Newsletter 194: April 1987 Edited by Jean Snelling

PROGRAMME

Wednesday April 1st “The Nanking Cargo and The China Trade” by David Lewis, secretary of the City of London Archaeological Society. Mr. Lewis will give us an assessment of the cargo of this mid-18th century sunken ship salvaged in April 1986. We hope as many members as possible will come to this last lecture of the winter season.

Saturday April 4th Afternoon walk in North Clerkenwell and tour of Sadlers Wells, with Mary O’Connell

There is still room for a few late-comers on this walk. If you would like to join in please ring: Dorothy Newbury 203 0950. Price including tea, guides and entrance fees £3.75.

Saturday April 25th Brockley Hill Seminar 2.00-5.00pm at St Mary-at-Finchley Parish Hall (Small Hall)

32A Hendon Lane, Finchley N3. This is a venue we have not used before. It is 10 minutes from Finchley Central Underground (Station Road exit), and on the 13, 26 and 260 bus routes from Golders Green and the 143 from Hendon. See enclosed notice.

Wednesday May 13th Annual General Meeting. 8.00pm for 8.30 at Hendon Library, The Burroughs, NW4

Saturday May 16th Outing to Burnham Abbey, Hartley Court Moat, Taplow Saxon Burial Mound/Dorney Court and Church, with Ted Sammes. Application form will be in May newsletter.

Saturday June 20th Outing to Dover Roman Painted house

September weekend Application form enclosed

REMINDERS

April is the month for renewal of subscriptions so with this News­letter I am enclosing a copy of the letter our Chairman Mr. Andrew Selkirk has addressed to all members. I look forward to receiving your subscriptions in due course. Thank you in advance.

Phyllis Fletcher – Membership Secretary.

The Stapylton Road (Barnet) exploratory excavation is ON. Any more diggers? Please contact Brian Wrigley without delay 959 5982.

THE EARLY SAXON PERIOD IN THE LONDON REGION by John Mills

This lecture gained from John Mills’ experience as West London Field Officer (Museum of London) at Brentford, as he conveyed his own sense of searching for the early Saxon settlers and spelt out the careful, limited evidence. The early period is essentially the 5th and 6th centuries, when rising sea levels and pressure from warlike communities in Europe were pushing coastal peoples from north France to Denmark to seek new homelands – in, for instance, England. With Angles, Jutes, Frisians, Burgundians and Franks on the move, it was mainly Saxons who settled in southeast England from East Anglia to Sussex.

There is no archaeological evidence of their actual arrival or of their encounters or relationships with local Britons or with remnants of Roman occupation. London is especially baffling, with no late Roman or early Saxon levels; only depths of dark earth. However, it appears that in the 4th and 5th Centuries there were Germanic military immigrants employed to protect Romano-British communities, as is evidenced by typical metal accoutrements from Dorchester-on-Thames, Croydon and Sarre, Kent.

The kind of evidence expected for Saxon settlement is signs of buildings, rubbish pits, tracks, ditches and remains of cemeteries. Dating is more likely to rest on pottery than on metal objects.

The principal house type should be the full Beowulf hall with wooden walls and thatched gabled roof; as yet it is conspicuous by its absence in Greater London. The secondary type with sunken floor does appear, usually as a weaving or pottery workshop but occasionally for residence. Also of wood and thatched, its ground surface is often eroded now but loom weights, potsherds and postholes may remain. The earliest known, of early to middle 5th Century, is at St Mary Cray, Kent. Inner London, West Drayton, Harmondsworth, Heathrow and Brentford have single huts. Harmondsworth has Saxon hedged enclosures amid prehistoric pits, a Bronze Age trackway and Roman ditches. Keston .(Bromley) has a sunken hut on the Roman villa estate. Stanwell, Surrey, has Saxon enclosure ditches and trackways over a Neolithic cursus. These seem to indicate a Saxon interest, in using historic sites. Grass-tempered pottery was found at Sipson, Yewsley, West Drayton, Harlington, Yeoveney Lodge, (all Middlesex) and at Ham and Kingston-on-Thames. Harmondsworth produced an iron door key or latch-lifter and a polished pin of bone or horn probably for a weaver.

The 19thC was great for opening graves and barrows. Cremation urns and skeletons with warrior equipment were found in cemeteries of late 5th and 6th Centuries at Shepperton and Hanwell. A necklace of 31 coloured glass beads found at Longford (Middlesex) in 1780 possibly came from a grave. Early cemeteries found at Mitcham and Croydon had, cremations and warrior graves with weapons and brooches, Mitcham matching the saucer brooch found above fallen roof tiles in London’s Billingsgate Roman bath house. Grave goods shrank to single personal mementoes as Christianity spread but there was a final conspicuously pagan fling in warriors’ barrow burials. At Farthing Down, Coulsdon, there was a splendid wooden and gilt drinking cup, and at Banstead the bones of a strong, horse-riding man lay cloaked, with his spear and his bronze hanging-bowl full of crab apples. A recent discovery is a barrow cemetery at the Hoover Goblin Works at Leatherhead.

Most of these early Saxon sites are on gravel where commercial stripping of large areas has made opportunities for archaeologists. Some Saxons moved later in the period to the dry North Downs, perhaps as pressure of population increased on the fertile lower grounds. But where are the settlements on the northern clays? There are no known early sites in north London, even Hendon and Hampstead West Heath appearing as middle or later. Perhaps the first Saxons stuck to the gravels, or to the Romano-British settlements (and they too are missing). Perhaps some later sites were also early, and some may be on medieval or modern peripheries as populations have moved. John Mills urged us on to field walking and site watching, especially in non-descript little places on the clay, where we might still discover early Saxons; and – who knows – we might even track down some Romano-Britons in LB Barnet. JMS

Following our Saxon lectures members will have been interested to learn, via the BBC or the press, of the three deep Saxon pits found very recently beneath the National Gallery. They were excavated by the Department of Greater London Archaeology (Museum of London, who found Saxon and German pottery, animal bones and weaving equipment. So far this is the furthest point west to be discovered of the Saxon settlement along the Strand, which raises hopes of more evidence awaiting excavation when the new extension site becomes free.

AFTER ONE MAN’S ARCHAEOLOGY by Ted Sammes

Now that it has all been packed away it is rewarding to look back on the 25th year exhibition.

We caused a lot of interest, mostly local, but got a very good write-up in the CBA British Archaeological News Vol 1 No 9 Jan 1987.

We gained some new members, thanks to the persuasive powers of those thirty people who manned the bookstall on Saturdays and Sundays. Mr. D.A. Ruddom, Borough Librarian, in a letter of thanks reported that the exhibition attracted 1559 visitors during the 51 day run an average of 31 daily.

A caricature of myself on the cover of the exhibition brochure was drawn (so I learn from Val Bott, formerly of Grange Museum, Neasden) by Ralf Sallon. He came to this country as a Jewish refugee before the last war and worked as cartoonist for London evening papers. Finally I must thank the many helpers; especially Gerrard Rootes at the Museum, Dorothy and Jack Newbury for the printing of Pinning Down the Past, and Mike Shearing of Barnet Library Services for designing the exhibition poster and brochure.

A DOMESTIC DIG Alison Balfour-Lynn

In August 1986 I moved into 50 The Burroughs, Hendon NW4. This is one of a small range of cottages on the south side of The Burroughs, near the junction with the Watford Way. It is the last house in the range to be repaired and restored and was suffering from a considerable state of neglect. Initially appearing to date from the latter quarter of the seventeenth century, their construction is somewhat unusual. The cottages have brick front and back walls and brick chimneys but all the internal partitions and structure are timber, including the partitions between the individual houses. In the attic the eaves space runs across several of the cottages with no partition at all.

My house consists of a ground floor with two rooms, with a kitchen and loo housed in a Victorian extension at the back. The first floor has also two rooms with an attic above. While removing a hardboard ceiling in the back bedroom on the first floor, preparatory to its conversion into a bathroom, we found under the roof-tiles in the eaves a layer of straw thatching used as an insulation layer, exactly similar to that in the roof of Church Farm, Hendon. Another interesting discovery was that at one time the cottages were probably of completely timber-frame construction. On the underside of the timber roof plate, front and back, where the rafters meet the walls are mortice slots to secure the upright timbers. Some of the timbers still remain buried in the brickwork of the walls. A piece of further evidence is that while removing rotten floorboards in the front bedroom on the first floor some signs were found that there had been a jetty at this level, a feature common to all timber-framed buildings. Although most of the joists had been replaced in Victorian times, one still remained in its original length with a slot on the underside, where the timber upright from the ground floor would have been slotted into it.

Before taking up yet more rotten floorboards in the dining room on the ground floor at the back, we made the unpleasant discovery that at some point in the past the joists had rotted and, instead of replacing them, some bright spark had packed the spaces between with earth and rubble, thus creating the twin problems of rising damp and beetle infestation. The floor boards had then been put back over the whole mess. While digging the earth out we came across a considerable amount of domestic debris in the shape of a large amount of C18th and C19th wine bottle glass, cow and sheep bones showing evidence of butchery and some dog bones. Also domestic pottery and C18th clay pipes with makers’ marks. In the foundations also were found several massive but unfortunately much rotted timber base plates with mortice slots in them providing further evidence for the original timber frame. It is certain that this room was the original kitchen and that this debris represents its use as such. It was unfortunate that we could not dig deeper into the earth under the floor, but this was impossible without disturbing the already tenuous foundations. A trench dug for new drainage in the garden has so far produced nothing except building rubble.

Any member of HADAS is welcome to come and inspect the building and finds; please ring Alison Balfour-Lynn at 202-8722 after 7.00pm.

LOCAL MYSTERY

Who is this Percy Reboul who supplies the magnificent photographs of old Barnet to our local papers? Our P.B.? In that case he must possess the secret of eternal youth, as the captions often reveal that he was around before the main flood of brick and concrete engulfed our pleasant, pastoral area. Can’t be!

Of course, it’s our Percy’s father, now aged 78 and launched into a new enterprise – lecturing. He’s greatly in demand as a result of interest in the photographs (many of them our Percy’s). Though he’s not a member of HADAS he certainly works hard on our behalf. He declines a fee but asks if he can sell copies of Those Were the Days. Copies of this, our most popular production to date, are flowing out of stock and each sale brings a very welcome addition to our funds.

We are extremely grateful to you, Mr Reboul; and of course to Percy for producing such a lively informative little book.

ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF LONDON ARCHAEOLOGISTS MARCH 14th 1937 LONDON & MIDDLESEX ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY (LAMAS)

Brisk lectures and handsome slides made a busy, interesting day. Morning presentations concentrated on recent excavations. Brian Philp spoke of the remarkable Roman site of Keston (Bromley), excavated over 20 years by local volunteers and Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit. Lying on iron age farm land and just below the Holwood hill fort (Caesar’s Camp) is a complex of two Roman villas , a large timber frame building with corn-drying ovens, a cemetery with foundations of a mausoleum, numerous auxiliary buildings and ditches and three shafts cut into the chalk. A recent find is another deep shaft containing stratified chalk wash and eight levels of articulated animal skeletons – oxen, pigs, sheep, dogs, and at the bottom three very large horses. This shaft is dated to late 1st Century-early 2nd Century by pottery; other features being largely 2nd C-early 3rd C There is also a Saxon hut floor and a medieval kiln.

