News

No. 640 July 2024 Edited by Melvyn Dresner

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming Lectures and Events

Lectures are normally face-to-face, though lectures in winter may be on Zoom. Lectures are held in the Drawing Room, Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE, 7.45 for 8pm. Buses 13, 125, 143, 326 and 460 pass close by, and it is a five to ten-minute walk from Finchley Central Station on the Barnet Branch of the Northern Line. Bus 382 also passes close to Finchley Central Station. We also on the new SuperLoop Bus, SL10. Tea/Coffee/biscuits are available for purchase after the talk.

Sunday 1st September, 11.30-16.30 Heritage Sunday Day at Avenue House, with HADAS stall, face painting and colleagues from other societies

Tuesday 10 September 2024

Dr Wendy Morrison, Manager, Chilterns Heritage & Archaeology Partnership (CHAP) Beacon of the Past, Hillforts Project

The 2024/2025 programme to be confirmed

AGM and New Chairman

After more than 20 years leading HADAS as Chairman, Don Cooper stands down, he will continue on the committee. Sandra Claggett was elected as new chairman and agreed unanimously by members at the AGM (Annual General Meeting) on 11th June, more about Sandra below. There were 31 members present. Stewart Wild retired as society’s independent examiner of the accounts. Therefore, big thank you to both Don and Stewart for many years supporting the work of the society.

Peter Pickering thanked Don for his years as chairman (see Newsletter 389, August 2003, for Don’s election) Peter explained how there been seven chairmen of HADAS since its foundation in 1961, from Saxon to Mesolithic to Current Archaeology and for Don, it had been the era of Bird Pots, due to his work on this form of pottery in early noughties. Don’s work on ceramic bird nesting pots found at a dig at Church Farm, Greyhound Hill, Hendon, was on largest assemblage ever found in London, revealing an early appetite for sparrows.

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Sheila Woodward, Frances Radford and Micky Watkins were made life members, see Newsletter (No. 637 April 2024) for article celebrating Shelia’s 100th birthday, and work with HADAS.

Jacqui Pearce and Andrew Selkirk continue as our President and Vice President, respectively, Peter Pickering as Vice Chairman, Janet Mortimer as Honorary Secretary, Roger Chapman as Treasurer and Jim Nelhams as Honorary Membership Secretary. Other committee members were re-elected as follows: Bill Bass, Don Cooper, Robin Densem, Melvyn Dresner, Susan Loveday Eric Morgan, Jo Nelhams, Susan Willetts and David Willoughby. New members of the committee can be co-opted between AGMs.

Below, Don and Sandra at AGM on 11th June 2024 and right, Don receiving presentation from Jacqui.

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Sandra Claggett after a career working in Government re-trained in Archaeology at university first at Birkbeck as evening classes and then obtaining her Master’s at UCL. Archaeology has been a lifelong interest and she has been lucky in the past to excavate at various locations such as The Ness of Brodgar, the Palaeolithic caves of Gibraltar and Greek archaeology sites including the Bronze Age site of Keros and Daskalio where she was site manager.

She has been a member of HADAS for about 10 years she previously successfully ran the Birkbeck Archaeology Society as President for 3 years while studying there. During this time a range of activities and lectures were arranged such as visiting MoLA to look at skeletal remains to archaeological illustration. Also lectures concerning the Black Death to the Ark before Noah and the Stonehenge environment. And such activities as going behind the scenes at the British Museum. She is looking forward to supporting HADAS as your Chairman.

The AGM was followed by a lecture by Jackie Pearce on the wonderful world of clay tobacco pipes. We got to see a wonderful array of clay pipes held in Museum of London collection and in the archive. Jackie took us through the types of decorations and markings. This took us back to the earliest Elizabethan and Stuart pipes and to Jamestown in Virginia. We also heard about “gine” presses, “gine” from engine.

Bronze Age settlement dug up in garden Stewart Wild

A retired geologist says he has discovered remnants of a lost Bronze Age settlement in his back garden after learning to identify artefacts by watching television’s Time Team. Dr Andrew Beckly has amassed more than 2,500 artefacts, including blades and axes, after a chance find beneath his lawn in Wellington, Somerset. It all started when he turned up an arrowhead while sifting earth. He said he found it not long after he finished rewatching the popular Channel 4 history programme. He credited the show with helping him to quickly identify the arrowhead.

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He said: “Finding the arrowhead was the starting point. I went to my wife and said ‘guess what I’ve found’ – she didn’t have a clue; it shot the history of the area back by 4,000 years.”

Dr Beckly was not sure if his arrowhead was a hunter’s ‘stray shot’ or evidence of something much bigger, so he expanded his search to nearby fields where he unearthed evidence which could challenge historians’ assumptions about life in Bronze Age Britain.

He said: “I decided to go back to basics. I got a couple of books on prehistoric flint work and gained an outline knowledge. But, primarily, I let the artefacts teach me. What I have discovered is repeat examples of things here which don’t appear in the textbooks. My gut feeling is this would have been a great location for prehistoric hunter-gatherers.

“I have heard frustrations expressed that it is commonly thought prehistory took place in the east of the country… the Southwest is pretty much ignored. But it would have been warm and the Channel was only a river at this time, so it would have been easy to come across from the Continent.

“The alternate view is that we had an Atlantic province rather than just the eastern province,” he said. “It shifts the balance away from everything being in the east.”

Referencing the work of archaeologist and Time Team star Francis Pryor, Dr Beckly said that he had “good reason” to think the Wellington hillside would have been “the perfect place” for our ancestors, in part because what is now the M5 would have made an attractive route for migrating animals. The site could now be examined by Heritage England which would carry out an assessment of the collection.

SOURCE: Daily Telegraph, 25 April 2024, item edited by Stewart Wild

Golden Hind Janet Mortimer

I recently went on a guided tour of the Golden Hind, the replica of Sir Francis Drake’s ship located near London Bridge. The guide was very informative, telling us the circumstances of Drake’s circumnavigation of the globe as he fled the pursuing Spanish after he had stolen their treasure. She showed us around the ship which was surprisingly small considering it started off with 80 people on board and the voyage lasted nearly three years. Some interesting facts that I learned are:-

Knots – The reason a ship’s speed is measured in knots was that they used a rope, knotted at measured intervals, with a wooden board called a chip log which was thrown over the side and the amount of knots that passed through the sailors’ hands would be counted whilst being timed by an hour glass.

Powder monkeys – the ceiling of the gun deck was very low, and indeed even the shortest of our visiting group had to stoop to go down there. In Drake’s day, children were employed to transport the gunpowder to the cannons, often in small kegs as they were able to scurry around quickly without stooping. They would clutch a couple of kegs to their chest and looked like little monkeys, hence the name given to them. At that time children as young as five years old were allowed to work – a fact not met with enthusiasm by my four year old granddaughter!

Biscuit – The ship’s biscuit was part of a sailor’s main diet. Made from flour and water, this was extremely hard and had to be soaked in warm liquid before it could be eaten. To break bits off, the sailors would use their elbow. This is the reason that the sign for biscuit in both British Sign Language and Makaton is tapping your elbow. All in all a very interesting visit and one I would highly recommend.

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Claigmar Vineyard in Finchley: Commercial Grape Growing in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. Part 2 (1) Dudley Miles

In 1850, Peter Kay married a farmer’s daughter, Mary Ann Aedy. (2) In 1851 they were living in Ballards Lane with their newly born daughter, also called Mary Ann. His younger brother John, a gardener born in Scotland, was a member of the household. (3) In 1852 John married Mary Ann’s sister, Susannah or Susan. Peter Edmund Kay was born on 6 May 1853, but his mother died in childbirth. (4) Peter Kay died in August 1862, and his son was left an orphan at the age of nine. Kay’s Nursery was taken over by his uncle John. (5) He died in 1864, and the nursery was managed until the mid-1870s by trustees appointed to act until his children came of age, perhaps because Susannah was suffering from mental illness. (6) The nursery was probably run by Mr G. Osborne, who was awarded several prizes at horticultural shows in the late 1860s and early 1870s for Kay’s Nursery grapes. (7)

Susannah appears to have taken over running the Ballards Lane nursery when the trust expired. It was listed in directories from 1878 to 1889 as Peter and Susan Kay, apart from some directories which showed it in the late 1880s as Mrs Kay’s Nursery. (8) Peter Edmund inherited (or acquired) the freehold, and when Susannah died in 1889 he let it out. In 1898 he advertised it for sale by auction as Ballards Lane Nursery, one and a half acres with two cottages, fourteen greenhouses and trade buildings. (9)

Peter Edmund Kay and Claigmar Vineyard. (10)

After his father’s death, Peter Edmund Kay worked in a ducal vinery, almost certainly the one in the Duke of Buccleuch’s Dalkeith Palace Gardens in Dalkeith, Midlothian. He then became an apprentice of James.

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(1) This article was first published in the February 2024 issue of The Local Historian. It was a shortened version due to the journal’s size limitations. The full article will be printed in the HADAS newsletter in instalments over the next few months. I should like to thank Hugh Petrie, Barnet Council Heritage Development Officer, for his assistance. (2) Marriage of Mary Ann Aedy to Peter Kay, 12 February 1850
(3) Peter Kay, Ballards Lane, 1851 Census
(4) London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1932, marriage of Susannah Aedy to John Kay, 30 December 1852; Births and Baptisms, St Mary Finchley, Peter Edmund Kay, 6 May 1853; Church of England Deaths and Burials, St Mary Finchley, Mary Ann Kay buried 13 May 1853
(5) Probate Registry, will and grant of Peter Kay, died 5 August 1862
(6) The 1861 census shows John living with his brother in Ballards Lane, while Susannah was a visitor to her mother and their children Nancy and Margaret Kay were boarders with Mary Ann Coffey. John’s will dated 1864 provided for Coffey to live in his house and take charge of his wife and children. His executors included Robert Kay, a Kenwood gardener, and Charles Plowman, a builder who in 1882 submitted plans for (and most likely built) a detached house for Peter Edmund Kay which was to be his home, called Claigmar, for the rest of his life. The nursery was listed in directories for the ten years after John’s death as ‘trustees of John Kay’ (Peter Kay, Ballards Lane, Finchley, 1861 census; Mary Coffee (sic), Finchley, 1861 Census, Susannah Kay, Finchley, 1861 Census; Probate Registry, will and grant of John Kay, died 9 May 1864; Post Office Directory of the Six Home Counties, Middlesex, Kelly & Co, 1866, p. 553; Post Office Directory of the Six Home Counties, Part 1, Essex, Herts, Middlesex, Kent, Kelly & Co, 1870, p. 640; Ibid, 1874, p. 649; Barnet Press, 7 January 1882, p. 5).
(7) The Times, 11 September 1867, p. 8; Morning Post, 26 August 1868, p. 6; Ibid, 7 July 1870, p. 7
(8) Post Office Directory of the Six Home Counties, Part 1, Essex, Herts, Middlesex, Kent, Kelly & Co, 1878, p. 709; Ibid, 1882, p. 865; Kelly’s Directory of Essex, Hertfordshire and Middlesex, 1886, p. 923; The Barnet, Finchley, Hendon, & District Directory for 1886-1887, Hutchings & Crowsley, p. 97; Kelly’s Directory of Barnet, Finchley, Hendon & District, 1887 and 1888, p. 93; Ibid, 1889-90, p. 77
(9) Susanna Kay in the England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1837-1915, 1889; Hendon & Finchley Times, 29 April 1898, p. 3
(10) The principal sources on the Claigmar Vineyard are: Peter Kay, ‘Grape Culture in its Commercial Aspect’, Paper read to the Horticultural Club on 5 May, The Garden, 30 May 1896, vol. 49, pp. 397-400; Peter E. Kay V.M.H., ‘Saving and Using the Rain’, read 25 September 1900, Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society of London, 1900-1901, new series, vol. 25, pp. 146-54; (The Garden – Google Books) ‘Through American Eyes, Peter E. Kay’s, London’, The American Florist, 28 December 1895, pp. 554, 555, 556; ‘Notable Nurseries: The Claigmar Vineyards at Finchley’, pp. 370-72; Bear, ‘Fruit Growing under Glass’, pp. 274-78; advertisement for share offer in P. E. Kay Limited, Financial Times, 29 January 1904, p. 8.

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Sweet, who had himself been an apprentice of Peter Kay, and who commenced trading in the year of Kay’s death. At the time of the 1871 census Peter Edmund Kay was in Dalkeith, probably on a return visit to the ducal vinery. (11) He moved back to Finchley soon afterwards and started up in business in 1872 at the age of nineteen. (12) His unmarried aunt, Margaret Kay, leased a parcel of land in Finchley for 30 years from 25 March 1873 at a rent of £22.10 per annum, with a covenant to build greenhouses. (13) She was almost certainly acting on Peter’s behalf as she is not known to have played any role in the business, and as he was below the age of majority he could not sign a lease in his own name. He is listed as a gardener and florist in Long Lane in 1878. (14)

The Duke of Buccleuch’s vinery in Dalkeith Palace Gardens circa 1860. Peter Edmund Kay worked there in 1871, and probably in the early to mid-1860s after the death of his father. (Photo by George Washington Wilson in an album arranged by Prince Albert between 1860 and 1861, https://www.rct.uk/collection/2320131/vinery-dalkeith-palace-gardens).

James Sweet V.M.H trained Peter Edmund Kay. (Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society of London, new series, vol. 26, 1901-1902, p. xix). Sweet developed an improved method of greenhouse construction, with much larger panes of glass, reducing the cost of both construction and repair (Bear, ‘Flower and Fruit Farming in England II’, Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, Third Series, vol. 9, 1898, pp 512-50 at 530).

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(11) Kay, ‘Grape Culture in its Commercial Aspect’, pp. 397-398; ‘Notable Nurseries: The Claigmar Vineyards at Finchley’, p. 370; Peter E. Kay, Dalkeith, 1871 Census. The census shows him as a gardener, age 17, lodging in Croft Street, Dalkeith. He stated that he trained in a noted ducal vinery before his apprenticeship in a commercial vinery. This apprenticeship cannot have after his time in Dalkeith in 1871 as he started his own business the following year, and it is likely that he made a return visit in that year.
(12) Financial Times, 29 January 1904, p. 8
(13) De Burgh Family, Cooper Family Leases, London Metropolitan Archives, ACC/1386/0822, p. 68. (Report (lma.gov.uk). The lessee is described as ‘Margaret Kay of Fife, North Britain, spinster’.
(14) Post Office Directory of the Six Home Counties, Part 1, Essex, Herts, Middlesex, Kent, Kelly & Co, 1878, p. 709

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In 1881, he was living in Gresfield Villas, Long Lane, with Margaret Kay and a sixteen year old servant girl. (15) His business was so successful that in 1882 he was able to have a detached house in Oakfield Road built for him, and this became his home, called Claigmar, for the rest of his life. (16) In Kelly’s Directory for 1886 he is listed as a florist in Oakfield Road. (17) The earliest known use of the name Claigmar Vineyard is dated 1887 in A list of the governors and benefactors of the Royal Scottish Hospital for the relief of poor aged, infirm, and unfortunate natives of Scotland, resident in the metropolis and neighbourhood. (18) He maintained his connections with Scotland all his life and had bankers and solicitors in Edinburgh as well as London. (19) He probably visited Scotland on numerous occasions. On 7 September 1887 he married Jane (or Jeanie) Campbell Glassford, who was born in Greenock in 1854. Their first two children were born in 1889 and 1890, and the 1891 census records their home address as Claigmar, Oakfield Road. The family had two Scottish-born servants. (20) The census also records that Kay’s Aunt Margaret, and sister, Mary Ann, were living together in Finchley with a servant. They are described as ‘living on own means’, probably provided by Peter Edmund when he married. (21) In 1894, Mary Ann married an accountant called Rees James. (22)

In the 1880s, Kay became a member of the horticultural establishment. Archibald Barron was the most respected horticulturist in the late nineteenth century and in the preface to the 1887 edition of Vines and Vine Culture, Kay was one of those he thanked for their assistance. (23) Kay was a member of the committee of The Market Gardeners, Nurserymen, and Farmers’ Association, and in 1895 he was one of the incorporation directors and shareholders of The Nurserymen’s, Market Gardeners’ and General Hailstorm Insurance Corporation Ltd. (24) He was awarded medals for his grapes at horticultural shows in Britain, France and Germany, (25) and he gave papers to the Horticultural Club and the Royal Horticultural Society. (26) In 1897, the Society inaugurated its highest award, the Victoria Medal of Honour (V.M.H.) for ‘British horticulturists deserving of special honour by the Society’, and Kay was one of the sixty initial recipients. (27) In 1900, he became a member of the committee of the Royal Gardeners’ Orphan Fund, (28) and in 1902 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society. (29) Locally, he was president of the Finchley Horticultural Society

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(15) Peter Edmund Kay, Gresfield Villas, 1881 Census. Margaret Kay is shown as Kay’s unmarried aunt, aged 57, born in Scotland. She is listed as a housekeeper, but this has been crossed through.
(16) Barnet Press, 7 January 1882, p. 5. ‘The Works Committee [of Finchley Local Board] recommended that plans submitted by Mr C. Plowman for a detached house, in Oakfield-road, Long-lane, for Mr P. E. Kay, be approved.’
(17) Kelly’s Directory of Essex, Hertfordshire and Middlesex, 1886, p. 923
(18) A list of the governors and benefactors of the Royal Scottish Hospital for the relief of poor aged, infirm, and unfortunate natives of Scotland, resident in the metropolis and neighbourhood, Royal Scottish Hospital, 1903, p. 129. This records that in 1887 Kay, Peter E., Claigmar Vineyard, Church End, Finchley, N,, contributed one guinea.
(19) Financial Times, 29 January 1904, p. 8
(20) Morning Post, 12 September 1887, p. 1; Peter Edmund Kay, Claigmar, Finchley, 1891 Census. A rare insight into Kay’s private life is that he was fined 10 shillings plus costs in 1897 for allowing a dog to run free unmuzzled (Finchley Press, 28 August 1897, p. 3).
(21) Margaret Kay, Manor Villa, Station Road, Finchley, 1891 Census
(22) Marriage Record of Mary Ann Kay. Rees James is sometimes shown as Reese James.
(23) Barron, Vines and Vine Culture, preface to the second edition, 1887; ‘The Judges at the International Horticultural Exhibition’, p. 212. Barron was the superintendent of the Royal Horticultural Society gardens and a V.M.H.
(24) The Gardeners’ Chronicle, 2 January 1892, p, 9; Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Gardener, series 3, vol. 30, 28 March 1895, p. 265 (Gardeners’ Chronicle – Google Books). The General Hailstorm Insurance Corporation was founded on the initiative of James Sweet (Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society of London, new series, vol. 26, 1901-1902, p. xix).
(25) Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Gardener, 12 September 1889, vol. 19, p. 230 (Journal of Horticulture and Practical Gardening – Google Books); The Garden, 3 September 1892, vol. 42, p. 219 (The Garden – Google Books); Revue Horticole, vol. 61, 1889, p. 475 (Journal of Horticulture and Practical Gardening – Google Books); Journal de la Société Nationale d’horticulture de France, 1887, p. 765; Jardins de France, 1890, p. 47; Wiener Illustrirte Garten-Zeitung, January 1890, vol. 15, p. 47 (Journal de la Société nationale d’horticulture de France – Google Books).
(26) Kay, ‘Grape Culture in its Commercial Aspect’, pp. 397-400; Kay, ‘Saving and Using the Rain’, pp. 146-54
(27) Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society of London, new series, vol. 21, 1897-1898, p. 3 (;new ser.:v.21 (1897-1898) – Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society of London – Biodiversity Heritage Library (biodiversitylibrary.org)); ‘RHS People Awards’, Royal Horticultural Society website (RHS People Awards / RHS Gardening). The number of V.M.H. holders at any one time is limited to the number of years of Queen Victoria’s reign, 60 when it was inaugurated and 63 since her death.
(28) Gardeners’ Chronicle, Series 3, vol 27, 24 February 1900, p. 126 (ser.3:v.27 (1900) – The Gardeners’ chronicle – Biodiversity Heritage Library (biodiversitylibrary.org)). Kay resigned in 1904 (The Garden, 20 February 1904, p. 141 (v.65 1904 – The Garden – Biodiversity Heritage Library (biodiversitylibrary.org))).
(29) Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society of London, new series, vol. 27, 1902-1903, p. ii (new ser.:v.27 (1902-1903) – Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society of London – Biodiversity Heritage Library (biodiversitylibrary.org)).

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and the Finchley Dahlia Society, and treasurer of the Finchley Chrysanthemum Society. He almost always declined positions in organizations outside the horticultural sphere. (30)

Kay had a cheerful disposition and he declared: ‘The occupation of a vine grower is one of the most pleasant that can be undertaken; it is full of ever-changing interest.’ (31) In 1892 he was one of the judges at the International Horticultural Exhibition at Earls Court, and in a description of the judges in The Gardening World, he is described as:

a genial, kind hearted man, in whom the gardening charities, and numerous other charitable objects have a constant and generous supporter. Mr Kay is a man of wide renown as a grower of fruit, and especially of grapes, for market. He is indeed one of the magnates of the business, standing second to few in the extent of his cultivation, and second to none in the quality of it. He is perhaps the largest grower of the Canon Hall Muscat in the world, and certainly he can never have been surpassed in his success with this shy-setting but otherwise noble grape. Mr Kay’s vineyard is a thing to see and dream of. (32)

In 1895 a group of American horticulturalists visited Claigmar Vineyard, and on their return to the United States they gave an account in the American Florist of their visit to Kay, who was described as ‘easily first’ among specialists in growing grapes under glass. He then had twelve greenhouses for grapes, each 400 feet long by 36 wide. Each house contained about 10,000 bunches, averaging about 1 to 1½ pounds per bunch. The visitors observed: ‘It is a grand and bewildering sight to stand at the end of one of these large houses and see the great clusters of grapes all about, and as one looks a distance along, the leaves seem to fade away and all is grapes.’ Canon Hall Muscat fetched high prices, but had a limited sale, and he also grew the cheaper Black Alicante and Gros Colman on a large scale. The houses were fumigated by sulphur and warmed by a network of water pipes heated to as high a temperature as possible. He had 43 greenhouses 150 feet long by 14 wide for cucumbers. After their tour, the American party spent the evening with Kay, described as ‘a most genial gentleman’, and his ‘charming wife’. (33) Kay grew Comet tomatoes, which he brought from Scotland in the early 1890s, and his own strain of cucumbers. (34)
Bear observed:

The most important of the Metropolitan districts in relation to hot-house fruit production are those situated north of London, and the notes of visits to some of the largest glass-house nurseries could not begin more appropriately than with those relating to the great undertaking founded and carried on by Mr Peter Kay, at Finchley. Mr Kay has long been noted as one of the best grape-growers in the country, his success with the Canon Hall variety, a difficult one to grow to perfection, being unequalled. (35)

Bear stated that up to 1899, Kay spent £50,000 on greenhouses alone. The area covered by glass was 19½ acres and the total occupied by the nursery was 34 acres. The greenhouses devoted to grapes were described by Bear as “great structures, which good judges have declared the finest block of vineries in the world”. (36)

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(30) Hendon & Finchley Times, 28 December 1894, p. 6; Ibid, 20 October 1899, p. 4; Ibid, 27 August 1909, p. 6; Finchley Press, 10 September 1898, p. 7
(31) ‘Grape Culture in its Commercial Aspect’, p. 400
(32) ‘The Judges at the International Horticultural Exhibition’, p. 212
(33) ‘Through American Eyes’, pp. 554, 555, 556. See also The Gardening World, 9 July 1898, p. 713, which has a photograph of Kay’s ‘famous Canon Hall Muscat house’.
(34) ‘Notable Nurseries: The Claigmar Vineyards at Finchley’, p. 371
(35) Bear, ‘Fruit Growing under Glass’, p. 274
(36) Ibid. pp. 274-75. On Kay’s greenhouses, see also Barron, Vines and Vine Culture, 4th ed., 1900, p. 99.

