestic pottery and fragments of crucibles the glass was found. It was an unexpected find among what appeared to be mostly household rubbish.

The glass comprises parts of at least six beakers, each up to 5 in. or so in height, decorated with figures of saints and a horseman, orna­mental foliage, heraldic designs and inscriptions, in red, blue, yellow and other bright colours. When whole, they must have looked spectacular. The vivid colours like blue and red have been applied to the back of the glass, while the white outlines and the inscriptions are applied to the front. It is suggested that this may have been a device to prevent the colours running in the furnace.

One of the Latin inscriptions is ‘MAGISTER. BA …’ while on the rim of a beaker is ‘SBARTOLOMEUSFE …’ (probably …s Bartolomeus fecit‑) ‘Bartholomew made me’ It is interesting – and perhaps significant – that medieval Venetian records show a Bartholomew working there as a painter of glass between 1290-1325.

How did such expensive and luxurious objects come to thrown in quantity into a cesspit? The Museum experts advance two possible theories. One is that decorated drinking glasses were at this time often fitted into ornamental gold or silver bases, and that was goldsmiths’ work. -Were the goldsmiths doing that, was there a disaster in the workshop and did the glasses have to be jettisoned? the other suggestion is that the owner decided to realise the value of the bullion mounts and sent the glasses to have their bases removed!

CORNWALL CONFERENCE by BRIAN WRIGLEY

After the somewhat unenthusiastic – even critical – references in the Newsletter to the Prehistoric Society’s Spring Conference in London, it is a pleasure to be able to report that the Summer Conference, held from May 26 to June 2, was a most enjoyable and instructive event. There were lively and interesting lectures and splendidly organised field trips to fascinating and famous sites with guides (mostly Nicholas Johnson and Henrietta Quinnell) who had tremendous stores of information – and also the ability to project a learned discourse in voices that could be heard from one side of a field to the other.

Cornwall is of course rich in prehistoric sites. The message that came over to us, however; was that the problem for, Cornish archaeology is that the whole landscape, with -its routes and field boundaries of immemor­ial antiquity, is almost one vast archaeological site from sea to sea, with all the attendant, ever-present problems of priorities in preservation. Currently, we gathered, concentration is on mapping and. recording before the present form of the landscape disappears under changed methods of farming.

There was again a good representation of HADAS members. They must indeed have formed something like a sixth of the whole party.

POVERTY IN LONDON

The London Topographical/Society. has produced for its members another of its splendid annual offerings. This time it is a reproduction of Charles Booth’s map of London poverty, first published in 1889-1.

The map is in four 21″x25″ sheets in 7 colours. The colours are the key element. Booth’s system was to use each colour to show streets according to the !general condition of the inhabitants:’ starting with’ black .(‘lowest class. Vicious, semi-criminal’) through shades of blue, purple and red to yellow (‘Upper-middle and upper classes. Wealthy’).

The maps: are introducedby Professor. David Reeder of Leicester University, there.is.a biographical note on Charles Booth, a list of further reading and a note about the records on which Booth’s survey was founded -.392 notebooks and 55 volumes of house-to-house surveys and 6 boxes of 1:2500 OS map hand coloured. These are lodged in the British

Library of Political and Economic Science at the London School of Economics. You can consult them by ‘Making an appointment with the archivist The collection is described as being ‘briefly and rather inadequate­ly’ listed, but it is said to be a quarry that is full of potential nuggets for researchers.

The main aim of the London Topographical Society is to assist the study and appreciation of London’s history and topography by making available facsimile maps, plans and views. Its members receive the annual publication free each year, and can buy any extra productions at a 25% discount. Gels among past annual publications include Thomas Milne’s 1800 Land Use map of London and its environs, in 6 sheets; and the 1810 Rheinbeck Panorama of London.

The LTS subscription is only £5 a year, so you get some real bargains. Non-members, for instance, who want to buy the Booth maps will pay £12.50 for them anyone who would like to join LTS should write to the Member­ship Secretary, Trevor Ford, 59 Gladesmore Rd, London N15).

HADAS has an especially soft spot for LTS because a HADAS member, Dr Ann Saunders, is the Hon Editor and therefore responsible for its magni­ficent publications. 1984 is quite a year for Dr Saunders. As well as producing the Booth maps for LTS, she has had her fine book, The Art and Architecture of London, published by Phaidon.

AUTUMN CLASSES.

As the Newsletter went to press the list of the University’s extra­mural courses arrived; so did the HGS Institute’s 1984-5 prospectus. Here are details of a few local courses which might interest members:

The Romans on Weds starting Sept 26 at 10 am at Owens Adult Education

Centre, 60 Chandos Avenue, Totteridge N20. Lecturer Tony Rook.

Greek and Roman Art & Archaeology, Tues from Sept 25, 7 pm, Camden Adult

Education List, Haverstock School. A C King.

Landscape Archaeology, Tues from Sept 25, 7.30 pm Community Centre, Allum

Lane, Elstree. A R Wilmott.

The Roman East, Wed from Sept 26, 7.30pm, Hendon Library, The Burroughs, NW4. Margaret Roxan.

Industrial Archaeology Mon from Sept 24, 7.30 pm, de Havilland College,

The Walk, Potters Bar. Dr D P Smith.

There are also some interesting new, but non-local, courses:

Art, Politics and Religion in Ancient Egypt. This will consists of 6 linked weekends at monthly intervals, starting Sat Oct 13, 10.30 am. At the Mary Ward Centre, 9 Tavistock Place. Mrs S Gee.’

Everyday Life in Medieval London, Thurs from Sept 27, 6.30 pm Museum of London, P L Armitage and A Vince.

Shipwreck Archaeology, Tues from Oct 2, 6 pm, Museum of London, Peter Marsden

There are central courses, mostly at the Institute of Archaeology, in all years of the Diploma in Archaeology; and continuing central post-diploma courses on animal bones, human skeletal remains and plant remains.

And of course, as the Newsletter mentioned last month, it will be possible this autumn to start the first year of the Certificate in Field Archaeology locally, at the HGS Institute. Tony Legge will take the pre­history of SE England from 2-4 pm.Thurs, starting Sept 27, at the Quaker Meeting. House, Central Square, NW11.

Other HGS Institute courses are: Basic Geology: an Introduction to Palaeontology and Stratigraphy (Thurs, 7.30-9.30 pm); Discovering England (Mons, 10-12 noon); Antique British Pottery & Porcelain, 1650-1900

(Tues, 7.30-9.30pm); Care & Restoration of Antiques (Weds 7.30-9.30 pm) and London’s Heritage (iris 10-12 noon). Further details from the HGS Institute office, 455-9951 (but not between Aug 6-17).

ALL ABOUT BARNS

The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings – whose secretary, you may remember, is HADAS member Philip Venning – has recently launched a Barns Campaign. Part of this is described as a Domesday Survey of every barn in England and Wales, built of traditional materials, whether still in agricultural use or converted.’

The SPAB is calling for volunteers to visit all barns in their local parish and to fill in a simple questionnaire of some 25 or so questions. It has invited HADAS to take responsibility for dealing with the parishes in the Borough of Barnet, and we would like to accept – provided enough members are prepared to volunteer to help.

It should not be too tough a job because; alas, LBB has already lost most of its old barns. If we could find 4 or Volunteers, particularly in the northern part of the Borough; prepared to visit two or three Thithe barns each and to fill in the questionnaire, we think we could do all that SPAB requires.

Members who would like to take part in this piece of field work are asked to contact Brigid Grafton Green (455 9040; or drop her a note at 88Temple Fortune Lane, NW11).

RUMOURS OF WARS

There is no doubt that attitudes to nuclear weaponry arouse strong

Passions even in the unwarlike world of archaeology. Our note in the
last Newsletter about the new organisation, Archaeologists for Peace, produced- immediate reactions.

First came a letter from a member who warmly welcomed the new group. ‘I’ve written off for details at once,’ it said.

Hot on its heels came a phone call from a member who had almost been inspired to write saying that archaeology shouldn’t be dragged into poli­tics.’ We begged her to put it in writing, but she never got round to it. However, one of our younger members, Robert Michel, now reading archaeology at Southampton University, who has been with us since his junior days, did put pen to paper. He wrote:

Dear Editor,

Do archaeologists need a separate voice in the debate on the arms race? Surely any of tour colleagues who feel sufficiently strongly on the matter can join one of the established organisations.

I for one would be unhappy to see archaeology as a profession/hobby dragged into the inevitably political arms race debate. As archaeologists, our concern is with the reconstruction of man’s past through the remains recoverable from the archaeological record. Our concern about the arms race and allied matters should be pursued in our capacity as private individuals, and I hope archaeologists will give this new organisation a very wide berth.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Michel

PS: Keep up the good work

NEW MEMBERS

It is some time since we listed HADAS’s new members and wished them harpy digging 7 of every kind. The following have joined the. Society in the last few months:

Susan Abraham, Hendon; Fred Armstrong, N. Finchley; Isobel Barrett, Hampstead; .Rae Bloxham, Finchley; Mr & Mrs Borrill, Mill Hill; Valerie

Brown, Kenton; Jonathan Chandler, Highgate; Stuart Goldshaft, Edgware; ‘ ,Paul Grandidge, HGS; Philip & Sarah Harris, Finchley; Miss W’S Hartnell, New Southgate; Bernadette Joslin, N. Finchley; Mr R V Kerman, Mill Hill; Lisa & Tracey Maher, Kenton; Marianne Mays, N. Finchley; Spike Milligan, Hadley; Fiona Monteith, Orpington; Gavin Morgan, Hendon; Irene Owen, Barnet;’ Mary Rawitzer, Highgate; Mr A Rayner Finchley; Miss M V

Rowland; Wandsworth; Malcolm Smith, Muswell Hill; J Symes, N19; Mr P D Wernick, Hendon; John Whitehorn, Barnet; Robert & Sue Woolley, Golders Grn.

We have also a now corporate member – the Mount School, Mill Hill.

A warm welcome to all the above.

PARAGRAPHS ABOUT PEOPLE

One horribly frustrated member this summer is MYFANWY STEWART. She has always been a most staunch West Heath supporter, and this season he was to have been one of the three ’eminences’ who kept the new dig running (Margaret Maher and Sheila Woodward being the others). Alas, with West Heath only a week old Myfanwy pulled a hip muscle. To add insult to injury she didn’t do it digging, either – she was just lifting up a grandchild at home! She had to spend a week on her back and then take life very slowly – and no West Heath. However, it must have been some consolation to hear that she had passed her degree in Archaeology this summer – with an upper 2: many congratulations.

Myfanwy’s Mum, MRS IRENE OWEN, who joined HADAS in May, has been one of the dig’s keenest supporters. She’s made her way to West Heath fre­quently – and it’s no easy place to get to by public transport from. Chipp­ing Barnet. She has a particularly neat hand for flint marking, we’re told, not to mention being an outstanding coffee-maker;

Several HADAS members took part in this year’s annual Open Week at the HGS Institute – the last under the friendly eye of JOHN ENDERBY., who retires at the end of this month. JOYCE SLATTER, ENID HILL and VALENTINE SHELDON, took charge. of the bookstall, selling £30 worth of books and en­rolling new members;. while CHRISTINE ARNOTT organised an exhibit on HADAS’s work. We are most grateful for their help and also for Mr Enderby’s invitation to take part.

News recently came of two former HADAS members who, for various reasons, have had to give up membership. They will, we feel sure, be

remembered by many who worked in West Heath Phase 1. NICOLE DOUEK took her degree in Ancient History at University College in summer ’83. She is about to start working for a PhD in September, on an aspect of her pet subject: Ancient Egypt.

It was a pleasure to get a letter – via the Diplomatic Bag from GILL BRAITHWAITE, who took an archaeological degree some 4 years ago just before she was wafted, off to Washington where her husband is No 2 at the British Embassy. She tells us she tries desperately to keep up with what’s happening in British archaeology – but it’s difficult at such a distance; and she sends her best wishes to all her friends in HADAS.