A Saxon cemetery at Tadworth was described by Steve Nelson (Nonsuch Antiquarian Society) On Banstead Downs amid Saxon barrows and medieval chapels and fields lies Preston Down with 43 graves in the chalk. They lie in 8 rough rows, all but one having east-west orientation and 35 containing bones; also 14 iron knives and one Frankish pot of 6th C. A quartz pebble mounted in bronze strapwork seems to resemble the little rock-crystal balls worn attached to the girdles of Saxon ladies; 50 of these southeast England specials are known, of late 5th and 6th Centuries.

The London basilica excavations, Leadenhall Street (Department of Urban Archaeology) led to Simon O’Connor-Thompson’s demonstration of the difficulties of discovering; the inner alignment of the forum buildings and the puzzlement of a large structure lying to the north where there ought to be a road; a stumbling-block requiring the re-study of the north-eastern section of the city. For the Department of Greater London Archaeology Kevin Wooldridge showed medieval walls of the St John of Jerusalem priory found inside and under 49-52 St John’s Square; developers will conserve these walls. He showed walls of St Clare’s Franciscan nunnery (1293) below Haydon Street EC3, with Roman graves beneath. Finds include part of a medieval crucifix of painted pipestone, and Roman glass and pottery, bracelets and a jet Medusa medallion.

Eric Norton (also DGLA) reported on a small royal palace of Edward 111 found below Platform Wharf, Rotherhithe with a hall, two courtyards, ancillary buildings and a surrounding moat, all built in 1350s for £1200. The site was converted to a pottery factory in 17th C. The foundations of the medieval hall survive amid kilns and clay-processing pits and the moat contains a huge cargo of London Delft ware, painted but unglazed; dumped presumably in 1662 when the factory closed.

The afternoon was given to the archaeological study and recording of standing buildings. Scott McCracken (DGLA) spoke on St Mary’s Church, Barnes, a fire-damaged building of stone and Tudor brick with a complex fabric including remnants of five layers of medieval wall painting. Colin Bowlt (Ruislip, Northwood and Eastcote Local History Society) drew on timber-framed buildings in Uxbridge and Ruislip. Richard Lee (DUA) spoke mainly of inner London buildings including Winchester Palace, Southwark but also of the Broomfield Museum, Enfield – fire-damaged again. Richard Harris (Weald and Downland Museum, Singleton, Sussex) had the special experience of taking buildings apart and discovering how to put them together again, else­where and in their earlier form. Common themes emerged, with emphatic messages. How many historic buildings have vanished with no record left of their construction and alterations? (Colin Bowlt – “alterations are history”.) The importance of examining a building and its surroundings in meticulous detail, for it will have more history than it will reveal. The importance of scrutinising all parts for signs of reuse (e.g. builders habitually move timbers about) and for signs of lost earlier buildings which may have dictated the original plan. The need for various ways of recording according to purpose; e.g. a detailed archaeological study is different from a rebuilder’s working plan, and neither is suitable in itself for public supporters or the local Planning Committee. The need to involve the general public and public authorities whose understanding; and financial backing is crucial, was stressed by everyone who spoke.

On this day we recalled that LAMAS needs more individual members. It runs lectures, visits and day tours, a library and a youth section; publishes proceedings (which we hope will include our West Heath report), and speaks for archaeology and local history to public bodies. HADAS is affiliated. For information on individual membership

(ordinary subscription £7.50 pa) please contact the Hon.Secretary Miss Jean Macdonald, 3 Cedar Drive, Pinner, Middx HA5 HDD.01-428-1328. JMS

A LOSS TO HADAS

With great regret we hear that ANN TREWICK, a member of 16 years standing who has worked on many a HADAS project, is leaving the area. It was Ann who directed the St James the Great dig in Friern Barnet in the early 1970s and who masterminded the churchyard survey there too – and she has always been one of HADAS’s cleverest and most willing putters-up of displays.

Ann lives in Western Way, Barnet, and is now both changing jobs and moving house. Her new job will be in a comprehensive school in Ipswich, teaching special-need children, and she looks forward to that immensely. She has long had a holiday flat in Felixstowe, and that’s where she and her mother are now house-hunting.

Another advantage is that she will be on the doorstep of Sutton Hoo, where she has already dug several times. She says that digging is going on there all week throughout this winter, because Mound 2 is still open and has to be finished. It is known that there was originally a boat in Mound 2, because ship’s bolts have been coming up -.but no one yet knows What its condition is nor whether it was robbed in antiquity. What Sutton Hoo is going to gain from Ann’s work she’s among the quickest and most careful trowellers we know HADAS alas, will lose her but she’s determined to keep on her HADAS membership “because I must have all the news of everyone”. We wish her the best of luck in her new job and at Sutton Hoo.

AIRCRAFT NEWS Bill Firth

Grahame-White Hangar

Despite what you may have read in the Daily Telegraph about the hangar being saved, the only firm news is that the enquiry has been postponed – no other decisions have been made. For the present therefore it will not be demolished. However, it remains in a bad state of repair and representations are being made that at least remedial repairs such as the clearing of gutters and drains should be done to prevent further deterioration. Otherwise the hangar may fall down anyway and the MoD will have achieved their object,

Aircraft Factories – Origins, Development and Archaeology

A.D.George. A Manchester Polytechnic Occasional Paper soft covers 22 pages 4 pages notes and references- Price, 75p.

David George has been researching early aircraft factories for a number of years and his latest publication. Summarises the results of a two-year part-time research project any of the firms in the aircraft industry have their own books devoted to them; in a short OP there can only be a brief history of each site. Of particular interest to enthusiasts are the descriptions of what still remains and the notes and references. For such enthusiasts this is a “must” and can be Obtained from A D George, Manchester Polytechnic, John Dalton Building, -Chester Street, Manchester M1 5GD.

TED SAMMES MISCELLANY

The Guildhall Library On March 4th two HADAS members joined the LAMAS visit to the library of the City of London. Both Sheila Woodward and I were impressed by the whole layout and by the manner in which the archives were stored and presented. It was stated that the library held 29000 prints, 22000 maps, photographs, a playing card collection, book plates and watch makers’ trade material. It was emphasised that the library is not concerned only with the City but covers also the environs of London. We were allowed to look at a wide selection of archives which had been laid out. A particular surprise was the large boxed pile of drawings by Sir Christopher Wren for St Paul’s Cathedral.

Thracian Treasures from Bulgaria

This is an exhibition currently running at the British Museum but closing on March 29th. I spent a pleasant hour browsing among 165 pieces of silver or silver gilt dating from the late 5th century and the 340s BC. The treasure was found in 1986 in a garden at Rogozen in north western Bulgaria between the Danube and the Balkan Mountains. It is likely that these
jugs, “bawls” and, beakers belonged to a ruling Thracian family and were hidden in two pits at a time of invasion. It is suggested they were not the work of travelling craftsmen but of royal workshops established in villages. This smaller exhibition complements one of Thracian Treasures from the whole of Bulgaria, including many pieces in gold, which was shown at the British Museum in 1976.

A new museum for Silchester? The March number of the CBA British Archaeological News carried a short note on a proposal now under consideration by Hampshire County Council. The Council now owns the site and clearly the present small museum is inadequate. One can only hope that the scheme will come to fruition and a new museum perhaps be sited at the end of the town near the present church and amphitheatre. It is estimated that the project will cost at least a quarter of a million. Sounds promising! What then will be the position of the other finds in Reading Museum?

NEWS FROM THE BOROUGH ARCHIVISTS

During the last quarter a further Alan odfrey reprint of the 1890s

25″ Ordnance Survey for our area has appeared; Friern Barnet and New Southgate 1898 (Middlesex 7.13).

We also seem to have received a particularly wide range of accessions Voters lists for Barnet, East Barnet and Finchley, mostly from the 1940s and 50s, have been transferred from the Electoral Registration Department and although our holdings are still far from complete at least the contrast with Hendon (which is much better covered) is now less stark. The papers of George Dickinson Byfield of Tavistock House, Barnet, give a fascinating glimpse of the life of one of the pillars of the local establishment and also of the charitable pursuits of his daughter, at the turn of the century. Deeds add to our knowledge of Friern Barnet, New Southgate, Finchley, Woodside Park and Hampstead Garden ;Suburb while photos include some taken by Finchley Council in the 1930s including several of Hampstead Garden Suburb. Inter Library transfers continue to be fruitful. The British Library gave copies of photos of the devastation to the newspaper library at. Colindale in the wake of the 1940 bomb, while Dorset County Library gave a charming poster of Joseph Wells fireworks ‘as at Hendon Aerodrome’. To illustrate the continuing nature of that process, North Finchley Library contributed photos taken during its recent jubilee celebrations.

SITE WATCHING

The following sites, the subject of recent Planning Applications, could be of possible archaeological interest. Members are asked to keep an .eye on them and report anything unusual to John Enderby on 01-203-2630

Northern Division

“Dingle Ridge”, Barnet Road, Arkley

Arkley Hall, Barnet Rd.,Arkley

High Barnet Station. Great North Road.,Barnet

The Paddocks, Frith Lane, NW7

Central Division

Manor house, 80 East End Rd., N2.

313 Regents Park Rd., N3

Western Division

Brockley Cottage Pipers Green Lane Edgware

52 Brockley Avenue, Edgware

Following the listing of Little Pipers, Monken Hadley, (for “rear extension’) in our March Newsletter, Alan Simpson points out that this house was built on the site of Hadley Priory.

EDITOR’S MISCELLANY

The Curtis Collection, HADAS members will recall the enthusiasm of the late Hugh Curtis for the Hampstead and Highgate area, where he worked on many local committees. He died in July 1986.As a memorial, part of his remarkable collection of Hampstead memorabilia (pictures, postcards, ceramics, ephemera) will be shown at Burgh House. New End Square, NW3 (01-431-0144) from 7th March to 25th May. Included in the exhibition will be the Curtis Collection of Crested China which Helene Curtis, the collector’s widow, has presented to the Museum in her husband’s memory

Listed Buildings in Barnet -The Borough now has 369 listed buildings and monuments including College Farm. Copies of the Statutory List of Buildings of Architectural or Historic Interest can be obtained from the Planning Group, Barnet House, 1255 High Road, Whetstone N20 0EJ, price £3.50.

A small exhibition about the listed buildings has been touring Barnet’s libraries. There is still time to catch it East Finchley, 226 High Road, March 31-April 7: South Friern Barnet, Colney Hatch Lane, April 7-14 Friern Barnet, Friern Barnet Road, April 14-20: Osidge, Brunswick Park Road, April 28-May6: and East Barnet 85 Brookhill Road, May 6-15.