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Barron commented that a good soil was an important factor in the success of a vineyard, and he observed: ‘One of the most successful cultivators, Mr Kay, of Finchley, is favoured with the finest of soil—a somewhat heavy yellow loam, which is used unsparingly mixed with bones, Thomson’s vine manure etc’. (37) Obtaining sufficient water was expensive, and Kay was known for having developed an effective system for storing and using rainwater. In the late 1890s he built a two-acre reservoir to store rainwater falling on the greenhouses. It had a capacity of five million gallons of water, which was pumped to the top of water towers, and then flowed down to water the fruit, saving a water rate of more than £700 a year. (38) Rainwater was better for vines as it was soft, unlike the cold and very hard water supplied by the water company. In 1900, he read a paper on the storage and use of rainwater to the Royal Horticultural Society. (39)

The vineyard expanded rapidly. In 1904 Kay stated that the area covered by greenhouses (including those for tomatoes and cucumbers) had increased from 1.8 acres at incorporation in 1889 to 18 acres. (40) The Ordnance Survey (OS) map of 1894 shows it extending a quarter of a mile from the Great Northern Railway line (now the Northern line) nearly to Long Lane, and on both sides of Oakfield Road. A 1911 OS map shows it occupying most of the land from Dukes Avenue to what is now the North Circular. (41)
Kay’s grape production increased from 10 tons in 1889 to 100 tons per annum in 1903. He was one of the major producers, although well below the 400 tons a year Messrs Rochford expected when their vines reached full maturity. In the early 1900s, Kay produced an average of 100 tons of tomatoes and 20,000 dozens of cucumbers a year. The fruit all had a first grade ‘Mark’, and was well known in all the markets of England and Scotland. (42) All produce since his start in business in 1872 had been sent to the leading Covent Garden importer and wholesaler, George Monro, a V.M.H. and Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society. (43) Kay may have taken advantage of the rising value of land by buying and selling property. In the late 1890s he owned around thirty acres in Finchley apart from the nursery, and in 1898, he auctioned five blocks of building land with frontages totalling 1367 feet on Long Lane and Squires Lane, and a freehold estate of fifteen and a half acres close to Finchley Station (now Finchley Central). (44) However, he may have purchased the land originally with the intention of expanding the vineyard further.

On 14 March 1889 Claigmar Vineyard was incorporated as P. E. Kay, Limited. (45) The inaugural directors were Kay, his wife and his aunt. (46) In 1904, the earliest date after incorporation when the directors are recorded, they were Kay, his brother-in-law Rees James and Richard Cobley, a fruit grower who lived in Waltham Cross. A valuers’ report of the company in 1901 stated that there were ‘145 vineries, cucumber and tomato houses, with the heating apparatus and fittings, water tower and other trade buildings, two reservoirs with water mains, pumps, service pipes and fittings, vines and vine borders, tomatoes and hanging fruit, horses, vans, carts, utensils in trade and other items’. The total length of the greenhouses was 5.2 miles, with 25.5 miles of 4-inch hot water piping and 84 boilers. The total area was 29 acres, two-thirds held freehold

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(37) Barron, Vines and Vine Culture, 3rd ed., p. 91
(38) Financial Times, 29 January 1904, p. 8; Finchley Press, 24 September 1898, p. 2; Ibid, 16 November 1901, p. 8; R. Lewis Castle, Book of Market Gardening, London 1906, p. 41
(39) Kay, ‘Saving and Using the Rain’, pp. 146-54
(40) Financial Times, 29 January 1904, p. 8. The figures are given as: ‘from 80,000 square feet to 805,000 square feet, or from 2½ acres to 28 acres’. The figures for acreage have been corrected as they are obviously too high as the result of conversion errors.
(41) Ordnance Survey, 26 inches to a mile, Mid Finchley 1894 and 1911. Directories list another market grower in Oakfield Road, and this probably occupied a small part of the area shown on the map as Claigmar Vineyard.
(42) Financial Times, 29 January 1904, p. 8; Barron, Vines and Vine Culture, 4th ed., p. 94
(43) Financial Times, 29 January 1904, p. 8; ‘Packing Australian Fruit’, The Garden, vol. 43, 17 June 1893, p. 508; Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society of London, New Series, vol. 21, 1897, pp. 578-79 (v.43 1893 – The Garden – Biodiversity Heritage Library (biodiversitylibrary.org).
(44) Bear, ‘Fruit Growing under Glass’, p. 274; Hendon & Finchley Times, 29 April 1898, p. 3
(45) The Stock Exchange Year-Book, 1904, entry for P. E. Kay Limited. The name was shown in a variety of ways in directories such as Peter E. Kay Limited and Peter Edmund Kay Limited. The trading name was sometimes shown as Claigmar, Claigmar Vinery and Claigmar Vineries.
(46) Financial Times, 19 March 1889, p. 4

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and one-third leasehold, with leases expired in 1977. The ground rent was £155 per annum until 1911 and £200 per annum for the rest of the term. The location close to Finchley Railway Station made the land prospectively valuable for a suburban housing estate. The company was valued at £65,243, equivalent to £6.4 million at 2023 prices. (47) A newspaper report of a rating appeal by Kay in 1906 gives a total acreage of 29.5 acres, including 16 acres of greenhouses, 10.5 acres of waste land, the reservoir and an engine works. The number of greenhouses had increased since 1901 to 151 with a length of 5.4 miles. (48) Kay was the largest ratepayer in the district. (49)

Kay claimed that, apart from pineapples, fruit grown under glass in England was superior in quality to foreign produce and did not suffer from foreign competition to the same degree as other industries. He argued that cheap imported grapes had probably prevented a greater fall in prices by encouraging consumers to consume the fruit, and thus giving them a taste for the superior English produce (50) He seems to have been more optimistic about the prospects of the industry than other growers, and in the 1890s he had continued to expand, with almost a quarter of his greenhouses erected in 1898. (51) Vines had been planted by 1903 to increase annual production from 100 to 150 tons. His expenditure on developing the property was very high. In addition to the £50,000 spent on erecting greenhouses, the water management works were very expensive. He also launched a new company in 1903, Mill Hill Vineyard Limited. The costs of these investments seem to have strained his finances, and in 1904 he offered to sell part of his holdings in the company. An advertisement for the offer in the Financial Times stated that it was made to repay Kay for personal obligations he had entered into in order to develop the property. The issued capital was 1000 £10 ordinary shares, which had never paid a dividend of less than 7% per annum, and 200 6% preference shares of £100. There were also 425 5% £100 mortgage debentures. Under an agreement with the company, he was required to retain four-fifths of the ordinary shares, and he now offered to sell to the public all his other holdings, 82 preference shares and 355 mortgage debentures, all at par. The offer statement included an accountants’ certificate stating that the average profit in the last three years had been £5,675. This was £2,350 after preference share dividends and debenture interest. (52) The Statist, a financial weekly, was critical, commenting that a three-year average profit was inadequate financial information, and described the offer as ‘too speculative for the ordinary investor’.53 It is not known whether it was accepted. Kay would have retained control as the shares had equal voting rights, and he would still have held 800 shares out of the total of 1200.
Kay became involved in personal difficulties in the years before his death in 1909, but the details are unclear. According to an obituary: ‘A few years ago, through a technicality, Mr Kay’s affairs became somewhat involved, and this has been a source of great worry to him.’54 He seems to have withdrawn from public life after 1905. In earlier years, he was regularly listed in the Journal of the Royal Horticultural
_____________________________________________________

(47) Financial Times, 29 January 1904, p. 8; Bank of England inflation calculator. There was only one reservoir so the mention of two of them is an error.
(48) ‘Finchley Greenhouses’, Finchley Press, 27 January 1906, p. 10. In 1902, Kay granted Finchley Council access to an electricity works through a road in the Claigmar site for a nominal rent, but in 1905 he demanded that the Council remove electricity cables laid along the road because of the nuisance caused by smoke from burning coal. (Meeting of Finchley Urban District Council Electricity Committee, 26 July 1905, in Barnet History https://open.barnet.gov.uk/download/2rpm1/l3y/Finchley_Urban_District_Council_1904_June-1905_November.pdf (BH), Finchley Urban District Council (FUDC), June 1904-November 1905, pp. 414-22).
(49) Hendon & Finchley Times, 27 August 1909, p. 6
(50) ‘Grape Culture in its Commercial Aspect’, p. 398
(51) Bear, ‘Fruit Growing under Glass’, p. 274
(52) Financial Times, 29 January 1904, p. 8; Ibid, 21 December 1903, p. 4
(53) The Statist, 30 January 1904, p. 211
(54) Hendon & Finchley Times, 27 August 1909, p. 6

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Society as a judge and contributor to prize funds at horticultural exhibitions, and his last appearance was in that year as a judge at the Society’s Annual Exhibition of British-Grown Fruit. (55) He was able to get the assessment of the greenhouses for rates reduced in 1906, (56) but he ceased to be a director of P. E. Kay Limited in 1906 or 1907, and was replaced by George Monro. (57) By this time, the company’s financial reputation seems to have declined. In 1908, six £100 mortgage debentures were offered for sale by auction, but they were unsold, and they were offered again at a 25% discount. (58) In the same year, the case of Scott v. P. E. Kay Limited was scheduled for a hearing with witnesses in the Chancery Division of the High Court. (59) No details of the case are known. To be continued…..

And finally…

Following recent publication of the Phase II of the excavation of the Mesolithic site on West Heath, Hampstead, the final excavation between 1984 and 1986. The HADAS finds team are re-bagging and re-boxing the finds so the physical archive is protected to current standard:

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OTHER SOCIETIES’ EVENTS Eric Morgan

Not all societies or organisations have returned to pre-covid conditions, please check with them before planning to attend.

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(55) Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society of London, New Series, vol. 30, 1906, pp. 113-14
(56) Hendon & Finchley Times, 8 September 1905, p. 5; Finchley Press, 27 January 1906, p. 10
(57) Stock Exchange Year-Book, entries for P. E. Kay Limited for 1906 and 1907
(58) Finchley Press, 8 May 1908, p. 6; Ibid, 31 July 1908, p. 6
(59) The Law Times, 11 January 1908, p. 253; The Solicitors’ Journal and Weekly Reporter, 11 January 1908, p. 180

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Sunday 7th July, 2 pm. – Remembering WW1 and WW2. Guided walk. Learn about the Jewish soldiers who lost their lives in the wars.
Tuesday 20th August, 6.30 pm. Women of Willesden. Celebrate significant Jewish women who helped change history through their Philanthropy, Scientific and Business achievements. For info and booking please visit www.willesdenjewishcemetery.org.uk or 0208 459 6107
Sunday 7 July, 10.30 am. Heath and Hampstead Society. Constable and Hampstead. Walk led by Suzanne Grundy. Lasts approximately 2 hours. Meet at Spaniard’s End (By Flower Stall) and Cattle Trough near Spaniard’s Inn, Spaniard’s Road, London NW3 7JJ. Ends at St. John’s Hampstead Parish Church, Church Row, London. NW3 6UU. Donation £5. Please contact Thomas Radice on 07941 528034 or email hhs.walks@gmail.com or visit www.heathandhampstead.org.
Sunday 7 July, 12-5 pm. Hampstead Summer Festival Fair in Heath Street. Over 100 stalls of craft, food and drink. Music. Free.
Sunday 7 July to Sunday 21 July. Enfield Archaeological Society. Elsyng Palace Excavation in the grounds of Forty Hall, Forty Hill, Enfield. EN2 9HA. Dig to visit www.enfarchsoc.org/dig. There is an OPEN DAY 11 am. – 4 pm. on Sunday 13 July for members of the public. COLAS will also be visiting.
Monday 8 July 7.30 pm. Barnet Museum and Local History Society, St. John the Baptist Church, Chipping Barnet, Corner High Street/Wood Street, Barnet, EN5 4BW. What Medieval Women Wore. Talk by Kathleen Alston-Cole. See www.barnetmuseum.co.uk.
Tuesday 9 July, 7 pm. Camden History Society. St John’s Hampstead Parish Church, Church Row, London NW3 6UU. AGM. Followed by the History and Social Role of the Camden New Journal. Talk by Dan Carrier. Wine and soft drinks 6.30 pm – 7 pm. Visit http://www.camdenhistorysociety.org.
Tuesday 9 July, 7.45 pm. Amateur Geological Society. Finchley Baptist Church Hall, 6 East End Road/Corner of Stanhope Avenue, London N3 3LX. (almost opposite Avenue House). Geophysical Surveying in Africa. Talk by Roger May. Full details on www.amgeosoc.wordpress.com.
Tuesday 9th July, 11 am. Kingsbury Library. Kingsbury Road, London NW9 9HE. Day Out at Wembley Park, 100 Years Ago. Talk by Philip Grant (Wembley History Society). On a tour of the British Empire Empire Exhibition in 1924 from a guidebook. Refreshments to be provided.
Thursday 11th July, 2 pm. Hornsey Historical Society. Union Church Hall, (corner of Ferme Park Road/Weston Park) N8 9BX. Will also be on Zoom. Annual General Meeting. For details please visit www.hornseyhistorical.org.uk.
Saturday 13 July to Sunday 28 July. CBA Festival of Archaeology. For more info about events visit https://www.archaeologyuk.org/festival.html.
Monday 15th July, 8 pm. Enfield Society. Jubilee Hall, 2, Parsonage Lane, Junction Chase side, Enfield, EN2 0AJ. From Monoux and Morris to Beer and Bacon Jam. Talk by Joanna Moncrieff. Please visit www.enfieldsociety.org.uk.
Thursday 18th July, 6.30 pm. Willesden Green Library. Willesden High Road/corner Brondesbury Park, London NW10 2SF. The Willesden Green Library Story. Talk by Philip Grant to discover how the original Victorian public library came about.
Friday 19 July, 7 pm. COLAS. Address as for 21 June. Also on Zoom, 81, Newgate Street – The Former G.P.O site re-visited. Talk by Kathy Davidson, Pre-Construct Archaeology (PCA). Please book via Eventbrite. See www.colas.org.uk.
Friday 19 July, 7 pm. Wembley History Society. St Andrew’s Church Hall (behind St. Andrew’s New Church) Church Lane, Kingsbury, London. NW9 8RZ. Tripping Up Everest. Talk by Lester Hillman in the Centenary Year of Mallory’s Expedition. Visitors £3. Refreshments available.
Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st July. London Canal Museum. 12-13 New Wharf Road, Kings Cross, London N1 9RT. Ice Heritage Weekend. Celebrates all things ice and the history of the building. Part of The Festival of Archaeology including boat trips, Victorian ice cream making demonstrations and on

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Sunday a rare chance to descend into the historic underground ice well. Please visit www.canalmuseum.org.uk. Normal museum entry charges.
Saturday 27 July. Colas at Greenwich Park. CBA Festival of Archaeology Event. By General Wolfe Statue celebrating the Greenwich Park restored Project, see www.archeologyuk.org/festival.html.
Saturday 27th July, 11 am. Enfield Town. A circular walk including a guided tour of St. Andrew’s Church., led by Sue Grayson Ford. for details please visit www.enfieldsociety.org.uk.
Tuesday 6th August, 11 am. Enfield Society. Jubilee Hall, address as for 15th July. Palmers Green. Talk by Adrian Day on a tour of Palmers Green, an Edwardian suburb.
Tuesday 13th August, 7.45 pm. Amateur Geological Society, Finchley Baptist Church Hall, 6, East End Road, Corner Stanhope Avenue, London N3 3LX. (Almost opposite Avenue House). Members Evening. with a theme of Fossils in Flint. Further info: www.amgeosoc.wordpress.com.

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With many thanks to this month’s contributors: Sandra Claggett, Stewart Wild, Janet Mortimer, Dudley Miles, Eric Morgan

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Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Sandra Claggett, c/o Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE
email: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer, 34, Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121) email: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman, 50, Summerlee Avenue, London N2 9QP (07855 304488)
email: treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec. Jim Nelhams, 61, Potters Road Barnet EN5 5HS (020 8449 7076)
email: membership@hadas.org.uk

Website at: www.hadas.org.uk – join the HADAS email discussion group via the website.

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No. 639 June 2024 Edited by Dudley Miles

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming Lectures and Events

Lectures are normally face-to-face, though lectures in winter may be on Zoom. Lectures are held in the Drawing Room, Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE, 7.45 for 8pm. Buses 13, 125, 143, 326 and 460 pass close by, and it is a five to ten-minute walk from Finchley Central Station on the Barnet Branch of the Northern Line. Bus 382 also passes close to Finchley Central Station. Tea/Coffee/biscuits are available for purchase after the talk.

STOP PRESS

We have been advised that that Barnet Medieval Festival scheduled for 8th/9th June has been postponed because of unsafe ground conditions. It is hoped to reschedule for later in the year

Tuesday 11 June 2024

HADAS Annual General Meeting.

PLEASE NOTE EARLY START TIME: 7.30
Your chance to let us know how we are doing and what you would like us to do for you. The meeting will be followed by a talk on Clay Pipes by our President, Jacqui Pearce. Members will receive reports and information about the meeting. Still time for nominations and resolutions.

Tuesday 12 September 2024

Wendy Morrison, Chilterns Heritage & Archaeology Partnership (CHAP)

Beacon of the Past Hillforts Project

Announcement Don Cooper

After many years in gestation, we are proud to announce that the latest book to be produced under the auspices of HADAS has now been published (see cover photo next page). This covers Phase II of the excavation of the Mesolithic site on West Heath, Hampstead, the final excavation between 1984 and 1986.

The book, written by Myfanwy Stewart, tells the story of the second excavation. Myfanwy spent many hours re-analysing all the finds found and reprocessing them into a coherent book. She is to be congratulated that all her hard work has produced this fine volume. A full review will be produced in due course.

Copies of the book will be available to members at lectures and at the AGM.

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Phase 1 was published in 1989 and dealt with the excavation in 1976-1981. (Desmond Collins and Daphne Lorimer (1989). Excavations at the Mesolithic Site on West Heath, Hampstead 1976-1981. Oxford: International Archaeological Reports, British Series 217).

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Claigmar Vineyard in Finchley: Commercial Grape Growing in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. Part 1 (1) Dudley Miles

Mr Kay’s vineyard is a thing to see and dream of (2)

Abstract

There were many market gardens in Middlesex in the nineteenth century, one of which was founded by Peter Kay in the 1830s or early 1840s in Ballards Lane in Finchley. His Black Hamburgh vine was often praised by horticulturalists. His son, Peter Edmund Kay, built up a large-scale business in the late nineteenth century called Claigmar Vineyard, producing table grapes, cucumbers and tomatoes in greenhouses, in Church End, Finchley. In 1889 he incorporated the business as P. E. Kay Limited. Between the 1880s and 1900s Kay was one of the most respected horticulturalists in Britain, and he was one of the inaugural recipients of the Royal Horticultural Society’s most prestigious award, the Victoria Medal of Honour (V.M.H.) in 1897. His Canon Hall Muscat grapes were especially admired.

In the 1900s the company’s financial reputation appears to have declined, and according to an obituary Kay had a technical problem with his affairs. He suffered from increasing ill health in his last years and resigned as a director in 1906 or 1907. He died in 1909, aged 56. The business carried on after his death, but it was unable to pay dividends to holders of ordinary shares, and the land was far more valuable for housing. The property was gradually sold off for building in the 1920s. An associated company, Mill Hill Vineyard Limited, carried on until the early 1930s. Kay’s elder son, Peter Crichton Kay, became a leading figure in the large-scale production of cut flowers, and he was awarded his own V.M.H. in 1951.