We also noticed – this time in the CBA Newsletter – that another.’ ex-HADAS member is managing to keep up his archaeology. DR ERIC GRANT, of the Geography department of Middlesex Poly, who was a HADAS member. all through the ’70s, has received a grant of £500 for an excavation in Langport, Somerset, ‘to elucidate the development of the Saxon and medieval town.’

HADAS member on the move this summer is CELIA GOULD. She has loft Hendon after many years to live at Winchmore Hill (at 23A Percy Rd, N21 phone 360 6129, if you would care to alter your members’ list).

Newsletter-161-July-1984

By | Past Newsletters, Volume 3 : 1980 - 1984 | No Comments

Newsletter 161: July, 1984

WEST HEATH IN ACTION AGAIN

HADAS re-opened its West Heath site on June 16 and the dig is now going strong, The first weekend – unfortunately cut short, on Sunday, by a highly temperamental thunderstorm – was spent ‘laying out.’ Digging proper began on the Monday and three trenches were opened – XVH, J and K. More will follow.

It has been harder work in the early stages of this dig than in the halcyon seasons of the ’70s. During the last three years – our first phase on the site, you may remember, ended on October 31, 1981 – much building rubble has been dumped and is now grassed over. Before we could reach the flint-bearing stratum in the new trenches some heavy pick-and­ shovel work was needed to remove it. It was much tougher going than the gentle sand trowelling that was a hallmark of earlier years.

The present area is close to the original site – just a little more into the trees and marginally further away from the Leg of Mutton pond, which is still just below us. The whooper swans we once nervously knew have gone; instead there is a pair of Canada geese with a delightful family of goslings; and, of course, there is a familiar quackery of ducks.

Dave King has come up trumps again with a Mk II processing shed which can be put up – or taken down – in ten minutes flat. It’s a little roomier than the original Mk I version and as great a success as ever. Only drawback is that it’s slightly higher than before, so the short ones among us can only just manage to raise the roof!

The most important thing to report, however, is that the excavation is well under way and will continue to flourish – but only if every HADAS member who can do so will come along to help. Digging is all day every day till July 31 – and we need to put into it every bit of HADAS muscle that’s available, So if you haven’t yet signed on for a trowelling stint, please do right away – don’t put it off till next week. Should you want any more details, ring either Margaret Maher (907 0333) or Sheila Woodward

(952 3697) – but in the evening, as both will be on site most days.

PROGRAMME NEWS

Sat July 14. Outing cancelled (see June Newsletter).

Sat Aug 18. Outing to Repton, Derbyshire. Martin Biddle is running an excavation there and has agreed to show us round and talk about the site. More details in the August Newsletter.

Sat/Sun Sept 15/16. Lincoln: arrangements for the mini-weekend are reaching their final stages. The Lincoln Archaeological Trust are providing guides for the whole weekend and the Director of the Trust will give a talk on Saturday evening. Accommodation will probably be in a small hotel, and depending on numbers and transport we hope to do it for an all-in figure of app. £39. If you wish to come, please fill in the enclosed application form and send it to me with £10 deposit per person by July 7, as the hotel is waiting for our booking. Late comers should ring me as usual, please, in case there are cancellations.

DOROTHY NEWBURY

A WALK WITH THE FAMOUS FRANCES RADFORD describes

HADAS’s Hampstead Walk

In May Christopher Wade, Curator of Burgh House, New End Sq, pro­vided a group of HADAS members with a guided tour round a small Area of Hampstead village. It was full of memories of the famous in art, science and literature, and particularly of one of the most notable Hampstead families, the du Mauriers.

We started in Well Walk, which took its name from the springs of ferruginous water known as chalybeate for which it became famous. In 1698 the Hon Susannah Noel and her son, Baptiste, 3rd Earl of Gainsborough, gave a Well and 6 acres of land to ‘the use and benefit of the poor of Hampstead ‘The Gainsborough family was responsible for developing much of this area, promoting it as a spa. Hampstead waters became so famous that they were bottled and sold at 3d a bottle in Fleet Street. Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale were among the notables who visited the spa.

No 40 Well Walk was for a time the home of John Constable the painter, who had moved to Hampstead for his wife’s health. He came here in 1827 from his previous home in Downshire Hill. D H Lawrence stayed in the road for a while before eloping with Frieda. John Masefield once lived at No 13.

We moved on to Cannon Lane to see the Parish lock-up (c.1730) built into the wall of Cannon Hall where local magistrates had held court. Prisoners were kept there ‘until more lengthy arrangements’ could be made for them. When a police force was founded in 1829 the prisoners were transferred to the Watch House in Holly Walk, The lock-up is a Listed building,

Cannon Hall (early 18c) later became the home of Gerald du Maurier, (1873-1934) the well-known actor-manager who ran Wyndham’s Theatre from 1910-25 and opened the Everyman Theatre in Hampstead, now a cinema. He was the original Captain Hook in Barrie’s Peter Pan in 1904. His daughter Daphne, the novelist, used the changing room above the stables as a study, writing while her friends and sisters played tennis.

Gerald’s father, George, the artist, had been advised to live in Hampstead for the good of his health. He had a detached retina of one eye, which caused him much concern as he feared he might not be able to carry on his work. He was a cartoonist with ‘Punch’ and seems to be best known for his cartoon ‘the Curate’s egg – good in parts!’ When he turned to writing, his novel Trilby was a huge success.

George used to walk his dog up to the Whitestone Pond, from whence the dog chose the route; either to the Bull & Bush or the Spaniards Inn. One day, the story goes, George rescued a dog that had fallen through the ice on the Pond. The owner came up to offer him 6d for his pains. When George refused it, the man exclaimed ‘sorry, sir, I never knew you were a gentleman’

George lived at 28 Hampstead Grove, opposite Fenton House, a beautiful 17c building now owned by the National Trust and a home for antique musical instruments. A few yards away is a house which once belonged to George Romney, the painter. When he moved there he took over a building which was then a stable, intending to turn it into a picture gallery. The project never got off the ground and was abandoned in 1800.

Another well-known building is the Admiral’s House in Admiral’s Walk, distinguished by its white exterior and the quarter-deck construction of the upper storeys. It never was an admiral’s house, although Admiral Barton lived nearby in Vane House, now demolished. -A mere lieutenant owned the Admiral’s House. Adjoining is, Grove Lodge, where Galsworthy wrote The Forsyth Saga.

As Hampstead had long been considered a healthy place many came there to recover from illness, one patient being Robert Louis Stevenson. The large building at Mount Vernon, now a research laboratory, was once the largest TB hospital in the country,

Our walk continued down Holly Hill, with a brief glimpse of the Roman Catholic Church where de Gaulle worshipped during the war years. Now the centre building in a terrace of houses, the west end of the church itself was once a house with a small chapel at its rear. On to Hampstead Parish Church where the churchyard, or more aptly, the church garden, is a resting place for many well-known people – the du Mauriers, Beerbohn Tree, Anton Walbrook, Llewelyn Davies of the ‘Lost Boys,’ Gilbert Scott, John Constable and Professor Joad, to Mention but a few.

Hampstead abounds in plaques, blue, brown and black, commemorating the many distinguished people who have lived in the area. There are four names to add to those already mentioned – Newman Hall, a nonconformist preacher who founded homes for the aged; Sir Henry Cole, who originated the habit of sending Christmas cards; Sir Henry Dale, physiologist; and last but not least in the eyes of HADAS, Sir Flinders Petrie, Egyptologist and a founding father of modern archaeology.

Many thanks to Christopher Wade for his splendid commentary, fact-filled and highly entertaining. We had, of course, gone to the fountain head, because he is the compiler/editor of the Camden History Society’s excellent ‘Streets of Hampstead’ booklets ‘The Streets of Hampstead’
(1972), ‘More Streets of Hampstead’ (1973) and ‘The Streets of West Hampstead’ (1975).

ROMAN MILITARY TOMBSTONES by Alastair Scott Anderson Shire Archaeology,

Reviewed by RAYMOND LOWE No 19, £1.95

When Shire Publications first introduced their archaeology series the Roman titles were of a very general nature. They covered subjects that were already available to the general reader. This has now to some extent changed and we have several volumes dealing with specific subjects that cannot be found elsewhere. Roman Military Tombstones is such a subject. A S Anderson covers only the period of the lst/2nd centuries, and we must hope for a second volume for the 3rd/4th centuries.

After a succinct description of the army, Roman funerary practices are discussed. The stones are classified into four groups in chapter 3. Chapter 4 deals with the most interesting section, epigraphy. It is a pity it is so short. A crib of all the usual abbreviations found on tom stones would be most useful to the non-Latin Romanist. Even a catalogue of all the stone’s would be possible. There are, we are told, only 450 extant in Britain There is certainly room on p24 for another example.

Chapter 5 discusses the various styles and Chapter 6 the possible dating. The book is well supplied with illustrations. In spite of my criticisms; this book is a must for anyone interested in the Roman army in Britain, and is good value at £1.95.’ Copies are obtainable from Pete Griffiths, 8 Jubilee Avenue, London Colney, Herts AL2 1QG (61-23156),

NEW COURSE AT THE HGS INSTITUTE

In the May Newsletter we mentioned the possibility off the Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute starting courses in London University’s Certificate in Field Archaeology.. This idea has now come to fruition and the first year of the Certificate, which deals with prehistory, will begin on Thurs Sept 27. It will be a daytime course, from 2-4 pm at Friends meeting House, on the NE corner of Central Square, behind the Teahouse.

The course will consist of 24 meetings and 4 visits, and will cost £30 for two terms. Lecturer will be Tony Legge, Staff Lecturer in Archaeology to the Extramural Department of the University. Among other things he specialises in environmental archaeology.

It is hoped that the course will be well supported by HADAS members; if you would like to join it, let the Institute know, on 455 9951.

INTO SUNNY SUFFOLX LINDA BARROW reports on the HADAS outing of June 16

A better day could not have been chosen for this outing the beautiful landscapes in which Icklingham, West Stow and Ickworth were situated gained even more from the sunny summer weather.

After leaving the suburbs we soon crossed once-glaciated areas into Grimes Graves country. We arrived at Icklingham in excellent time after a welcome stop at Comfort Cafe. The journey was pleasant and informative, with handouts for all – in which not the least interesting item was a cartoon of Ted Sammes.

Icklingham was a small village with two Churches, one of them, renowned for its thatched roof. The Marston family, to whom the ‘museum’ belong­ed, had been – and still are – private millers. Duncan Marston spoke about his father’s collections and of his interest in gathering goodies from all over the locality. These were displayed in cabinets of which the frames, glass and timber were constructed from old machines removed from the flour mill after the Second World War.

Exhibits a ranged from lucky stones, buried under hearths of wattle ­and daub cottages at the time of the Black Death, to instruments once attached to the rear legs of horses to prevent kicking. There were collections of old photos and postcards and ‘war budget’ magazines priced three pence each to leaf through.

A most impressive cabinet displayed Anglo-Saxon burial urns, one of which was thought to be one of the finest examples in existence. There was a fine ethnographic collection of beautifully worked. Stone pearheads, impressive displays of prehistoric artefacts, a collection of arrowheads including the rare single-barbed variety, quernstones made from local materials, ancient farming implements, Edwardian and Victorian dolls, millers’ tools and last but not least a miscellaneous section in which ‘Little Lucy’ (traction engine), a large haycart and an old Morris van were housed.

The museum is not open to the public. It has retained a very indi­vidual character. The warmth and humour of Duncan Marston’s talk is illustrated by this quote: ‘Father was like a flying buttress he never went into the church but supported it from outside – by donations!

It was not only the archaeological features that interested members on the trip: the unexpected appearance of a pheasant or the sound of a cuckoo produced many an ‘ooh’ and ‘aah.’

A short drive from Icklingham brought us to West Stow and the Anglo-Saxon village reconstruction. Reminders that we were in Saxon country were reinforced by posters advertising a forthcoming ‘Saxon Skirmish.’ After picnicking in West Stow Country Park we were shown around by the Warden Richard Darrah. The hill on which the reconstructions stand could be considered as a multi-period site – starting with. Mesolithic occupation and occupied until about 1300 AD when the site was buried by a sandstorm, West Stow had links with the Icklingham collection – one of its Saxon in­habitants may have been cremated in an urn on show at the Marston museum.