Barnet Museum, Wood Street, .Chipping Barnet, (01-449-0321) now opens on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, 2.30,- 4.30pm, and Saturdays 10.0-12 noon. Course Field Archaeology and the Landscape May 29-June 4. Tony Brown and Christopher Taylor. Methods of field survey, practical work in recording earthwork sites. £165, residential. University of Cambridge Board of Extra-Mural Studies, Madingley Hall, Madingley, Cambridge CB3 8AQ Tel. Madingley (0954) 210636.

Course, Archaeological Field Survey, July 13-19 at Wansfell College, Theydon Bois, Epping, Essex.

R.A.H.Farrar and C.J.Dunn. £127.45 residential, £121.45 non-residential (evening sessions required).

Arranged by University of London Department of extra-Mural Studies.

Apply directly to Wansfell College.

Course, the Landscape Archaeology of East Anglia August 17-21

Dr Peter Warner. £110 residential. At Madingley Hall (see above).

Tour, Jordan and Israel October 23-November 4, £670. Information and

booking form from Mr and MRS R.E.Butler,205 Barnett Wood Lane, Ashstead Surrey KT21 2DF.(sae) They are members of Epsom & Ewell National Trust Centre and of archaeological and geological societies and offer tour “for members of such societies”.

Newsletter 193: March 1987

BROCKLEY HILL

SATURDAY 25TH ARIL, 1987:

A major seminar on Brockley Hill (Roman Sulloniacae, the only Roman settlement in Barnet) will be held on Saturday, April 25th from 2-5 pm, the principal speaker will be Stephen Castle, the previous excavator at Brockley Hill but we are hoping to have representatives from the Lee Valley Water Company to explain about the water pipeline which will be skirting the site in 1988.

Please note this date in your diary. This will be the site of the next major project for HADAS. Full details in the April newsletter. Andrew Selkirk

PROGRAMME NEWS

Wednesday March4th, (Please remember — Wednesday) “The Early Saxon Period in the London Region” by John Mills. John Mills is the West London Field Officer for the Museum of London, based at Brentford. Ten years ago there was little evidence of almost every aspect of Early Saxon archaeology in the London area.. There was no real idea as to the nature of the Late Roman/Saxon transition either in the City or its environs. In 1986 this evidence increased only slightly but includes finds of early settlement material at St Mary Cray, Clapham, and on the West London gravels. In a wider context, recent work has reviewed Saxon building types, domestic pottery, and the origins of the City of London. (This is the January lecture transferred to this date, and was intended as a runner-up to our February lecture by Alan Vince on the late Saxon and Viking period).

Wednesday April 1st “The Nanking Cargo and The China Trade” by David ‘ Lewis; (please remember Wednesday). Mr Lewis is secretary of the City of London Archaeological Society, and a member of Morley College Ceramic Circle. Members will remember seeing on TV and reading about the salvaging of the Dutch East India Company ship that went down in the South China Seas in the mid-18th century. Captain Michael Hatcher salvaged this cargo in April 1986, and Mr Lewis will give us an assessment of the cargo.

Saturday April 4th Afternoon walk in North Clerkenwell and tour of Sadler’s Wells, by Mary O’Connell. If you would like to join Mary on this walk – last year’s was excellent – please fill in the enclosed application form and return it as soon as possible with cheque.

Wednesday May 13th Annual General Meeting

Saturday May 16th Outing to Burnham Abbey/Dorney Court – Ted Sammes

Weekend Away, September 11th.- 13th Abergavenny with John Enderby

LONDON IN THE MID-SAXON AND VIKING PERIOD by Dr. Alan Vince.

Our year started a month late on 4th February, but we were rewar­ded for our patience with a brightly re-decorated room and a lecture of great clarity. However, Dr. Vince had to overcome the problem of “filling us in” with a much potted version of “London in the Early Saxon period” (the lecture that had been scheduled for 7th January but postponed).

During this early period, London was growing and spreading out­side the walled Roman city, and its importance as an importing and exporting power was evident, Bede writing in 730 about this early period, called London “an emporium, a market of many peoples coming by land and sea”.

The Anglo Saxons from Kent moved into the deserted city and had completed its re-occupation by the 7th C. Having been converted to Christianity, in 604 they set about building a Church which was dedicated to St Paul, and it is very possibly close to the present Cathedral. From the present comparatively small number of archaeological finds it seems that London was once more importing pottery from France.

As well as being a defended city, London was now a city of some religious significance. The finds of London minted gold and silver coins both in London and on the Continent demonstrate the rising importance of London as an exporting town. As trading advanced so London continued to spread outwards from the city walls and in particular in the Strand area. The artefacts from the new archaeo­logical sites at Jubilee Hall and Maiden Lane are revealing that this area had become a permanent settlement, the pottery sherds from Ipswich and the “quern stones” from the Rhineland are evidence of the spreading trade coming to London which at this time was being referred to as “Lindenwic”, the ending of “wic” denoting it to be either a Market town or a port. By 850 the growth and wealth of London had made it a target for the raiding Vikings, who finally captured it and over wintered in 871/2. There is evidence of their presence to be seen in the collection of battle axes and spears found in the Thames by London Bridge.

In 878 King Alfred came out of hiding after his defeat in Wessex marched, his army to London, and in a victorious battle occupied the city in 886. This occupation was celebrated with the minting of silver pennies bearing the monogram “LONDONIA”. A programme of refortification and resettlement began. Alfred is credited with .the new grid system of streets in the city which seems to have ignored the old Roman pattern. In the 9th C the city was divided into-25 wards, each containing approximately the same number of persons. By 911 the importance of London had grown, and although still not the capital city it was governed by the King’s town agent, his “portreeve”. London now began to prosper again, the Thames provid­ing access to European trade, the markets and wharves were handling this trade, Billingsgate being one of the most important.

In the late 10th c new attacks were being mounted on London by the Danes, and in 1016 Cnut laid siege to the city. By the end of 1016 London had made peace with Cnut, buying him off with payments of “Danegeld”. During the 25 years that Cnut’s family ruled, there was a strong Scandinavian influence both in the law, culture and art.

In 1042 after the death of Cnut’s son King Harthacnut, Edward came to the throne. He was the son of the former English King Aethelred Being of a pious, nature, he spent much of his energy and money on the building of a new Abbey dedicated to St Peter at Westminster. Next to the Abbey, he built himself a hall, now at Westminster there was the royal, church and palace, this separating the busy commercial centre of the city from the royal centre. Just after the consecration of the Abbey in 1065, Edward died and Harold came to the throne – there is plenty of documentary evidence of his short reign. A.L.

HENDON AERODROME
STOP PRESS

I had already written my piece on the latest developments when the news came that the public enquiry into the demolition of the Grahame-White hangar has been postponed (this is official – rumour says the demolition plan has been abandoned). The reason is that in January the Department of the Environment listed the other historic buildings on the site and there is obviously no point in seeking permission to demolish one listed building (the hangar) which is surrounded by others. All sorts of interesting possi­bilities how open up when we have more information. Hopefully more news next month. BILL FIRTH

MESSAGE FROM MEMRERSHIP SECRETARY

I would like to welcome the following new members who joined since June 1986 Mr. M. Hoadley, Miss P. Whitehead, Miss N.W. Jackson

(Junior member) Mr. A. Simpson, Miss Z.-Tomlinson, Mr. and Mrs Dibben; Miss. .F.Young, Mr. G. Lucas, Miss A. Butterworth,

Miss M. Tobias, Mr. and Mrs. J. Day, Mr; R. Hyatt, Miss J.E. Edwards, Miss A. Balfour-Lynn, Mr. L: Devenish, Mr. R. Pemberton, Miss J. West:, Mrs. W. Wills and Edward and Anne Wills, Mr. P. Rimmer (junior member), Miss K. Watt (a junior member), Mr. R. Sellman.

Mrs. V O’Connor, Mrs. P. Taylor, Mr. D. Brooks.

Once again welcome to you all, and I hope you enjoy the many activi­ties of the Society.

With the March issue I am sending all members a copy of the List of Members as at 1 January 1987.

PHYLLIS FLETCHER Membership Secretary

THE DEPARTMENT OF GREATER LONDON ARCHAEOLOGY Jean Snelling

The present pace of rescue excavations in Inner London is hectic, with the museum of London’s teams of archaeologists keeping just one ice-floe ahead of the developers. Among resources in short supply is labour for cleaning the finds on which the interpretation of excava­tions so much depends. Volunteer help from members of HADAS is valued by the North London Section of the Museum’s Department of Greater London Archaeology (former the Inner London Archaeological Unit), and more volunteers would be especially welcome at this time.

The dig at the Royal mint site is bringing up lots of potsherds from the mediaeval monastery of St Mary Graces, all needing cleaning from their long and deep burial. The mediaeval infirmary of St Mary (Spital Square) on dissolution left behind its graveyard, recently cleared from below later buildings which in turn are giving way to new even deeper ones., These human bones are destined for demographic and medical research before they are reburied in a modern cemetery, but first they need to be freed from soil, washed and dried before returning to their plastic bags, individual by individual. Soon they will be joined by older bones as the excavators tackle their third Romano-British cemetery to the south of Aldgate Station; and Roman graves sometimes yield pots and grave goods. These are not the only excavations on hand now. It is understood that not everyone wishes to clean human bones, and the pots and other general finds certainly need cleaners. How­ever, any potential bone washer is encouraged to try – it is interesting work requiring thoughtful attention:

Most cleaning is done in the North London Section’s offices at 3-7 Ray Street, London EC1R 3DJ; telephone 01-837 8363. This is on the second floor of a Victorian warehouse, via the second front entrance, and is centrally heated. It is very much an excavation headquarters, with archaeologists coming and going from sites, plans being made and reports written, and there is a friendly atmosphere. Ray Street is off Farringdon Road, north of the Clerkenwell Road crossing, and is 8-10 Minutes’ walk from Farringdon underground station. There is a cleaning session on Tuesday evenings, 6.30 – ­9.00 pm; otherwise work is done while the office is open, Monday-Friday, 9.00 am – 5.00 pm. There is no weekend working.

If you are interested and could offer say a half day (or longer) a week for a while, please telephone the office and possi­bilities. Previous experience is helpful but not essential. There is no help available for travelling expenses: but hours can be arranged to take advantage of cheap fares. An apron and rubber gloves come in handy, and it is not a job to be done in tidy clothes.

SITE WATCHING

The following sites, the subject of recent Planning Applications, could be of possible archaeological interest: Members are asked to keep an eye on their development and report anything of an unusual nature to John Enderby on 01 203 2630.