Introduction

In a survey of fruit production in greenhouses in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1899, William Bear estimated that in the 1860s, commercial greenhouses covered around 100 acres in England, whereas by the end of the century it was around 1,100 acres, of which 350 acres were devoted to table grapes. (3) In the mid-nineteenth century the best grapes sold at Covent Garden were mainly sent by private establishments, but over the next twenty to thirty years a sharp decline in prices and improvements in the quality of grapes produced by commercial growers largely drove out the amateurs. (4) In 1892, Archibald Barron wrote in the third edition of his Vines and Vine Culture, the standard work on grape growing in Britain:

The extraordinary increase in the cultivation of grapes for sale or market purposes, and the rapid development of the trade in this fruit during the past few years, is altogether of a very remarkable character. No other fruit, excepting the tomato, has ever advanced so rapidly into popularity and general use. A few years ago, grapes could only be obtained by the wealthy in small quantities, and at high prices; ________________________

(1) This article was first published in the February 2024 issue of The Local Historian. It was a shortened version due to the journal’s size limitations. The full article will be printed in the HADAS newsletter in instalments over the next few months. I should like to thank Hugh Petrie, Barnet Council Heritage Development Officer, for his assistance.
(2) ‘The Judges at the International Horticultural Exhibition’, The Gardening World, 3 December 1892, p. 212
(3) William E. Bear, ‘Flower and Fruit Farming in England. IV. Fruit Growing under Glass’, Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, Third Series, vol. 10, 1899, pp. 267-313 at 268 and 272. Fruit was taken to include tomatoes and cucumbers.
(4) Archibald Barron, Vines and Vine Culture, Journal of Horticulture, 3rd ed., 1892, p. 90

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Now they form a staple article of commerce, and may be obtained in abundance and at a moderate price in all parts of the country, and at all seasons. (5)

A key factor in the explosive growth in commercial grape growing was the popularity of tomatoes, which could be grown during the two or three years when the vines were becoming established, and thus provide an immediate return on the expense of constructing greenhouses. (6) Barron stated in the second edition of his book in 1887 that total grape production in England was nearly 400 tons, and this was outstripped by the supply from the Channel Islands, which increased from 50 tons in 1876 to over 500 tons in 1886. Most of the supply from both sources was handled by one wholesaler, George Monro of Covent Garden. (7) The largest English producer was Philip Ladds of Bexley Heath, whose crop in 1886 was 30 tons, and Barron listed Peter Edmund Kay of Finchley at the head of the second rank. (8) By the time of Barron’s third edition in 1892, there had been a further dramatic increase in production, and Messrs Rochford of Cheshunt ranked top with vines to produce around 300 tons a year when they became fully mature. (9) Bear estimated English grape production in 1899 at 4,200 tons. (10) After 1900, the supply declined as many vines were rooted up in favour of tomatoes. (11)

Prices of grapes varied greatly depending on their variety and condition, and on the time of year, but in the middle of the nineteenth century growers could get £1 to £1.50 a pound for some varieties. (12) In 1887, Barron commented that average prices had declined 25% to 50% over the last ten years, but commercial growers were not distressed as it was better to sell a ton of grapes at two or three shillings a pound than a few hundred pounds at ten or twenty shillings. (13) In 1899 Kay said that prices had declined by two-thirds over the last ten years. (14) Market gardeners had become pessimistic about the prospects of the hot-house fruit industry. Too many glasshouses were being built, which would push the prices down further. James Sweet of Whetstone, who trained more apprentices than any other nurseryman, observed that most of them had unsuccessfully attempted to build a business and had left the industry. Foreign competition in grapes was becoming a more serious threat, particularly from Belgium, partly due to an increased French tariff on Belgian produce, resulting in a diversion of supply to the London market. Sweet told a story of a young Belgian who had visited his nursery and asked him when the English were going to give up growing grapes for market. When asked why he thought that Belgian growers would drive their English rivals out of business, he said that it was due to their lower labour costs, including the employment of children. (15) Kay said in 1903 that vanloads of good quality grapes sent to Covent Garden fetched an average of 10d a pound. (16)

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(5) Barron, Vines and Vine Culture, 3rd ed., p. 89; Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Gardener, 22 September 1892, p. 265
(6) Barron, Vines and Vine Culture, 3rd ed., p. 89
(7) Barron, Vines and Vine Culture, 2nd edition, 1887, pp. 88-89. In the second edition Barron states that the totals for the Channel Islands are according to official figures, but in the third edition he specifies that they are for shipments through Southampton (2nd edition, p. 89; 3rd edition, p. 90). Channel Islands production appears to have only increased marginally after 1886. Barron does not give a later total figure, but he says that the quantity handled by Monro increased from 300 tons in 1886 to 350 tons in 1899 (3rd edition, p. 90; 4th edition, p. 99).
(8) Barron, Vines and Vine Culture, 2nd ed., 1887, pp. 88-89.
(9) Barron, Vines and Vine Culture, 3rd ed., pp. 89-90
(10) Bear, ‘Fruit Growing under Glass’, p. 272
(11) Barron, Vines and Vine Culture, 5th ed., 1912, p. 99. Barron died in 1903 and the 1912 edition was produced by his widow.
(12) ‘Notable Nurseries: The Claigmar Vineyards at Finchley Five Miles of Glass. Grape Growing by the Ton. A Chat with Mr P. E. Kay V.M.H.’, The Market Growers’ Gazette, 22 July 1903, pp. 370-72 at 371
(13) Barron, Vines and Vine Culture, 2nd ed., p. 89
(14) Quoted in Bear, ‘Fruit Growing under Glass’, p. 277
(15) Bear, ‘Fruit Growing under Glass’, pp. 279-81, 286, 310-11
(16) ‘Notable Nurseries: The Claigmar Vineyards at Finchley’, p. 371

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Since the 1820s, market gardens had gradually been pushed further and further from London as land became more valuable for building in each area, (17) and an increase in the late nineteenth century in Finchley from £200 to £1000 an acre had made starting a new commercial nursery in the area uneconomic. Kay said that all the principal growers around London had been well trained by their fathers and had kept up with modern improvements. (18) However, it was an advantage for the leading growers to be close enough to London to send grapes by van (horse cart), because they arrived in better condition than those sent by rail, (19) while rail transport meant increased handling costs. (20)

Peter Kay senior and the Ballards Lane nursery

Peter Kay senior was born in Fifeshire in Scotland in about 1814, the son of John Kay, a general merchant, and probably moved to Finchley in the 1830s. In 1841 he was living in Ballards Lane, Church End, Finchley. In the 1830s or early 1840s he established a market gardening business growing flowers and fruit, where he was joined by his younger brother and business partner, John. (21) The business was probably located from the start on the site which was the freehold property of Peter Kay by the mid-1850s in Ballards Lane, next to the Joiners Arms public house and now occupied by a Tesco supermarket. (22) He was one of the first nurserymen to grow grapes commercially in the northern home counties, and he was awarded prizes for them at horticultural shows. (23) His Black Hamburgh vine, planted in March 1856, achieved a wide fame. It was laid horizontally in a greenhouse, and by 1866 it was 18 feet wide in five main branches and 89 feet long. In 1872, a gardening magazine described it as ‘the noblest vine that we know of within easy reach of London…far before either the Cumberland Lodge or the Hampton Court vines…a far more creditable specimen than any large vine we have ever seen’. Another admirer declared that it was worth a day’s march to inspect it. (24) In 1903, forty years after his death, a correspondent to the Gardeners’ Chronicle observed that much had been written about the late Mr Kay’s vine, which was still producing a full crop of grapes, but that it would soon have to give way to ‘the ubiquitous builder’. (25)

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(17) L. G. Bennett, The Horticultural Industry of Middlesex, University of Reading, Department of Agricultural Economics, 1952, pp. 10-12; Richard Perren, ‘The Marketing of Agricultural Products: Farm Gate to Retail Store’, in E. J. T. Collins ed., The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. VII 1850-1914, part II, 2000, Cambridge University Press, pp. 953-98 at 969; ‘Notable Nurseries: The Claigmar Vineyards at Finchley’, p. 371
(18) ‘Notable Nurseries: The Claigmar Vineyards at Finchley’ p. 371
(19) Barron, Vines and Vine Culture, 3rd ed., p. 89
(20) Perren, ‘The Marketing of Agricultural Products’, pp. 968-69
(21) Peter Kay, Ballards Lane, 1841 and 1851 Censuses; Church of England Marriages and Banns, Marriage of Peter Kay to Mary Ann Aedy at St Mary’s, Finchley, 12 February 1850; ‘Kay, Peter, Nursery & Seedsman’, Post Office Directory of the Nine Counties, Kelly & Co, 1845, p. 431; Kay, Peter, ‘nurseryman & florist, Ballards Lane’, Post Office Directory of the Six Home Counties, Kelly & Co, 1855, p. 577; Probate Registry, will and grant of Peter Kay, dated 5 August 1862. In Peter Kay’s will, signed on the day that he died, he stated that the business was a partnership with his brother. He may have only entered the partnership towards the end of his life as the business was always shown in directories, and in prizes at horticultural shows, as Peter Kay, and the freehold property was in his sole name.
(22) ‘Mrs Kay’s Nursery’ (adjacent to the Joiners’ Arms in Ballards Lane in street directory), The Barnet, Finchley, Hendon, & District Directory for 1886-1887, Hutchings & Crowsley, p. 97. Directories before 1855 do not give the locations of businesses. Kay’s nursery is listed in Ballards Lane from 1855, but the precise location in Ballards Lane is not given until 1886. However, the survival of Kay’s Black Hamburgh vine planted in 1856 for over forty years shows that the nursery was in the same location from that time.
(23) ‘Notable Nurseries: The Claigmar Vineyards at Finchley’, p. 370; ‘Crystal Palace Flower Show’, Morning Chronicle, 1 June 1857, p. 6; ‘Flower Show at the Crystal Palace’, The Times, 8 September 1858, p. 9. Other pioneers of commercial grape growing included the father of Messrs Rochford and the father of George Monro of Covent Garden (‘Notable Nurseries: The Claigmar Vineyards at Finchley, p. 370).
(24) The Garden, 10 August 1872, p. 120; John Edlington, Nottinghamshire Guardian, 17 August 1866, p. 10. See also Barron, Vines and Vine Culture, 1st ed., 1883, p. 190.
(25) Gardeners’ Chronicle, 10 January 1903, p. 29

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Ordnance Survey Mid-Finchley maps, 26 inches to a mile, reduced to c. 8 inches to a mile

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OTHER SOCIETIES’ EVENTS Eric Morgan

Not all societies or organisations have returned to pre-covid conditions, please check with them before planning to attend.

Sunday 16 June, 1-4 pm. Coppetts Wood Festival, Coppetts Wood Local Nature Reserve. Entrances in Colney Hatch Lane N11 3HQ and Nursery Approach, off Porters Way N12 0RF. Lots of stalls including Finchley Society, Arts and Crafts, Music, Food and Drink. Free admission.

Tuesday 18 June, 6.30 pm. Eclectic Tours. Colindale Library, Bristol Avenue (Formerly Lanacre Avenue) Grahame Park, London NW9 4BR. Lost Architecture in Colindale. Talk by Lisa Lu. Part of London Festival of Architecture. Free. Register via Colindale Library at colindale.library@barnet.gov.uk.

Friday 21 June, 7 pm. COLAS. St Olave’s Church, Hart Street, London EC3R 7NB. Archaeologists on Page, Stage and Screen by Signe Hoffos (Colas). Talk also on Zoom – book via Eventbrite. Visit www.colas.org.uk. HADAS may send out link details to its members. Visitors £3 at the church.

Saturday 22 to Sunday 30 June, Proms at St. Jude’s Music and Literary Festival. Central Square, Hampstead Garden Suburb, London NW11 7AH. Including Talks and Heritage Walks. For full details of everything please visit www.promsatstJudes.org.uk. Each walk must be booked in advance.

Sunday 23 June to Sunday 7 July Hampstead Summer Festival, including Hampstead’s Art Street, colourful canvas murals along the walls of Keats Grove, London. NW3 2RS. Painted by local artists. Sunday 23 June 12-5 pm, Art Fair in Keats House Garden, 10 Keats Grove, London NW3 2RR. Art Marquee, Food and Wine, Craft stalls. Free admission. Please check website on www.hampsteadsummerfestival.com for latest info and ticket links.

Sunday 7 July, 10.30 am. Heath and Hampstead Society. Constable and Hampstead. Walk led by Suzanne Grundy. Lasts approximately 2 hours. Meet at Spaniard’s End (By Flower Stall) and Cattle Trough near Spaniard’s Inn, Spaniard’s Road, London NW3 7JJ. Ends at St. John’s Hampstead Parish Church, Church Row, London. NW3 6UU. Donation £5. Please contact Thomas Radice on 07941 528034 or email hhs.walks@gmail.com or visit www.heathandhampstead.org.

Sunday 7 July, 12-5 pm. Hampstead Summer Festival Fair in Heath Street. Over 100 stalls of craft, food and drink. Music. Free.

Sunday 7 July to Sunday 21 July. Enfield Archaeological Society. Elsyng Palace Excavation in the grounds of Forty Hall, Forty Hill, Enfield. EN2 9HA. To join the Dig please contact research@enfarchsoc.org or visit www.enfarchsoc.org/dig. There is an OPEN DAY 11 am. – 4 pm. on Sunday 13 July for members of the public. COLAS will also be visiting.

Monday 8 July 7.30 pm. Barnet Museum and Local History Society, St. John the Baptist Church, Chipping Barnet, Corner High Street/Wood Street, Barnet, EN5 4BW. What Medieval Women Wore. Talk by Kathleen Alston-Cole. See www.barnetmuseum.co.uk.

Tuesday 9 July, 7 pm. Camden History Society. St John’s Hampstead Parish Church, Church Row, London NW3 6UU. AGM. Followed by the History and Social Role of the Camden New Journal. Talk by Dan Carrier. Wine and soft drinks 6.30 pm – 7 pm. Visit http://www.camdenhistorysociety.org.

Tuesday 9 July, 7.45 pm. Amateur Geological Society. Finchley Baptist Church Hall, 6 East End Road/Corner of Stanhope Avenue, London N3 3LX. (almost opposite Avenue House). Geophysical Surveying in Africa. Talk by Roger May. Full details on www.amgeosoc.wordpress.com.

Saturday 13 July to Sunday 28 July. CBA Festival of Archaeology. For more info about events visit https://www.archaeologyuk.org/festival.html.

Friday 19 July, 7 pm. COLAS. Address as for 21 June. Also on Zoom, 81, Newgate Street – The Former G.P.O. site re-visited. Talk by Kathy Davidson, Pre-Construct Archaeology (PCA). Please book

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via Eventbrite. See www.colas.org.uk. HADAS may send out link details to its members. One of the stand out excavations within the City by the Department of Urban Archaeology in the 1970’s. Some recent building extension works have taken place and the PCA team led by the speaker excavated the surviving Medieval and Roman Archaeology. Human Remains were discovered in an unexpected location, plus significant signs of iron working.

Friday 19 July, 7 pm. Wembley History Society. St Andrew’s Church Hall (behind St. Andrew’s New Church) Church Lane, Kingsbury, London. NW9 8RZ. Tripping Up Everest. Talk by Lester Hillman in the Centenary Year of Mallory’s Expedition. Visitors £3. Refreshments to be available.

Saturday 27 July. Colas at Greenwich Park. CBA Festival of Archaeology Event. By General Wolfe Statue celebrating the Greenwich Park restored Project. For more information see www.archeologyuk.org/festival.html.

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With many thanks to this month’s contributors: Don Cooper, Dudley Miles, Eric Morgan

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Don Cooper, 59, Potters Road, Barnet EN5 5HS (020 8440 4350)
email: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer, 34, Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121) email: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman, 50, Summerlee Avenue, London N2 9QP (07855 304488)
email: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec. Jim Nelhams, 61, Potters Road Barnet EN5 5HS (020 8449 7076)
email; membership@hadas.org.uk

Website at: www.hadas.org.uk – join the HADAS email discussion group via the website.

No. 638 May 2024 Edited by Jim Nelhams

SUBSCRIPTIONS fell due on 1st April. The amounts are unchanged from last year – £15 for a full member plus £5 for an additional member at the same address. Full time students pay £6. Standing Order payments have been received. Thank you if you pay by cheque or directly to our bank and have already done so. If you have not yet paid, please do so now.

It saves HADASs money if you pay directly online to our bank account. Our account is Sort Code 40-52-40 Account no. 00083254 in the name of Hendon and District Archaeological Society. Please show the description as “Subs” followed by your surname. If you prefer to pay by cheque or cash, please send your payment to Jim Nelhams at the address shown on the back page of this newsletter.

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming Lectures and Events

Lectures are normally face-to-face, though lectures in winter may be on Zoom. Lectures are held in the Drawing Room, Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE, 7.45 for 8pm.
Buses 13, 125, 143, 326 and 460 pass close by, and it is a five to ten-minute walk from Finchley Central Station on the Barnet Branch of the Northern Line. Bus 382 also passes close to Finchley Central Station. Tea/Coffee/biscuits available for purchase after the talk.

Tuesday 14th May 2024

Owen Humphreys (Finds Specialist at Museum of London Archaeology):

“London’s Roman Tools”

Tuesday 11th June 2024 at 7.30pm

HADAS Annual General Meeting followed by a lecture:

PLEASE NOTE EARLY START TIME of 7.30pm

Your chance to let us know how we are doing and what you would like us to do for you. The meeting will be followed by a talk on “Clay Pipes” by our President, Jacqui Pearce. Members will receive reports and information about the meeting. Still time for nominations and resolutions.

Tuesday 12th September 2024

Wendy Morrison (Chilterns Heritage & Archaeology Partnership (CHAP):

“Beacon of the Past Hillforts Project”

Other Dates for your diary:
VE day celebration at Avenue House on 3rd/5th May 2025
Barnet Medieval Festival 8th/9th June 2024 at Barnet Rugby Football Club, Byng Road, Barnet.
Heritage Day at Avenue House on Sunday, 1st September 2024
RAF Museum – Light & Flight in November 2026 more details later.

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What is Heritage Barnet? Don Cooper

Heritage Barnet is a loose assembly of Barnet-based societies involved in cultural heritage in the Borough under the chairmanship of Martin Russell MBE, Representative Deputy Lieutenant of Barnet. The inaugural meeting took place at Avenue House (now Stephens House and Gardens) on Friday, 27th January 2023. Its role is “to act as a focal point for existing and new local heritage bodies”. The proposed objectives include:

• To stimulate and extend interest in heritage in all parts of the Borough particularly those which are under-represented in this field.
• To co-ordinate all the various heritage groups.
• To make each other aware of, oversee and record heritage locations, objects and activities under threat and work for their conservation/safety.
• To promote best practice and exchange information free of charge between existing heritage groups. (This could involve both virtual and in-person communication).
• To identify opportunities to promote awareness of heritage throughout the Borough as well as provide a forum for societies to advertise and share their resources and assets.
• To make available to schools a range of resources, particularly relating to local history which now features prominently on the Primary National Curriculum.

In pursuing these objectives, Heritage Barnet:

• will seriously consider the problem of personnel and attraction of volunteers.
• will adopt Stephens House as its home.
• will endeavour to hold meetings in a range of locations around the Borough in order to promote its message.
• will seek to arrange activities, displays and events around the Borough, (some of which could piggy-back on other events including the possibility of a Heritage Week).
• will be apolitical.

Heritage Barnet

• will not be unnecessarily bureaucratic and will not involve subscriptions.
• will not become a membership organisation in its own right.
• will not seek to become a trust or limited company.

The following are some of the members of Heritage Barnet.

• Finchley Society
• Friern Barnet Local History Society
• RAF museum
• Local Family History Society
• Barnet Museum
• Barnet Arts Council
• Barnet Archives
• Stephens House and Gardens
• St Mary’s Hendon
• Local Councillors
• Barnet Medieval Festival

The latest meeting was held on Friday, 19th April 2024 at Avenue House and well attended.

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There were discussions on the fate of Tudor Hall a Grade 11 listed building and one of the oldest buildings in Barnet which is being sold by Barnet College.

The issue of Church Farmhouse, Hendon a Grade 11* listed building one of the most important buildings in the Borough which is being relinquished by Middlesex University and returned to Barnet Council, was discussed. These buildings are important to the heritage and history of Barnet.

It is important that we ensure that our local councilors are aware of the importance of these buildings to make sure the future of the building is secured for the people of Barnet.
Short talks were given by:

Lester Hillman, a local historian on the Battle of Barnet.
Reverend Dr. June Gittoes, Vicar of St Mary’s Hendon on her church and local parishes.

HADAS Archaeological Watching Brief Michael Hacker

Highgate Wood Clay extraction pit
April 2024

Highgate Wood, London N10 3JN
LB Haringey
Grid ref: TQ 23348891
Elevation, 100.43 m OD
Date: 08/04/2024
Site Code: HI024

Background and conclusions

A series of archaeological interventions in Highgate Wood in the 1970s showed that during the 1st and 2nd century AD an important Roman pottery-manufacturing site existed on the site of Highgate Wood. Locally sourced clay was used to build the pottery kilns and to manufacture a wide range of pottery.

In April 2024, the Friends of Highgate Wood Roman Kiln (FoHRK) excavated a small pit in Highgate Wood to extract clay for use in the manufacture of replica pottery. The pit was located close to the site of the Roman pottery,

The Hendon and District Archaeological Society (HADAS) conducted a watching brief during the excavation of the pit. This confirmed that no significant archaeological deposits were present and observed that a seam of clay, suitable for pottery production exited at this location.

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Mary Rose Whistles Jim Nelhams

A previous newsletter contained details of musical instruments discovered aboard the wreck of the Mary Rose. These included two square fiddles, a “tenor Shawm”, three tabor pipes (long wooden pipes) and a drum.

Excavations have continued in the Solent and among other discoveries are four silver whistles. Readers will be familiar with whistles used for relaying orders and indicating the time on ships, much as bugles are used by the army. The shrill notes of whistles would have been audible above gunfire. Three of the whistles were suspended on silver chains, the fourth, the smallest, on a ribbon threaded with gold,

Such whistles are still used today in modern navies, and though more typically made of chrome-plated brass, they are identical to those used by Henry VIII’s men. A well-known use is “piping the side” as visitors of rank are welcomed at the head of the gangway.

Devon has Earth’s oldest fossil forest Stewart Wild

Earth’s oldest fossil forest has been found – and it’s near a Butlin’s.

The fossilised forest, dating from 390 million years ago, has been found in the high sandstone cliffs along the Devon and Somerset coast of southwest England by researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Cardiff.

It predates the previously oldest known fossil forest, in New York State, by about four million years. Their findings were reported in the Journal of the Geological Society.

Researchers say that the fossilised trees were found in the Hangman Sandstone Formation near Minehead, on the south bank of the Bristol Channel, near what is now a Butlin’s holiday camp.
Dr Christopher Berry, from Cardiff’s School of Earth and Environmental Studies, said: “It was amazing to see them so near home. It is our first opportunity to look directly at the ecology of this forest, and to evaluate its impact on the sedimentary system.”

SOURCE: Daily Telegraph, 8 March 2024, item edited by Stewart Wild

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Welsh Harp update

From Barnet Council

With the works nearing completion at the Welsh Harp Brent Reservoir, national waterways charity Canal & River Trust is now allowing the reservoir to once again re-fill with water.

The reservoir repairs and maintenance, supported with funding from the People’s Postcode Lottery, will ensure that the popular green space remains safe and available for residents of Barnet. The works have overhauled the infrastructure that controls the day-to-day water levels in the reservoir.

The reservoir remains open to the public throughout the works, but signs are in place warning visitors not to walk on the reservoir’s drained area and mud for their own safety.

From Canals and Rivers Trust

Project update: 16 April 2024

We’ve now successfully completed a range of critical works at the reservoir. These works include the replacement of the pulley wheels, brackets and chains to both sluice gates which will allow the gates to be safely operated in the future.

We were also able to inspect the dam structure and undertake a range of minor concrete repairs.

The painting works to the Valve Tower to protect the metal structure from future corrosion, is progressing very well. We’ve completed the painting between the -5.5m and -2.0m (below weir crest) levels. We’ll be painting the remaining upper section from a floating pontoon to allow the works to continue as the reservoir refills.