The reconstructions of the buildings were based on archaeological evidence. Oak was used to build the walls and floors, hazel for the roofs, ash for the rafters and straw for thatch. Mr Darrah gave us a detailed talk on the technology behind the reconstructions – the timber was split with wedges and hewn with adzes. Apparently there used to be controversy about where the Saxons actually lived in the houses. It is now known that they were living on floors over the pits rather than in the pits. One house was set up especially to show how the Saxons did not live.

The economy of the village was predominantly agricultural. During excavation forty tea chests were filled with animal bones, mainly from domesticated types. Numerous bone implements were found; and again bone combs were displayed in the Ickingham collection, one of two of which one had been found at West Stow. Cereals grown in Saxon times included wheat, barley and rye and some pulses.

Our next move was to Ickworth House – a great contrast to the thatch settlement of the Saxons. The first thing that struck us was the rotunda, with its bas relief friezes glowing golden in. the mid-afternoon sun. The beckoning park with its midsummer green was a serious challenge to the glories of the house itself. Many members preferred the natural beauty of park and garden to the more ornate sights inside.

When we boarded the coach again it was rather like entering the temperate house at KEW, It had been- as so many HADAS trips are – an outing to savour. It’s the little touches – the passing of the sweet the raffles plus the excellent organisation – that make HADAS expeditions so memorable.

HISTORIC BUILDINGS SAVED

We were happy to learn, from the last Newsletter of the Council for British Archeology, that there has been a reprieve for the Historic Buildings Division of the GLC. At first it looked seemed possible – though incredible – that Government plans to scrap the GLC and Metropolitan counties would mean the total loss of this unique organisation with all its accumulated knowledge.

The CBA Newsletter says:

The Secretary of State announced … when introducing the Second Reading of the. Local Government (Interim Provisions) Bill, that the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England had indicated it was ready to take on the Division in the event of the GLC being abolished, and to maintain it as a discrete unit within the Commission.”

The HBMCE is the ‘new body, established under the National Heritage Act, which came into being on April 1 last and which now controls both Listed Buildings and scheduled sites in England. The proposed set-up should work well from both sides: the Historic Buildings Division has

Much to offer HBMCE in experience and expertise; and HBMCE will, we hope be able to provide the Historic Buildings Division with the finance and stability it needs to do its work to best advantage.

Also in the June CBA Newsletter was news of a new organisation called Archaeologists for Peace, founded in Bedford in April.

Archaeologists for Peace, says CBA, is ‘seen as a voice for archaeo­logists who are concerned with the escalation of the arms race and all its implications. As students of human society, archaeologists may be deemed to have a special perspective on this subject, seeing the future as part of a continuum deriving from man’s earliest development.’

More details about AFP can be obtained from Hilary Major, 57A South Street, Braintree, Essex. CM7 6QD.

SITES TO WATCH

The following applications for planning permission have been made since the last Newsletter:

Land forming part of 24 Uphill Rd, NW7 detached house

Land at rear of 22 Kings Rd, fronting

Jennings Way, Barnet bungalow

4 Farrington Cottages, Moon Lane, Moxon

St, Barnet (amended plan) semi-detached dwelling

Land adj. 2 Ash Cottages & part of Highwood demolition of coach house &

Lodge, Highwood Hill, NW7 stable; erection 2 detached houses

Land adj. Ashley Pines, Barnet Gate Lane,

Arkley 2 detached houses

201 High Rd, N2 3-storey flats (outline)

Land adj. 4 Parsons Crescent, Edgware detached house

Members who notice signs of building or development activity on any of these sites are asked to alert Brian Wrigley on 959 5982.

There have been a couple of applications for alterations to interesting Listed buildings recently. One is Hill House, Elstree Hill South, Elstree. There it is proposed that the end bay of the south wing be reconstructed. Hill House, now a memorial Home, is basically a mid-18c red brick mansion with many additions. The 2-storey main block has two full-height flanking bays, and on the ground floor the central door, with a window either side, is covered by a conservatory which fills the space between the bays. There is a mid-18c wing one side, with a late 18c wing beyond it. On the other side a long, 2-storey wing with a steep pitched roof and irregularly spaced windows may be earlier. There are also 19c additions.

The second application is for Gingerbread Cottage on Totteridge Green. This is the only remaining gatehouse of the former Copped Hall, where Bulwer Lytton is said to have written ‘The Last of the Barons’ in the summer house and where Cardinal Manning was born. Gingerbread Cottage is sometimes called Green Lodge and has been in the news several times recently. It is a small, attractive 2-storey 19c weather boarded house with a fretted barge boarded gable. Its small size is a temptation to owners to wish to extend it – and the last time someone proposed doing so there was a storm of protest because it was felt that any extension would spoil the whole. This time a flat-roofed extension which will con­tain a kitchen and breakfast room has been applied for.

RESEARCH AND GROUP ACTIVITIES

In the June Newsletter we printed part of the report given at the AGM on Research& Group activities, and said that the remainder of the report would follow this month. Here it is:

The INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY GROUP may be small but it is not inactive. Research on the aircraft industry and the aerodromes in the district has continued and a paper on the archaeology of Hendon Aerodrome is at an advanced stage of completion. We have been particularly active in the last few months with the Borough Planning Department in trying to get Grahame-White’s offices and control tower at Hendon Listed. The offices are the main prestige building built during World War I by Claude Grahame White and the control tower is believed to be the earliest extant, so these buildings are of much more than local importance. –

During the year we have also commemorated the centenary of STC and the Diamond Jubilee of the Tube extension to Edgware with some research and Newsletter articles. Research on STC revealed an unexpected link with Hendon Aerodrome, where the company leased premises between the wars,

Bill Firth

The DOCUMENTARY GROUP has continued work on various long-term projects previously reported. One of these – Field Names in the Borough of Barnet ­was completed by Nell Penny in October, 1983, and the material deposited with John Field, coordinator of field-name studies for the English Place-name Society. Mr Field hopes to include the material in a future publication.

New projects begun or planned during the year include:

a study of the Barnet end of the Welsh droving trade in 18c/early 19c, coupled with research into Barnet Fair; the preparation of a new index of Listed buildings in LBB, to coincide with the new Statutory List now undergoing final revision; research into the papers of the Overseers of the Poor in our area, of which there is a fine collection, hitherto unstudied, in the LBB Local History library. Two brief papers, arising from this, have already been published in the Newsletter – Annals of the Peer in the 18c (Jan 1984) and Charity Children March 1984 the possibility of a more ambitious publication is being investigated.

Other results of documentary work published in the Newsletter during the past year include:

The history of ‘The Village,’ Finchley (Sept 1983)

Maps, drawings and a report recording Church Farm, East

Barnet (Feb 1984)

A biographical note on Joseph Grimaldi (April 1984)

Further recording, by photography and drawing, has been planned for sites (such as the Hand & Flower pub at Whetstone) which are under threat of re-development; and a photographic record was made of the old RAF married quarters in Booth Road, NW9, before their demolition.

A leaflet on Archaeology in Barnet, for which HADAS provided documentary work and illustrations, was published by LBB Planning Dept in October 1983 and has been sufficiently successful – particularly in schools – for a reprint, in changed format, to be planned for later this year by LBB Libraries Dept.

An illustrated booklet called Milk for the Millions, for which HADAS produced the text and photos, on the history of the Express Dairy in this area, was published by LBB Libraries Dept in June 1983.

The Documentary Group has co-operated in various ways with the Brit­ish Association for Local History (of which HADAS is a corporate member). In all 12 members of the Society have taken part in the various projects mentioned.

Brigid Grafton Green

Members interested in joining either the .Industrial Archaeology or the Documentary. Groups (both of, which will welcome new members) should ring Bill Firth for 455 7164), or Brigid Grafton Green for Documentary (455 9040).

The EXCAVATION WORKING PARTY has continued to meet throughout the years as a body reviewing site-watching and research activities and operating with the Greater London Archaeological Service, with an eye to possible digs. Of the list of 6 possible sites reported last year, an excavation has taken place at Hadley Wood earthwork, which has been reported in the Newsletter; some documentary research is continuing. No urgent rescue operation has cropped up during the year; so the position is that we have opportunities to dig which can be pursued whenever we have the enthusiasm of diggers and most importantly, someone available and prepared to take charge ‘for a few weekends.

This summer there will by a 6-week full-time dig at West Heath and much work is being put into organising this. This should not preclude other part-time digs, if needed.

The first incumbent of the post of site-watching co-ordinator, Elizabeth Sanderson has unhappily had to give up the job; we are grateful for her considerable work in getting an organisation started.

BRIAN WRIGLEY

ROMAN POTTERY: TECHNIQUES AND TECHNOLOGY,

Some discoveries at the Teahouse, described by TESSA SMITH

Once again at the Teahouse weekend of May 19/20 the pottery excavated at Brockley Hill before 1954 was available for research and hypothetical analysis, Special interest centered on pottery assembly. For example, exactly how did Roman potters fit together the amphora-type flagons made at Sulloniacae?

Study of the inverted necks of this type of vessel, which are usually broken off where they meet the body, shows clear evidence of join-marks. The neck was obviously thrown independently of the body and joined later. Close inspection of the grooves in the handles suggested that finger-pressure alone was the method of furrowing the two-groove handles, but that a tool had left sharper-edged grooves in the three-groove handles. The handles were then pressed onto the assembled body and neck, clear finger-poking marks at the base of the handle being noted on several examples. Not proven, but put forward as a hypothesis, was the thought that a firm circular foot ring had been added for stability to the bases of two examples.

Pinch-neck flagons were .examined. The pinch-neck rims, which produce two spouts, one larger at the back above the handle for filling the flagon, one smaller at the front for pouring, were compared with our own fingers and thumbs. It was uncannily obvious which pinch-marks had been made by the potter’s thumb and which by his forefinger, the thumb-press being slightly wider.

It was also demonstrated that a tazza could have been rotated slowly on a wheel, the top rim and the lower edge of the carinated shape being pinched towards each other by light pressure of the thumb and forefinger at regular intervals to provide a ‘frilled’ appearance. There were 23 press-marks on the top rim and 25 corresponding press-marks on the lower carination, Neat detective work.

Rough clay which had been used in the kiln packing also showed interesting features. Two examples had clear finger pressure marks where the potter had rammed them into position as kiln filling. Another piece had the clear indentation of a four ringed flagon neck. We also found a four ringed flagon-neck which just happened to fit the indentation exactly, giving a neat motive and negative example.

Typical Brockley Hill ware feels gritty, due to the addition of sand to the clay body. Sand is mainly silica which melts at a higher tempera­ture than pure clay. During firing the clay particles melt and fuse together while the silica remains in its stable state, thus retaining its gritty feel, Brockley Hill ware is, of course earthernware and thus slightly porous. The Romans did not have the ability to reach the consistently high temperatures needed to produce non-porous stoneware.

However, over-firing does seem to have occurred frequently, and examples of colour changes from normally fired, to heavily over-fired were examined. The change was from natural buff and pinky-orange to burnt sienna and purple grey, some sherds even showing a ‘sandwich’ effect. Some scorched sherds showed clearly where they had faced the outer lick of flames in the kiln. It is not the flames but the high-temperature gas that fire the pots and change the clay body into pottery. This is known as becoming isotrophic and occurs around 800°C.-850°c,

Generally speaking Brockley Hill ware looks creamy and pink and fresh­ly scrubbed this is due in part to oxygenating firing of the kilns.

This means that air was allowed to enter continuously throughout the firing time through the arched flue. Excess gases passed out through the dome of the kiln. In this type of firing the natural clay colours, buff, pale cream, slightly pink, etc were preserved. It was only from over-firing of the kiln that the previously mentioned darker colours resulted.

Examples of slipped sherds, where the potter has painted or dipped the pot in a coat of creamy slip, pose the question of whether this was an experiment to try to produce non-porous ware. It could have been purely for decoration, but Brockley Hill ware is generally functional and un­decorated. Some of the pottery excavated had, in fact, been imported to Brockley Hill for example, samian ware with its smooth, glossy surface and occasional pieces of burnished or colour-coated ware.