Northern. Division

22, King Edward Road, New Barnet

The Hollies and Meadowbank, Barnet Road, Arkley

Dingle Ridge and rear of The Brambles, Barnet Road, Arkley

Glyn Avenue; New Barnet

22, King Edward Road, New Barnet

Elizabeth Allen School,

Wood Street, Chipping Barnet

1266-1284 High Road, N20 Adj. 86, Galley Lane, Arkley

“Little Pipers”, Hadley Green Road, Barnet .

2, Frith Manor Cottages, Lullington Garth, N12

Central Division

164, East End. Road,.N2

261-268 Regents Park .Road, N3

Christ Church Vicarage, High Road, N12

Western Division

Junction of Bridge Lane and A406

Little Manor, Barnet. Lane,

12, Brockley Avenue, Stanmore

1, Pipers Green Lane, Edgware

The Chantry, Barnet Lane Elstree

“The Stables” Brockley Hill, Stanmore

NEWS OF HADAS EXCAVATIONS BRIAN WRIGLEY

Stapylton Road

It seems to be for years now we have been talking about that archaeological investigation we should be able to make on this site when the development starts. Now at last we have news that work will start this year, and we are in contact with the London Borough of Barnet to discuss facilities for a dig and for watching the site as development work proceeds. If we are to dig any trial trenches, we are told it will have to be before demolition and development start, and we can only dig on ground that is at present exposed (which in effect means gardens of houses at present standing empty)

Of what interest is the site? We do not know of any archaeological discoveries in. the area. What we do know, is that the main road, once the Great North Road, has been an important route to the North for many centuries – the very road where, Edward of York barred the passage to London of Warwick the Kingmaker in 1471. One wonders how long it had been there – one doesn’t have to go all that far ­back from Henry II to be in Saxon times … when this area was part of the forest of Southaw belonging to the Abbots of St Albans. The parish church of St John the Baptist is said to have been originally erected about the middle of the 13th century.

Now whereabouts was this settlement? The Church of St John the Baptist stands at the more or less equiangular Y junction of the Great. North Road and Wood Street. The earliest map we have so far, a manor map of 1817 (of somewhat uncertain scale)-shows buildings along all three arms of the Y radiating from the Church; the arm to the north, which is the High Street, appears to have had buildings all along its west side, as far as what is now the junction with St Albans Road (not then built although the High Street apparently widened at this point). The 1872 6-inch OS map shows “Market Place” at this junction. Was it the market place already before then? There certainly has been a market just about there ever since first the Victorian cattle market building, and now Barnet Stall Market on the same site. It would seem likely that the part of the road called High Street, between Parish church and market place, should be an area of early settlement.

So where does the Stapylton Road development site fit into this. It lies to the west of the High Street, behind the shops, from a point about 130 metres north of the church, to a point just short of the Stall Market the part nearest to the High Street is the back gardens of some villas, about 20 metres from the High Street, so that (to judge from the 1817 map) at that point one is within the “back yards” of the 1817 buildings fronting on to the High Street.

Should we take this chance of excavating here? The Excavation Working Party certainly unanimously think we should at least do some trial trenching here – it is surely an opportunity not to be passed up. So we are planning, subject to arrangement of details with the Borough (and to weather) to open up at the weekend of the 21st March, and continue as necessary; whether we dig during the week or only at weekends will depend on how many members would like to take part., and when they are available. Are you interested? If so, please get in touch with Brian Wrigley, 21 Woodcroft Avenue NW7 2AH, telephone 01-059.5982, or Victor Jones, 78 Temple Fortune Lane,.NW11 7TT, telephone 01-458 6180.

WATLING CAR .PARK SITE, BURNT OAK – A Final Report on Resistivity

Survey and Excavation

Following the report on the resistivity survey (Newsletter 190, December 1986) three trial trenches were opened in the places suggested.—the results could be summarised very briefly, as follows:

“Zees iss your Resistance Group reporting – rid keffally, oui ouill say this only wernce…. oui ave dug at Watling Car Park and found there is nothing of archaeological importance there.”

However, considering the amount of work put in by Alan Lawson, Victor Jones, George Sweetland, Alan Simpson, Ann Young and Paul Dimmer, with. tea provided by Joan Wrigley, perhaps a few more words of explanation are called for.

Referring back to the interim report in Newsletter 190, Grid 2 showed what we thought was a linear feature; we put Trench I, 3 metres x 1 metre, across the line of this and indeed found a linear feature, a clinker path a few inches below the turf including modern sherds and some enameled metal wire, and clearly too recent to be of interest.

Grid 3 showed no regular pattern; we put Trench. II, 7 metres x- 1 metre, across it and found no regular pattern in the clay, ash and clinker- which was under the turf with occasional modern, glazed sherds, metal ware and rubbish. In the one place where we went a little deeper -we found natural within 0.5: m depth. The amount of rubbish deposit seemed adequate explanation of the random resis­tivity appearances. ,

At point A, where we thought the resistance results might indicate a pit, we put Trench III, one metre square later irregularly extended.. We indeed found a pit – you’ve guessed it: filled with modern rubbish and clinker; next to it was a patch of fire-reddened clay (which we actually came across first and got quite excited about). However, from their level it seems most likely the fire-patch and the pit are associated and result from the burning and’ then burying of rubbish. The rubbish appeared to be of hospital type, including remains of a bed-pan and urine bottle.

To sum up, we concluded that this patch of wasteland has been used over a period as a dumping-ground, probably by the old people’s home just over the other side of the stream, and our resistivity meter has worked admirably well in showing the distribution of modern rubbish. The negative archaeological result is something to bear in mind when the question arises of site watching as and when the proposed develop­ment of the rest of the development site goes ahead.

As I said before we started to dig, that I would only be bitterly disappoints if we failed even to find any explanation for the resis­tivity results! Well, we certainly achieved that and gathered some confidence in our interpretation of those results. We believe we have evolved a technique for much speedier surveys and greater relia­bility in the equipment; we hope to go on to confirm and improve this in the coming season, in the projected investigations of Stapleton Rd. the water pipeline and Brockley Hill. New participants in resistivity work would be most welcome. BRIAN WRIGLEY

Newsletter 192: February 1987 Edited by Isobel McPherson

PROGRAMME DETAILS

REMEMBER, REMEMBER – MEETINGS ARE NOW ON THE FIRST WEDNESDAY OF EACH MONTH.

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 4TH “London in the Mid-Saxon and Viking Period” by Dr, Alan Vince, Deputy Finds Officer for the Department of Urban Archaeology, museum of London.

–

Many features of the Medieval and later landscape originated in the Mid-Saxon period, that is in the 7th to 9th centuries-, if not before then. Archaeology has until recently produced little evidence to confirm or refute these historical suggestions but now, as a result of excavations at sites along the Strand, it is possible to compare archaeological and historical data for the period. Evidence from the rest of Greater London is still limited but there is now enough information to suggest how mid-Saxon settlement sites can be recognised and what, in particular, to look for.

Surprisingly, there are even fewer excavated Viking settlements.

This will be an especially interesting lecture for HADAS members who discovered Saxon Hendon during the excavation at Church Terrace in 1973-74. Our latest publication “Finds from a Hendon Dig” by Ted Sammes will be on sale at the lecture, price £1.50.

WEDNESDAY MARCH 4TH “The Early Saxon Period in the London Region” by John Mills, of the Museum of. London (The January lecture trans­ferred to this date).

TED SAMMES REPORTS ON THE TWENTY-FIRST LOCAL HISTORY. CONFERENCE

This took place on Saturday, November 22nd at the Museum of London starting at 11.30,am early timing which must have been appreciated by those coming a long distance though I felt it was perhaps a little late. It did, however allow the morning to be devoted to one speaker, Elizbeth Hallam of the Public Record Office. Her subject, appropriate for the year, was “Domesday Book a National Monument of Antiquity”. She suggested that it was a list of resources drawn up to satisfy the greed of a cruel conqueror at a time when William was threatened by the kings of France and Norway a threat which never
materialised possibly the name was a hostile term, coined by the defeated Saxons. With the passing of the years, the book became an inseparable complement to the Great Seal and the Charter Tenants, especially the great abbeys, who soon realised that it gave them an undisputed title to their possessions. It was still being used in the 17th century to prove the right to exemption from tolls. The speaker continued with a detailed account of the history and travels of Domesday Book.

After lunch, it was the turn of the non-professionals, and Doris Hobbs gave an exceptionally lively and interesting account of the medieval market town of Croydon. I guarantee no-one fell asleep during this final paper – a good example of how to make history come alive. She thoroughly deserved the ovation at the end.

The stalls, as usual, showed that Local History is still alive and amateur-propelled:

– AND ON THE DAY SCHOOL “THE LONDON TIN-GLAZED POTTERY INDUSTRY”.

This, unusual event, on Saturday November 29th, attracted a sell-out audience, indeed T was lucky to get a ticket. It was held in the Education Department of the Museum of London.. The speakers packed into one day information which would take many such sessions to absorb properly.

After an introduction by Dr Alan Vince, John Hurst took us through the intricate movements of the potters from Italy to Spain and on, eventually, to the Low Countries in the 16th century.

Michael Archer warned us to beware of trying to tie things down too tightly, both the origin of individual pieces and of their painted designs. This point was emphasised by other speakers, who gave examples of potters moving from place to place. Both before and after lunch, detailed descriptions were given of-some London sites, Lambeth by Brian Bloice, Vauxhall by Rhoda Edwards, Southwark by Graham Dawson.

Lunch-time gave us an opportunity to view the exhibits, which included the famous’ London ‘plate dated 1600 or 1602. Later, Clive Orton gave an account of his work on standardising the classifica­tion of pottery types and Frank Britton gave a detailed account of 18th century production in London. This gave him an opportunity to mention his book on the subject, to be published in April 1987 with a pre-publication price of £30.

It was an exhausting day and the Museum is to be congratulated should have liked to have received a list of participants, with a ‘note on their interests and whom they represented. I feel sure that the range of those attending was wider than usual, including’ ceramic dealers, museum personnel, full and part-time archaeologists. Name badges would have been helpful.

MORE ABOUT PLASTICS from Percy Reboul

I am grateful to Dr Hoblyn for extending the discussion on early plastics. Front page, too! He is quite right: in my anxiety to stick strictly to the text of the. ‘Guide to the Exhibition’, I took the cellulose nitration process for granted, which is particu­larly inexcusable as I worked for the Company for many years!

Quite the best book on the subject of early plastics is Maurice Kaufman’s ‘The First Century of Plastics’, published by the Plastics and Rubber Institute, London (£7.00): Sylvia Katz’s Classic Plastics’ .contains beautiful photographs and. is more concerned with design and social hi-story aspects. Sylvia, incidentally, is the author of the new Shire book on plastics which, if this correspon­dence is maintained, should sell in large numbers to HADAS members.