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Exhibition at British Museum Jim Nelhams

Legion – life in the Roman army

From family life on the fort to the brutality of the battlefield, experience Rome’s war machine through the people who knew it best – the soldiers who served in it.
The Roman empire spanned more than a million square miles and owed its existence to its military might. By promising citizenship to those without it, the Roman army – the West’s first modern, professional fighting force – also became an engine for creating citizens, offering a better life for soldiers who survived their service.

Expansive yet deeply personal, this exhibition transports you across the empire, as well as through the life and service of a real Roman soldier, Claudius Terentianus, from enlistment and campaigns to enforcing occupation then finally, in Terentianus’ case, retirement. Objects include letters written on papyri by soldiers from Roman Egypt and the Vindolanda tablets – some of the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain. The tablets, from the fort near Hadrian’s wall, reveal first-hand what daily life was like for soldiers and the women, children and enslaved people who accompanied them.

Roman military history perhaps stretches as far back at the sixth century BC but it wasn’t until the first emperor, Augustus (63 BC – AD 14), that soldiering became a career choice. While the rewards of army life were enticing – those in the legions could earn a substantial pension and those entering the auxiliary troops could attain citizenship for themselves and their families – the perils were real. Soldiers were viewed with fear and hostility by civilians – not helped by their casual abuses and extra roles as executioners and enforcers of occupation – and they could meet grim ends off, as well as on, the battlefield. Finds in Britain include the remains of two soldiers probably murdered and clandestinely buried in Canterbury, suggesting local resistance.

What did life in the Roman army look like from a soldier’s perspective? What did their families make of life in the fort? How did the newly-conquered react? Legion explores life in settled military communities from Scotland to the Red Sea through the people who lived it.

Visitors are advised that this exhibition contains human remains. The British Museum is committed to curating human remains with care, respect and dignity. Find out more about human remains at the British Museum.

Admission is by ticket only. The exhibition continues until 23rd June 2024.

OTHER SOCIETIES’ EVENTS Compiled by Eric Morgan

NOT ALL SOCIETIES OR ORGANISATIONS HAVE RETURNED TO PRE-COVID CONDITIONS, PLEASE CHECK WITH THEM BEFORE PLANNING TO ATTEND.

Thursday 16th May, 7 pm. London Archaeologist Lecture Theatre, U.C.L. Institute of Archaeology. 31-34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY. Annual Lecture and AGM. Also on Zoom. AGM will be followed by Annual Lecture – Recent Excavations near Holborn Viaduct and the Unexpected discovery of a Roman Funerary Bed – given by Alex Blanks (MOLA). Please book on www.londonarchaeologist.org.uk. Free.

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Friday 17th May, 7 pm. COLAS, St. Olave’s Church, Hart Street, London EC3R 7NB. Talk also on Zoom. Excavations at Maritime Academy, Frindsbury – A new Palaeolithic Site – by Letty Increy (U.C.L.). Please book via Eventbrite. Visit www.colas.org.uk. HADAS may send out the link details to its members. Visitors £3 at the church.

Saturday 8th June, 12-5 pm. Highgate Festival. Pond Square and South Grove, Highgate Village, London, N6. Lots of stalls including Highgate Society and Highgate Literary and Scientific Institute. Also Crafts, Food, Music.

Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th June, 10.30 am. – 5 pm. Barnet Medieval Festival. Barnet R.F.C. Grounds, End of Byng Road, Barnet, EN5 4NP. Lots of stalls including HADAS, Barnet Museum and L.H.S., Barnet Society, Battlefields Trust. Battle of Barnet Re-enactments. Food and Drink Stalls. For more info please visit www.barnetmedievalfestival.org.

Monday 10th June, 7.30 pm. Barnet Museum and Local History Society, St. John The Baptist Church, Chipping Barnet, Corner High Street/Wood Street, Barnet. EN5 4BW. The HADAS Barnet Hopscotch Excavation. Talk by Bill Bass (HADAS). Please visit www.barnetmuseum.co.uk.

Friday 14th June, 7.30 pm. Enfield Archaeological Society. Jubilee Hall, 2 Parsonage Lane/Junction Chase Side, Enfield, EN2 0AJ. Medieval Buildings. Talk by James Wright. Please visit www.enfarchsoc.org. for further details. Non-members £1.50 at the door. Refreshments to be available.

Saturday 22nd June 3 pm. Wembley History Society. Barham Park Library, Harrow Road, Sudbury, HA0 2HB. (Please note different venue and time and day). Wembley’s Air Raid Wardens in WW2. Talk by Philip Grant (Archivist).

Sunday 23rd June, 12-6 pm. East Finchley Festival. Cherry Tree Wood, East Finchley, London. N2 9QH. (Entrance off the High Road, opposite Tube station). Lots of stalls including Finchley Society, Friends of Cherry Tree Wood (Roger Chapman, HADAS). North London U3A. Also crafts, Food, Music.

Wednesday 26th June, 7.45 pm. Friern Barnet and District Local History Society, North Middlesex Golf Club, The Manor House, Friern Barnet Lane, London. N20 0NL. Holborn and Little Italy. Talk by Diane Burstein (Blue Badge Guide). Please visit www.friernbarnethistory.org.uk. Non-members £2. Bar available.

Thursday 27th June, 7.30 pm. Finchley Society. Drawing Room, Avenue (Stephens’) House, 17 East End Road, London. N3 3QE. Annual General Meeting – For further details please visit www.finchleysociety.org.uk. Non-members £2 at the door. Refreshments in the interval.

Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th June, 12-6 pm. East Barnet Festival. Oak Hill Park, Churchill Road, East Barnet, EN4 8JP. Lots of stalls including craft and food stalls, bar, music, stage, classic cars on Sunday. Please visit www.eastbarnetfestival.co.uk for details.

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Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Don Cooper, 59, Potters Road, Barnet EN5 5HS (020 8440 4350)
e-mail: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer, 34, Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121) e-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman, 50, Summerlee Ave, London N2 9QP (07855 304488)
e-mail; treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec. Jim Nelhams, 61, Potters Road Barnet EN5 5HS (020 8449 7076)
e-mail; membership@hadas.org.uk

Website at: www.hadas.org.uk – join the HADAS email discussion group via the website.

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No. 637 April 2024 Edited by Sue Willetts

SUBSCRIPTIONS fall due on 1st April. The amounts are unchanged from last year – £15 for a full member plus £5 for an additional member at the same address. Full time students pay a reduced amount of £6. If you pay by standing order, you need do nothing.

It saves HADAS money if you pay directly online to our bank account. Our account is Sort Code 40-52-40 Account no. 00083254 in the name of Hendon and District Archaeological Society. Please show the description as “Subs” followed by your surname.

If you prefer to pay by cheque or cash, please send your payment to Jim Nelhams at the address shown on page 12 of this newsletter.

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming Lectures and Events

Lectures are normally face-to-face, though lectures in winter may be on Zoom. Lectures are held in the Drawing Room, Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE, 7.45 for 8pm.
Buses 13, 125, 143, 326 and 460 pass close by, and it is a five to ten-minute walk from Finchley Central Station on the Barnet Branch of the Northern Line. Bus 382 also passes close to Finchley Central Station. Tea/Coffee/biscuits available for purchase after the talk.

Tuesday 9th April 2024

Ian Jones, (Chair of Enfield Archaeological Society)

Traders, Bargees, Ferrymen and a Seagull: Life and Work in Roman Pisa.

Tuesday 14th May 2024

Owen Humphreys (Finds Specialist at the Museum of London Archaeology):

London’s Roman Tools.

Tuesday 11th June 2024

HADAS Annual General Meeting. Followed by a a talk by Jacqui Pearce: Clay Pipes.

Tuesday 12th September 2024

Wendy Morrison (Chilterns Heritage & Archaeology Partnership (CHAP):

Beacon of the Past Hillforts Project.

Tuesday 8th October 2024

TBA

Tuesday 12th November 2024

TBA

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Update on the Highgate Roman Kiln Project Eric Morgan

Update from report in HADAS April 2023 newsletter. This is now known as the Firing London’s Imagination. The website has full details. All 21 sections of the Highgate Roman Kiln Project (a C2nd CE Romano-British kiln excavated in Highgate Wood) have been removed from the Wood and the store of Bruce Castle Museum. The careful process of conservation has now begun in the studio of the Natural Building Centre, Conwy, in Wales. In August 2024 a replica of the Highgate Roman Kiln will be built in Highgate Wood. Graham Taylor of Potted History. expert historic kiln builder will lead the programme. The first firing of the kiln is planned for 1st September 2024.

Sheila Woodward Jim Nelhams

• 

• 

Long serving members will remember Sheila Woodward, a member for many years. Sheila, with Tessa Smith, arranged a number of day-outings for Hadas. She also took part in a number of digs including West Heath. A resident of Stanmore, Sheila left Hadas before Covid, having moved because of her health into a home in Edgware.

Sheila was a churchwarden at St Lawrence, Little Stanmore, and a regular guide to visitors to the church, where in the past Handel regularly played the organ. One of our Christmas outings was to the church, where we were entertained by Finchley Chamber Choir singing some Handel anthems.

On March 21st, Sheila reached her one hundredth birthday, celebrated by a small gathering of family and friends. Sheila is well cared for in the home, though she has lost her mobility. Her memory of past activities including HADAS, but not more recent events, is good.

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Aircraft manufacture at Duple Coachworks in Hendon Andy Simpson

At a recent London County Council Tramways Trust meeting, in a break from discussing our funding of various preserved London tram restoration projects, fellow Trustee Dave Jones, whose late father had served in Royal Air Force Bomber Command as a rear gunner in a Handley Page Halifax four-engined heavy bomber during World War Two, kindly brought in a wartime publication that he had recently acquired for me to see, as he knew I would be interested from both an aviation and local history perspective.

In 1925, Duple Bodies and Motors Ltd. moved from Hornsey to a new factory on The Hyde, West Hendon. After delays in completion of the large new factory which meant Duple workers replacing the original contractors in its construction, production began there in 1926. In 1934 the works expanded over the site of the adjoining villa, Cowleaze House and its garden, dating to around 1800. The site eventually covered 12 ½ acres.

Here they constructed single deck motor coach bodies in particular until they ceased operations at the Hyde in 1970 when the Head office there finally closed, having moved most of its operations to Blackpool in 1968 when the actual factory buildings were sold to industrial property developers Messrs. Ronald Lyon Estates (Who, along with their colourful chairman of that name, had a fascinating corporate history themselves…).

Dave Jones points out that as well as motor coaches, Duple had also built a few double deck buses, some goods vehicles, and had a contract with the GPO and built a large number of Post Office Royal Mail and Royal Mail Telephones vans.

The factory site was duly redeveloped into an industrial estate, and later became a new build Sainsbury’s superstore, which opened on 15 February 1994, with all traces of the former factory removed. This will shortly itself be demolished with a new store, scheduled to open later in 2024, incorporated into the lower level of one of the eleven high-rise apartment blocks of up to 28 stories (!) housing 1,309 flats currently being built on the whole site from 2020 as part of the ten-year Silk Park development.

The book itself is a glossy commemorative publication published in August 1945 just before the end of the war and intended for those who had worked on Halifax production, with many photos of the Halifax production process. Other copies do survive, with at least three in the collections of the RAF Museum.

For general technical and historical details of the Halifax, including illustrations, see;

Handley Page Halifax | Classic Warbirds
Handley-Page Halifax (airvectors.net)
Handley Page Halifax – Not Quite a Lancaster – PlaneHistoria

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An excellent aerial view of the whole Duple site can be found here;

EAW043289 ENGLAND (1952). The Duple Coachbuilding Works on Edgware Road, The Hyde, 1952. This image was marked by Aerofilms Ltd for photo editing. | Britain From Above

With a workforce of 1,000, Duple made a significant contribution to wartime bomber aircraft production; As part of the London Aircraft Production Group it produced 750 front fuselage sections (including all of those fitted to the LAPG’s 710 Halifaxes) in their Hendon works; a significant proportion of the 6,118 Halifaxes built, The L,A.P. Group at its peak employed 9,000 people, many of them women.

Serving with the RAF until 17th March 1952, latterly in the meteorological reconnaissance role based in Gibraltar, just four Halifaxes survive in whole or part today in museums in the UK and Canada. As part of the nationwide network of ‘Halifax Group’ sub-contractors – 41 factories in all- the L.A.P. Group consisted of the London Passenger Transport Board’s Aldenham Works (originally built prewar to serve the uncompleted Northern Line extension from Edgware via Brockley Hill to Elstree and where the Halifax sub- assemblies built elsewhere were assembled and tested prior to final test flying and delivery to RAF units from new facilities at the nearby Leavesden airfield, to where the parts were taken by road, the first, B Mk.II Serial No BB189, first flown on 8 December 1941- the day after Pearl Harbour- and delivered to the RAF on 10 January 1942).

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Other companies involved were Park Royal Coach Works Ltd, Acton, The Express Motor and Body Works Ltd, Enfield, Chrysler Motors Ltd, Kew and Duple Bodies and Motors Ltd, Hendon. Established in 1940 under the direction of the Ministry of Aircraft Production, they delivered 450 of the Rolls Royce Merlin powered Halifax Mk. II aircraft and a further 260 of the Bristol Hercules radial powered Mk.III variant.

With the end of the war in sight and production contracts being cut back towards the end of the war, the LAPG delivered its last Halifax, a Mk.III, serial number PN460, on 16 April 1945. She was aptly christened ‘London Pride’ at a special ceremony and gave a seriously low-level flying display to the assembled VIPs as she departed!

On the 26th of November 2006, archaeologists from the Warsaw Uprising Museum in Poland, presented the remains of a Halifax (JP276 “A”) that was found in southern Poland, near the city of Dabrowa Tarnowska. It was shot down on the night of the 4th/5th of August 1944 whilst returning from the “air-drop-action” during the Warsaw uprising. This is particularly significant, as this is the first wreckage of a London Aircraft Production Group built Halifax, including its Park Royal Coachworks built parts, to have been recovered. For further details see: 342-London-Aircraft-Production-Group.pdf (rchs.org.uk).

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Musket balls solve mystery of ‘lost’ Civil War battlefield Stewart Wild

A seven-year search has identified the ‘lost’ site of an English Civil War battlefield, solving one of the conflict’s enduring mysteries. The discovery shows the Battle of Stow in Gloucestershire was fought nearly a mile from where Historic England believed the fighting took place. It follows five archaeological surveys by the Battlefields Trust charity and the re-examination of contemporary accounts of the struggle between Roundheads and Cavaliers. The Trust had long suspected that a stone monument put up by locals in 2002 to commemorate the battle near Stow-on-the-Wold was in the wrong place because of a lack of war relics on the site. Its latest survey by archaeologists and metal detectorists has unearthed dozens of 17th-century musket balls and powder caps from infantry and cavalry weapons in farmland half a mile from the town, proving that the battle was not fought at the site registered by Historic England, says the trust.

Trust research co-ordinator Simon Marsh said: “We’ve told them that this is where we think the battle was fought based on the evidence we’re providing. We recognise that it’s a big change to the current registration.”

The fighting, in March 1646, was the last major battle of the first Civil War between Charles I and Parliament. Roundhead forces caught up with the King’s last remaining army as it tried to link up with Charles thirty miles away in Oxford. The hour-long battle ended with the outnumbered royalist infantry retreating into the centre of Stow where the fighting continued.
One of the main streets “ran red with royalist blood”, according to local legend, before their commander, Lord Jacob Astley, was forced to surrender in the market square. Charles realised that the end was in sight and gave himself up soon afterwards to the Scottish army at Newark, Nottinghamshire, in May 1646.

It is not the first time that Britain’s battlefield maps have been redrawn. In 2016, a memorial stone at Battle Abbey in East Sussex marking the spot where King Harold was killed at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 was moved 20ft after experts decided it was in the wrong place.

SOURCE: Daily Telegraph, 14 January 2024, item edited by Stewart Wild.

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A Roman egg found – during dig at a site called Berryfields in Buckinghamshire.

The site was excavated by Oxford Archaeology. Archaeologists and naturalists have been astonished to find a cache of 1,700-year-old speckled chicken eggs discovered in a Roman pit during a dig in Buckinghamshire. A scan has revealed that one of the eggs contains liquid – thought to be a mix of yolk and albumen. The “Aylesbury egg” is one of four that were found alongside a woven basket, pottery vessels, leather shoes and animal bone in 2010 as a site was being explored ahead of a major development. Unfortunately, three of the eggs broke, producing an unforgettable sulphurous smell, but one was preserved complete.

As Edward Biddulph, the senior project manager at Oxford Archaeology commented this is thought to be the only intact egg from the period in Britain. Dana Goodburn-Brown, an archaeological conservator and materials scientist, suggested they scan it to help decide how best to preserve it. Biddulph said the egg had been deliberately placed in a pit that had been used as a well for malting and brewing – a wet area next to a Roman road.

It may have been the eggs were placed there as a votive offering. The basket found may have contained bread. The egg has been taken to the Natural History Museum in London. Biddulph said it had felt a little daunting riding on the tube and walking around the capital with such an extraordinary and fragile egg in his care.

A tiny hole may be made in the egg to extract the contents and try to find out more about the bird that laid it. Goodburn-Brown said: “The egg ranks as one of the coolest and most challenging archaeological finds to investigate and conserve. Being the temporary caretaker and investigator of this Roman egg counts as one of the major highlights of my 40-year career.”

SOURCE: Guardian 12 February 2024, edited by Sue Willetts.

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Newsletter Editors – appeal for volunteers (also contributors).

Please help your society by offering to be a compiler for one of our monthly newsletters. Contributions are sent to each editor by email not later than the middle of the month. The editor arranges them in a standardised format (4, 8 or 12 pages). This is then forwarded (in Word format) to Sue Willetts – and your job is done!

She creates a pdf copy for the printer, and a version for the webpage.
Jim Nelhams kindly emails the e-newsletter to members. Please send any expressions of interest to Don Cooper (Chair). Details on the back page.

The newsletter does not write itself, nor is the editor expected to write all the contributions. Relevant articles are welcome from all sources.

New Exhibition in Peterborough Museum – Introducing Must Farm, a Bronze Age Settlement. Sue Willetts

The exhibition funded by both Historic England and Peterborough Museum focuses on an introduction to the story of this significant Bronze Age site, dubbed “Britain’s Pompei” – an extraordinary insight into everyday life almost 3,000 years ago. The site is a pile-dwelling settlement in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire.

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The Must Farm settlement is a fascinating discovery, with the site only being occupied for under a year before it was destroyed by a catastrophic fire. The everyday objects found there are remarkable – rarely preserved personal items including textiles – some of the finest produced in Europe at that time.

Pots and jars complete with meals and utensils, and exotic glass beads – some of which were manufactured in the Middle East revealing a sophistication not normally associated with the Bronze Age.

The museum is a 6 minute walk from Peterborough Station. It is open Tuesday to Saturday 10.00 – 16.00 and is Free to visit. Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery, Priestgate, Peterborough, PE1 1LF. More information from website – link below.
Introducing Must Farm, a Bronze Age Settlement- Museum & Art Gallery (peterboroughmuseum.org.uk).

Other Societies’ Events Eric Morgan

Note: Not all Societies or organisations have returned to pre-Covid conditions. Please check with them before planning to attend.

Friday 12th April, 7.30 pm. Enfield Archaeological Society, Jubilee Hall, 2, Parsonage Lane / Junction Chaseside, Enfield, EN2 0AJ. Fieldwork of the Society/Preceded by the AGM. Talk by Dr. Martin Dearne. Please visit www.enfarchsoc.org for further details. Non-members £1.50 at door. Refreshments.

Tuesday 16th April, 2.00-3.00 pm. Eclectic Tours. Headstone Manor Museum, The Granary, Pinner View, North Harrow, HA2 6PX. 100 Years of Proscenium Theatre. Talk by Mark Sutherland. Covers 100 years of history of theatre including highlights from the exhibition on at the museum. £2.50. Please book on www.headstonemanor.org/events/tuesday-talk.

Friday 19th April, 7.00 pm. COLAS, St Olave’s Church, Hart Street, London. EC3R 7NB. Talk also on Zoom. Who was Frederick? And Other Stories. Excavations at Frederick’s Place in the City. Results from a multi-phase site on land belonging to the Mercers’ Company – talk by Alison Telfer (MOLA). Please book via Eventbrite. Visit www.colas.org.uk. HADAS may send out the link details to its members.

Friday 10th May, 7.30 pm. Enfield Archaeological Society. Jubilee Hall, address as above. Roman and Bronze Age Finds in Walthamstow. Talk by Shane Maher (P.C.A), Website details above. Visitors £1.50.

Monday 13th May, 7.30 pm. Barnet Museum and Local History Society. (Please note later time). St John the Baptist Church, Chipping Barnet, Corner High Street, Wood Street, Barnet EN5 4BW. The De Haviland Air Museum. Talk by Chris Levitt. Please visit www.barnetmuseum.co.uk for details.

Tuesday 14th May, 6.30 pm. LAMAS joint with Prehistoric Society – Talk on Zoom. Paleo-London – Thinking about the Ice Age Archaeology and Environments of the Capital. By Dr. Matt Pope. Details on Eventbrite. Booking essential on www.lamas.org.uk/lectures.html. Non-members. £2.50.

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Wednesday 15th May, 6.00 pm – 7.30 pm. This year’s UCL Institute of Archaeology Gordon Childe Lecture, to be given by Richard Bradley (Emeritus Professor, University of Reading) Hidden valuables: hidden variables. Hoards and other deposits from Mesolithic to modern times. This in-person event is ticketed, with pre-booking essential. Use the link below. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/events/2024/may/ucl-institute-archaeology-gordon-childe-lecture-2024.

,Wednesday 15th May, 7.30 pm. Willesden Local History Society., St Mary’s Church Hall, Bottom of Neasden Lane (Around corner from Magistrates Court), NW10 2DZ. The Mercenary River. Talk by Nick Higham on The story of London’s water supply through the centuries. Please visit www.willesden-local-history.co.uk for further details.

Friday 17th May, 7.30 pm. Wembley History Society. St Andrew’s Church Hall (behind St. Andrew’s new church) Church Lane, Kingsbury, NW9 8RZ. The Story Behind the Song. Talk by Terry Lomas and Alan Richardson. Give an evening’s entertainment and discover the origins of some old familiar songs. Visitors £3. Refreshments in the interval.

Wednesday 22nd May, 7.45 pm. Friern Barnet and District Local History Society. North Middlesex Golf Club, the Manor House, Friern Barnet Lane, London. N20 0NL. House of Commons – ‘Stage Sets – Props – Symbols’. Preceded by AGM. Talk by Barry Hall. Please visit www.friernbarnethistory.org.uk. Non-members. £2. Bar Available.