Highgate Wood ware was also imported. The body fabric of this is consistently grey, resulting from reduction firing. Here the oxygen supply is cut off during firing, the kiln is sealed completely, including the dome, and the fuel produces free carbon or smoke

Techniques and technology of Roman pottery give most interesting food for thought and it is intended that these aspects of research done during the Teahouse weekends will result in another exhibition by HADAS at Church Farm House Museum later in the summer. More of that in a later Newsletter.

.

PARAGRAPHS ABOUT PEOPLE

VICTOR JONES, our Hon. Treasurer, is in midst of moving house and is finding it – as it always is – traumatic. It’s doubly so because he is attempting to fit the contents of a large building into a much smaller one. His new address is 78 Temple Fortune Lane, NW11 (only 5 houses away from the Editor of the Newsletter) and he is keeping the same phone number: 458 6180.

Birthday greetings this month to GEORGE INGRAM who will achieve the age of 84 on July 28. We regretfully report that George is still struggling against eye trouble but – being George – is determined not to be beaten by it. Last month, for the first time since his operation in June of last year, he set forth alone one evening on an expedition to see a display at the Old Bull, in Chipping Barnet. It meant travelling by train there and back, as well as searching out a building he didn’t know ­no small undertaking, when you can’t rely on seeing properly. However, it was accomplished triumphantly. We know that George’s many HADAS friends will want to join in wishing him a very happy birthday.

At the other end of the age-scale, one of our youngest members, 10-year-old. LLOYD MORRIS, gave the vote of thanks to TED SAMMES for compering the last outing with such kindly efficiency. Lloyd and his brother GWILYM, who is 11, joined the Society last year- their father, WILLIAM, .one of our most valued artists and draughtsmen, is a member of long standing, and was active on the Research Committee until paternal duties became too time-consuming. Lloyd paid his tribute to Ted early on the trip home, announcing that it was better to say ‘thank you’ quickly as he would probably fall asleep later:, It sounds as if he is another satisfied HADAS customer. We all know that feeling of returning from a Society outing, replete with sunshine, good talk and archaeological knowledge painlessly applied!

Another HADAS member who has been fighting against odds is NELL PENNY. .A few weeks ago she had the unpleasant experience, while driving across Streatham Common, of being rammed in the back by another car. It was during a torrential rainstorm and she was in the middle of three lanes of traffic, so it can’t have been much fun. Delayed shock a few days later (‘I hadn’t time to be shocked straight away,’ she says) was followed by an attack of bronchitis. However, she is now not only up and about again, but is driving a replacement car while her own is put right.

PERCY REBOUL dashed into Dewhurst’s butcher’s shop in Ballards Lane a few weeks ago just before it closed. He wasn’t, however, after the Sunday joint. Camera at the ready, he took a smashing set of photos for the HADAS archives of the delicious decorative wall tiles which have been a feature of the shop for years. There are 10 pictures-in-tile, each one made up of four 6-inch sq. tiles: a mother sow with one piglet running by her; a cock and two hens; a chicken run, with two haystacks in the background; a pair of geese; a black-faced sheep with its lamb; A pair of ducks on a pool; a pair of black and white rabbits; doves, with a dove-cot behind; a turkey cock on the warpath; and a windmill on top of a little hill. The tiles are polychrome, in four or five colours, with a coloured border all round.

The shop was, alas, closing forever that night and Percy fears the tiles will be demolished with the building.

The HADAS library has just had a splendid acquisition. A non-HADAS member, MRS STARR, who recently completed the external Diploma in Archaeo­logy, kindly donated all her books for the four years of the course to the Society. This is no small benefaction there are over a hundred of them, in three large boxes, and our librarian, JUNE PORGES, is purring with pleasure! The Newsletter would like to seize this chance of thanking Mrs Starr very much on HADAS’s behalf for her generous gift.

‘INKY’

Don’t forget that when you get this Newsletter the ‘Inky’ Stephens exhibition, organised by Paddy Musgrove and the Finchley Society at Avenue House, East End Road, N3, will be in full swing. You can see it up to and including July 8, opening times 10.30 am-8 pm.

To accompany the exhibition there is an interesting illustrated booklet, in which Paddy has written a history of the Stephens ink firm and the two men – Henry Stephen’s father and son – who put it on the map.

Newsletter-155-January-1984

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Newsletter No. 155: January 1984

May 1984 be a year of memorable meetings, rewarding research and delightful digs – best wishes to all members for a happy New Year.

PROGRAMME NEWS

Don’t forget that the January Lecture is on the second (not the first) Tuesday of the Month

Tuesday, 10 January Richard Darrah will be travelling from deepest Suffolk to talk to us about the reconstructed Anglo-Saxon village at West Stow (near Bury St. Edmunds), of which he is warden.

The site was dug in the late 1960s, having previously lain undisturbed, except for medieval ploughing, since the inhabitants abandoned it in the 7th century AD. Even the ploughing ceased about 1300, when the site was covered – and preserved ­- by a sandstorm.

Using the evidence of pits and postholes, grubenhauser (sunken huts) and a hall house have been reconstructed. The lecture will be particularly interesting because of HADAS’s visits to West Stow in 1977 & 1978, when it was noted in the Newsletter that” we were fortunate to visit West Stow in its early stages and it should be interesting to follow its development…” With Mr. Darrah’s help, that’s exactly what we should be able to do on 10 January.


Tuesday, 7 February
HADAS excavation at Church End, Hendon 1973-74 by Ted Sammes

Tuesday, 6 March Twenty-five years of excavation in Wiltshire By John Musty

Tuesday, 3 April Underwater archaeology today by Alexander Flinder

Tuesday 15 May Annual General Meeting

STREAM-WALKING 1983 a summary by Daphne Lorimer

Last winter the Silk Stream and its tributary Dean’s Brook, were walked by a stalwart band of HADAS members, for their entire length. No archaeological artifacts or features were discovered at this time but the exercise was useful in that hitherto unknown aspects of the Borough were revealed and places of possible future interest noted.

Considerable portions of both streams have been constrained and in some parts canalised but they are swift flowing, tend to meander and where oxbows are present, do form beaches on which a considerable amount of debris collects. These beaches are ideal spots for regular and systematic inspection, especially after heavy rain, for Medieval and Roman pottery (and since the basis is flint gravel) for flint artifacts.

Beach formations particularly noted were those in Montrose Park, in the stretch beyond Montrose Bridge on the Silk Stream and on the Dean’s Brook, in the stretch parallel to Wenlock Road and south-east of Edgware station beyond the culvert carry­ing the stream beneath the railway.

It was noted ,that a narrow band of pebbles was a feature of Dean’s Brook wherever stretches were found in their natural state. Samples of soil and gravel were taken.

Some interest was aroused in local- residents whose houses abutt the streams and information was gleaned about the alteration of courses and the straightening of reaches. Members were always alert to the possibility of garden finds.

It is hoped that stream-walking will continue in 1984 as we have already done one walk on our new project: The River Brent and the Dollis and Mutton Brooks. It is a pleasant occupation, gives a new light on old places and in the Borough of Barnet is a very possible source of archaeological material.

ORPHEUS AND HIS DOG

SHEILA WOODWARD lightens the winter gloom by looking back, Proust-like, with the eye of affection on one of HADAS’s summertime expeditions.

One of the Roman Group’s most enjoyable summer visits in 1983 was to Littlecote Park in Wiltshire, where an impressive Roman villa has been under excavation since 1978. Seen on a glorious summer day, in its idyllic setting beside a peaceful River Kennet, the site could scarcely have failed to capture our imagination.

The excavation itself, the history of the villa and the interpretation of what has been found are all of particular interest. The excavation is funded by a charitable trust set up by Mr, D.S. Wills, the present owner of the Littlecote estate-, and is said to be the largest “private” excavation in this country. Six full-time staff; led by Bryan Walters who showed us round, are supplemented by students and other volunteer diggers during the summer.

The villa seems to have been built about AD170 – displacing the small settlement of the previous century, rather as the building of the present Littlecote House caused the abandonment of an adjacent medieval village some 1340 years later. Altered and enlarged over a period of 200 years, the villa fell into decay and was abandoned at the end of the 4th century. During its heyday the villa was the centre of a large farming estate.

Traces of the Roman field system have been found over an extensive area but have not yet been completely surveyed. Farm buildings are being excavated, including barns, workshops, a bakery and a possible watermill. The villa was well sited for importing supplies and distributing its farm produce. It was on a major Roman road of military construction, which ran from Silchester to a Roman fort near Marlborough with a further road connecting it with the Fosse Way near Bath. The River Kennet was navigable by flat-bottomed boats with a 13 inch draught, capable of transporting heavy loads of grain, building stone etc. and it provided a direct link with the Thames.

After its abandonment, the villa lay buried until 1727 when it was uncovered during the building of a hunting lodge.

The magnificent Orpheus mosaic excited considerable interest and was described by Roger Gale as” the finest pavement that the sun ever shone upon in England.” The Society of Antiquaries commissioned George Vertue to produce an engraving of it (a colossal print survives in the Ashmolean Museum; Oxford but it not on public display)
and the wife of the estate steward who discovered the mosaic embroidered a tapestry of it which can still be seen in Littlecote House.

Unfortunately the winter of 1727/8 was exceptionally harsh, and exposure badly damaged the mosaic. Indeed, it was believed to have been destroyed until the excav­ation of 1977 uncovered it once more. Only about 40% of the mosaic had survived the engraving and the tapestry mentioned above have enabled the other 60% to be restored. Whatever one’s views about restoration, the mosaic is certainly impressive.

It had originally been supposed that the mosaic floor was that of a triclinium (dining room) used in the summer and the central figure with his lyre had been interpreted as Apollo. However, a canine figure beside him, not shown on the engraving or the tapestry but now clearly visible, leads Bryan Walters to argue that the figure is Orpheus and to interpret the surrounding mosaic pictures within the cycle of the Orphic myth. He regards the whole complex as an Orphic temenos, a pagan Orphic chapel to the 4th Century villa. It is a bold claim which is by no means universally accepted but which Mr. Walters supports with persuasive argument.

Excavation at Littlecote is to continue and a visit there can be most warmly recomm­ended. In addition to the Roman villa, Littlecote House is well worth seeing. The gardens are pleasant, and an excellent tea can be obtained, the small shop is imaginatively stocked and there is even a (discreetly hidden) Wild West Show for those who like that kind of thing.

NEW MEMBERSHIP LIST

This is always a hectic time of year for our Membership Secretary. Once December 31 has passed, it’s time to bring the HADAS membership list absolutely up to date and to stencil it. Ensuring that several hundred names, addresses and telephone numbers are spot-on is, no typist’s dream of pleasure but Phyllis Fetcher bears her cross bravely. Last year we circulated a copy of the Jan.1, 1983 list to every member with the February Newsletter. We usually do that every second year The other year i.e. this year – we sent it, in the interests of economy, only to members who will need it because of their work for the Society (e.g. Committee members, group leaders, our librarian etc) and to any other members who specifically asks for it So if you would like to have a copy of the membership list as at 1 January 1984, ,please let Phyllis Fletcher know (on 455 2558).

She will then arrange for a copy to be enclosed with your February Newsletter.

NEW MEMBERS

We can start the New Year most happily by welcoming all those who have joined

HADAS during the back-end of 1983. They include Mr J.S. Adams, North Finchley, Mr & Mrs Faraday, Cricklewood; Joanna Fells, East Finchley; Carolyn Fiddes, Finchley, Mark Forrest, East Finchley; Duncan Henry, Finchley Mr. T.G.Holden, North Finchley, Christine Hudson, Battersea; Carole, Melanie and Ruth Kent, West Hendon; Ian McKevitt, Mill Hill, Jean Matt, Hendon; Irene Sala, W.17; Sally White, Barnet.

The Newsletter hopes that they will find their HADAS membership gives them added zest to 1984.

PAYING A DEBT OF GRATITUDE

This seems a suitable moment to express the Editor’s heartfelt appreciation of all those who so willingly, with never a grouse, help to get the Newsletter out on time each month.