For several years now I have been finding ‘good homes’ in museums, County Archives, and the like, for the exceptionally fine collection of British Xylonite archive material. Only this week we found the original Title Deeds for the Brantham site – including a 16th century Foot of Fine written in Latin. This was translated by our Borough Archivist, which is a tenuous connection between plastics and Hendon if you like! In the same box was found Parkes’ patents assignments patents assignments–

More surprising (and even more exciting for me) was the discovery in 1980 of an old deed box containing an unpublished manu­script •called “The British Xylonite Company – reminiscences of Harry Greenstock”, It proved -to be a unique, fascinating, personal account of the very earliest days of plastics, Harry, a born historian, was born in 1881 and died in 1969. His account includes the memories of his father who was at Brantham from day one as time-keeper and storeman,

Just to give you the flavour: Harry recounts how in the Acid and Bleach. shops, free clothing was issued .to the men. It was army surplus stuff, no less than the red coats and leather breeches and leggings of earlier decades. How strange to think that these ‘left overs’ of the Napoleonic (?) or Crimean wars were to find their final use on a remote Essex marsh!

Happily, my Company agreed to publish the memoirs with lovely old photographs, and I am lodging a copy in the HADAS library should anyone wish to read it.

Two final’ and unconnected points. Brantham was chosen because of its remoteness, bearing in mind the explosive nature of cellulose nitrate. Many of the raw materials were brought up the creeks in the wonderful Thames sailing barges some of which still sail today. There is even one called XYLONITE in memory of past glories.

Xylonite is still made today at Brantham, and some of the original production equipment is extant. It is chiefly used (and has been for many years) in table tennis balls where it is unrivalled in performance: no-one has found a better substitute.

OBITUARY – DR GLYN DANIEL from Ted Sammes

This eminent scholar, known to millions through his chairmanship of “Animal, Vegetable and Mineral”.died on December 13th at Cambridge in his 72nd- year. A man of many parts,- he was probably most interested in the archaeology of the prehistoric period in the 1972 membership list of the Prehistoric Society he is listed as having joined. in 1935.

Megaliths were a special delight, as was also the pursuit of the history of Archaeology. It was in the latter connection that on reading his “The Idea of Prehistory”, published in Pelican Books in 1964, I came across a reference Aylett Sammes, an Essex. Antiquary. I wrote to him not with much hope of a reply, but in due course and much to my delight, a. helpful reply came back which encouraged me to trace back further my possible family history.

There must be thousands of people who, like me, found him able to make Archaeology a living thing which should not be divorced from History. Finally, as Editor of.”Antiquity” he gave his readers constant reminders and updates on all that was best in World Archaeology. He will be sadly missed. Many tributes will be written, each one different, because of his varied interests.

NEWS OF MEMBERS

Following the death of his wife, Jeanne, Alec Thompson expects to move quite soon to 24 Briardene Crescent, Whitley Bay, Tyne & Weare, to be near his married daughter. The Thompsons joined HADASin the 1960s and we hope this will not be the end of a long association. Perhaps when we next plan a N.E. expedition, we can work in a reunion with Alec. Meanwhile, we wish him well in his new home.

Nell Penny spent an uncomfortable week in Whittington Hospital just before Christmas after a bad fall in the kitchen. Being Nell, she argued her way out in no time, determined to hang on to her independence, and began zimmering her way around and heading for a full recovery. She is now managing with one stick and making good progress. All her HADAS friends must rejoice that things were no worse and hope she will soon be her old, active self.

CHRISTMAS SUPPER AT ST JOHN’S GATE, CLERKENWELL by MARY McGHEE

This piece should have been in last month’s newsletter, but I’m afraid that after the night of December 12th, Christmas preparations took over and all too soon it was too late: My apologies: However, better late than never. The Christmas supper was a great success and the venue a fitting one for the HADAS 25th anniversary celebration.

The coach dropped us at the Grand Priory Church of St. John and after a brief history of the building and of the Order of St John, we split into two groups and visited both the church and the splendid Norman crypt, some of which dates from c 1140. Without guidance, we should have found it difficult to relate the much restored upper building to the 12th C round nave and choir but in the crypt we were on more familiar ground and those of us who were in Mary O’Connell’s group were very impressed with her grasp of detail and her ability to hold her audience.

We then crossed the Clerkenwell Road (risking life and limb) to the Gatehouse itself. Here we spent some time in the two small museums, each of which deserved longer study. One housed a remarkable collection of items relating to the Order of St John and the other documents and displays which traced the history of the St John’s Ambulance Association and Brigade. Next we went upstairs to the Chapter Hall, which made a splendid, welcoming setting for our celebration meal. An enormous fire filled the open hearth, the paneling glittered with the arms of long dead Priors while later portraits, including one of the present Queen, gazed down gravely on eighty HADAS members enjoying an excellent buffet meal and a chance to exchange news gossip and in-jokes. Even the necessity to queued, since the gatehouse was not built (in 1504) with HADAS dinners in mind, became enjoyable as we moved through the Old .Chancery with its silver and fine chimney-piece into the Council Chamber to the service bar.

A thoroughly enjoyable evening. Our thanks go to Mary O’Connell for her choice of venue and to Dorothy Newbury, whose organisation – as usual – was impeccable.

If you would like to know more about the Hospitallers and their modern descendants the St John Ambulance Brigade, remember to visit the exhibition at Church Farm House Museum, Hendon, before it closes on February 8th.

During the evening Ted Sammes announced, to our great delight, that our Chairman, Andrew Selkirk, had just been elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. We have come by a set of verses, by a fellow-Fellow, which give an amusing account of the procedure.

In part, they read:

The University of London offers a one-day course on New Results at Tell Abu Hureyra, Syria, a course of 10 lectures on Early

Hominid-Evolution, a Field Survey week, Monday July 13th to Sunday 19th, and a fortnight’s course in Urban Excavation. This sounds an excellent course for aspiring “dirt archaeologists”. Students will be given instruction in: Excavation techniques and methods of survey; Recording and initial processing of finds; Site and trench drawing. All this takes place on the Bermondsey Abbey site, Director Harvey Sheldon, from 3rd to 16th August 1987. Although there would appear to be no ban on outsiders, space is provided on the application form for declaring Diploma/Certificate/non-examination status. Further details from Miss E.M. Clancy, Dept. of Extra-Mural Studies, 26 Russell Square, – or again from the editor.

City University offers “Discovering London”, a ten-week course covering the whole of the city’s history from Pre-Roman times to post-1945 development, and “Industrial Archaeology” – 10 meetings plus 6 hours of field visits. The latter offers a very comprehen­sive list of topics, under three main headings: Materials,

Transport and Power. Further details from the Extra-Mural Depart­ment, Tel 01-253 4399, Ex. 3268/9, or from the editor.

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, Verulamium Museum St Albans Herts. are organising an 8-day tour of Roman and Medieval Provence from 24th October – 1st November 1987. An excellent itinerary is planned at an inclusive approx price of £375. If any members are interested please ring St Albans 59919 – Mr Hildreth-Brown – before February 28th.

PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT AT THE BURROUGHS. HENDON. Before Christmas there was a note and plan in the Hendon Times of a proposal put forward by Barnet Council to consider the development of land locked away between the Town Hall and Watford Way. It looks as if access is to be gained by demolishing the doctors surgery(St George’s Lodge) and re­locating it in the new development. A 40-page brochure has been prepared with the idea of interesting possible developers in the project. We have not yet seen a copy of this, but one has been requested. It is understood that facilities for archaeological excavation may be built into any development that takes place. This is necessary as part of the area is close to The Grove, where Roman remains were found in 1889, and Burroughs Gardens with its medieval material, excavated in 1972

PROGRAMME 1987 – Apologies for delay in sending out Programme Card but we are experiencing some difficulty this year in arranging dates and venues. Our summer outings will start with a walk Mary O’Connell to North Clerkenwell, followed by day trips to Taplow and Dorney Court, Danebury and Andover, Royston area, a return visit to Dover Roman Painted House, and a weekend in September (11th – 13th) with John Enderby at Abergavenny. We hope for sunny days and look forward to seeing our regulars and new members too – filling the coaches helps to keep the costs low.

Dorothy Newbury

Newsletter 191 January 1987 Edited by Liz Holliday

DIARY,

Wednesday 7 January LECTURE CANCELLED

We have just heard from the library that the lecture hall is to be redecorated and will not be available for:our January meeting. An alternative venue was suggested, but we felt this would not be satisfactory at such short notice.

Wednesday 4 February “London in the Mid-Saxon and Viking Period” by Dr. Alan Vince, Museum of London. At Hendon Library. The Burroughs, Hendon. Coffee available from 8pm. Lecture begins at 8.30pm.

AFTER IRON a note from Dr.E.H.T. Hoblyn

“I was very interested in Percy Reboul’s page in your December issue but was puzzled by his reference to Parkesine. My organic chemistry is now more than rusty but I wonder if chloroform and castor oil would produce a sub-

stance ‘hard as horn’, I have therefore, done some digging and have found from Sylvia Katz who wrote ‘Plastic Plastics’ that Alexander Parkes in his early work in the 1840s mixed cotton fibre and wood flour with nitric and sulphuric acids (which would give him nitro-cellulose) and he then mixed the ‘resulting product with castor oil and wood naphthna to produce his original ‘Parkesine’. It was, however, when he moved to mixing camphor with nitrocellulose and alcohol that,’ in 1865, he produced the better known form of ‘Parkesine’, the forerunner of celluloid orxvlonite as it was better known in thiscountry.(‘Plastics in the Service of Man’ by Couzens and Yarsley).The British firm manufacturing celluloid was the British Xylonite Company founded in 1877 which, in 1887, built a factory at Brantham on the banks of the River Stour opposite Manningtree, Essex. They made artificial ivory and tortoiseshell for combs (functional and decorative) and hairbrushes; tubing for bicycle pumps and bodies for fountain pens; handles for toothbrushes and shaving brushes; and a large tonnage of piano keys and knife handles in the form well known before the modern dishwasher led to metal handles.

They were made in the plain-and excellent grained ivory forms. Another popular product was the celluloid collar and shirt front (or ‘dicky’) which comprised a sheet of linen sealed between two sheets of white celluloid. I do hope that Percy Reboul will keep us posted with his findings.”

SOME ANSWERS TO THE GREEN PUZZLE

The borough archivists are grateful for two helpful replies to the enquiry concerning ,green lanes, one recommending W.G.Hoskins’ comments in The Making of the English Landscape and the other pointing out that in 1764 Hendon Lane/Finchley Lane was not a particularly major road.

This month’s accessions to the Local History Collection include archives from the Mill Hill Highwood Townswomen’s Guild; copies of deeds and photographs concerning the Alexandra public house, East Finchley and the surro­unding area; albums of photographs of Chas. Wright & Co.’s factory, Hendon and a booklet of photographs of Barnet and Hadley produced in about 1900 by J.Cowing.

Herbert Norman’s donation of his drawings of local buildings was mentioned in the Newsletter last month members may like advance notice that these will be on display in an exhibition of his work to be held at Church Farm House Museum from March 28 to April 26 this year.