Thursday 23rd May, 8.00 pm. Heath and Hampstead Society. Rosslyn Hill Chapel, 3, Pilgrims Place, London. NW3 1NG. Hampstead Historical Treasures in the Collections of Camden Studies. Local Archives Centre. 2nd Hunter Davies Lecture given by Tudor Allen (Archives Manager). Tickets available for non-members via Eventbrite for £15. Also on Zoom. E-mail info@heathandhampstead.org.uk for link.

****************************************************************************************************With many thanks to this month’s other contributors: Eric Morgan; Jim Nelhams, Andy Simpson. Stewart Wild.

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Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Don Cooper, 59, Potters Road, Barnet EN5 5HS (020 8440 4350)
e-mail: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer, 34, Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121) e-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Tresurer Roger Chapman, 50, Summerlee Ave, London N2 9QP (07855 304488)
e-mail: treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec. Jim Nelhams, 61, Potters Road Barnet EN5 5HS (020 8449 7076)
e-mail: membership@hadas.org.uk

Website at: www.hadas.org.uk – join the HADAS email discussion group via the website.

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No. 636 March 2024 Edited by Deirdre Barrie

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming Lectures and Events

Lectures are normally face-to-face, though lectures in winter may be on Zoom. Lectures are held in the Drawing Room, Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE, 7.45 for 8pm.

Buses 143, 125, 326 and 460 pass close by, and it is a five to ten-minute walk from Finchley Central Station on the Barnet Branch of the Northern Line. Bus 382 also passes close to Finchley Central Station.

Tea/Coffee/biscuits available for purchase after the talk.

Tuesday 12th March 2024 – Robin Densem (HADAS) The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest AD9:
The massacre of a Roman Army.

Tuesday 9th April 2024 – Ian Jones, (Chairman of Enfield Archaeological Society) Traders,
Bargees, Ferryman and a Seagull: Life and Work in Roman Pisa

Tuesday 14th May 2024 – Owen Humphreys (Finds Specialist at the Museum of London
Archaeology): London’s Roman Tools.

Tuesday 11th June 2024 – HADAS Annual General Meeting. A talk by Jacqui Pearce: Clay
Pipes.

Tuesday September 12th 2024 – Wendy Morrison (Chilterns Heritage & Archaeology Partnership
(CHAP), Beacon of the Past Hillforts Project.

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The Annual Dorothy Newbury Memorial Lecture
Tuesday February 13th 2024 – Jacqui Pearce: “A Life in Sherds”

Jim Nelhams gave a brief introduction about the life of Dorothy Newbury, who played such a lively and productive part in HADAS for so many years, and who was awarded an MBE for services to HADAS and the community.

In her talk, Jacqui Pearce looked back over half a century of developments in the world of ceramic studies in London, focusing particularly on fabric identification, the medieval and later pottery-type Series, studies of excavated kiln sites, archaeological biography as seen in major household clearance assemblages, clay pipe studies and the importance of professional and non-professional archaeologists working together, especially through HADAS evening classes over several years

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Her interest in history began very early, when as a child she saw illustrations of prehistoric life by the Czech artist Zdenek Burian. Later she read novels about the Romans by Rosemary Sutcliffe and those about Vikings by Henry Treece.

In 1977 she joined the Museum of London’s Department of Urban Archaeology and has served as Joint Editor of Medieval Ceramics as well as Post Medieval Archaeology. She has published widely and is now a Senior Ceramics Specialist with MOLA. In 2017 she was elected President of the Society for Post Medieval Archaeology.

January Afternoon Tea Jim Nelhams

There being no lecture in January, thirty people, HADAS members and guests, assembled at Avenue House on Sunday 21st January for afternoon tea. Of those, twenty-one had been on our five-day coach trips, which sadly ended after our stay at Aberavon in 2019, so quite a re-union. So nice to meet up with some that we had not seen for some time, especially Micky Watkins, Kevin McSharry and Andrew Selkirk and his wife, Wendy.

A tasty finger-buffet plus tea/coffee was provided by the friendly Avenue House staff, supplemented by delicious cakes baked by our chairman’s wife. In between the chatting, there were two table quizzes compiled by Jim Nelhams to test knowledge and memory.

Many appreciative comments were received in the post and by email, including suggestions that we should organise a similar event in the summer.

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WELSH HARP OPEN DAY VISIT Andy Simpson

On Saturday 3 February 2024 I was able to attend the special Welsh Harp open day, along with friend Neil Weston, whom some readers know. As mentioned in my article in the February newsletter, this was in conjunction with the total draining of the 50 hectares of open water at the Welsh Harp reservoir (reduced from its original 79 hectares over the past 90 years or so by filling in and silting up) necessitated by repairs by the Canal and River Trust to the chains and rods that operate the two automatic sluice gates.

The weather was breezy but kind and there was an excellent turn out with over 600 visitors; We were divided into tightly timed groups and escorted along the top of the 600m/1,968ft long dam, which holds back a million cubic metres of water, and is 9.3m/30ft tall, to get views of the tower and outlet to the River Brent and the feeder to the Regents Canal at Paddington via Neasden and Stonebridge at the Wembley end of the site.

We saw workers retrieving fish – including a huge carp – to be rehomed elsewhere, before the reservoir is restocked with native fish species after refilling, probably in March 2024. There were supporting stalls, film shows, and information displays and plenty of helpful Canal and River Trust Staff and volunteers were on hand to help, along with the essential portaloos and a coffee stall!
Our guide mentioned that the Brent side of the dam is covered in grass with no shrubs permitted. This is because if a patch of grass gets extra verdant it may indicate a water leak!

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Rita Peters, who was a long standing HADAS member, died on 1st December 2023, aged 95. She lived in Hendon Lane, Finchley, but grew up in Kent. She used to go on the summer outings and was a bit of a character. She was also a member of the North London University of the Third Age.

When working, she was an astute business woman who ran a successful ladies’ wear shop in Oxford Street. In retirement, she found time for her interest in art, architecture and archaeology. One of her favourite places was Dulwich Picture Gallery, which she would visit with her art history friends, as well as attending lectures there. In architecture she discovered the U3A Shape of London group, led by a retired architect, giving fascinating talks and taking members on study tours (similar to HADAS Long Weekends). She was Jewish, but not observant, but was fully alert to her traditions and history.

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Current exhibitions in London Stewart Wild

There are two fine exhibitions on at the moment in London that may be of interest to HADAS members.

Legion: Life in the Roman Army, British Museum
Ground Floor Room 30, February 1 to June 23, 2024; 10:00 to 17:00hrs daily (Fridays to 20:30hrs)
www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/legion-life-roman-army

This look-at-life in the world’s pre-eminent fighting force 2,000 years ago is very illuminating. The Roman Empire spanned over a million square miles at its height, held together by military might.
Where did recruits come from? What about citizenship? How big was your unit? How comfortable was your uniform; how effective were your weapons? There’s lots to learn about the Roman invasion and occupation of England. Were the troops paid? Could their families join them in the fort? Pay,

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discipline, health, rules and regulations, entertainment, retirement are all featured. This wide-ranging exhibition is well worth the entrance fee at £22 Monday to Friday (£24 Saturday/Sunday).
Over-60s £11 after 12:00 on Mondays. (Need to book online or call box office on 020 7323 8181).
Members free; accompanied under-16s free (booking required).

Spies, Lies and Deception, Imperial War Museum,
Fifth floor, September 29, 2023 to April 14, 2024; 10:00 to18:00hrs daily. Entrance free.
www.iwm.org.uk/events/spies-lies-and-deception.

Covering principally World War II and the Cold War, and also with items from the Iraq war, this fascinating collection of disguised equipment, gadgets and personal histories of secret agents covers a number of inter-connected rooms on the fifth floor. Lighting is not always as good as it might be, and I found my torch useful. The displays include military intelligence, deception and camouflage in warfare (even docks and airfields were disguised to mislead bombers), secret listening posts, operation Mincemeat, SOE and MI5. See actual clothing and weapons used by spies, watch video presentations and interviews, and learn of the efforts to counter modern terrorism. But it’s clear that however much we rely on modern technology, you can’t beat the basic skills.

HAYES COTTAGE DIG – Site Code HAY23 Janet Mortimer

On 17th October 2023 Roger Chapman and I carried out a mini dig in the front garden of No. 3 Hayes Cottages, East Finchley at the kind invitation of Sue Barker. The cottage dates back to 1813. We know from research prior to a previous dig in East Finchley that the area was the site of a large pig market founded in the late 17th century and the cottage was adjacent to a drove way.

As there were only the two of us and we only had one day to do it, instead of following the rules of a major dig, we went according to the Time Team Big Dig instructions. We measured out a square metre area and dug in ten-centimetre increments. We had intended to go down to a depth of one metre, but due to time constraints and the ever-growing spoil heap that was threatening to envelop Sue’s lovely garden, we managed around half of this. However, we did accumulate a wealth of finds in this small area. The finds were bagged and sent to Avenue House for processing by the Sunday morning team.

First the finds were washed, then recorded on bulk finds sheets. They were then formally recorded, identified and dated before being marked with the site code and context number. The best finds were: –

1. A 303 calibre rifle bullet, which was standard British army issue, possibly from the Home Guard during World War 2

2. An almost intact glass stopper from a sauce bottle.

3. A pottery base sherd with a partial maker’s mark from John Meir & Son, which would have been produced between 1837 – 1897.

4. Part of a clay pipe bowl and stem with a maker’s mark S – L, which was dated between 1780 and 1820.

Other finds were:

Clay pipes – small pieces of bowl and stem, most of which were difficult to date but some were identified as dating back to 1700-1770.

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Glass – Pieces of window glass, milk bottle, Codd bottle (dated 1870-1950), tumbler and green glass medicine bottles.

Pottery – There was a good selection of post med pottery (1580-1900), including yellowware, stoneware, refined whiteware, transfer printed ware, English porcelain (the hand of a figurine), Staffordshire slipware and the oldest was the Frechen stoneware dating from 1550 to 1700.
Ceramic building material – grey slate, brick, glazed tile, mortar, concrete, roof tile (including peg tile) and pantile with hole.

Miscellaneous – There was also coal and clinker, probably from a domestic fireplace, a small amount of animal bone, some corroded iron nails, burnt flint and a few shells, identified as whelk and winkle.

As this was a domestic garden which has obviously been dug many times over the years, and possibly had material imported into it over the last two centuries, we cannot be sure of the context of the finds, but it was nevertheless an interesting and productive dig. The records will be added to the HADAS archive, and the finds will be returned to Sue.

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ROMAN FUNERARY BED DISCOVERED AT HOLBORN Deirdre Barrie

Ongoing excavations by MOLA at a Holborn Viaduct site have uncovered the first complete wooden Roman funerary bed to be discovered in Britain. The bed was dismantled before being put in the grave but may have carried the deceased from his funeral. It is suggested that the site was used as a cemetery during the Roman period AD43-410. The grave would as customary have been next to a Roman road, in this case Watling Street. Other finds include high status jewellery and a lamp decorated with a gladiator.

Excavations at Holborn Viaduct reveal complete Roman funerary bed | MOLA

Other Societies’ Events Eric Morgan

Note: Not all Societies or organisations have returned to pre-Covid conditions. Please check with them before planning to attend.

Sunday 7th April, 10.30 am – 5 pm. Avenue House Spring Fair. Finchley Women’s Institute present their first fair. Over 40 stalls, offering an exciting variety of gifts and treats created by local artisans at affordable prices. Free admission. https://www.stephenshouseandgardens.com/

Monday 8th April, 3 pm. Barnet Museum and Local History Society. St. John The Baptist Church, Chipping Barnet, corner High Street/Wood Street, Barnet, EN5 4BW. Swinging London – An Illustrated Timeline of London in the 60’s. Talk by Nick Dobson. Please visit www.barnetmuseum.co.uk for details.

Tuesday 9th April, 6.30 pm. L.A.M.A.S. Talk on Zoom. Syon Abbey Revisited: Reconstructing Late Medieval England’s Wealthiest Nunnery. By Bob Cowie. Details on Eventbrite. Booking is essential on www.lamas.org.uk/lectures.html.

Wednesday 10th April, 8 pm. Hornsey Historical Society. A Devilish Kind of Courage: Anarchists, Aliens and The Siege of Sidney Street. Talk by Andrew Whitehead. Venue to be arranged. Also on Zoom. Please visit https://hornseyhistorical.org.uk/events/ for link.

Sunday 14th April, Avenue House, Private World of Spike Milligan. Opportunity to take a look at Spike’s unseen archive, guided by his daughter Jane Milligan. Small groups.

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Thursday 18th April, 8 pm. Historical Association – Hampstead and North West London Branch. Fellowship House, 136A, Willifield Way, London, NW11 6YD. (off Finchley Road, Temple Fortune). Justinian. Talk by Dr. Eric Bacton (F.H.A). Hopefully, also on Zoom. Please email Dr. Dudley Miles (HADAS member) on dudleyramiles@googlemail.com or telephone 07469 754075 for details of link and how to pay (There may be a voluntary charge of £5). Refreshments to be available afterwards.

Wednesday 24th April, 6 pm. Gresham College. Talk on Zoom. The Western Magical Tradition. By Ronald Hutton. Ticket required. Register at https://www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/western-magic. Free. A survey of learned ceremonial magic in Europe throughout history and demonstrates that both of the customary claims made for it by practitioners since the Middle Ages are actually correct and that there is a continuous tradition of it and that it is ultimately derived from Ancient Egypt.

Wednesday 24th April, 7.45 pm. Friern Barnet and District Local History Society. North Middlesex Golf Club, the Manor House, Friern Barnet Lane, London N20 0NL. Robert Paul Films. Talk by Ian Christie. www.friernbarnethistory.org.uk. Non-members £2. Bar will be available.

Thursday 25th April, 7.30 pm. Finchley Society. Drawing Room, Avenue (Stephen’s) House, 17 East End Road, London N3 3QE. The Finchley Society Archives. Talk by Alison Sharpe (Society Archivist). For further details please visit www.finchleysociety.org.uk. Non-members £2 at the door. Refreshments available in the interval.

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With many thanks to this month’s other contributors: Eric Morgan; Jim Nelhams, Andrew Selkirk, Andy Simpson, Stewart Wild and Janet Mortimer.
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Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Don Cooper, 59, Potters Road, Barnet EN5 5HS (020 8440 4350)
e-mail: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer, 34, Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121) e-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman, 50, Summerlee Ave, London N2 9QP (07855 304488)
e-mail; treasure@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec. Jim Nelhams, 61, Potters Road Barnet EN5 5HS (020 8449 7076)
e-mail; membership@hadas.org.uk

Website at: www.hadas.org.uk – join the HADAS email discussion group via the website.

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No. 635 February 2024 Edited by Andy Simpson

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming Lectures and Events

Tuesday 13th February 2024: The Dorothy Newbury Memorial Lecture

‘A life in sherds‘

In this talk, HADAS President Jacqui Pearce looks back over half a century of developments in the world of ceramic studies in London, focusing particularly on fabric identification, the medieval and later pottery type-series, studies of excavated kiln sites, archaeological biography as seen in major household clearance assemblages, clay pipe studies and the importance of professional and non-professional archaeologists working together, especially through HADAS evening classes over several years.

Tuesday, 12th March 2024: ‘The Battle of Teutoburg Forest AD9; The Massacre of a Roman Army’

A Talk by Robin Densem. Newsletter readers will recall Robin’s excellent article on the battle- and the resultant loss of three legions- in NL631, October 2023.

Tuesday, 9 April 2024: ‘Traders, Bargees, Ferrymen and a Seagull; Life and Work in Roman Pisa’

A talk by Ian Jones, Chairman, Enfield Archaeological Society.

Tuesday, 14 May 2024: ‘London’s Roman Tools‘

A talk by Owen Humphries

Tuesday, 11 June 2024

Annual General Meeting, followed by a lecture by Jacqui Pearce: ‘Clay Pipes‘

Lectures held in the Drawing Room, Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE. 7.45 for 8pm.

Buses 82, 125, 143, 326, 382, and 460 pass close by, and it is a five-ten-minute walk from Finchley Central Station on the Barnet Branch of the Northern Line where the Super Loop SL10 express bus from North Finchley to Harrow also stops.

Tea/Coffee/biscuits available for purchase after each talk.

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Post-Excavation Work ANDY SIMPSON

Work on identifying and dating the considerable quantity of finds from the 17th October 2023 one day back garden trial excavation in East Finchley organised by Roger Chapman and undertaken by him and Janet Mortimer continues at Avenue House. The official site code HAY23 has been obtained by Bill Bass.

The Sunday team undertaking this work meet most Sundays,10.30 am – 1pm (ish) and visitors are welcome.

The next big Sunday project is likely to be the sorting and reboxing of the sizable ‘West Heath 1 (1970s) and 2’ (1980s) collection of flint finds and archive, long worked on and stored by Myfanwy Stewart, and now nearing publication.

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Advance Notice

Saturday 23rd March, 11 am. – 5.30 pm. L.A.M.A.S Archaeology Conference, Museum of London, Docklands, West India Quary, off Hertsmere Road, London E14 4AL., Tickets available via Eventbrite. Details and how to book on L.A.M.A.S. website. Please visit www.lamas.org.uk 11 am – 1 pm. Morning session – Recent Works; 2 – 5 pm. Afternoon session – The Department of Urban Archaeology (50th Anniversay) and the Department of Greater London Archaeology (40th Anniversary) including 4.30 pm. Top Ceramics from 50 years of Excavation in London. Talk by Jacqui Pearce (HADAS President) 5 pm. The Rose Theatre and the DGLA. Talk by Harvey Sheldon (Former HADAS President).

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DRAINING THE WELSH HARP ANDY SIMPSON

Newsletter readers may remember that back in January/February 2021 the Welsh Harp (Brent) Reservoir, originally constructed 1834-35 to supply water for the Grand Union Canal, was temporarily partly drained to permit inspection of the main dam head wall and associated structures at the Wembley end of the reservoir, revealing the original course of the Silkstream. This was reported in my article ‘Welsh Harp Water Level lowered’ in NL600, March 2021.

Between mid-December 2023 and February2024 the whole reservoir was completely drained to permit essential statutory improvement works by the Canal and River Trust (formerly British Waterways) who manage the reservoir; the land around it is owned by the London boroughs of Barnet and Brent. This was to deal with issues identified during the 2021 inspection. Supported by funds from the Peoples’s Postcode Lottery, work will include repairs to the chains and rods that operate the reservoir’s sluices controlling the water levels in the reservoir and repainting of the Valve House Tower that houses the sluice mechanisms. A major removal of accumulated rubbish and litter is also planned along with wildlife habitat improvements in this 170-acre site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)- over 200 bags of litter being removed by volunteers on 13 January alone; a Victorian knife and ‘old gun’ were also recovered.

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An open day was due to be held at the Welsh Harp on 3 February 2024 to give visitors a chance to see ‘what lies beneath the surface’ and visit the sluice gates and see the drained reservoir bed up close. When full, the reservoir contains over one million cubic metres of water – enough to fill 400 Olympic swimming pools.

Also related are developing plans for work on the West Hendon playing Fields. Barnet Council wants to ‘transform West Hendon Playing Fields into an exciting new park …The new park proposals will include new play areas, recreational spaces, sports facilities, improved infrastructure, and expanded leisure amenities’ Although supposedly intended to enhance local wildlife and biodiversity, whilst inclusively serving the ever increasing population ofWest Hendon/Edgware Road tower blocks with opportunities for physical activity and recreation, it is to be hoped that this does not mean the destruction of the pleasingly semi-wild nature of the area. The most recent public consultation on these plans, originally propped in a 2019 Master plan, closed in December 2023. The following link to an earlier consultation (also now closed) includes a useful map of the area and the proposed changes;

WEMBLEY MATTERS: Respond to Barnet’s plans for West Hendon Playing fields at consultation meeting tomorrow. It is expected that the reservoir will be refilled with water in April 2024.

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COLINDALE STATION REBUILDING ANDY SIMPSON

Helped by Government Levelling Up funding, work to redevelop the Northern Line Edgware Branch’s Colindale station site by Transport for London begins Spring 2024. Before it all changes. I thought I had better record the existing structures, whose demolition and replacement by new structures will in part necessitate closure of the station and the line from Golders Green to Edgware from 2 to 11 April 2024 and similar weekend closures for much of June, followed by a longer closure period in the summer and autumn of 2024 to be announced.

The current entrance hall, opened in December 1962, was originally built as part of a large office development, since demolished. This replaced a temporary structure erected in 1960 in place of the original entrance building, opened on Monday, 18 August 1924 as part of the extension of the then London Electric Railway’s line over the three miles from Hendon Central to Edgware via Colindale and Burnt Oak; work on this had begun in November 1922. This temporary booking hall stood on the plot of land occupied from 1964 by the 28-space car park which has just closed as part of the redevelopment.

The Portland stone Doric colonnade portico frontage and booking hall of the original Georgian style red brick building of 1924, which had been designed by Underground Group architect S.A. Heaps, was completely destroyed by two direct hits by German high explosive bombs including a landmine on the night of 25th September 1940 during the London Blitz, killing 13 people including four RAF Hendon airmen in a train that was entering the station at the time of one explosion; many other people were injured, the adjacent Colindale hospital also being hit. King George VI and Queen Mary visited the following day to inspect the damage, accompanied by the Mayor of Hendon. An initial wooden temporary replacement structure was then erected.

A memorial plaque to the civilians and London Transport staff was unveiled on the station concourse on 25th September 2012, the anniversary of the raid.

The current building will be replaced by a large new entrance hall to be flanked by large multi-story blocks of flats and, for the first time, a lift giving step-free access from the street to platform level. The new structure will have a hybrid timber and steel roof structure, the laminated timber being intended to reference early aeronautical engineering in the area with personalities such as Claude Grahame White.

As well as the upgrades to the tube station, a new residential and commercial development will be built on the old ticket hall and car park site comprising 313 new homes, half of which should be ‘affordable’. For images of the new development see

Colindale and Leyton tube stations set for £43.1 million step-free upgrades (ianvisits.co.uk)

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Some of the historical details above, and much else besides on our local underground lines, can be found online in archive editions of the London Underground Railway Society’s monthly journal:

https://www.lurs.org.uk/historicalarchive.htm

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WHEN IS A CASTLE NOT A CASTLE? JANET MORTIMER

When we talk of castles, we tend to think of them either as magnificent surviving structures like Edinburgh Castle or glorious ruins like Kenilworth Castle. However, Oakham Castle in the county town of Rutland is a complete exception. There is a small amount of the original castle walls which you could easily walk past without noticing and part of the motte survives – but it has to be signposted so you know what it is. However what does survive is the magnificent Great Hall which was built between 1180 and 1190 and is acknowledged as one of the finest examples of domestic Norman architecture in the country.