First, may I thank my associate editors, each of whom makes herself responsible for a couple of issues a year – Enid Hill, Liz Holliday, Isobel McPherson and Liz Sagues and with them I would like to couple the names of Deirdre Barrie and Joan Wrigley, who so kindly cut Newsletter stencils when the editor-of-the-month can’t do it.

A particular tribute should go from all of us to Enid Hill. She not only edits the News­letter from time to time, but every time she takes charge of our addressograph machine, makes sure our mailing list is correct and tackles all the envelopes.
Finally, we are all deeply in debt – as we have been now for many years – to Rene Frauchiger and Trudi Pulfer. Rene keeps our Duplicator and yearns over it (and it can be a temperamental beast) like a mother. She rolls off the whole of each Newsletter, collates it pages and the she and Mrs. Pulfer stuff’ the envelopes, stamp and post them. It’s a mammoth task 12 times a year and the fact that it’s a labour of love doesn’t make it any less labour, either’!

Anyway, everyone who enjoys the Newsletter will, I’m sure, want to join me in grateful thanks to all these willing helpers.

Brigid Grafton Green

THE ANNALS OF THE POOR IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY By Nell Penny

There is a wealth of local history material in the library archives at The Burroughs N.W.4 Particularly rich are the annals of the poor, both indigenous and “foreign” These are contained in the manuscript material for the years 1660 to 1835 deposited by the officials of St. Mary’s church – vestry minutes, church wardens’ accounts, accounts of the overseers of the poor, examinations, artifacts and removals.

By an act passed in 1601, Hendon, like all other parishes, rural and urban, had to appoint two overseers of the poor. These men, unpaid like all parish officers, were to get money by collecting rates on land and tenements. During the first half of the eighteenth century Hendon overseers generally raised two rates a year. They were charged to support the impotent poor (i.e. the sick, the old and young children), to apprentice older children by paying premiums and to buy a stock of materials upon which the able-bodied poor were to be set to work. Hendon overseers seem to have performed these duties reasonably well in a paternally despotic way, typical of eight­eenth century local administration. Because office was unpaid, nobody was willing to be an overseer for more than one year but most overseers served the following year as church wardens.

Between 1703 and 1757 four overseers only made their mark instead of signing their names when they produced their accounts before the vestry, and none appropriated parish money.

The treatment accorded to the “out poor” was a different story. Small sums paid to “casualty” poor and examinations of people not recognisably of Hendon reveal callousness and even brutality. This harsh attitude was not confined to Hendon. It bedeviled all parishes after the Settlement Act of 1662. By this act only poor born in a parish, apprenticed in it or who had rented property of an annual value of £10, who had been a servant or a parish officer for at least a year, were entitled to help from that parish. So parish officers chased away travelling poor, rigorously examined poor people and fought other parishes about settlements, all in the good cause of keeping down the rates. One classic fight was between two London parishes at Clerkenwell Sessions. The parish boundary ran across a poor man’s bed. Sessions decided the poor man was settled in that parish where his head lay – his head being the essence of his body,

In Hendon between 1700 and 1750 the payments to “casualty” poor show a zealous determination not to allow “foreigners” to remain in the parish. In 1709 Matthew Higgs the overseer for South End (Church End, the Burroughs, Parson Street, Golders Green, Childs Hill, Guttersedge and the Hyde) paid 5/9 for “a great bellied woman for relief & expenses and several times to send her away” . If a parish could not establish the paternity of a bastard child, that child would have a settlement in the parish. So there are many payments in Hendon to pregnant women of 6d or 1/- “to go away”. In 1721 a woman who had a child “sick of the small pox” was given 3/- and sent out of the parish, A poor man “sick of an ague” was given 2/6 and sent away. In 1734 it was thought worth 3/- to send away an Irish woman with three children. A case showing a rare streak of generosity was 2/6 for “a man lodging at Mr. Brooks, 2/- for two pints of sack for him” and 1/- when he went away.

Examinations of people who might become chargeable on the parish were chores which unpaid overseers might like to evade. An examination meant taking a person before a magistrate and getting a statement from him or her which the magistrate would sign. So the bundle of examinations made between 1727 and 1757 is a very irreg­ular series. There is one paper each for 1727,1731,1735,1739 and 1741; two each for 1736 and 1740 three for 1732 ten in 1737 and eight in 1742. All these people made their statements before John Nicolls, magistrate. In 1751 twenty-six poor made statements before four magistrates.

What kind of people came to Hendon or drifted through it in the first half of the eighteenth century? James Nicolls had been apprenticed to a wheelwright in Redbourn (Herts.) Thomas, his son 45 years old with a wife and three Children had been born in Hendon, but had been a yearly servant of Daniel Nicolls at Rowley Green in Shenley parish for £6.10s a year. Benjamin Sapwell was born at Newport Pagnell in Bucks . He had a wife and two very young children. In 1737 Matthew Pittman was examined. He said he had been born in Ghent in, Flanders “in 1708 or thereabouts”. Was he the child of one of Mariborough’s men? He thought he had a settlement in St. Giles in the Fields because he had been-“apprenticed to a barber and periwigg maker in Earle Street in that parish”. Also in 1737, Thomas and Edward Medcalfe, father and son were examined. Father had been born in Yorkshire, went to Ireland and farmed for forty years in County Longford. Edward had been born in Ireland. But the overseers and the justices must have mistrusted the men – “ordered that they quit the parish in 35 days”.

Did eighteenth century gentlemen tip the barber? A barber with a settlement in High Barnett said his wages were 18 a year besides “other perquisites”. In 1740, Poor Elizabeth Kirby, a single woman, had a child at her father’s, house in Hendon. She was, questioned when the baby was two months old. She said the baby’s father was John Jordan, a fellow servant at a farm in Idlestree. Jordan “several times bad carnal knowledge of her body” . The parish would be faced with either trying to attach a paternity order on Jordan or persuading “Idlestree” to pay for Elizabeth’s baby. The case of Susannah Beadle, a widow examined in 1734 was typical of the stern attitude towards women who might be ‘burdens on the parish for some years. Susannah,, born about 1700 in Bushey, Married John Beadle “at the Fleet” about 1720, (The.Fleet debtors’ prison and the taverns round it were notorious stamping grounds for dissolute clerics who would marry couples for a fee and no questions asked. So deep was the scandal of “Fleet weddings” that an act of 1753 declared that only marriages celebrated in a parish church after calling of the banns, were legal). To continue Susannah’s saga. Five months previously John had died at Hertford, Some 14 years earlier he had told her he had served John Nicoll at Highwood Hill for a whole year and by this had acquired a settlement in Hendon. In 1757 Ann Butler another widow with three young children confessed that she had been born in Southwark and had no other settlement.

It is difficult to calculate how many “out poor” there were in Hendon in the first half of the eighteenth century. Mrs. Corder, our very helpful archivist, found me bundles of examination papers, certificates of settlement from other parishes and removal orders to and from other parishes. Twelve settlement certificates from other parishes survive from the period 1704-1751. A certificate was a legal acknowledgement by a parish that ‘John Smith’ had a settlement in that parish and that the parish was financially responsible for him. Labourers in Hendon had settlements in Edgware, Totteridge, Ridge, St. Andrews, Holborn, Abbots Langley, Monken Hadley and Aldenham. Five certificates come from more distant parishes – Stevenage, Redbourn, Little Gaddesden; Bisbury (Staffs.) and the greatest traveller from Llanvylling in Montgomery. The overseers of that parish declared that John Wynn, accompanied by his wife Winifred and their six children had a settlement in that parish as a “yeoman of the borough”. They provided this information for “Poole in Montgomery and all other parishes in Great Britain”.

Sometimes a certificate from another parish was not enough. Widows were liable to removal to a parish where their husband had a settlement. Only five removal orders, 1737-1757, survive. Four widows had “lately intruded” themselves into Hendon and were to go – one to Aldenham, one to Abbots Langley, one to High Barnett and Sarah Darben with Diana, 8 years and Mary, 5 years and a boy “about five weeks not yet baptized” was sent back to Stain(e)s, Middlesex. Robert Saunders and Mary his wife had to go back to Hornsey – Robert “being lunatick”.

But six times in the same period, Hendon had to take back its own poor from other parishes. A widow with two children had become chargeable on the rates in St. Anne’ s Westminster; another widow with two very young children was returned from Mouldsey (Molesley), Surrey a couple with a young child came back from Totteridge and another couple from Hampstead. Mary Hurst a single woman had “intruded’ into Rotherhithe and was sent home.

It is dangerous to generalise about movements of the labouring poor between 1700 and 1750 from a surviving handful of examinations, certificates and removal orders. Hendon had a much larger population than most villages: Two main roads, Watling Street to the north-west and the North Road not far away, must have brought more than average the number of people seeking work in London and perhaps getting no further than Hendon., But what survives must be typical if it is random survival and it proves that working people did not move far in search of work. A circle with a radius of ten miles would cover most of-the parishes mentioned.

NEWS ABOUT HADAS PEOPLE

Two HADAS members are now proud parents,. Dave ‘and Jennifer King’s first child was born towards the end of November – a son. His name is Philip Hugh and

we’re told that Mum and baby – not to mention Dad – are all doing well. Congratulations are in order and we shouldn’t be surprised if there was a tiny trowel in his first Christmas stocking.

Have you ever heard of Strawberry-pickers’ Palsy? It sounds like one of those bad jokes in a funny film, comparable with Housemaid’s Knee for one HADAS member it’s been bad all right – but certainly no joke. Bryan: Hackett is one of our keenest under-18 members. For several years he •

was junior representative on the HADAS Committee, until he ‘retired’ last year to prepare for.0 Levels. Last, summer he started his school holidays by joining a dig at St.Albans. The evening of the first day he sudden realised that there was no feeling in his feet and legs and nothing he tried would bring it back. Later, in hospital, he was told that he had developed a rare but not unknown complaint Strawberry-pickers’ Palsy. It results from a trapped nerve in his knee – and alas, the cure is long, slow and tedious, ,We’re glad to report that now, some months later, recovery is on its Way. Bryan was able to return to school at UCS for the autumn term, but his summer vacation was wrecked and, for the moment, there’s no hope of his enjoying any form of sport.

This is the first time the Newsletter has heard of this complaint, but we feel it must be one of the natural hazards for an archaeologist, who spends so much time on his/her knees. We’send Bryan our very best wishes for his complete recovery.

HADAS members have been on the move this autumn. Three long-standing members have left the Borough, though we hope very much that their contacts with HADAS will not be completely broken.

One is Daisy Hill, a Vice-President of the Society and our Hon. Secretary through the later 1960s.There was a note with her Christmas Card this year to say that in mid-December she was off to a new home in Chesterfield. We know Hendon will miss Daisy greatly – she has lived in Burroughs Gardens for many years, and has been a tower of strength to many a local voluntary organisation; we have a feeling that she will miss Hendon too, so we hope to see her still, from time to-time.

Andrew and Joan Pares, members since 1975 – when Andrew Pares was Mayor of Barnet and opened a HADAS exhibition at Church Farm House Museum – moved recently from Hadley to Northwood, to be nearer their grandchildren. ‘But it isn’t all that far,’ Mrs.Pares’ said comfortingly at the November lecture, ‘and we hope to be able to keep in touch with our interests here’.

Also moving house were Brian and Rosemary Wibberley and their three children. We’re glad to say their move was only a matter of a few streets, so they will continue to support HADAS actively in Chipping Barnet. We shan’t forget their contribution to our 21st birthday party in 1982 – that magnificent boar’s head they lovingly decorated and the sight of Brian proudly bearing it into the banquet at the head of the corps of HADAS cooks.

“CHRISTMAS 198S’AT WHITBREADS Report by Isobel McPherson

No meteorological disasters threatened the HADAS Christmas Dinner this year. We set off by coach or car or public transport through mild autumn weather on December 6th and walked in from busy Chiswell into the 18th century. The cobbled yard was so immaculate that one could scarcely believe that the famous draught horses were still stabled there. (They are, but must surely “have their exits and their entrances” through other by-ways). Drinks in the Directors’ entertainment suite,’ a quick look at the Speaker’s Coach;and then we were on our way to the Sugar Room for dinner, through a small,. but very interesting museum of the brewing trade and Whitbreads in particular.