A STORM IN A VESTRY TEA CUP

Nell Penny uncovers a rebellion by the Hendon Vestry

Local rates, be they parish, borough or county, have ever been matters of controversy. In 1820 the vestry of Hendon parish, conscious of having to set ever increasing poor rates (in 1821 they were to set three rates at 6d in the £ – 7.25p in the in all) began to look at rating valuations. They found that these had not been changed since 1722, and promptly appoint­ed a committee which revalued the parish at a total of £24,470.

At the same time the Vicar, the irascible Reverend Theodore Williams, was also doing his sums. Since 1722 Hendon vicars had been accepting a 3d rate in commutation of their “Great and Little Tythes”:- “always excepting Surplice. Fees and other Perquisites”. Mr. Williams gave notice that he was putting an end to this system. The vestry therefore had the vicar’s property and his tithes assessed. The vicar protested – the parish persisted. In 1822 the Reverend Williams and Thomas Street appealed to a General Quarter Sessions against the assessments. Mr. Street was presumably a newcomer to the district – his name does not appear in .the 1821 census. The vicar chaired the vestry meeting in September, a function he very rarely performed; the officers of the parish did not feel bold enough to contradict him to his face. They appointed a sub-committee of William Geeves, Thomas Shettle and Mr.Goodchild, all farmers and office holders, to reconsider the valuations. By ‘December the vestry had decided to let the valuations stand and to pay their solicitor to defend them against the vicar at the Quarter Sessions.

Meanwhile, the vestry had taken steps to turn itself into a Select Vestry according to legislation of 1818. In theory a vestry had been a town meeting of ratepayers in practice it had been a monthly gathering of half a dozen office holders, churchwardens, overseers of the poor and surveyors of the highways who accepted the accounts of the overseers of the poor. There might be a few more ratepayers at a meeting where the poor rate-was to be- set. The crowded meeting in the parish church in November 1822 decided by 200 votes to 165 that a Select Vestry should be elected. Hence­forward a vestry meeting could not be larger than twenty members, but a minimum of five was necessary for a quorum.

But back to our storm in the vestry tea cup. Eventually Quarter Sessions reduced the assessment on Mr. Williams’ property from £672 to £640 and on his tithes by a similar percentage. But Williams did not wait for the outcome of his appeal. It seems that he regarded the Vestry Clerk, James Goodyer as his arch enemy and the leader of the vestry rebellion. I think James disliked the vicar as much as the latter disliked him. Preserved among the parish archives are meticulous copies of most of the letters to and from the vestry at this period – all in Mr.Goodyer’s beautiful copper­plate handwriting. There is also a list of Goodyer’s own property: five houses in the Burroughs and one in Brent Street. On the new valuation he had secured rating reductions which averaged 11 per cent.

On January 29th 1823, the vestry met and read a letter from the vicar to Mr. Greeves, one of the churchwardens The letter attacked James Goodyer on three counts: a) that Goodyer’s personal property was wrongly rated; b) that the vestry clerk had been appointed to his job in 1796 by “private appointment” and that his salary of £40 a year out of the poor rate was “extravagant and unwarranted” and c) “I will submit to your own good feeling whether a man who is capable of making a false entry in a Parish minute book be not morally incapable of fulfilling any public trust”. The vestry held a Special meeting next day and replied to the vicar a). all rating appeals were up for arbitration so the parish would not comment in the meantime; b) Mr. Gooyer’s appointment as Clerk had not been a private appointment but by a “valid public vote” and the parish was obliged to “those gentlemen.— for the discrimination used in the selection of a gentleman to fill that office whose conduct in and great attention to the Duties thereof, have given general satisfaction… the salary paid to Mr.Goodyer’ is neither extravagant nor unwarrantable”. c) the charges of falsifying the accounts against Mr Goodyer were so serious that the vestry asked the Reverend Williams to produce his evidence for their consideration.

Unfortunately this letter was in Goodyer’s beautiful handwriting. The Vicar would not open it and returned it to the vestry. This provoked the vestry to write to the Bishop of London regretting that “Communication between the Vicar and themselves had been cut off” and asking for the Bishop’s guidance. At the next vestry meeting in February 1823 the Vicar took the chair, but stormed out when the Vestry would not endorse his accusations against Goodyer. A churchwarden had to preside so that he could sign the minutes and announce the date of the next meeting. Another letter to the Bishop of London told him the vestry would like “Counsel’s opinion” about the Act of 1818 which they thought laid down that if the Vicar took the chair at a vestry meeting he must sign the minutes.

In April of the same year the Vicar and the vestry were at it again. A parishioner had paid what she thought were agreed fees for a tombstone of brick and stone to be erected in the churchyard. Disputing the fees, the Vicar had it dismantled – immediately – and “thrown into the Public Road”. Again to the Bishop the vestry regretted “the varience unhappily existing between the Vicar and his Parishioners which promotes secession from the Church” .

At the same April meeting James Goodyer resigned as Parish Clerk. Perhaps he felt that over twenty-five years of copying accounts and taking minutes was enough – perhaps he felt he must leave the fight against the Reverend to a younger man. He pleaded ill health. The vestry paid they were very sorry to lose him. There is no record of what the Reverend Theodore said.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SERVICE

Gerrard Roots outlines the current exhibition at Church Farm House Museum

The St. John Ambulance Brigade – the uniformed branch of the Order of St. John, which has itself existed in Britain since c.1148 – celebrates its centenary in 1987. Founded •to promote knowledge of first aid amongst the general public, its first division in this area was set up in 1903 and was based upon. Queen Eizabeth’s Boys School in Barnet. Since that time numerous divisions have been created in the Barnet area.

The activities of the Brigade have greatly expanded since its inception. The Brigade numbers increased significantly during World Wars I and II when members of the St. John volunteered for active service with the Royal Army Medical Corps or provided emergency first aid at home with the air raid patrols.

The Brigade, as well as continuing its first aid training, provides first aid assistance at public gatherings, gives an aeromedical service to bring the sick home from abroad, and through the St. John Air Wing, transports vital organs and medical supplies for transplants.

This exhibition presents through photographs, documents, costume and other memorabilia, the wide range of St. John activities in the Barnet area over the past 80 or so years. It also shows something of the history of the origins of the Order of St. John from its first hospice in Jerusalem in AD 600.

The exhibition will be on show from 3 January until 8 February.Please remember that there will be no lecture in January. The next lecture “London in the Mid-Saxon and Viking Period” will be on Wednesday 4 February

LETTERS FROM HADRIAN’S WALL

Anne Cheng summarizes a recent article in Omnibus by Alan K. Bowman and J. David Thomas.

At the Roman fort of Vindolanda, a mile to the south of Hadrian’s Wall, a unique collection of writing tablets is being unearthed. The texts, which date to around AD 100 include both official documents and, the private correspondence of military personnel. They are written in ink on thin slivers of wood, which was used instead of papyrus as this would have, been expensive and difficult to obtain in Britain. The deposit of writing tablets appears to extend to at least twenty metres and over 500 new finds have already been catalogued.

Many of the new texts belong to the archive of one FIavius Cerialis, a commander of a unit at the fort. However, the outstanding discovery of 19.85 must be the archive of Cerialis’ wife, Sulpicia Lepidina. Two texts in this archive contain closing lines written by Claudia Severa, Lepidina’s correspondent. This is certainly the earliest known example of writing by a woman in Latin.

Claudia’s letter is written in two columns side by side as is normal in these tablets. She invites Lepidina to a birthday party:

“Iii Idus Septembr[e]s, soror,ad diem

sollemnem natalem meum vogo

libenter facies ut venial

ad nos incundiorem mihi

diem?] interventu tuo factures si

venia]s”

After transmitting various family greetings she adds the following lines in rather an awkward hand:

“sperato te, soror
vale, soror,anima
mea, ita valeam
karissima et have”

“I shall expect you sister. Hail and farewell, sister, my dearest soul, as I live in health”.

The processing of these finds is extremely time-consuming and demands painstaking attention to detail, but with the amount of material already found, there is hope of yet more exciting discoveries to come.

Newsletter 190: December 1986 Edited by Liz Sagues

Newsletter 189 November 1986 edited by Camilla Raab

DIARY

Thursday 4 November Lecture at Hendon Library “The Roman City Centre Project 1986” by Gustav Milne. This is a return visit by Mr. Milne, who is a member of the Urban Archaeological Unit at the Museum of London. In 1981.he gave us an excellent talk on the Roman Port of London, then being excavated. This month’s talk is about the excavations at Leadenhall Market in the City, which many members have visited recently.

Friday 12 December PLEASE NOTE change of date from that on programme card) Christmas supper and tour at the Tudor Gatehouse of the 12th-century Priory of the Order of St John in Clerkenwell

Please see separate application form, and return it with your remittance as soon as possible. We hope to run a coach, and numbers are important to keep down costs. Let us have a very good attendance at this finale to our anniversary year!

Throughout November until 7 December HADAS 25th Birthday Exhibition, ‘One Man’s Archaeology’ at Church Farm House Museum, Hendon, by founder member Ted Sammes. Open on weekdays (except Tuesday), 10 am ­1 pm and 2 – 5.30 pm,Tuesdays 10 am – 1 pm. Sundays 2 – 5.30 pm. Admission free HADAS publications available at weekends. For details see October Newsletter.

ONE MAN’S ARCHAEOLOGY: A 25TH ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITION

The 25th anniversary is that of HADAS. The ‘one man’, Ted Sammes, who has mounted the exhibition at Church Farm House Museum in honour of our Silver Jubilee, has been interested in archaeology for over twice that length of time. He admits to being hooked on the subject since 1930, when his father took him to see Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s excavations at St Albans. When HADAS was formed in 1961, therefore, Ted as a founder member brought to it a considerable stock of knowledge and expertise

In Room 1 of the exhibition there is a picture of Themistocles Constantinides, our founder to whose interests in the missing history of Hendon we owe our existence. He looks down, appropri­ately enough, on a selection of exhibits from various excavations undertaken by HADAS since 1961. Pride of place goes to the Church Terrace dig of 1973-74, directed by Ted Sammes. It produced the evidence for Saxon Hendon in which our founder had so firmly believed, together with a wealth of fascinating material spanning the centuries from Roman occupation to the1900s. Ted’s booklet on this dig, ‘Pinning Down the Past’, is on- sale at the exhibition. – see final paragraph below.’

Other aspects of the Society’s work – and play – are vividly recalled by photographs and memorabilia: the processing of finds, graveyard recording, and the celebration of the Quincentenary of the Battle of Barnet, the many exhibitions mounted by HADAS, its publica­tions, its lectures and its outings. I note that the very first outing in 1961, to Waltham Abbey and Greensted, set off from the Quadrant, as our outings still do, but at the civilized hour of 10.30 am! Arrival back was ‘6 pm at latest’, and the cost was 10/­(50p).