Inside the Great Hall is a surprise as the place is adorned from floor to ceiling with horseshoes. It has become a custom for visiting dignitaries to commission a decorative horseshoe commemorating their visit, and there are many from the Royal family, including the late Queen and Prince Philip and even Queen Victoria when she was still Duchess of Kent.

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There are conflicting theories about how the horseshoe tradition started but the oldest one dates from 1470. There is even one from Time Team when they dug around the Castle in 2012.

In my view, the best thing about this Castle is that it is still very much at the heart of the community. Not only is it a visitor attraction which you can visit for free most days, but it is also used for weddings, gatherings and parties. And to retain its status as one one of the country’s longest continually used courts, a Crown Court session is held there once every two years. Presumably these days people are not sentenced to a stint in the stocks, which still exist outside the castle in the Buttercross – a type of market cross dating back to the 17th century.

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Other Societies’ Events Eric Morgan

As always, please check with the societies – for example via their websites – before planning to attend in case of any late changes, since not all societies and organisations have returned to pre-covid conditions.

Monday 12th February, 3 pm. Barnet Museum and Local History Society, St. John the Baptist Church, Chipping Barnet, Corner High Street/Wood Street, Barnet, EN5 4BW. Historic Hendon. Talk by Rhiannon Watkinson. Please visit www.barnetmuseum.co.uk for details.

Tuesday 13th February, 6 pm. L.A.M.A.S. Lecture Theatre, G6, Institute of Archaeology, U.C.L, 31-34 Gordon Square, WC1H 0PY. AGM and Presidential Address given by Professor Vanessa Harding on Mapping Medieval London. Also on Zoom. Details on Eventbrite. Booking essential. Please visit Lectures (lamas.org.uk).

Wednesday 14th February, 2.30 pm. Mill Hill Historical Society. Trinity Church, 100 The Broadway, NW7 3TB. Please note there is a change to the talk shown in the January Newsletter. It is now a talk on Ayrton House, The Ridgeway – by Honor Barrett, with a brief history of the National Institute for Medical Research Centre, where this now stands. Please visit www.millhill-hs.org.uk.

Friday 16th February, 7 pm. C.O.L.A.S. Talk on Zoom. How London Got Its Walls. Some Stories of Third Century Resurrection Gleaned from Archaeological Discovery – by Dominic Perring (I.o.A). Preceded by a A.G.M. Please book via Eventbrite. Visit City of London Archaeological Society (colas.org.uk).

Friday 16th February, 7.30 pm. Wembley History Society. St. Andrew’s Church Hall (behind St. Andrew’s new church) Church Lane, Kingsbury. NW9 8RZ. Decolinising Wembley. Talk by Nabil Al-Kianai. Examines the legacy of the 1924 Wembley Exhibition. The echoes of Empire that still resound. Visitors £3. Refreshments available afterwards.

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Tuesday 20th February, 2-3 pm. Eclectic Tours. Headstone Manor Museum, Pinner View, North Harrow, HA2 6PX. What was The London Aerodrome? Talk by Lisa Lu. Explains more about the London Aerodrome before it became RAF Hendon, cost £2.50. Please book on Tuesday Talk: Tuesday Talk: What was the London Aerodrome? – Headstone Manor Museum.

Also, Saturday 24th February, 1-3pm. Discovering Colindale and Its Role in Early Aviation. Colindale (or Hendon as it was known back then) was synonymous with flying. Learn about early Aviation and other factories and important institutions in the area. This is a tour and costs £15. For more information and to book got to WALKS & TALKS (Eclectic Tours – Walking Tours – London, England (eclectic-tours.com)).

Saturday 24th February, 9.30 am – 5 pm. Current Archaeology Live 2024. U.C.L Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way (off Russell Square), London WC1H 0AL. Wide range of expert speakers sharing latest Archaeological finds and research. Also Archaeology Fair and Photography competition from Current World Archaeology. Also the Current Archaeology awards will be announced at 5 pm. Tickets on sale at standard price of £60. To book please visit Current Archaeology Live! 2024 – Current Archaeology or call 0208 819 5580. The keynote speech will be Behind The Scenes of The Team – 30 Years in the Media Limelight given by Dr John Gater. The Fair has lots of stalls with travel companies, booksellers and other Archaeological organisations.

Thanks to our other contributors this month; Eric Morgan; Janet Mortimer.

Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman: Don Cooper, 59, Potters Road, Barnet EN5 5HS
(020 8440 4350) e-mail: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary: Janet Mortimer, 34, Cloister Road, Childs Hill London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121) e-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer: Roger Chapman 50 Summerlee Ave, London N” 9QP
(07855 304488) e-mail: treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec.: Jim Nelhams 61, Potters Road Barnet EN5 5HS
(020 8449 7076) e-mail: membership@hadas.org.uk

Website at: www.hadas.org.uk

Join the HADAS email discussion group via the website.

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No. 634 JANUARY 2024 Edited by Jim Nelhams

Happy New Year to all our readers.

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming lectures and events

Lectures are normally face-to-face though lectures in winter may be on Zoom. Lectures are held in the Drawing Room, Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE. 7.45 for 8pm. Tea/coffee available for purchase after each talk.

Buses 143, 125, 326 and 460 pass close by, and it is a five to ten-minute walk from Finchley Central Station on the Barnet Branch of the Northern Line. Bus 382 also passes close to Finchley Central Station.

Sunday 21st January 2024 – Afternoon Tea at Avenue House, 2:30 – 5:30pm

The size of the room limits us to 30 people and we are approaching that number. If you have not registered and wish to come, please phone Jim Nelhams on 020 8449 7076 or email membership@hadas.org.uk.

Tuesday February 13th 2024: The Dorothy Newbury Memorial Lecture

A life in sherds

In this talk, Jacqui Pearce looks back over half a century of developments in the world of ceramic studies in London, focusing particularly on fabric identification, the medieval and later pottery type-series, studies of excavated kiln sites, archaeological biography as seen in major household clearance assemblages, clay pipe studies and the importance of professional and non-professional archaeologists working together, especially through HADAS evening classes over several years.

Tuesday March 12th 2024

Robin Densem – ‘The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest AD9: The massacre of a Roman army’

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Tuesday April 9th 2024

Ian Jones – ‘Traders, Bargees, Ferrymen and a Seagull; Life and Work in Roman Pisa’

Tuesday 14th May 2024 – to be advised

Tuesday 11th June 2024 – Annual General Meeting + lecture

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HADAS wins Quiz Jim Nelhams

The Finchley Society has been running a quiz evening at Avenue House each November. Society members Peter Pickering and Stewart Wild were joined by Peter’s son Martin and Jo & Jim Nelhams to enter a HADAS team. Tables were strictly limited to 6 people, though our team started with only four since Stewart had been held up by train problems returning from Kingston upon Thames. All other tables had the full complement. Sue Loveday and Eric Morgan were also in another team.

The quiz started with a music round, always a bad subject for HADAS, but Martin proved our saviour and after that round, surprisingly we were in the lead, a position we never lost.At the end of the evening HADAS triumphed with a lead of four and a half points.

Ancient women were better hunters than men Stewart Wild

When it comes to hunting, the prehistoric fairer sex has the upper hand, according to two studies. Women have a metabolism better suited to endurance, according to Dr Cara Obocock, director of the Human Energetics Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA.
Oestrogen and adiponectin are both present in women at higher levels and provide physical advantages over men. Women’s wider hips, a physiological study found, are also an advantage. A second study examined archaeological evidence of bones and found that women often suffered war wounds associated with hunting.

The studies were published in American Anthropologist.
SOURCE: The Daily Telegraph, 28 November 2023, item edited by Stewart Wild

Florence Nightingale Museum Jim Nelhams

A museum slightly off the beaten track, this is located at 2 Lambeth Palace Road, SE1 7EW at St Thomas Hospital. It is just to the west of the south side of Westminster Bridge, opposite the Houses of Parliament.

Normal opening hours are 10am to 5pm, Wednesday to Sunday. Adult admission costs £12 and can be booked online. Nearest underground station is Westminster. Did you know Florence Nightingale was the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society? That she owned over 60 cats throughout her life and had a pet owl called Athena. Do you know why she was called Florence?

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Nightingale was the founder of modern nursing, was one of our greatest Victorians and a female icon in her own lifetime. She is still an inspiration to nurses around the globe.

Visit the museum to celebrate the life of this trailblazing woman; discover all about her affluent childhood, how she fought against her parents’ wishes to become a nurse, her work during the Crimean War and how she campaigned for better healthcare for ordinary people. See the actual lamp she carried which earned her the nickname The Lady with The Lamp, meet her pet owl and see her medicine chest.

Nightingale also played a significant part in the design of the rebuilt St Thomas Hospital.

You can still visit an exhibition demonstrating how Nightingale’s leadership and campaigning skills still inspire women today, ‘Nightingale in 200 Objects, People & Places’. And if you’re taking children to the museum, don’t forget to pick up a copy of our Family Trail. More information on florence-nightingale.co.uk.

Iron Age coin find adds king to British history Stewart Wild

A new king has been added to British history after a tiny coin found in a Hampshire field sold for more than £20,000 at auction. Dating from around 50 BC and smaller than a fingernail, the gold quarter stater coin is stamped with the name Esunertos, a previously unrecorded Iron Age ruler.

The find by hobbyist Lewis Fudge has been described by experts as “one of the outstanding discoveries of recent decades.” The coin was dug up by the construction worker in a farmer’s field in the Test Valley in March this year after he was given permission to use his metal detector.

Mr Fudge said: “I am over the moon. If it were not for people in the auction room, I would have jumped around. The collectors I spoke to are gobsmacked.”

The coin bears the ruler’s name and dates to the beginning of written language appearing in the British Isles.

SOURCE: The Daily Telegraph, 19 October 2023, item edited by Stewart Wild

Digging For Britain 2024 (Enfield Archaeology) Melvyn Dresner

The new series of Digging For Britain, featuring the 2023 summer dig on the site Elsyng Tudor Palace in Forty Hall, will be broadcast on BBC2 and will be available on BBC iPlayer beginning Tuesday 2nd January at 8pm. The episode featuring the EAS dig is slated for broadcast on January 9th at 8pm. The 2023 dig was an excellent year for Tudor archaeology, and EAS are very pleased to be able to share their discoveries with a wider than usual audience.

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During this year’s search for the inner gatehouse of Henry VIII’s palace, the dig discovered several new Tudor structures and, after filming ended, evidence for what EAS currently think may be a substantial cellar.

EAS will be back at Forty Hall in 2024 to continue the gatehouse hunt, and hopefully explore the hidden depths of Henry’s cellars!

(Melvyn also notes that he may not make the final edit, but you might spot his trowel – now there’s a challenge!)

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Dinosaur relic found in island castle grounds Stewart Wild

A dinosaur footprint spotted by a National Trust ranger out on a run could be from an iguanodon dating back up to 157 million years, experts believe.

Sophie Giles stumbled across the print as she jogged in the grounds of Brownsea Castle on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, Dorset. It was probably made when the area was covered in tropical forests and swamps and had become easier to see after it filled with water during a rain shower.

The National Trust believes the find is the rear footprint of an iguanodon – a bulky three-toed herbivore that grew up to 36ft long and lived between 93 and 157 million years ago.
Dr Martin Munt, curator of the Dinosaur Isle Museum in Sandown, Isle of Wight, said the print of the hind foot was “comparable to those found on Purbeck, where the stone would have originated.”

He added: “It is certainly what we call a tridactyl footprint, of the date we are talking about; it could have been made by an iguanodontian or related dinosaur.”

SOURCE: The Daily Telegraph, 16 November 2023, item redacted by Stewart Wild

Draining the Welsh Harp Jim Nelhams

The Welsh Harp is currently being drained by the Canal and River Trust so that repairs can be made to the infrastructure. At the same time, rubbish is being removed and the fish are being netted and rehoused at other Trust locations. On completion, fish will be re-introduced.

There is an open day on Saturday 3rd February from 10-3 but tickets are sold out. Maybe more will be made available. At least one HADAS member has successfully booked, so a report should appear in later newsletters. The date is just too late for the February issue.

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OTHER SOCIETIES’ EVENTS Eric Morgan

NOT ALL SOCIETIES OR ORGANISATIONS HAVE RETURNED TO PRE-COVID CONDITIONS. PLEASE CHECK WITH THEM BEFORE PLANNING TO ATTEND.

Wednesday 10th January, 8pm. Hornsey Historical Society. The Old School House, 136 Tottenham Lane (Corner of Rokesly Avenue). London. N8 7EL. London’s Squares and Gardens. Talk by Peter Mathers. Also on Zoom. Please note attendance in person is limited. Please visit www.hornseyhistorical.org.uk/events first and for link.

Friday 19th January, 7.30 pm. Wembley History Society. St. Andrew’s Church Hall (Behind St. Andrew’s new church) Church Lane, Kingsbury, London NW9 8RZ. Mercy Ships, Talk by Norbert Jannson on the work of the organisation bringing much needed Healthcare to sub-Saharan Africa. Visitors £3. Refreshments available in the interval.

Wednesday 24th January, 7.45 pm. Friern Barnet and District Local History Society. North Middlesex Golf Club, The Manor House, Friern Barnet Lane, N20 0NL. My Family History. Talk by Colin Barratt (Friern Barnet Local History Society). Please visit www.friernbarnethistory.org.uk and click on programme. Non-members £2. Bar to be available.

Thursday 1st February, 5-6pm. Society of Antiquaries. Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BE. Also on Zoom. Analysing Myth and Material –Charles 1st’s Knitted Waistcoat. Talk by Beatrice Behlen and Doctor Jane Malcolm-Davies. Lecture is free, but a donation is welcome. Details and bookings through the SAL website www.sal.org.uk/events.

Sunday 4th February, 10.30 am. Heath and Hampstead Society. Meet at Burgh House, New End Square, London. NW3 1LT. History of the Heath Ponds. Guided walk let by Marc Hutchinson (Chair). Lasts approx. 2 hours. Donation accepted of £5. Please contact Thomas Radice on 07941 528034 or email hhs.walks@gmail.com or visit www.heathandhampstead.org.uk.

Friday 9th February, 7.30 pm. Enfield Archaeological Society. Jubilee Hall, 2 Parsonage Lane, Junction Chase Side, Enfield, EN2 0AJ. The Southsea Coastal Defence Scheme. Future Proofing Against Sea-Level Rise. Talk by Holly Rodgers. Please visit www.enfarchsoc.org for further details. Non-members £1.50 at the door.

Wednesday 14th February, 2.30 pm. Mill Hill Historical Society. Trinity Church, 100 The Broadway, London. NW7 3TB. The Elegant Explorer, Fortnum and Masons and the Far Flung Traveller. Talk by Andrea Tanner. Please visit www.millhill-hs.org.uk.

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Wednesday 14th February, 6 pm. Gresham College. Talk on Zoom – Dragons – A History by Ronald Hutton. Ticket required. Register at www.gresham.ac.uk. Please see Dragons: A History | Gresham College. Free. Talk to answer the difference between Eastern and Western Dragons – if the Western attitude to Dragons has changed in the modern era and if Christianity gave rise to a different idea of what a Dragon should be.

Wednesday 14th February, 8 pm. Hornsey Historical Society. Venue and link same as Wednesday 10th January with same restrictions. Talk also on Zoom. Churchill and the Loss of Everest at the Foot of Crouch Hill. By Tom Barclay Matchett will explore the path that brought the future war leader to Crouch End and the woman (Elizabeth Ann Everest) who shaped the man.

Thursday 15h February, 8 pm. Historical Association – Hampstead and N.W. London Branch. Fellowship House, 136A Willifield Way, London NW11 6YD (off of Finchley Road, Temple Fortune) From Enslavement to Chivalry. The Conduct of War in the Middle Ages. Talk by Professor John Gillingham (L.S.E.). Hopefully, also on Zoom. Please email Gulse Koca (Chair) on kocagulse@gmail.com or telephone 07453 283090 for details of link and how to pay. (There may be a voluntary charge of £5). Refreshments will be available afterwards.

Wednesday 28th February, 7.45 pm. Friern Barnet and District Local History Society. Venue as Wednesday 24th January. The First World War in The Air. Speaker to be arranged. Non-members £2. Website as before for details.

Thursday 29th February, 7.30 pm. Finchley Society. Drawing Room, Avenue (Stephens’) House, 18 East End Road, N3 3QE. The Skies Above Finchley- A Vertical Journey. Talk by Donald Lyven. For further details please visit www.finchleysociety.org.uk Non-members £2 at the door. Refreshments in the interval.

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With thanks to the contributors: Melvyn Dresner, Eric Morgan, Jim Nelhams & Stewart Wild
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Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Don Cooper 59, Potters Road, Barnet EN5 5HS
(020 8440 4350), email: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer 34 Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121), email: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman, 50 Summerlee Ave, London N2 9QP
(07855 304488), email: treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec. Jim Nelhams, 61 Potters Road, Barnet, EN5 5HS
(020 8449 7076), email: membership@hadas.org.uk

Website: www.hadas.org.uk

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No. 633 December 2023 Edited by Don Cooper

After what is proving to be a difficult year with conflicts everywhere, we
would like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers a Merry Christmas
and Healthy, Happy, Prosperous and PEACEFUL 2024.

HADAS Diary -Forthcoming Lectures and Events

Without a lecture in December or January, we have arranged an afternoon tea to welcome the New Year and for you to meet up with other members. It would be lovely to see everybody and of course, friends and partners too.  Sunday, 21st January,2024.  2.30pm to 5.30pm. Avenue House, 17 East End Road, N3 3QE.   £20 per person includes Finger Buffet (and tea/coffee) – Good company, cash bar – Raffle – Quiz.  Booking details on separate sheet / attachment sent with newsletter.

Tuesday, 13^th February 2024. TBA

March 12^th March 2024 The Battle of Teutoburg Forest AD 9: The Massacre of a Roman
Army.  A Talk by Robin Densem

Tuesday, 9^th April 2024 Traders, Bargees, Ferrymen and a Seagull; Life and Work in Roman Pisa.  A talk by Ian Jones, Chairman Enfield Archaeological Society

Tuesday, 14^th May 2024 Roman London’s tools, a talk by Owen Humphreys. 

The Minoan Double Axe by David Willoughby

There are many unanswered questions about the Minoans who dominated the Aegean, from their bases in Crete in the early Bronze Age. This is in part due to the fact that the writings they have left us in their Linear A script remain undeciphered. Some burning questions are : What are their origins? What language did they speak? What were their religious beliefs and practices and what was the significance of the double axe symbol (Labrys) which is commonly associated with Minoan sites?

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Excavations commenced in 1934 on the Arkalochori cave (which had collapsed in antiquity). This cave is located on the western edge of the Minoa Pediada plain, west of the Lasithi plateau on Crete. It is believed to be a sacred cave associated with the Minoan Palace of Galatas (Rethemiotakis, 1999).

The excavations revealed hundreds of bronze double axes, twenty-five gold ones and seven silver ones. The axes included the second-millennium bronze ‘Arkalochori axe’ with its unusual undeciphered script showing some similarities to Linear A. Also discovered was a hoard of bronze swords and a small altar (Blegen, 1935). Pottery sherds in the cave enabled the deposits in the cave to be dated from the late third millennium BCE to around 1500 BCE (LM II). Similar bronze double axes have been found at the Diktian (Psychro) sacred cave among other gifts or offerings such as miniature vessels and figures of humans and animals (Preziosi & Hitchcock, 1999) and the finds in both caves indicate the axes were deposited as votive offerings. Bronze double axes have also been found in tombs (Evans, 1914).

The double axe has been discovered in many Minoan contexts. It often appears as mason marks, for
example in palatial pillar crypts on the pillar itself. Bronze double axes have been found embedded in stalactites in caves and frescoes show double axes embedded in column capitals. It has been suggested that these pillar crypts may mimic sacred caves with the pillar being a baetyl (sacred stone) representing an aniconic cult statue (Preziosi & Hitchcock, 1999). Double axes appear on sealings (e.g. on a MMII B cretule sealing from Phaistos) and panels on the LMIII A Sarcophagus from Haghia Triada apparently depict burial ceremonies and with two double headed axes mounted on stepped bases between which is a container, into which women are pouring offerings (Preziosi & Hitchcock, 1999). Also depicted on the sarcophagus is a scene showing bull sacrifice.

The double axe features in several other Bronze Age cultures where it is often associated with the storm or thunder god e.g., the Hurrian god Teshup (adopted by the Hittites and Luwians as Tarhun) who is associated with the bull as a sacred animal https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tarhun.

In classical times the Greek god Zeus uses the double axe to invoke a storm (Nilsson, 1967) and the
Diktian cave was the centre of the worship of Zeus with a hymn to the god having been found in
excavations at Palakastro www.explorecrete.com/mythology/dictaean-zeus-hymn.html. Evidence in

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Linear A tablets may indicate that a ‘Diktaian master’ was a Minoan precursor to classical Diktaian Zeus (Valerio, 2007).

Plutarch states that the Lydian word for double axe was ‘labrys’ (Plutarch) and many (including Arthur Evans) have suggested that the word ‘Labyrinth’ means ‘place of the double axes’ (The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2012) but this cannot be proved (Beekes).

The double axe appears to have had great significance to the Minoans and it can be postulated that perhaps that it and even the bull iconography (including the horns of consecration) are associated with an important deity in the Minoan religious pantheon, the storm god, who later became equated with Zeus. There is however, no proven iconography depicting the god himself to support this and indeed double axes are usually associated with female figures, perhaps representing priestesses.

Bibliography
Beekes, R.S.P. Greek Etymological dictionary, 819.
Blegen, E. P. (1935). News items from Athens. American Journal of Archaeology 39, 134.
Evans, A. (1914). The ‘Tomb of the Double Axes’ and Associated Group, and the Pillar Rooms and Ritual Vessels of the ‘Little Palace’ at Knossos. Archaeologia, 65, 1-94.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tarhun (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com
Nilsson, M. (1967). Die Geschichte der griechischen Religion (Vol. I). Munich: Beck Verlag.
Plutarch. (n.d.). Greek Questions, 45, 2.302a.
Preziosi, D, & Hitchcock, L.A. (1999). Aegean Art and Architecture. Oxford University Press.
Rethemiotakis. (1999). To neo minoiko Anaktoroston Galata Pediados kai to ‘Iero Spilaio’ Arkalochoriou.
A. Karetsou, ed. Krites Thalassodromoi, 99-111.
The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4th ed.). (2012). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Valerio, M. (2007). ‘Diktaian Master’: A Minoan Predecessor of Diktaian Zeus. Kadmos – Zeitschrift für
vor- und frühgriechische Epigraphik, 3-14.
www.explorecrete.com/mythology/dictaean-zeus-hymn.html (n.d.). Retrieved from
www.explorecrete.com

Vikings in Greenland July 2023 by Don Cooper

In early July 2023 Liz and I visited Greenland on a cruise ship as part of a holiday that included Iceland and Greenland. What attracted us to the trip was to see the physical remains of the settlement of Greenland by the Vikings.