HADAS celebrations are always enjoyable and this one was certainly no exception.
Under the lovely Queen Post roof, round tables well-spaced made conversation easy. The food was good – special, but not heavily traditional – and we were admirably cared for by Whitbread’s staff. While we relaxed over coffee Dorothy sprang surprise on us and our Chairman, who was, we learned celebrating his birthday with us. The small gift he received was appropriate to the setting (no – it was not a bottle!) Before we moved on into the magnificent Porter Tun Room of 1784, with its unsupported King Post roof – the second largest in Europe – we were given a short history of this impressive building.

Some of us may have approached the Overlord Embroidery with a degree of condescension considering any attempt to rival the Bayeux Tapestry as a touch presumptuous but we were deeply impressed by this record of our own times. We could not be aware of all the technical problems involved in translating the artist’s vision into an artifact, worked on by many hands, but we could appreciate some of the skills involved the deliberately vigorous, even coarse working is perfect for its theme- stand close and you are distracted by corded edges and the puffiness of skin areas, stand away and you are won over by the totally convincing mixture of realism and formality.

Some of us were driven home under the Christmas lights of Regent Street, others said Goodbye in the cobbled courtyard. All went off with a renewed sense of gratitude to Dorothy, who always finds the perfect venue and shoulders the burden of organ­isation which takes up many hours of her time. Though we may have noticed that she was tired that night; none of us knew that she was seriously under the weather, as she still is at the time of writing, though she says she is well on the mend. By the time this appears in the Newsletter, We hope she will have recovered completely.

NEWS FROM THE DOCUMENTARY GROUP

A Note on Hedge-dating

“NAB”, which is the quarterly Newsletter of the British Association for Local History, has some interesting material for documentary researchers in its fourth issue. There is a note, for instance, on a subject which straddles both arch­aeology and local history – the dating of hedges.

Fourteen years ago BALH’s forerunners, the Standing Conference on Local History, together with the Botanical Society of the British Isles, organised a conference on ‘Hedges and Local History’, at which Dr. Max Hooper unveiled his theory on how to date hedges from the number of species they contained. This now well-known theory, says “NAB” has not turned out to be quite the instant tool that archaeologists and historians once hoped. Within its limitations however, it has provided useful dating information and has helped to concentrate thought on the whole subject of hedge-dating. BALH members are now asked to say whether another conference on this interesting topic, at which recent developments in techniques can be explored, would be relevant at this time. HADAS – which is a corporate member of BALH – has written with some enthusiasm to support the idea of such a conference.

Many members will recall that, even in our somewhat urban landscape, we have been concerned in the dating of two historic hedges, using data based on Dr.Hooper’s system. These were the perimeter hedge of the Bishop of London’s estate, a portion of which still goes through Lyttelton Playing Fields in Hampstead Garden Suburb, and the famous hedge which crosses part of the Old Fold golf course at Hadley, behind which the Earl of Oxford’s troops were said to have been originally deployed at the Battle of Barnet (Easter, 1471). Paddy Musgrove, who has always taken a particular interest in hedge-dating, tells us that he checked the Lyttelton Playing Fields hedge only the other day, and found that it still contains eleven species, He also points out that in winter the hedge-bank and ditch figure more prominently than they did when we first surveyed the hedge in its overgrown summer state.

NEW LOCAL PUBLICATIONS

Wartime Camden published by Camden Libraries & Arts Dept. £1.50 (plus 30p p&p)

This booklet, similar in format to the excellent Camden History Reviews, takes us – with a kind of horrified nostalgia – through two world wars on the home front, rounded off with a delicious anti-climax description of ‘the day peace broke out’. The illustrations are well produced and sometimes shocking – once the scars have been erased, how quickly the devastation of bomb damage is forgotten

The booklet is based on essays submitted to a competition held by Camden History Society in 1981 and on material shown in the ‘Camden at War’ exhibition of 1980. Available from libraries in Camden or write to Local History Library, Swiss Cottage. 88 Avenue Road, NW3 3HA.

The Pinn: No.1 Pinner Local History Sobiety. £1.65 (25p p&p)

This is the first in a series of occasional magazines reporting on research carried out by this lively and enterprising society. Seven projects are described in the opening issue ranging from a starter with the splendid title ‘The Stench of Progress’ (all about the inter-relationships of the newly discovered water-closet, cholera andthe River Pinn) to Pinner’s historic hedges (four of them) and to the working of Pinner’s Poor Law (1782-1845). Order from PLHS. 45 Lincoln Road, Harrow, HA2 7RH.

Holy Innocents Church, Kingsbury by Geoffrey Hewlett £1 (25p p&p)

Twenty-eight page history of this interesting parish church (less than mile from Barnet’s boundary at the Hyde) and its architect, just published in honour of the Church centenary. Available by post from 39 Wemborough Road, Stanmore, HA7 2EA

Newsletter-154-December-1983

By | Past Newsletters, Volume 3 : 1980 - 1984 | No Comments

Newsletter No. 154: December, 1983

TRAILER FOR WEST HEATH, 1984

Roll up, roll up and book your summer holiday now, folks! WEST HEATH Mesolithic excavation will re-open for a limited season of 6-7 weeks on June 16, 1984. Digging will continue seven days a week to accommodate all volunteers, so please mark the date in your diary whether you are a mid-week or a week-end digger – or both!

Attractions include lakeside setting, rustic scenery and invigorating air; amenities include zoo, cafe, loos and weekly band concerts.
Lots of lovely HADAS people, too – and the site’s not bad, either!

Old (and new) friends very welcome and your call is eagerly awaited. You don’t have to make a definite commitment now, but a call will assure you of a place on the ‘Interested’ list, and we will contact you later to finalise details. People prepared to answer questions from the public about the excavation and the work of the society are especially needed either on an occasional or a regular basis.

Please ring Margaret Maher (907 0333) or Sheila Woodward (952 3897)

HADAS DIARY

Tues Dec 6 Dinner at Whitbreads Brewery, Chiswell Street, EC1. If you have arranged to join this Christmas outing, please note that your ticket and an information sheet, with details of the coach, etc, are enclosed with this Newsletter.

Programme for 1984. We have been notified that the library will be closed on the first Tuesday of January. Therefore our first lecture will take place on second Tuesday, which is:

Tues Jan 10 Reconstruction of Anglo-Saxon buildings at West Stowe, nr. Bury St Edmunds by Richard Darrah

Tues Feb 7 The HADAS excavation at Church End, Hendon, 1973-74 by Ted Sammes

Tues Mar 6 Twenty-five years of excavation in Wiltshire by John Musty

Tues Apr 3 Under Water Archaeology today by Alexander Flinder

Tues May 15th Annual General meeting

TAILPIECE TO THE SUMMER PROGRAMME

If you went on the HADAS outing into Gloucestershire last July you are not likely to have forgotten the reproduction of the huge Woodchester Roman mosaic, with its million and a half tesserae, which we saw displayed in a redundant non-conformist tabernacle.

So you will be interested to know that this 2,300 sq ft replica, built by local farmers Bob and John Woodward, is now being moved to the Unitarian Church in Lewins Mead, Bristol, where it will be possible for more people to see it,

THE HADLEY WOOD DIG …..Brian Wrigley asks us to say… has now closed

The interim report in the October Newsletter stated that it was hoped “to dig rapidly a second trial trench,” mainly to confirm the profile of the first trench. Unfortunately, however, this did not prove possible. “The time and opportunity just didn’t offer,” says Brian.

He is working now on a final report sections, etc, and hopes to publish this in the Newsletter in due course.

BRITONS AND ROMANS IN HERTFORDSHIRE A report on the November lecture by SHEILA WOODWARD

Tony Rook is an old friend of HADAS. We expected his talk to be a blend of entertainment and instruction, and we were not disappointed. In a lively lecture he gave us an account of the widespread evidence of Roman and Belgic occupation in the Welwyn area and his methods of locating and dealing with sites.

The famous Roman bathhouse at Welwyn came to light as a result of a field walk during which pieces of Roman tile were noticed protruding from the bank of the River Nimram. The problems of the ensuing excavation were vividly described. A training dig for new recruits was hastily con­verted to a rescue dig when the construction of the Al(M) began.

The excavation timetable had to be geared to the football fixtures of the adjacent school, whose pitch covered much of the Roman material. Total excavation was not possible and there have been difficulties of interpretation. What, queried Dr Rook, is one to make of a 20 ft square building beside the canal? A fountain? A sacred rhubarb patch? The excavators refer to it merely as ‘The Enigma.’

Recent field walking and site watching have revealed an amazing density of Belgic occupation in the area: one Belgic site per square of the National Grid.

The Belgic settlements are readily identifiable in the Hertfordshire gravels, and even limited excavation has produced a wealth of material. Belgic burials are also being found, though not many are of the so-called ‘chieftain’ class, such as the Panshanger burial now exhibited in the British Museum. There was an exciting detective story of a farmer’s chance find of a battered Iron Age mirror, followed by the discovery many weeks later of its handle, which led to the excavation of the related burial.

Study of the Belgic pottery, especially of the typical S-profile butt beakers, is producing valuable information and the cry ”I’ve had a fit’ from one of the archaeologists requires congratulation, not medica­tion. It simply means that two more potsherds have been fitted together.

Field walking and study of aerial photographs are also beginning to -bring to -light Neolithic, Bronze Age and Medieval sites in the area. Our speaker’s approach to the problems of field walking was sometimes a little unorthodox. For example, if there is difficulty in tracing the ownership of a field lac suggested a simple solution begin walking across the field without permission and the irate owner will soon appear in hot pursuit.

Dr Rook showed some salutary slides illustrating the speed with which a site can be destroyed or damaged by development even when a care­ful watch is being maintained. However, one was left with the overwhelming impression that a programme of field walking and site watching, knowledge­ably and selectively organised, is the surest way of identifying and protecting areas of archaeological interest.

SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING

Councillor Brian Jarman took the Chair at a Special General Meeting of the Society hold before the lecture on November 1, 1983, to consider the following Resolution:

That from the 1st April 1984, the Society’s subscriptions will be:

Members aged 18 – 60 £5 per annum

Members under 18 £3 per annum

Members over 60 £3 per annum

Family membership

First member £5 per annum

Subsequent members £1 per annum

Two amendments were put forward. One, proposed by Mrs Nell Penny, suggested two alterations in the above proposals, namely that members aged 18-60 pay £4 per annum and that corporate membership be £5 per annum.

The other amendment, proposed by Mr Philip Greenall sought to ensure that family membership was open to over-60s at the over-60 subscription of £3 plus 1£ for subsequent members.

After discussion, in which many of the hundred or so members present took part, the first amendment was defeated and the second was carried, the original Resolution, with Mr Greenall’s amendment incorporated, was then put to the meeting and carried by a very large majority.

COMINGS AND GOINGS

We were delighted to hear again a few weeks ago from CAROLE KENT, who was a member back in 1979. Then she went with her pilot husband to West Africa. Now, back in England again, she has rejoined us with her two daughters, MELANIE and RUTH, both keen on archaeology.

In fact Melanie joined HADAS over a year ago, before her mother’s return, and took part in some of the Prehistoric Group river walks last winter. She started on a degree course at the Institute of Archaeology last October. ‘She went in at the deep end,” Mrs Kent told us. “The very first thing she had to do was a 4-day survival course in Sussex, on which she had to kill and skin a rabbit – and she loves animals!’

Our Hon. Treasurer, VICTOR JONES, is on his travels – he departed on November 20 for a 2-month stay in India. It sounds like a real get­away-from-it-all trip. Six weeks will be spent in Madras and then some weeks travelling round. He hopes to catch up on some archaeology, too, Particularly since his starting point, Madras, is the place wherein 1944 Mortimer Wheeler found (in a museum cupboard, not stratified!) the Roman amphora neck which provided the vital clue to a hitherto unsuspected 1st century AD Roman trading post in India. This was at Arikamedu, near Pondicherry – a site to which Wheeler returned a year later to direct one of his ‘model’ digs.