One of the great delights of the exhibition is the opportunity it affords to see some of Ted’s magnificent photographs, both black-and-white and coloured. These are not confined to HADAS ‘events’ but range widely, for Ted has visited archaeological sites from Orkney to Majorca, from Eastern Turkey to Southern Ireland. The photographs include such gems as the terracotta figures from Ayia Irini in Cyprus, marvelously well preserved and so lively, The splendid line of marching gods from Yazilikaya, Eastern Turkey, the great Lion Gate at Bogazkoy, and the brilliantly coloured and graceful traditional boats of Malta. There is an interesting group, of ‘old and new’ views in the Hendon area; a charming sequence of photographs of castles, and another of old Mills. Ted has also included some items from his collection of old sepia photographs for example, views of Egyptian sites before the tourist hordes invaded them.

The opening of the exhibition on 18 October by the Mayor of Barnet;

Councillor Denis Dippel, accompanied by the Mayoress, was attended by HADAS Committee members old and new, headed.by our Chairman Andrew Selkirk, and by many of Ted’s friends from the archaeological world. These included. Ralph Merrifield, born in Hendon but, revisiting.it for the first time since early childhood, and Cherry Lavell, representing the Council for British Archaeology.

To coincide with the exhibition, Ted’s booklet on the Church Terrace excavation, ‘Pinning Down the Past.- Finds from a Hendon Dig’, with an ,introduction by Andrew Selkirk, has been published as HADAS Occasional Paper NO.6. Ted has selected items of special interest from each Period covered by the dig and has commented on their historical background, manufacture, purpose and use, and the light they throw on Hendon’s past. There is a mine of information on coinage and traders’ tokens, the production of pins, the manufacture of window glass, the history of delftware.. We are told the price of tea in 17th-century London, and invited to speculate on whether ‘clay-pipe makers also produced pipe clay wig-curlers. The booklet is eminently readable, attractively produced, and, modestly priced at £1.50. Get your copy now either, at the exhibition or from Miss Joyce Slatter .5, Sentinel House Sentinel Square, London NW4 2EN

SHEILA WOODWARD

MAIDENHEAD SOCIETY TO VISIT HENDON

On Sunday 16 November a party of Maidenhead Archaeological & Historical Society will be walking in the Totteridge, Mill Hill area in the morning.. In the afternoon they will visit the Church Farm House Museum, Hendon, to see Ted Sammes’ exhibition. Ted is Chairman of the Maidenhead Society:

GRAHAME WHITE HANGAR

The campaign against demolition continues. HADAS has had a letter in The Times (6 October) and we hope there may be a follow up. About 20 organisations concerned with preservation of Aviation history have been contacted, and most of them have made their protest too. We had publicity in the specialist press and in the Hendon advertiser.

There are now two issues: 1. the hangar itself, and 2. the other historic buildings at Hendon which are not even listed. The Department of the Environment, which is the ‘listing’ authority, has referred the matter of the non-listed buildings to English Heritage, If anyone who has not done so would like to add their protest, please write to the appropriate ministry and/or-English Heritage. BILL FIRTH

MINIMART

A great effort by so many Members made the day a huge success, not only financially but by the friendly spirit that everyone threw into it, both by helpers and by members dropping in to buy goods or have lunch. One member remarked that he’d not seen so many old members together for a long time. And a non-member was heard to remark “Everyone seems so friendly!’ .The general public, were in good numbers too about 150 ,paid at the door. Our takings to date are about £840 with more still coming in, so we shall easily achieve last year’s figure. Many thanks to all concerned. I hope you all think it was worth the effort.

WEST HEATH EXCAVATION Margaret Maher.

The excavation has now finally ended because the area to the NE of the site; which was the focus of this year’s work, has been subject to disturbance at some time from the 17th century onward.

Mesolithic deposits may still exist beyond the disturbed area but are inaccessible because of criss-crossing tree roots. Thus the modern limits of the site have been reached.

Backfilling and clearance of equipment took place on Sunday 28 September. The weather was fine and sunny and a marvellous group of-people turned out to do this heavy and unpopular job. My thanks to them all – Sheila Woodward, Alan Lawson, Helen Gordon, Lisa Maher, Peter Loos, Jean Snelling, Victor Jones, John Morfey, Howard Bouldler and Terry Keenan. Peter Wilson, though suffering from a cartilage injury, struggled to the site to bring welcome assistance from his son Simon and a friend Bradley Rothman; Laurie and Michael Sevell shifted the larger equipment to College Farm; and Daphne Lorimer paid a very welcome visit and toasted our endeavours. It seemed fitting that she who began the excavation in 1976 should also have been there as it finished.

I would also like to give special thanks to Sheila Woodward and Myfanwy Stewart. Their help throughout the three seasons was vital, and without it the excavation could not have taken place. They both worked whatever the weather conditions, and their support and advice have been invaluable. Others on whom the success of the excavation depended were the diggers. As over 100 members have worked there since June 1984, there is insufficient space to list them all. Thanks especially to those who were able to commit themselves to a block of time or for regular days through a season. Jean Snelling dug for all three seasons and June Owen kept the finds recording under able control for the same period.

Many others contributed to the success of the dig too – all the people who made or mended equipment, or who loaned or donated items, or who contributed special skills.

.

One last appeal for help now – it is too early to discuss results yet, as much processing remains to be done. A volunteer to mark finds would be welcome ring.me on 907 0333 if you can help.

THE LOST KINGDOMS OF THE MIDDLE NILE by Dr John Alexander

A sizeable gathering assembled at Hendon Library on 7 October and were warmly welcomed by Andrew Selkirk, making his debut as Chairman of the Society. He then introduced with obvious pleasure Dr John Alexander, who had enthralled members on previous occasions with accounts of his excavations at Ibrim in the Sudan and the history of the Safety Pin. Dr. Alexander is plainly a. practitioner to whom the trowel has become as mighty as the pen, and the fascinating story of the ‘lost’ Nubian Kingdoms came vividly alive. The three Christian Kingdoms of Nobatia, Makouria and Alwa were, all adjacent to the banks of the Nile and flourished from about AD 540 for over eight hundred year’s. Indeed, it was not until the fifteenth century that the southernmost kingdom, Alwa finally succumbed to the pressure of the fanatically Muslim camel-keeping Nomads from Arabia., Until the excavators from Britain and Poland arrived on the scene and the wind-driven sand of centuries started to reveal the largesse of history, these Christian kingdoms were largely unknown in what had become a Muslim Nubia dominated by Egypt. From the 1930s, however, the impressive strength and glory of these Kingdoms which supported at least fourteen Bishops (although there is no extant record of an Archbishop) began to be uncovered by archaeologists from Europe. A complex hierarchical organisation, owing much to the Byzantine and Coptic Churches came to light. Christian artefacts and symbols on pottery and wood, were found. Dr Alexander showed astonishing slides, not only of well-preserved Christian religious objects but also, at places such as Faras and Ibrim, of Cathedrals and monastic buildings (at Faras the walls of the Cathedral are still twenty feet high) in which wall paintings depicting Christian themes still retained a brilliance of a colouring and rich imagery unsurpassed for this period of history. Many of the churches were small, but clearly prosperous, in a riverine area where the use of the water-wheel had achieved a high standard of cultivation for millet and other staple crops. Surprisingly, Christianity had been permitted to co-exist with the idols and plural deities of Egypt. It was only in the later part of the period that church buildings began to be fortified, and ‘castle-like’ structures, such as those found at Ikmindi, appeared, although these could have been designed to resist the incursions from the Muslim Nomads from the south west rather than the Egyptians in the North. When Egypt became part of the Ottoman Empire in the seven­teenth century, nothing further was heard of the Christian kingdoms. Before that the Baqt Treaty had kept the peace sometimes tenuously between Christian and Infidel for several hundred, years, although the Crusades put a heavy strain on the relationship. .Dr.Alexander was not one who believed the collapse of Christianity in Nubia to be due solely to the crusades; external pressures from alien cultures had grown over several centuries. When the collapse finally came, the Sudan quite quickly became the pastoraI and primitive area that we know today. Traces of Christianity can still be discerned among the people, such as women who were in the habit of taking their children to wash in the, river and would make the mark of the Cross.

Of the secular organisation of the Kingdoms, little has so far emerged. Fragments of language (shown on slides) incised on wood, proved indecipherable. As burials were Christian, no rites of passage of the dead could be found, and there were no grave goods to be interpreted. We were shown a series of slides illustrative of the ‘rescue work’ which had been carried out at important sites such as Debira that had subsequently become submerged in the waters of Aswan. A project is on hand for the creation of a Nubian Museum for the finds which are now mostly – apart from a mummified bishop resting in Cambridge ­stored in the cellars of Cairo’s museum.

As Andrew Pares, who proposed a vote of thanks, rightly, said, the Society could not have had a better lecture to open its 25th Anniversary season. JOHN ENDERBY

VISIT TO WINCHESTER AND THE DOMESDAY EXHIBITION Reva Brown

The bus dropped us at King Alfred’s statue, and a magical day began. In the Guildhall a Craft Fair was taking place, and it was possible to tour the Fair with its undertones of a medieval market ­stalls of handcrafted articles made of wood, glass, wool or metal, all enticingly displayed.

We split into groups for a guided tour of Winchester, walking along the River Itchin, the city walls and gates. (Fronted by a metal grille, a little niche protected the fragment of Roman wall still existing.). We saw the flint-walled exterior of Winchester School (founded 1382 for 70 scholar and going strong with a ‘cast’ of hundreds and the house where Jane Austen died. We looked at the ruins of Wolverley Castle (1130) which was the Bishop’s Palace until it was destroyed in the Civil War.. The ‘new’ Bishop’s Palace standing beside the ruins of the old one is 1684. The small church of St Swithin was being prepared for the harvest festival and bedecked with flowers and greenery. A small stained glass window depicted St Swithin Bishop ofWinchester, tutor of Alfred, and at his feet the bridge over the Itchin which he had built to replace the. Roman one.The Cathedral deserved more time than we had available to us. The outline of the Anglo-Saxon church which the Cathedral replaced was marked out in the grass.

Our guides left us at the City Museum, the oldest museum in Hampshire, containing a range of artefacts from prehistoric stones to an Edwardian bathroom, and we met again outside the Great Hall for the Domesday Exhibition This achieved its aim – giving an understanding of why the Domesday census had been undertaken, how it was achieved (in only eight months) and the kind of England that it surveyed. Banners Over the entrances to the linked tents in which the Exhibition is housed portrayed excerpts from, the entries – one which caught my eye concerned the property owned by a woman jester (Where does one find but about court jesters, and how did a person become one, and how many were women?)

Also displayed along the walls of the Hall is the Bayeux Tapestry carved in wood by a French craftsman (a task of eight years duration) and at the end of the Great Hall, the medieval Round Table, ostensibly that of King Arthur. A young man minted a William I, silver penny, using the methods available in the eleventh century. Using the values of the time, when a sheep was 4p, it was possible to work out that the penny was worth around £20 in today’s money.