According to the Norse sagas Eric the Red byname of Erik Thorvasson was exiled from Iceland, possibly having been found guilty of manslaughter in circa AD 980. He sailed to Greenland, where he explored the coastline and claimed certain regions as his property. He then returned to Iceland to persuade people to join him in establishing a settlement in Greenland. The Icelandic sagas say that 25 ships left Iceland with him in AD 985, and that only 14 of them arrived safely in Greenland. Radiocarbon dating of the remains at the first settlement at what is now called Qassiarsuk have approximately confirmed this timeline, yielding a date of about AD 1000. There are five areas in South-West Greenland with known early Viking remains in and among more modern sheep farms. The areas contain well-preserved landscapes with ruins of farmsteads from the period AD 985-1450. These five settlements were acknowledged collectively as a World Heritage Site in 2017.

Qassiarsuk grew from about 500 to a maximum of 3000 settlers between c.AD 1000 and AD 1450. As Christianity spread through Europe, replacing the old gods, churches began to be built across the region.

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One such church was at Hvalsey built c. 1300 AD, the remains of which are still standing. See my photos below.

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There is a continuing mystery as to why the settlement failed. There are many theories. In all likelihood it is a combination of them. The last document securely dated records the marriage of Sigrid Bjornsdottir and Thorstein Olafsson on Sunday 16th September 1408 in Hvalsey church. Is it relevant that Greenland came under Denmark in AD 1380 when the Norwegian kingdom came under the Danish crown? The settlement was completely abandoned by c:1450. The main theories are:

1. Climate change – The exceptionally cold weather of the so called “Little Ice Age” made farming life unsustainable. The North Atlantic became more stormy and according to the website
   What really happened to Greenland’s vikings? | [Visit Greenland!] the last ship returned from Greenland to Norway in AD 1410.
2. Plague – the Black Death devastated Norway with up to 60% of the population dying of it and
   although the plague didn’t reached Greenland, trade with Norway was seriously curtailed and the provision of bishops and priests to support the church in Greenland ceased as all the bishops and most of the priests in Norway died of the plague.
3. Ivory from Walrus tusks: This theory is propounded by Tim Folger in the Smithsonian Magazine in
   March 2017 (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-greenland-vikingsvanished180962119/#:~:text=The%20Vikings%20established%20two%20outposts,north%2C%20called%26vanished180962119/#:~:0the%20Western%20Settlement.) The gist of the article is that the reason the Vikings settled in Greenland was not just farming, but harvesting walrus ivory, which was valuable, as this was before elephant ivory reached the European market and collapsed the price.
4. Innuits – The Innuits arrived in Northern Greenland c: AD 1200 and gradually extended southward
   to the small Western Viking settlement. Did they fight with the Vikings or intermingle peacefully? The only reference according to the website, Greenland – The Official Tourism Site | Visit Greenland! is of a “clerical steward who visited the settlement around 1350 and wrote that the Inuit had taken over the entire Western settlement, but frustratingly did not elaborate on this.”

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It is clear that both parties shared the same resources, so the possibility of conflict exists. Whichever theory you support it still remains a mystery as to why the Vikings vanished from Greenland in the 1400s.

The Worshipful Company of Leather Sellers in Barnet by David Willoughby

A little while ago I had an article published in the HADAS newsletter that referenced a cast iron boundary marker at the bottom of Barnet Hill, near the site of the now demolished Old Red Lion pub. This marker is very worn but close examination reveals a coat of arms of two creatures supporting a shield. I postulated at the time that this might represent the royal coat of arms featuring a lion rampant and a unicorn rampant, with the shield surmounted by a helmet and a crest of a crown surmounted by a lion.

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I conjectured that this marker might be associated with the improvement of the road from Whetstone to Barnet by the Whetstone and Highgate Turnpike Trust in 1823.

In a recent online forum this particular boundary marker was discussed and one of the participants was sure that the coat of arms represented that of the Worshipful Company of Leathersellers. Their coat of arms features a roebuck rampant and a ram rampant supporting a shield with a demi roebuck crest above the shield. The rational of thinking it was related to the Leathersellers is that they own a lot of historic freehold in Barnet, including the almshouses at Leathersellers Close and of Barnet Odeon (Everyman), the BP garage and possibly, still the freehold of the new houses by the grass verge where the marker is located and which are on the site of the Old Red Lion pub.

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This is a very credible and more likely explanation and looking closely at the coat of arms on the enhanced photograph, it does resemble that of the Leathersellers, in particular, the shape of the motto at the bottom. It is a shame though, that the boundary marker is too worn to be a hundred percent sure about the identification.

Other Societies’ Events by Eric Morgan

Not all societies / organisations have returned to pre-covid conditions. Please check before attending.

Tuesday 9th January, 6.30 pm. LAMAS. Venue T.B.A. Also on Zoom. Buy Tickets via Eventbrite. Non-members £2.50. Life, Death and Worship at H.M. Tower of London. Talk by Alfred R.J. Hawkins (Assistant Curator of Historic Buildings) will discuss the History and Archaeology of The Chapel Royal and Royal Peculiar of St. Peter Ad Vincula (Parish Church of The Tower) and include a chronology of the development of the building. The Archaeological excavations (2019) and subsequent analysis of skeletal remains exhumed. For details and link please visit www.lamas.org.uk/lectures.html.

Tuesday 9th January, 8pm. Amateur Geological Society. Talk on Zoom. Essex Rocks – Geology Beneath the Landscape. By Ian and Ros Mercer (Essex Rock and Mineral Society) on the deep history of Essex from 500 million years ago to the current ice age and the continuing geological processes and planning for the future. For further details and link please visit www.amgeosco.wordpress.com.

Wednesday 10th January, 2.30 pm. Mill Hill Historical Society. Trinity Church, 100 The Broadway, NW7 3TB. The Festival of Britain. A talk by David Bunell. www.millhill-hs.org.uk.

Friday 12th January, 7.30 pm. Enfield Archaeological Society. Talk on Zoom. A virtual Tour of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. By Jane Sidell (MOLA). Please visit www.enfarchsoc.org for further details and link.

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Thursday 18th January, 7.30 pm. Camden History Society. Talk on Zoom. The Destruction of Eton’s Chalcot Estate. By Peter Darley (Camden Railway History Society). It resulted from a V1 Flying Bomb that landed nearby. Talk will explore the origins of the estate and the aftermath in terms of planning and reconstruction. Please visit www.camdenhistorysociety.org for details and link.

Thursday 18th January, 8.00 pm. Historical Association. Hampstead and N.W. London Branch. Fellowship House, 136A, Willifield Way, NW11 6YD (off Finchley Road, Temple Fortune). Masada. Talk by John Levy. Hopefully, also on Zoom. Please email Gulse Koca (Chair) on kocagulse@gmail.com or telephone 07453 283090 for details of the zoom link and how to pay (There may be a voluntary charge of £5) Refreshments available afterwards.

Friday 19th January, 7.00 pm. C.O.L.A.S Talk on zoom. The Enderby Bark Shield. By Dr Sophia Adam (from the British Museum). A new and rare find from the Iron Age. Please book via Eventbrite. Visit www.colas.org.uk. HADAS may send out the link details to its members.

Thursday 25th January, 7.30 pm. Finchley Society, Drawing Room, Avenue (Stephens’) House, 17 East End Road, N3 3QE. Battle of Barnet. Talk by Paul Baker (Barnet Local History Society) for further details. Visit www.finchleysociety.org.uk. Non-members £2 at the door. Incl. refreshments.

Thanks to our contributors, Don Cooper, Eric Morgan, David Willoughby.

Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Don Cooper, 59 Potters Road, Barnet, EN5 5HS
(020 8440 4350) e-mail: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer, 34 Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121) e-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman 50 Summerlee Ave, London N2 9QP
(07855 304488) e-mail: treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec. Jim Nelhams 61 Potters Road Barnet EN5 5HS
(020 8449 7076) e-mail: membership@hadas.org.uk

Web site: www.hadas.org.uk

No. 632                                    November 2023                                  Edited by Sue Willetts

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming Lectures and Events

We are pleased that we are able to resume lectures face-to-face following Covid, though lectures in winter may be on Zoom. Lectures are held in the Drawing Room, Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE. 7.45 for 8pm. Tea/Coffee/biscuits available for purchase after each talk. (Cash please).

Buses 143, 125, 326 and 460 pass close by, and it is a five to ten-minute walk from Finchley Central Station on the Barnet Branch of the Northern Line. Bus 382 also passes close to Finchley Central Station.

Tuesday 14th November 2023
Dr Kris Lockyear, (University College London). Mapping Verulamium.

The Verulamium survey started in 2013 as part of a one-year AHRC Community Heritage Development award to Kris for the project Sensing the late Iron Age and Roman Past: geophysics and the landscape of Hertfordshire.   The Verulamium survey is uncovering significant information about private and public buildings, aqueducts and streets. 

Avenue House Sunday morning working party meetings

The archaeology and heritage working sessions in the HADAS workroom at Avenue are held on Sunday mornings, from 10.30am. The sessions are open to all HADAS members and are both important and convivial. It is advisable to check with the committee committee-discuss@hadas.org.uk that the session will be held before you travel, as just occasionally a session is cancelled.

Committee responsibilities: recent changes

Jim Nelhams has taken over the role of Membership Secretary, vacant since the death of Steve Brunning.  The Committee are very grateful to him for taking on this important task for HADAS. Don Cooper had been filling the role on a temporary basis and thanks are due to him for stepping into the breach.

Jim will no longer be the overall Newsletter Editor which will be taken on by Sue Willetts. However, this is an interim solution and if this role appeals to any member, please get in touch to express your interest and learn more about what’s involved.   For those unfamiliar with the process, there is a list of 12 editors to compile each monthly newsletter. We have a few slots available so please get in touch with Sue Willetts for more information. sue.willetts@london.ac.uk

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Sunday Morning Sort                                                                                      Andy Simpson

The Avenue House Sunday morning team recently took the opportunity to have a deep sort and tidy of the HADAS excavation tools and equipment.

As many of you know, (and have used) we have a good supply of essential items including wheelbarrows, mattocks, shovels, spades, pick axes, vintage ex-military trenching tools, buckets, ranging poles, hand shovels, brushes various, trowels, hammers, mallets, chisels, measuring tapes, kneeling mats, sieves, pot washing bowls, finds trays, ground sheets, and all sorts of other useful tools and items.

All of these were checked, cleaned where necessary and sorted by type and put back into the swept-out corridor cupboard. A few tattier items went to that great excavation in the sky.

In addition to the basement archive/working room, we have access to a rear storage room for larger tools such as shovels and wheelbarrows, and some boxed finds, and a corridor cupboard for smaller items. Hopefully there will be future opportunities to get them dirty again out in the field…

Clan chief’s coin hoard unearthed at Glencoe                                            Stewart Wild

A hoard of coins that may have belonged to a Highland clan chief who was murdered in the Glencoe Massacre in 1692 has been discovered under a fireplace during a recent archaeological dig. The 17th-century coins included international currency and were hidden beneath the remains of a grand stone fireplace at a site believed to have been a hunting lodge or feasting hall.

The site was associated with Alasdair Ruadh “MacIain” MacDonald of Glencoe, clan chief from 1646–1692, who was a victim of the Glencoe Massacre along with members of his family. The MacDonalds took part in the first Jacobite uprising of 1689 and were targeted in retribution with 82 clan members slaughtered on 13 February 1692, including MacIain and his wife.

Artefacts discovered during the University of Glasgow dig in August included European pottery and silver and bronze coins dating from the 1500s to 1680s. Currency from the reigns of Elizabeth I, James VI and I, Charles I, Cromwell’s Commonwealth and Charles II – as well as France and the Spanish Netherlands and Papal States – was found.

Other finds included musket and fowling shot, a gun flint and powder measure, as well as pottery from England, Germany and the Netherlands.

Archaeological student Lucy Ankers, who found the hoard, said: “As a first experience of a dig, Glencoe was amazing. I wasn’t expecting such an exciting find as one of my firsts. I don’t think I will ever beat the feeling of seeing the coins peeking out of the dirt.”  The Glencoe Massacre happened during the Jacobite bid to restore a Catholic king to the throne, backed by the MacDonalds, who supported King James VII of Scotland and II of England after he fled to France

In late January 1692, 120 men from the Earl of Argyll’s Regiment of Foot arrived in Glencoe from Invergarry, led by Robert Campbell of Glenlyon. Historians speculated that the coins may have been buried on the morning of the Massacre two weeks later.

Dr Michael Given, co-director of the University of Glasgow’s archaeological project in Glencoe, said: “These exciting finds give us a rare glimpse of a single, dramatic event. Here’s what seems an ordinary rural house, but it has a grand fireplace, impressive floor slabs, and exotic pottery imported from the Netherlands and Germany.

“And they’ve gathered up an amazing collection of coins in a little pot and buried them under the fireplace.” SOURCE: The Daily Telegraph, 9 October 2023, item edited by Stewart Wild.

Historic England Releases Aerial Investigation and Mapping Data on Open Data Hub                                                                 Information from CBA October online newsletter

In 2021 Historic England released the Aerial Archaeology Mapping Explorer, which provides free online access to over 30 years’ worth of Aerial Investigation and Mapping projects carried out or funded by Historic England. Since then, in order to make its data more accessible to more people, Historic England, with the support of the Historic England Archive, has now made all the project data available to download through the Open Data Hub. https://opendata-histoticengland,hub.arcgis.com/.

Other Societies’ Events       Eric Morgan

Not all Societies or Organisations have yet returned to pre-covid conditions. Please check with them before planning to attend.

Saturday 4^th November, 10.30 am. – 4.30 pm.  Geologists’ Association Festival of Geology. University College London. North and South Cloisters, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT.  Free. Stalls from Geological Societies from all over the country, including The Amateur Geological Society – selling Jewellery, Gems, Fossils, Rocks, Minerals, Books, Maps, etc.

Saturday 11^th November, 1.00 pm. – 3.00 pm.  Eclectic Tours. North-West London Series:  Discovering Colindale and its Role in Early Aviation. Colindale – or Hendon, as it was known back then – was synonymous with flying.  Learn about early aviation and other factories and important institutions of the area.  This is for Remembrance Day.  This tour costs £15.00. For more information and to book, please go to:  https://eclectic-tours.com/.

Sunday 3^rd December.  Barnet Xmas Fayre. Stalls and performers in Barnet High Street, The Spires, The College (Wood Street), The Bull Centre and Wesley Hall (Xmas Café also) and Food stalls on the College Forecourt and music in the street. Details not yet listed on www.barnetarts.uk.

Thursday 7^th December, 7.30 pm. Camden History Society. Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre, Holborn Library, 32-38, Theobalds Road, WC1X 8PA.  Free for members of Camden History Society. Hopefully will also be on Zoom. History of Birkbeck College. Title of lecture. Nurseries of Disaffection: Birkbeck and educating working people: an illustrated talk by Joanna Bourke.  www.camdenhistorysociety.org for details including membership rates.

Friday 8^th December, 7.30 pm. Enfield Archaeological Society. Jubilee Hall, 2, Parsonage Lane / Junction Chase Side, Enfield, EN2 0AJ. The Petroglyph Survey by Anna Nicola. Visitors welcome £1.50. Visit www.enfarchsoc.org for further details.

Tuesday 12^th December, 8pm. Amateur Geological Society.Talk on Zoom. Cornish Lithium Exploration. by Zoe Richardson.  For details and link please visit www.amgeosoc.wordpress.com.

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Tuesday 12^th December, 6.30 pm. LAMAS. Lecture Theatre, The Gallery, Alan Baxter Associates, Cowcross Street, London, EC1M 6EL. Hybrid Meeting, so also on Zoom. Buy tickets via Eventbrite.  Non-members £2.50. The Failure of London – The Long Fourth Century.  Talk by Professor Dominic Perring (Institute of Archaeology / UCL).  Cycles of Urban Investment, followed by periods of disrepair and redundancy echoed London’s changing importance to the provincial administration.  When, how and why did this important bastion of Roman power change, characterised as ‘Decline and Fall’.  For further details please visit www.lamas.org,uk.

Wednesday 13^th December, 2.30 pm. Mill Hill Historical Society, Trinity Church, 100, The Broadway, London. NW7 3TB. Fine Cell Work: Needlework in Prisons by Sarah Citroen.
Visit www.millhill-hs.org.uk for further details.

Wednesday 13^th December, 8 pm. Hornsey Historical Society.  Talk on Zoom, Free for HHS Members.
A Very British Art Form: The Story of Pantomime by Malcolm Jones. Visit www.hornseyhistorical.org.uk for further details / membership rates.

With many thanks to this month’s contributors:  Eric Morgan, Andy Simpson, Stuart Wild,

Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Don Cooper, 59, Potters Road, Barnet EN5 5HS (020 8440 4350)
e-mail: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer, 34, Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121) e-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman, 50, Summerlee Avenue, London N2 9QP
(07855 304488) e-mail: treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Secretary Jim Nelhams, c/o Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley,
London N3 3QE (020 8449 7076) e-mail: membership@hadas.org.uk

We are pleased to have filled the vacancy of membership secretary but please address any correspondence such as change of member addresses or other miscellaneous correspondence to: 

HADAS, c/o Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley, London N3 3QE

Website at:   www.hadas.org.uk– join the HADAS email discussion group via the website.

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No. 631 OCTOBER 2023 Edited by Robin Densem

Avenue House Sunday morning working party meetings

The archaeology and heritage working sessions in the HADAS workroom at Avenue House are held on Sunday mornings, from 10.30am. The sessions are open to all HADAS members and are both important and convivial. I think it would be wise to check with the committee (committee-discuss@hadas.org.uk ) that the session will be held before you travel, as just occasionally a session is cancelled.

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming lectures and events

We are pleased we are resuming lectures face-to-face following Covid, though lectures in winter may be on Zoom. Lectures are held in the Drawing Room, Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE. 7.45 for 8pm. Tea/coffee available for purchase after each talk. (Cash please).

Tuesday 10th October 2023. Melvyn Dresner: Elsyng Palace – a digger’s view.

Tuesday 14th November 2023. Kris Lockyer (University College London): Mapping Verulamium.

A selection of other societies’ events – selected from information kindly provided by Eric Morgan

NOT ALL SOCIETIES OR ORGANISATIONS HAVE RETURNED TO PRE-COVID CONDITIONS. PLEASE CHECK WITH THEM BEFORE PLANNING TO ATTEND.

Wednesday 11th October, 2.30 pm. Mill Hill Historical Society/Trinity Church, 100 The Broadway, NW7 3TB. Talk on Grahame White and The London Aerodrome. By David Keen (Ex- RAF Museum). Please visit www.millhill-hs.org.uk

Tuesday 24th October, 1-2 pm. London Metropolitan Archives, 40 Northampton Road, EC1R 0HB. A Day in a London Life 1623. Talk. Also on Zoom. Free. Booking Essential. On Shakespeare’s Achievements making him one of Jacobean London’s most famous sons. But what was life everyday like for him and his contemporaries? Please visit London Metropolitan Archives – City of London.

Sunday 5th November, 2.30 pm. Heath and Hampstead Society., Laughter in Landscape. Meet at Old Bull and Bush, North End Way, NW3 7HE. Guided Walk led by Lester Hillman (Tour Guide) About Comedy, Humour in Science, Film, Music, Local Links to Actors, Writers, Theatre and The Landscape. Lasts approx. 2 hours. Donation £5. Please contact Thomas Radice on 07941 528034 or email hhs.walks@gmail.com or visit The Heath & Hampstead Society – Fighting to preserve the wild and natural state of the Heath (heathandhampstead.org.uk)

Tuesday 7th November, 6 pm. Gresham College, Barnard’s Inn Hall, Holborn EC1N 2HH. Pilgrimages, Pandemics and The Past. Talk by Tom Holland. Also on line. Ticket Required. Register at www.gresham.ac.uk. Please see Pilgrimages, Pandemics and the Past | Gresham College. FREE. Joint with Royal Historical Society. Will explore how tracing ancient routes on foot and experiencing travel as people did in age before trains and cars can offer insights into the past. Will also draw on experience of reading Chaucer and undertaking pilgrimage during and after the pandemic.

Wednesday 8th November, 2.30 pm. Mill Hill Historical Society. (address as 11th October) History of Highgate Cemetery. Simon Edwards.

Wednesday 8th November, 6 pm. Gresham College, Were there Pagan Goddesses in Christian Europe? Talk by Ronald Hutton, view on line. Please see www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/pagan-goddesses Free. Considers a set of superhuman female figures found in Medieval and early modern European cultures. Mother nature the roving nocturnal lady often called Herodias, The British Fairy Queen and the Gaelic Calleach.

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Wednesday 8th November, 8 pm Hornsey Historical Society. Talk on Zoom, Charles Roach Smith by Dr Michael Rhodes. Please visit www.hornseyhistorical.org.uk for further details.

Friday 10th November, 7.30 pm Enfield Archaeological Society – Jubilee Hall, 2 Parsonage Lane/Jnc Chase side, Enfield EN2 0AJ Towards a Geoarchaeology of London. Talk by Jason Stewart. Please visit www.enfacrchsoc.org for further details.

Monday 13th November, 3 pm Barnet Museum and Local History Society. St John Baptist Church, Chipping Barnet, CNR High Street/Wood Street, EN5 4BW. David Livingstone and Hadley Green – Out of Africa. Talk by John Hall.

Thursday 16th November, 8 pm. Historical Association – Hampstead and NW London Branch. Fellowship House, 136A, Willifield Way, NW11 6YD (off Finchley Road, Temple Fortune). 1942 Britain at the Brink. Talk by Taylor Downing. Argues that Britain’s darkest hour was 1942 when British people faced the prospect of defeat, when a string of Military disasters engulfed Britain in rapid succession. Also shows how unpopular Churchill became, using mass observation archive new material. Hopefully also on zoom, please email Gulse Koca (Chair) on kocagulse@gmail.com or telephone 07453 283090 for details of zoom link and how to pay (There may be a voluntary charge of £5) Refreshments afterwards. Please note change of chair. These details also apply on the talk on 19th October, shown in the Hadas September Newsletter.