AUBREY HODES, a HADAS member since 1979, and a teacher at Holloway School, tells us that he has applied for early retirement and will leave Holloway in the spring of 1984. The following autumn he hopes to be off to China to teach English literature for a year, though he says this job ­which obviously he is longing to do – is not yet ‘in the bag.’ A formal letter from Peking is still awaited. If he goes, he promises us a column from ‘our China Correspondent’. Meantime, as you see below, we already have one correspondent from China.

HADAS members, either at work or on holiday, are considerable travellers – as this account by ROSE EDGCUMBE shows …

A GLIMPSE OF CHINA

A 3-week tour of China that attempts to cover archaeology, archi­tecture, landscape gardens, the arts and traditional industries, of necessity gives little more than tantalising glimpses of the riches of China’s history. The Chinese themselves, though friendly and welcoming, are not always aware of or interested in their past, and are only just beginning to cater for tourists by providing catalogues, site explana­tions And museum labelling in languages other than Chinese. Fortunately for us, when there was a translation English was the most frequently Used language. Equally fortunately our English tour leader, Philip Barnes, was both erudite and experienced in negotiating with our Chinese tour organizer, so that we sometimes got off the beaten tourist track.

Thus in Hangzhou History Museum, we sidestepped the queues for the mummies and spent our time in rooms where we seemed to be the only visitors looking at finds from two neolithic sites in the area south of the Yangzi mouth.

The Majiabang site was excavated in 1959, and the Hemudu site in 1973; but due to the upheavals of the cultural revolution no proper report of either site has yet been published. The exhibits were labelled only in Chinese, which neither our local guide nor the museum staff could reliably translate, and no catalogue was available, so that we were in­debted to Pr Barnes for information about these finds. The Hemudu site has been carbon-dated to about 4800 BC, the Majiabang site to between 4600-4300 BC, Both are probably an early Thai culture rather than a precursor of the Chinese, who spread to this area only after the unific­ation of the North by the Qin over 4000 years later.

Organic Materials Preserved

Because of the waterlogged and peaty nature of the sites some wooden structures and woven materials have been preserved, in addition to stone and bone artefacts.’ From the Hemudu site we saw wooden fragments with mortice and tenon joints, and fragments of hemp as well as bone noodles and loom weights. In addition to stone tools there were many bone farm­ing implements (bones of alligator, hippopotamus, tiger and elephant were used), and primitive rice seeds and plants were found on the site, giving evidence of rice cultivation. There was also evidence of domestic­ation of pigs as well as of hunting. The Museum contained, too, a good deal of blackware pottery, and evidence of lacquer work had been found.

At the Majiabang site evidence of jute-weaving was found; and the museum contained many jade discs up to 7 or 8 in. in diameter, with holes in the centre, also oblong-shaped pieces with holes at one end, for ‘ritual’ use. (Obviously in China, as elsewhere in the archaeological world, ‘ritual’ covers a multitude of possibilities)

Further north we saw a slightly later Neolithic site (4000 BC): Banpo, near Xian, in Shaanxi province. This was much better presented: the actual site of 50,000 sq w, excavated between 1954-57, has been roofed over, and walkways provided for those who wish to count post holes and judge shares and sizes for themselves. The sites of dwelling houses, storage nits, pottery kilns and burials (some communal, with the sexes separated) are well labelled and described in English. On show is a large collection of stone and bone tools and implements, many very finely executed, painted pottery (notably black geometric patterns on a red _background, but also animal and plant figures), and personal ornaments in bone, stone-and pottery. A small illustrated catalogue was available, so that it-was altogether easier to comprehend this impressive site. But oven here unawareness of our likely interest in the site meant that too little time had been allowed for a really satisfying viewing.

Silent Ranks of Soldiers

Xian, of course, also boasts, at Mount Li, the one site that has been so well publicised that it needs no description the pottery warrior and horse pits east of the mausoleum of Shi Huang Ti, the first emperor of China, of the Qin dynasty (221-207 BC). Here again one could walk through the actual site, and the museum included examples of different types of warriors repainted as they would originally have been. Sets of slides and a translation of the preliminary report by the archaeological team were available. Though we had all read about this excavation, which began in 1974, and had seen illustrations of the life-sized men and horses, we were still unprepared for the overwhelming experience of walking among these silent ranks of soldiers, all individually sculpted, no two faces alike, a real army ready to move off. It was a moving and eerie experience, the stillness somehow emphasising the apparent aliveness of the men and animals. In some places the warriors are still emerging from the ground, or lying tumbled and broken in pitiful fashion.

In the course of our tour we saw many examples of tombs and their contents, ranging from the sacrifice of live slaves and concubines in the Shang dynasty to the exquisite figurines of the Tang dynasty. The clay warriors of the Qin tomb are an intermediate step: life–size and lifelike, as if the sculptors had taken the emperor’s real soldiers as their models. Presumably Shi Huang Ti needed to keep his army alive and fighting; not so the craftsmen who prepared his actual mausoleum: according to a contemporary account they were buried alive to preserve the secrets of the entrance to the tomb, and the marvels within.

More Finds to Come?

In our briefing at the site we were told that excavation of the mausoleum itself is to begin at the end of this year. It is thought likely that the mausoleum was subsequently plundered and burnt, in spite of the emperor’s precautions, so the archaeologists do not know what they will find. In other areas outside the mausoleum they think they may find lifesize figures of court officials and other non-military people.

Xian, formerly the capital city Chang’an and the start of the silk road to the west, boasts a wealth of historical treasures and was for me, the high point of the tour; there are a Buddhist temple and a mosque,pagodas and gardens. The Provincial Museum houses a huge collection from several dynasties of bronzes, pottery, stone carvings, iron implements, frescoes, paintings, gold and silver objects and tomb figurines.

Most impressive was the forest of steles:’ a collection of inscribed tablets (variously given as over 1000, 2000 and 3000 – we seemed to have a lot of trouble translating numbers!) some dating back to the Tang dynasty (AD 618-906). They are in various forms of script, and include classics, history, encyclopaedias, odes and commemorative tombstones, and were used as textbooks for students.

Farming, Fields and Houses

We covered thousands of miles, visited many cities and managed to see an amazingly large number of palaces, temples, Buddhist rock carvings and gardens – almost to the point of getting mental indigestion. A lot of our travel was by train and bus, which gave us a good look at the workers in the countryside. Much of the farming is still done using medieval equipment and techniques which are labour intensive and efficient. We saw, for instance, ploughs drawn by horses, oxen and men, and harrowing done by a 6-man team pushing and Pulling a square wooden harrow.

We even found ourselves helping in the harvest, since the peasants spread their grain over the road and make use of passing vehicles to help thresh it.We found this technique nerve-racking at first, because they dart out into the road in between vehicles to turn over the heap of grin and dodge back at the last second. The crops looked thick and healthy; the harvest good, except in one area where recent severe flooding had rotted the maize and millet in the fields, as well as washing away whole villages.

Houses in the countryside are still built largely in mud-brick as they must have been for centuries. This continuity with the nest is everywhere apparent in China, though the Chinese do not seem consciously interested in their history except insofar as it provides inspiring or warning examples for their present behaviour and aspirations. An enduring memory, which typifies China for me, is of a spirit way to a on tomb: the great carved marble animals stood, some among a tobacco crop, others with maize stalks stacked beside them, others in the midst of a field where a farmer was carefully ploughing round them, taking their Presence for granted. He was amiably acquiescent to our picking our way along the edge of the fields to admire and take photos of him and the animals, but somewhat puzzled by our peculiar curiosity.

If Rose’s report whets your appetite for things Chinese, you may like to know of a trip being arranged next year by the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding. This is their China Tour called Chinese treasures 23 days from August 11-September 2, 1984. It takes in Beijing, Xian, Luoyang, Zhengzhou, Kaifeng, Nanjing, Changzhou, Shanghai, Hong Kong and then home. Travel is mainly by rail (including one overnight train) occasionally by bus; and out and back by air. Cost is £1641.

OBITUARY

Many members will have already heard, with great sadness, of the death on October 23 of Christine Arnott’s husband, Eric, following a short illness in the Royal Free Hospital.

Eric had been a member since 1978, but he had been a friend of HADAS long before that, as he often accompanied Christine on outings from the time she first joined us over 12 years ago. Christine has been a Committee member almost as long as she has been a Society member, and Eric supported her in the many jobs that fall into a Committee members lap.

After his most distinguished war service (he was an RAF Pathfinder with a double DFC) Eric became an accountant and banker. Many people will remember him particularly for the gentle, unobtrusive way in which he looked after the financial side of our annual Minimarts, moving quietly among the stallholders to collect the takings, totting them up with in­credible speed and telling us how well we had done almost before the door closed behind the last customer.

HADAS will miss him very much: we shore in small part the great loss suffered by Christine and her daughters and son, and our deepest sympathy goes to them all.

NEWS FROM THE GROUPS

Prehistoric. The new series of river walks mentioned in the November Newsletter will start on December 11, when we begin our investigation of the Dollis Brook. meet in Brent Street, at the east corner of the North Circular Road/Brent St junction, at 10 an. Please let Sheila Woodward know on 952 3897 if you intend coming, so that we don’t move off without you. Urgently needed on this (and subsequent) walks: a Photograph or two might be even better, as we would like to record in both black and white shots and also colour slides.

Roman. A very satisfying working weekend was enjoyed by the Roman Group on November 12-13 at the Hampstead Garden Suburb Teahouse. With extra assistance from two valiant husbands the 8 crates of Brockley Hill pottery were moved from Institute to Teahouse. Indexing the collection continued, as did pottery drawing. The contents lists of the crates were chocked and renewed. Some frail pots were repaired (a cold job, done on the verandah to avoid fumes from the repairing kit) and research continued on particular items, such as amphora bases, mortarium stamps, and London Ware. The group was joined by two new members who soon found their feet (though not, we hasten to say, literally!) among the bowls, jars, flagons, dishes, tazze and kiln furniture.

Next meeting of the Roman-Group will be on Monday Dec 12 at 94 Hillside Gardens, Edgware at 8 pm. If you hope to come, please let Tessa Smith know on 953 9159.

DOCUMENTARY – The STATUTORY LIST

Thanks to LBB’s Planning Department (to which we are most grateful) HADAS now has the use, on loan, of a copy of the DoE’s new Statutory List for this Borough of Buildings of Architectural and Historic Interest. It is not the final word on the subject – some corrections are still required in this List – but it is what secondhand booksellers would call ‘a good working copy,’ and it has enough information for the Documentary Group to he able to start on a new project.

This will be to make (using the Statutory List as basis) an index of all Listed buildings in the Borough, with as much information as we can about each of them.

Listed building means anything from a Lutyens church like St Jude’s, Hampstead Garden .Suburb, or the historic 15c Tudor Hall in Wood Street Barnet, to street furniture such as a milestone in Brent Street, the whetstone that provides Whetstone’s name or statues like ‘Peace’ in Friary Park or ‘La Deliverance’ (known locally as ‘rude Annie’ because of her lack of apparel) at Henly’s Corner, The milestones and street furni­ture are of particular interest to HADAS because when we made recomendations for this List back in 1975 we put in a whole section on street furniture, which until then had never figured on a List for Barnet. Our only regret is that some things we suggested – horse troughs, drinking fountains, Victorian post boxes – have not made it.

The Society has for years had an index of the old Statutory List, to which we added as new buildings were listed. It was originally made for us by Adrian Jeakins, Alex’s father, and it has always been a .rose: useful tool. ‘The information in it came from original Lists, some of which (for Hendon, for instance) were dated as early as April, 1947. We feel that we will get a better result now if we start again from scratch, rather than trying to alter the old index; and we also propose to extend the scope.

For instance, the DoE List has a brief note about most buildings: the notes are mainly architectural and are a bit short on history. We will start with the DoE information, and hope to build it up, particularly on the historical side. We will note wherever a Blue Plaque or other inscription appears on a building and record the precise wording. Also it would also nice to have each building photographed, and put a strip of contact prints on the back of the index card.