Friday 17th November, 7.30. pm Wembley History Society. St Andrew’s Church Hall (behind St. Andrew’s new church) Church Lane, Kingsbury NW9 Bombed Churches of the City of London. Talk by Signe Hoffos.

Saturday 18th November, 10.30 am – 6 pm. Lamas Local History Conference. Museum of London Docklands, West India Quay, off Hertsmere road, E4 4AL. The London Menagerie – Animals in London History. Tickets are £15 (£17.50 after 1st November or £20 on the day, subject to availability) For more info, including the full programme and to book, please visit www.lamas.org.uk/conferences/20.local-history.html.

Wednesday 22nd November, 7.45 pm. Friern Barnet and District Local History Society. North Middx Golf Club, The Manor House, Friern Barnet Lane, N20 0NL. London’s Parks and Gardens. Talk by Diane Burstein (Tour Guide) Please visit www.friernbarnethistory.org.uk and click on programme or phone 0208 368 8314 for up to date details (David Berguer, Chair) Non-member £2. Bar available.

Saturday 25th November, 10 am – 4 pm. Amateur Geological Society North London Mineral Gem and Fossil Show. Trinity Church, 15 Nether Street, N12 7NN (Nr North Finchley Arts Depot, Near the Tally Ho Pub) Large Hall with Jewellery, Gems. Fossils, Rocks, Minerals, Books, Maps and refreshments. Admission £2. For details visit www.amgeosoc.wordpress.com.

Thursday 30th November, 7.15 pm. Finchley Society. Drawing Room, Avenue (Stephen’s) House, 17 East End Road, London N3 3QE. Quiz Supper with Andy Savage as Question Master. For further details please visit www.finchleysociety.org.uk.

Iceman Otzi is not the rugged warrior we had believed Stewart Wild

OTZI the Iceman was probably bald with dark skin – not too dissimilar to his desiccated state, scientists have said. The natural mummy, which dates from 5,300 years ago, was found in the Ötztal Alps at the border with Austria and Italy in September 1991, and is Europe’s oldest mummified human.
The current reconstruction of Otzi in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano suggests that he had light eyes, a shaggy head of hair, a beard and the lightish skin of an Alpine climate. But genetic analysis suggests he had a predisposition for male pattern baldness, with dark eyes and dark skin.
“It was previously thought that the mummy’s skin had darkened during its preservation in the ice, but presumably what we see now is actually Otzi’s original skin colour,” said Albert Zink, the study co-author.

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Prof Johannes Krause, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany, added: “The
genome analysis revealed phenotypic traits such as high skin pigmentation, dark eye colour and male pattern baldness. It is remarkable how the reconstruction is biased by our own preconception of a Stone Age human.”

The new analysis, published in the journal Cell Genomics, also changes Otzi’s ancestry. Genetic profiling
in 2012 suggested that he had descended from a mix of native hunter-gatherers, migrating farmers from
Anatolia and Steppe herders. But the new results find no link to the Steppe herders, with scientists
discovering that modern DNA had accidentally become mixed up with the original samples.
(SOURCE: The Daily Telegraph, 17 August 2023, item edited by Stewart Wild).

Reconstruction of Ötzi mummy as shown in Prehistory Museum of Quinson, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence,
France (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Otzi-Quinson.jpg accessed 19th September 2023)

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HADAS Open Day Jim Nelhams

As advertised in previous newsletters, HADAS held an Open Day at Avenue House on Saturday 16th September.

Considerable thought and planning had gone into this event, spearheaded by Bill Bass and other members of the Sunday Morning group, with assistance from members of the Avenue House staff.

The Stephens Museum near the café was opened up for our use, and display boards, which attracted much interest, showed part of our history, including our digs. Also in the museum were some activities for children courtesy of Janet Mortimer, Sue Loveday and Sue Willetts. The tables were occupied for large parts of the day by interested children and their parents. Outside, children could also get their face painted for a small charge.

Visitors during the day included Martin Russell, His Majesty’s Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London and the Lord-Lieutenant’s Representative for Barnet, and Barnet Councillor Philip Cohen, the council nominee to the Council for British Archaeology. We signed up five new members including Councillor Cohen.

Out in the grounds, on the area of the old pond (now no longer), Don Cooper led a team demonstrating the use of our resistivity equipment.

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We were also joined by members of the Finchley Society and Barnet Medieval Festival, both groups having tables of displays.

Reaction from members of the public was very positive, with some expressing surprise that, apart from the face painting, there were no charges.

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The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest AD9: The massacre of a Roman army Robin Densem

Introduction
Following centuries as a republic, Rome and its dominions was ruled as an empire by the adopted son of Julius Caesar, Augustus, as its first emperor, from 27 BC to his death in AD 14. After a Roman defeat of the banks of the River Rhine in 16 BC when the Roman governor of Gaul, Marcus Lollius, was defeated by a German raiding party which captured a legionary standard, Augustus turned his attention to the evidently dangerous north. Not satisfied with the Rhine as a frontier, he decided to advance into Germany to move the frontier 800km north-eastwards from the Rhine to the River Elbe.

Ancient sources tell us about the Roman attempts to conquer Germany and about the three or four day long battle of the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9 when the Germans massacred a Roman army of three legions and nine auxiliary units, a force of perhaps 20,000 men, or more, led by Publius Quinctilius Varus (Varus). Augustus was so distraught after the loss of the three legions that the Roman writer Suetonius says Augustus often wailed, “Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!” Augustus had had a total of around 30 legions, each of about 5,000 men, accompanied by auxiliary units of 500 and others of 1,000 men which doubled the total size of his forces. The armies of auxiliaries and legionaries were to defend the Roman empire and to conduct offensive operations, so the loss of three legions and nine auxiliary units was a disaster considering the extent of the Roman empire and the length of its borders. After the battle, called by the Roman the Clades Variana, the Varian Disaster, the Augustus abandoned attempts to conquer Germany. Adrian Murdoch’s 2008 title for his book ‘Rome’s Greatest Defeat: Massacre in the Teutoburg Forest’ gives a flavour of a modern, perhaps overstated, view of the very serious extent of the Roman disaster. (It could be argued that Hannibal’s victory of the Romans in 216 BC at the battle of Cannae was a greater defeat for the Romans who lost more men then.)

Ancient Latin sources for the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest include the Roman History, written by Velleius Paterculus who lived c. 19 BC – c. AD 31; Strabo’s Geography that he wrote in c. AD 20; Tacitus’s Annals (c. AD 120); and Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars (c. AD 121). Dio Cassius was a later writer who wrote his Roman History in Greek in the years AD 211-233. None of the ancient sources are exactly contemporaneous with the battle, and all relied on earlier sources, including official records. Excitingly, archaeology has revealed the actual battle site and many artifacts, and offers a correlation, confirmation and amplification of the account from the well-known ancient written sources.

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The text below on the historical background and description of the battle is from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_campaigns_in_Germania_(12_BC_%E2%80%93_AD_16)#Campaigns_of_Tiberius,_Ahenobarbus_and_Vinicius accessed 7th January 2023.
Campaigns before the Clades Variana (the Varian Disaster): Campaigns of Drusus (the elder, 36 BC – 9 BC)
Nero Claudius Drusus (Drusus the Elder), an experienced general and stepson of Augustus, was made governor of Gaul in 13 BC. The following year saw an uprising in Gaul – a response to the Roman census and taxation policy set in place by Augustus. For most of the following year he conducted reconnaissance and dealt with supply and communications. He also had several forts built along the Rhine, including Argentoratum (Strasburg, France), Moguntiacum (Mainz, Germany), and Castra Vetera (Xanten, Germany).
Drusus first saw action following an incursion by the Sicambri and the Usipetes from Germany into Gaul, which he repelled before launching a retaliatory attack across the Rhine. This marked the beginning of Rome’s 28 years of campaigns across the lower Rhine.

He crossed the Rhine with his army and invaded the land of the Usipetes. He then marched north against the Sicambri and pillaged their lands. Travelling down the Rhine and landing in what is now the Netherlands, he conquered the Frisians, who thereafter served in his army as allies. Then, he attacked the Chauci, who lived in northwestern Germany in what is now Lower Saxony. Around winter, he recrossed the Rhine, and returned to Rome.

The following spring, Drusus (the Elder) began his second campaign across the Rhine. He first subdued the Usipetes, and then marched east to the Visurgis (Weser River). Then, he passed through the territory of the Cherusci, whose territory stretched from the Ems to the Elbe, and pushed as far east as the Weser. This was the furthest east into northern Europe that a Roman general had ever travelled, a feat which won him much renown. Between depleted supplies and the coming winter, he decided to march back to friendly territory. On the return trip, Drusus’ legions were nearly destroyed at Arbalo by Cherusci warriors taking advantage of the terrain to harass them.

Drusus was made consul for the following year, and it was voted that the doors to the Temple of Janus be closed, a sign the empire was at peace. However, peace didn’t last, for in the spring of 10 BC, he once again campaigned across the Rhine and spent the majority of the year attacking the Chatti. In his third campaign, he conquered the Chatti and other German tribes, and then returned to Rome, as he had done before at the end of the campaign season.

In 9 BC, he began his fourth campaign, this time as consul. Despite bad omens, Drusus again attacked the Chatti and advanced as far as the territory of the Suebi, in the words of Cassius Dio, “conquering with difficulty the territory traversed and defeating the forces that attacked him only after considerable bloodshed.” Afterwards, he once again attacked the Cherusci, and followed the retreating Cherusci

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across the Weser River, and advanced as far as the Elbe, “pillaging everything in his way”, as Cassius Dio puts it. Ovid states that Drusus extended Rome’s dominion to new lands that had only been discovered recently. On his way back to the Rhine, Drusus fell from his horse and was badly wounded. His injury became seriously infected, and after thirty days, Drusus died from the disease, most likely gangrene.
When Augustus learned Drusus was sick, he sent Tiberius to quickly go to him. Ovid states Tiberius was at the city of Pavia at the time, and when he had learned of his brother’s condition, he rode to be at his dying brother’s side. He arrived in time, but it wasn’t long before Drusus drew his last breath.

Campaigns before the Clades Variana (the Varian Disaster): Campaigns of Tiberius, Ahenobarbus and Vinicius

After Drusus’ death, Tiberius was given command of the Rhine’s forces and waged two campaigns within Germania over the course of 8 and 7 BC. He marched his army between the Rhine and the Elbe, and met little resistance except from the Sicambri. Tiberius came close to exterminating the Sicambri, and had those who survived transported to the Roman side of the Rhine, where they could be watched more closely. Velleius Paterculus portrays Germany as essentially conquered, and Cassiodorus writing in the 6th century AD asserts that all Germans living between the Elbe and the Rhine had submitted to Roman power. However, the military situation in Germany was very different from what was suggested by imperial propaganda.

Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus was appointed as the commander in Germany by Augustus in 6 BC, and three years later, in 3 BC, he reached and crossed the Elbe with his army. Under his command causeways were constructed across the bogs somewhere in the region between the Ems and the Rhine, called pontes longi. The next year, conflicts between the Rome and the Cherusci flared up. While the elite members of one faction sought stronger ties with Roman leaders, the Cherusci as a whole would continue to resist for the next twenty years. Although Ahenobarbus had marched to the Elbe and directed the construction of infrastructure in the region east of the Rhine, he did not do well against the Cherusci warrior bands, who he tried to handle like Tiberius had the Sicambri. Augustus recalled Ahenobarbus to Rome in 2 BC and replaced him with a more seasoned military commander, Marcus Vinicius.

Between 2 BC and AD 4, Vinicius commanded the five legions stationed in Germany. At around the time of his appointment, many of the Germanic tribes arose in what the historian Velleius Paterculus calls the “vast war”. However, no account of this war exists. Vinicius must have performed well, for he was awarded the ornamenta triumphalia on his return to Rome.

Again in AD 4, Augustus sent Tiberius to the Rhine frontier as the commander in Germany. He campaigned in northern Germany for the next two years. During the first year, he conquered the Canninefati, the Attuarii, the Bructeri, and subdued the Cherusci. Soon thereafter, he declared the Cherusci “friends of the Roman people.” In AD 5, he campaigned against the Chauci, and then coordinated an attack into the heart of Germany both overland and by river. The Roman fleet and legions met on the Elbe, whereupon Tiberius departed from the Elbe to march back westward at the end of the summer without stationing occupying forces at this eastern position. This accomplished a demonstration to his troops, to Rome, and to the German peoples that his army could move largely unopposed through Germany, but like Drusus, he did nothing to hold territory. Tiberius’ forces were attacked by German troops on the way west back to the Rhine, but successfully defended themselves.

The elite of the Cherusci tribe came to be special friends of Rome after Tiberius’s campaigns of AD 5. In the preceding years, a power struggle had resulted in the alliance of one party with Rome. In this tribe was a ruling lineage that played a critical role in forging this friendship between the Cherusci and Rome. Belonging to this elite clan, was the young Arminius, who was around twenty-two at the time. Membership in this clan gave him special favour with Rome. Tiberius lent support to this ruling clan to gain control over the Cherusci, and he granted the tribe a free status among the German peoples. To keep an eye on the Cherusci, Tiberius had a winter base built on the River Lippe.

It was Roman opinion that by AD 6 the German tribes had largely been pacified, if not conquered. Only the Marcomanni, under king Maroboduus, remained to be subdued. Rome planned a massive pincer attack

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against them involving 12 legions from Germania, Illyricum, and Rhaetia, but when word of an uprising in Illyricum arrived the attack was called off and concluded peace with Maroboduus, recognizing him as king.

Part of the Roman strategy was to resettle troublesome tribal peoples, to move them to locations where Rome could keep better tabs on them and away from their regular allies. Tiberius resettled the Sicambri, who had caused particular problems for Drusus, in a new site west of the Rhine, where they could be watched more closely.

Campaign of Varus: Prelude
Although it was assumed that the proto-province of Germania Magna, east of the Rhine, had been pacified, and Rome had begun integrating the region into the empire, there was a risk of rebellion during the military subjugation of a province. Following Tiberius’s departure to Illyricum, Augustus appointed Publius Quinctilius Varus to the German command, as he was an experienced officer, but he was not the great military leader a serious threat would warrant. Varus imposed civic changes on the Germans, including a tax – what Augustus expected any governor of a subdued province to do. However, the Germanic tribes began rallying around a new leader, Arminius of the Cherusci. Arminius, who Rome considered an ally, and who had fought in the Roman army before. He accompanied Varus who was in Germania with the three Roman legions XVII, XVIII, and XIX to finish the conquest of Germania.

Not much is known of the campaign of AD 9 until the return trip to the Rhine, when Varus left with his legions from their camp on the Weser in Germany. On their way back to Castra Vetera, Xanten, on the Rhine Varus received reports from Arminius that there was a small uprising west of Varus’s Roman camp in Germany. The Romans were on the way back to the Rhine anyway, and the small revolt would only be a small detour – about two days away. Varus departed to deal with the revolt believing that Arminius would ride ahead to garner the support of his tribesmen for the Roman cause. In reality, Arminius was actually preparing an ambush. Varus took no extra precautions on the march to quell the uprising, as he was expecting no trouble.

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Victory of Arminius
Arminius’ revolt came during the Pannonian revolt, at a time when the majority of Rome’s legions were tied down in Illyricum. Varus only had three legions, which were isolated in the heart of Germany. Scouts were sent ahead of Roman forces as the column approached Kalkriese. Scouts were local Germans as they would have had knowledge of the terrain, and so would had to have been a part of Arminius’ ploy. Indeed, they reported that the path ahead was safe. Historians Wells and Abdale say that the scouts likely alerted the Germans to the advancing column, giving them time to get into position.

The Roman column followed the road going north until it began to wrap around a hill. The hill was to the west of the road and was wooded. There was boggy terrain all around the hill, woodland to the east, and a swamp to the north (out of sight of the Roman column until they reached the bend taking the road southwest around the hill’s northeastern point). Roman forces continued along the sloshy sandbank at the base of the hill until the front of the column was attacked. They heard loud shouting and spears began falling on them from the woody slope to their left. Spears then began falling from the woods to their right and the front fell into disorder from panic. The surrounded soldiers were unable to defend themselves because they were marching in close formation and the terrain was too muddy for them to move effectively.

Within ten minutes, word reached the middle of the column where Varus was. Communication was hampered by the column being packed densely in the narrow road. Not knowing the full extent of the attack, Varus ordered his forces to advance forward to reinforce his forces at the front. This pushed the soldiers at the front further into the enemy, and thousands of German warriors began to pour out of the woods to attack up close. The soldiers at the middle and rear of the column began to flee in all directions, but most of them were caught in the bog or killed. Varus realized the severity of his situation and killed himself with his sword. A few Romans survived and made their way back to the winter quarters at Xanten by staying hidden and carefully travelling through the forests. Roman officers were gorily tortured and killed, and some captured Roman soldiers were kept alive as slaves of the Germans.

It is a rare achievement to locate the actual site of an early battle, and credit is to be given to Tony Clunn for his great achievement. The locations of the Roman victory under Suetonius Paulinus over Boudica in AD 60/61 in Britain, and the Roman victory under Agricola over the Caledonians, in Scotland, in AD 84, for instance, have yet to be found, archaeologically.

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Discovery of the Battlefield (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Clunn accessed 9.02,2023)
John Anthony Spencer Clunn MBE (10 May 1946 – 3 August 2014) was a major in the British Army, and an amateur archaeologist who discovered the main site of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest at Kalkriese Hill. Clunn searched for Roman coins with a metal detector as a hobby. In 1987, when he was attached to the Royal Tank Regiment in Osnabrück, he asked Wolfgang Schlüter, at the time the archaeologist for the District of Osnabrück, where he should look. He was advised to search 20 km north of the city, where Roman coins had previously been found, though none for 18 years.

Schlüter’s recommendation was based upon a study of maps and the 19th-century historian Theodor Mommsen’s proposal that the Kalkriese area was a likely location of the battle which took place in AD 9. On his first two days, in July 1987 Clunn found 105 Roman coins from the reign of Augustus (27BC – AD 14)2, mostly in excellent condition. No coins found at the site post-date AD 9. In 1988 he also discovered Roman sling shots at three locations in the vicinity of Kalkriese, the first indisputable evidence of Roman military activity there. Previously there had been many conflicting theories about the location of the battle, and scholars had searched for it without success for 600 years.

Archaeological Evidence

On the basis of Clunn’s findings, Schlüter began a comprehensive excavation of the site in 1989, later led by Susanne Wilbers-Rost. The finds are now displayed at the Varusschlacht (Varus Battle) Museum and Park Kalkriese, opened in 2002. Clunn went on to investigate the entire area around Kalkriese. The coins he discovered have made it possible to reconstruct the route taken by the Roman legionaries under Varus and to determine where they were ambushed and massacred. In Clunn’s opinion, the march route corresponds exactly to the environment described by Dio Cassius.

The archaeologists have found remains of Roman swords and daggers, parts of javelins and spears, arrowheads, slingstones, fragments of helmets, nails of soldiers’ sandals, belts, hooks of chain mail and fragments of armour plate. Other finds were less military in character, but may have belonged to soldiers nevertheless: locks, keys, razors, a scale, weights, chisels, hammers, pickaxes, buckets, finger rings. A doctor may have owned surgical instruments; seal boxes and a stylus may have been among the

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possessions of a scribe; and a cook must have carried cauldrons, casseroles, spoons, and amphoras. Finally, jewellery, hairpins, and a disk brooch suggest the presence of women. Overall, archaeological investigations at Kalkriese have unearthed more than 7,000 artifacts, and various archaeological excavations have been ongoing there since the site was discovered by Tony Clunn in 1987-88.

Excavations show the Germans had constructed a rampart or embankment at their ambush site from which to fight the Romans. The rampart presenting as a zigzag-ging structure c. 400 m long from east to west, between two creeks. It is no longer visible above ground level due to layers of soil. Excavation work showed that the wall was erected using sod, sand, and in parts limestone. Initially, the wall measured circa 3 m in width and almost 2m in height. Today, the remaining structure is 0.3 m in height due to the levelling of the rampart and erosion, and a slight 15m wide rising can be detected. At least parts of the wall were bolstered by a wooden parapet. (Rost, Achim and Wilbers-Rost, Susanne, 2019,‘Archaeology of Kalkriese’ in Smith, C (ed) Encyclopaedia of Global Archaeology https://www.academia.edu/67689095/Archaeology_of_Kalkriese?auto=download&email_work_card=download-paper accessed 3rd January 2023).

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Some sources
• Livius.org ‘Teutoburg Forest (9 CE)’ https://www.livius.org/articles/battle/teutoburg-forest-9-ce/kalkriese/ accessed 9th February 2023
• Rost, Achim and Wilbers-Rost, Susanne 2011 ‘Weapons at the Battlefield of Kalkriese’, Gladius 30:117-136 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270078400_Weapons_at_the_battlefield_of_Kalkriese accessed 4th January 2023
• Rost, Achim and Wilbers-Rost, Susanne, 2019,‘Archaeology of Kalkriese’ in Smith, C (ed) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology https://www.academia.edu/67689095/Archaeology_of_Kalkriese?auto=download&email_work_card=download-paper accessed 3rd January 2023
• Tacitus Annals, Book 1, chapters 55-71 https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/Annals/1D*.html accessed 7th January 2022
• Wikipedia ‘Battle of the Teutoburg Forest’ Battle of the Teutoburg Forest – Wikipedia accessed 9th February 2023
• Wikipedia ‘Roman campaigns in Germania (12 BC – AD 16)’https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_campaigns_in_Germania_(12_BC_%E2%80%93_AD_16)#Campaigns_of_Tiberius,_Ahenobarbus_and_Vinicius accessed 7th January 2023.
• Wilbers-Rost, Susanne, 2009 ‘Research on the Varus Battle in and around Kalkriese’, Archaeologie Online https://www.archaeologie-online.de/artikel/2009/thema-varusschlacht/forschungen-zur-varusschlacht-in-und-um-kalkriese/ accessed 4th January 2023
• Wilbers-Rost, Susanne; Großkopf,Birgit and Rot, Achim, 2012 The Ancient Battlefield at Kalkriese https://www.jstor.org/stable/26240377#metadata_info_tab_contents accessed 4th January 2023

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With thanks to the contributors: Sue Loveday, Eric Morgan, Jim Nelhams & Stewart Wild
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Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Don Cooper 59, Potters Road, Barnet EN5 5HS (020 8440 4350),
email: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer 34 Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121), email: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman, 50 Summerlee Ave, London N2 9QP (07855 304488),
email: treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec. Vacancy

Website: www.hadas.org.uk

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