This will be a long-term exercise, on which people can do as much or little as they choose. Anyone who would like to take part will be most warmly welcomed by the Documentary Group. We want three kinds of help:

those prepared to copy out index cards, either in clear handwriting or on their own typewriters;

those who will Lake a short list of buildings and see what further information they can dig out about them, either in LBB Local History Collection or further afield if necessary;

photographers, prepared to take several exterior shots of buildings, either in their own vicinity or in other part of the Borough.

If you would like to help in any of these ways, please ring Brigid Grafton Green (455 9040) and let her know.

A CRY’ FOR HELP from our site-watching organiser, ELIZABETH SANDERSON

As you know, HADAS maintains a watch on developments within the Borough of Barnet which might be of some archaeological interest. Our intrepid site-watchers can often be seen lurking where holes are being – or are likely to be – dug.

First stage of the monitoring procedure (after we have picked out possible sites on the weekly planning application lists) is for someone to look at the plans at the local planning department during weekday office hours, so gathering information which will help us decide if actual site-‘ watching will be worthwhile. Sometimes only part of a site is of interest, and the plans may show that part is not affected; or plans may show lines of trenches to be cut for drains or other services.

We desperately need volunteers for this particular stage of site-watching, because so many members are at work during normal office hours. If you happen to have time free on weekdays between 9-5 please let me, know on 950 5106. I should add that higher degrees in architecture are not necessary! If you are interested in helping, even though you are not used to studying plans, please give me a ring.

SITES TO WATCH

In the last month or so planning applications have been submitted to the Council for the following sites, which might have some archaeological interest if the application were granted:

John Croons, Edgware Way. 905-25 High Road 2 blocks and access road

3 Potters Rd, New Barnet 3 storey block

land between 104/6 Blundell Rd, Burnt Oak. Two storey maisonettes

3 Farrington Cottages, Moon Lane, Barnet

land adj. Featherstone Hse, Wise NW7

land fronting Meadowbank Cottage,Barnet Rd, Arkley

land adj 43 Ripon Way, Boreham Wood

24 Farnham Close, N20 3 detached houses

that development is imminent, Elizabeth Sanderson would greatly appreciate the information, on 950 3106.

LONDON AT WAR

LAMAS held its 18th Local History Conference at the Museum of London on November 19. This year war was the theme: not, perhaps, the most appealing of subjects. Such however is the popularity of this conference that attendance was as high as ever and the audience as lively and as questioning.

The real joy of the event lies in meeting friendly colleagues and having a chance to discuss with them the triumphs and disasters of local history work. HADAS incidentally, had a stand, but it was disappointing that only three HADAS members attended the conference. Jeremy Clynes organised a bookstall, for which we thank him very much; Brigid Grafton Green put on a display of photographs; and George Ingram attended his first major public function since his operation: it was a real pleasure to sec him enjoying himself again.

There were four speakers. Rosemary Weinstein, of the Museum of London, talked about London in the Civil War, and particularly of the 18 miles of trench and rampart, studded with 24 forts, thrown up at speed by a fiercely •independent citizenry when the King’s forces got worryingly close the fortifications are as much an archaeological as an historical problem, and the pity is that we have no evidence for them from the ground. A few street names – Mount St, in Mayfair, and some Castle Streets – indicate where the forts may have been sited. Documentary sources include William Lithgow’s Surveigh of London, 1643, which records his perambulation of the defences; and Vertue’s map of London’s Civil War defences, drawn in 1738, nearly a century afterwards.

C W Harrison, Borough Archivist of Lewisham, described Deptford Dockyard, taking us back to a possible origin in 1420 and then the first establishment of formal facilities by Henry VIII in 1513. The yard was at its peak during the Napoleonic wars, with Nelson’s flagship at the Nile, the Neptune, being launched at Deptford in 1797. The last ship to go down to launch was HMS Druid in 1869.

Alistair Glass, an architect in the Ministry of Defence, outlined the history of barrack buildings, pointing out what a long gap there .. as in such building in Britain. In the 1200 years from the departure of the 1 ;ions c.410 AD to the Restoration in 1660 no accommodation for soldiers was built except in specially defended spots like the Tower.

Mr Glass started with houses built for the Foot and Hors* Guards at Hampton Court in. 1661, than took us through the remaining 17c, the 18 (when billeting rather than barracks was favoured) into the two periods of almost frenzied building– one from 1792-1815; the other, as a result of conditions in the Crimea, from bout 1860-onwards.

The outstanding ‘lecture’ of the day – and the most recent, in time ­came from Dr Wood, Deputy Keeper of the Department of Sound Records at The ­Imperial War Museum. He took just 36 weeks as his theme – the Battle of 1940-41.

Records of the Blitz

The Imperial War Museum has since 1971 had a policy of recording oral history. The majority of its records to date, deal with the First war, but it is just getting into its stride in recording the second war. In addition to its own recordings, it keeps selections from the media. – the BBC’s September 1957 programme, “The Winter Of the Bombs;”

Radio’s 1981 “London Can Take It;” and part of the Thames TV current series on the second war.

Instead of the usual pattern of slides held together by commentary, we had cassettes and commentary, both of high standard. For those who had lived through the London Blitz many memories were evoked; and it was interesting to note that people born long after the Blitz seemed to find the session equally gripping.

The commentary didn’t shirk unpalatable facts – for instance, when the Blitz began on September 7, 1940, London was ‘almost undefended:’ and what equipment there was: – searchlights, anti-aircraft guns – was ‘prehistoric.’ In the early winter some who used public shelters had to be treated for frostbite because there was no heating; and shelter sanitary arrangements were nil, so that ‘it hit you in the face as you went in., In the week following the heavy raid of May 10, 1941 (the night the House of Commons was hit) one-third of London streets were blocked and only one mainline station was operating; fires were still burning in places a week after the raid.

Most unforgettable were descriptions by ordinary Londoners give twenty or thirty years later. There was the lady who was dining at the Cafe de Paris the night it was hit. She came to in a dim, trance like aftermath, in no pain but unable to move. She was lying partly across a man, whom she later found to be a dead Scotsman in a kilt, part ly her side on the ground, her hand outflung inertly, palm upward. A figure shambled through the greyness and she felt it pick up her hand pull the rings off it. “There was,” commented Dr Wood drily, looting after the Cafe de Paris bomb. It was thought that everyone there must be rich.”

Mordant and Macabre

One searing description came from an appropriately named Miles Mordant, in his story of what it was like suddenly to be put on mortuary duty for the first time. He did not spare us the grisly details, but one of the most interesting points he made was the way that his mind shied away from coping with the gruesomeness and instead concentrated on an unimportant sideline. “It was the form that worried me most,’ he said. “I couldn’t get it off my mind that I had to fill in a form for each of of the bundles – things like estimated height, age, sex, colour of eyes ­and they hadn’t left me enough room on the form between the lines to do it ..

Macabre and funny at the same time was the description given by a lady who saw the bomb explosion at Bank station. “We were all sleeping on the tube platforms by then,” she said, “and the terrible thing was, the bomb came down the escalator. I don’t mean step by step, but it slanted so that it came down to the platform; and just as it came down, the train came in too …”

some snap judgments are interesting. “It wasn’t a bit humdrum then,” one man said, “rather exciting really, like a football match.” “You couldn’t go window-shopping any more,” complained another; and there weren’t no class distinctions, and that was good,” said a third.

We were also played background recordings about general conditions ­for instance, stories from a midwife, working in Kings Cross in 1939 – which make today’s poverty trap sound like paradise. “Often when I delivered a baby – and most people didn’t go into hospital then – there was nothing in the house except the mother, perhaps several children, and a few sticks of furniture. No bed linen or blankets, no crockery, no food. I’d be offered tea afterwards – in a jam jar. I used to give a friend of the mother – there was always a friend then, helping – a 6d. From that she could get enough stewing beef and 2d worth of potherbs ­potatoes, carrots, onions – to make a big stew for the family.’

Between 20,000-30,000 Londoners were killed in the Blitz (that doesn’t include later casualties of rocket and doodle-bug days) but one of the most interesting statistics was that, in its wisdom, the Government foresaw that the bombing of a civilian population would produce appalling nervous shock, comparable to the shell shock of the World War 1 trenches. So seven neurosis clinics were set up in London to deal with disoriented citizens. By the end of the Blitz they had treated 29 patients.

COMMITTEE CORNER

The Committee met on November 4 and these are some of the matters which were discussed.

A proposition put forward by BILL FIRTH at the last AGM was considered that HADAS should publish an annual Journal or Transactions. After debating the various implications, and considering the impact on the News­letter, it was decided that, at the moment, it would be wiser not to undertake such a financially heavy commitment as an annual publication. It was, however, suggested that a small working-party be set up to consider the present production of the Newsletter and to look for ways in which costs could be kept down or production and distribution methods improved.

It was reported that, under the leadership of BRIAN WIBBERLEY, some work had been done last summer on a resistivity survey at East Barnet of a field by St Mary’s Church and Church Farm. Mr Wibberley’s interim report was noted, together with the fact that he intends doing further traverses of the field during next spring/summer, prior to a final report.

Copies of the new leaflet on Archaeology in Barnet (the production stages of which have been mentioned in earlier Newsletters) were available. It has been designed by LBB Planning Department and is based on material and drawings provided by HADAS. It will be distributed free by libraries throughout the Borough and will be available to schools. A copy is enclosed with this Newsletter for your own use, and it will be much appreciated if you are able to show it to non-archaeologist friends who might. be interested. Should you like a few extra conies to pass around, please let Brigid Grafton Green know, on 455-9040.

During October an opportunity arose to take aerial photographs of much of the northern part of the Borough. ELIZABETH SANDERSON achieved the miracle of laying on an aircraft at infinitesimal cost and PETER FAUVEL-CLINCH took the photos. These have not been studied fully yet but it is hoped that when they are we may gain some archaeological insights. The Committee warmly thanked both Elizabeth and Peter for their work.

HADAS has been invited to lend material on the West Heath dig to the Libraries Department of the Borough of Camden for an exhibition on Hampstead Heath to be held at St Pancras Library during December and early January. The exhibition may possibly travel later to other venues ouch as Lauderdale House and Burgh House. It has not been possible to lend artefacts, as our West Heath researchers are now in the final frenetic weeks of preparing the West Heath report (deadline is December 1) and all the flint is required for final checking, plotting distribution patterns, etc. However, we have been able to lend some of our extensive collection of photographs and drawings.

The small exhibit of Roman finds from Brockley Hill, which was mentioned in the September Newsletter, has now been mounted by HADAS at Church Farm House Museum, in the room to the left of the door as you enter. There are two showcases: one on the making of pottery at Brockley Hill, the other on Roman kitchens. If you should be near the Museum, do drop in and see the display. You will notice that this particular room now wears quite a Roman look, as the Museum’s Moxom Collection. is displayed in a wall case, and the Roman urn found behind a house in Sunny Gardens road and borrowed by HADAS on permanent loan from the finder is also on display.

ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH BUILDING

Latest volume in the Shire Archaeology series is Anglo-Saxon ­Architecture, by Mary and Nigel Kerr. It is concerned principally with the stone buildings. which survive from the years between the end of the Roman occupation and the Norman Conquest.

This really boils down to churches, because vernacular Saxon building ­halls, houses, palaces – was in timber Indeed the Anglo-Saxon verb ‘to build’ was ‘get timber,’ which speaks for itself. The authors do in fact devote one chanter to wooden buildings, and include in it some material about West Stow – the subject of our first lecture in 1984 (see p.1 of this Newsletter).

The chapters on stone church building cover the form and function of churches, materials (including the re-use of Roman material, as at Hexham) and architectural decoration and detail. The excellent photo­graphs and diagrams show some of HADAS’s old friends (such as Earl’s Barton and Brixworth) and others too far away for us to have reached on a day trip.

. This book fills a gap, not only in the Shire series but also in the mainstream history of building in Britain. It costs £1.95 and is obtainable from Pete Griffiths, 8 Jubilee Avenue, London Colney, forts AL2 1QG. Add 30p for packing and postage.