Each of us has taken home-different memories of a sparkling autumn day packed with sights and sensations. It says something for the quality of enjoyment and knowledge gained on HADAS trips that two… members who missed. the coach, made their own, way to Winchester to catch us up

THE WORLD ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONGRESS Andrew Sinclair

The World Archaeological Congress, which took place at Southampton from 1st to 6th September, was one of the most controversial archaeological conferences for a long time. The cause was the banning of the South African delegates, this led to widespread withdrawals of support and as a result the official Congress has been transferred to Mainz next September; when the CBA polled its members as to whether it should withdraw, HADAS followed the majority of CBA members in voting for withdrawal.

In the event the congress took place, but on a somewhat reduced scale. Instead of 3,000 participants expected only 1,000 came; there was a good attendance from black Africa, South East Asia and the communist world, but there was no-one from Israel or the Arab countries:, nobody from Japan, and only a handful for America, and Western Europe. Some, at least in Britain, may have been put off by the high price – £200 just to attend (I only went because at the last minute I was offered a press ticket free!).

The congress was of the sort where there are many sessions running simultaneously, and one had to decide which to attend. The other main innovation of the congress was that they wanted to break away from the old formula of dividing the subjects by period and place. In recent years the Congresses have degenerated into nit-pickings instead of presenting major research delegates have preferred to give the most abstruse papers possible. The Congress therefore decided to introduce some general topic sessions; however these either tended to be overtly political – especially those on so-called ‘objectivity’ ­or they degenerated into gobbledegook the flavour was well expressed in titles such as ‘Multi-culturalism and ethnicity in archaeological interpretations’.

The other aspect that should concern HADAS was the lack of reference to local archaeological societies or their role today. The high price ensured that there were no amateur archaeologists present, but though references were made to the importance of popular archaeology, this was done by inviting one of the hippies along from Stonehenge to put his case. There was also a session on what was called ‘Cultural Resource Management’, when the various professionals decided how they were going to run our heritage for us –but there is no role for local societies in their management plans.

At the plenary session at the end they voted to set up a holding body, to negotiate with the official body; and if there was no agreement within the year, to go ahead and hold a further congress. Since however this is an issue on which compromise seems unlikely, it looks as if for the foreseeable future there are going to be two rival World Archaeological Congresses.

(ED. Members might also like to see Peter Ucko’s letter in Guardian 18 October)

NOTES FROM THE COMMITTEE Brian Wrigley

A document, ‘The Future of Hampstead Heath’ from the London Residual Body, was discussed. HADAS stressed the importance of consultation with local bodies on the future management of the Heath.

Redevelopment at Finchley Manor House. After a site visit, views will be presented to the Borough of Barnet. The building on the site encroaches on the moat, which is a scheduled site.

DOMESDAY EXHIBITION AT THE PUBLIC RECORD. OFFICE Jill Braithwaite

This fascinating exhibition was on for most of this summer, but unfortunately it closed on September 30th. It was an unusual, low-key exhibition, with an immense amount of very interesting information which took quite a lot of reading and digesting, so that one would have been well advised to buy and read the catalogue first, and then go round the exhibits.

The exhibition, as stated in the catalogue, had two main themes: Domesday England, its people, its landscape, its agriculture and the history of Domesday. To introduce the first theme there was a good video, lasting half an hour, using extant material and many a shot of Butser farm and West Stow village to give an impression of England at the time of the Conquest. This was useful, because due to lack of space there was not a great deal of visual material; it was mainly extracts from manuscripts with written commentaries. There were however two rather good audio-visual. exhibits, namely an extremely life-like figure of an Anglo-Saxon monk, whose whole face moved as he spoke (some kind of holographic projection we presumed), who delivered a recording, first in Anglo-Saxon, and then in English, of the rather disapproving passage in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle which describes the commissioning of the Domesday survey at Christmas 1085, when the king was at Gloucester; and another similar figure of a rather severe King William addressing his people in English. For the rest of Domesday England, we had to make do with a life-size model of an endearing, tousled ox pulling a plough (normally, apparently, it would have been drawn by eight oxen) and a lot of well researched descriptions of the land­scape, the towns, farming, diet, social order, etc., using informa­tion from both Domesday and archaeology.

Then came Domesday itself, First there was quite a large section devoted to ‘The Survey’, using photographs of extracts from contem­porary manuscripts, or slightly later ones, which describe how the Domesday survey was carried out, or provide corroborating evidence. England was divided up into circuits, probably seven, .and three or more high-born commissioners were appointed to each one. The main; donkey-work seems to have been done by officials of the shire and hundred courts who had to answer a set number of questions concern­ing each, manor: how many hides, villeins, slaves, mills etc. Much of the information was gathered from existing sources such as geld records, church records and estate accounts, some of which survive. Then, when the data collection was complete; the commissioners visited the shire courts, heard sworn evidence, and ensured that the information was compiled in the correct way (or tried to). All the surveys from the different circuits were then sent to Winchester, the principal royal city, to be condensed and collated into the complete Domesday Book. One set of records, however, those for the eastern circuit embracing Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, never got included into the Great Domesday Book, and have remained in their original, less condensed and more detailed format to this day, known as Little Domesday. Why they were not included is not known very likely it was King William’s death.

Finally, Great Domesday itself. Amazingly, it was written by one scribe alone, in less than a year, from late 1086 to mid or late. 1087. The complete project, survey and all, had taken just two years: It is written on parchment made from the skins of between 500 to 1000 Dorset sheep and in a separate room there was an on-going demonstra­tion of parchment making, starting from the basic skin and ending with thin vellum or parchment sheets. Domesday always used to be bound as, one book, but it has recently been re-bound and divided into two volumes. Little Domesday, which has smaller size pages, has also been rebound, into three volumes, one for each county. All five volumes were on display in the exhibition.

The rest of the exhibition was devoted to ‘the Domesday Book in. use’ from the 12th century to the present day. ,This seemed to be the least interesting part of the exhibition, but perhaps we were running out of energy. Needless to say, computer buffs are having a heyday with. Domesday, now that the new translation: started by John Morris 20 years ago has finally been fully published in the Phillimore edition.

For those who missed the exhibition there is an excellent guide published by the National Domesday Committee, Domesday, 900 years of England’s Norman Heritage, price £3, which should be available in bookshops. It has a number of .very useful and readable articles about the making of Domesday,- ‘the first national account of its kind in the post-barbarian world’ and the historical events leading up to and following the Conquest.

CYPRUS WITH THE PREHISTORIC SOCIETY Enid Hill

Cyprus in the sun with its fine coastline and lofty Troodos Mountains in the centre made a very happy place for the Prehistoric Society’s summer outing. Several HADAS members were in the party, and we spent 5 energetic days visiting archaeological sites all over the southern part of the island. Unfortunately we were not able to visit the north because of the Turkish occupation – of which we had a stern reminder by the 20-foot high wall near our hotel dividing Nicosia into two parts.

Many of the sites were manned by their excavators, who very kindly took time off to show us round, We were especially grateful to Dr Karageorghis, the Director of the Department of Antiquities, who not only showed us his late Bronze Age defended site at Maa, on a promontory overlooking the sea, but also gave us a personal tour of the Museum of Cyprus at Nicosia. Many of us found it surprising that the earliest record of man in Cyprus was in the sixth millennium BC, but Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age sites, let alone the Archaic, Greek and Rome, are there in abundance. In particular, I enjoyed the sites of Khirokitia, a neolithic village on a steep slope in the foothills of the Troodos mountains, with its stone circular houses and long stone extended wall:: Kalavassos-Ayios Dhimitrios, a late Bronze Age settlement, which seems to have been a highly organised town with fine public buildings probably concerned with the copper trade from the mines a few kilometres distant, and Kition- under the modern town of Larnaca,- an ancient harbour town inhabited from about 1300 to 311 BC, when it was destroyed by earth­quakes. Here there were remains of the ‘Cyclopean Walls’ of the town, and five rectangular temples constructed of large ashlar blocks marked with ‘ship-graffiti’, no doubt because sea-going ships docked in the vicinity; to deal with exports of copper and possibly timber:

Those of us who are interested in Greek and Roman sites were pleased to visit Nea Paphos, the capital of Cyprus from the second century BC to the fourth century AD, when the area was devastated by earthquakes. Here we saw the city walls, the ‘Tombs of the Kings’ cut down into bedrock and constructed in the form of houses, plus the remains of two great houses – of Dionysus and Theseus, both with memorable mosaics, though the sight of a live Black Widow spider in a bottle found on the site a few minutes earlier was unnerving. Our final visit was to Kourion, where we had too short a stay, to see the Temple of Apollo, the theatre and the House of Eustolios. Our special thanks go to E.J. Peltenburg of Edinburgh University who. organised the programme of visits as well as showing us his own Chalcolithic site at Mosphilia in the Paphos area with its circular buildings, pit and chamber .graves – all set near a grove of bananas, lemons and pomegranates. The weather was hot, but during the middle of the day we would relax for a couple of hours in the shade of a taverna, while some of our members managed to swim in the sea.

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON DEPARTMENT OF EXTRA MURAL STUDIES

Lectures on Thursday evenings at the Institute of Archaeology, Gordon Square, at 7 pm (£2 at door)

November 6: Dr R.G. Robins, ‘Proportions and Style in Egyptian Art’

November 13: Dr J.A. Alexander, ‘Qasr Ibrim: Fortress of Nubia’

November 20: Dr D.T. Martin, ‘The Tomb of Horemheb’

November 27: J.D. Ray,- ‘The Carians in Egypt and the Decipherment of Carian Script’

December 4: Prof. H.S. Smith, ‘Memphis’

‘MUSEUM OF LONDON, Saturday 8 November – DOMESDAY LONDON: THE MISSING PAGES Starts at.10.15 with John Clark on ‘The Making of the Domesday Survey’, followed until late afternoon with Alan Vince, ‘Saxon London and the Norman Conquest’, Gustav Milne, ‘Life along the Domesday Waterfront, Frances Pritchard, The Domesday Londoners’, John Schofield, ‘The Buildings of Domesday London’, John Clark, ‘Summing Up The Missing Pages’.

Tickets. £6.50, available from Citisights of London, Domesday 900-London, 102E Albion Road, London N16 9PD.

BRITISH MUSEUM LECTURES on Wednesdays at 6.15 pm in Lecture Theatre (free),

November 5: Prof. Barri Jones Hadrian’s Wall: New Discoveries

November 12:.Dr Tim Potter, ‘New Perspectives on Roman Britain’

November 19 Prof. Martin Biddle, ‘Royal Burials of Anglo-Saxon England’.

November 26: Dr. Warwick’ Rodwell, ‘The Archaeology of Churches

December 3: Prof. Peter Fowler, ‘Making our Countryside,: BC/AD”

OXFORD UNIVERSITY DEPT FOR EXTERNAL STUDIES conferences:

November 14-16: Art and Archaeology in Greece

November 22-23: Air photography and archaeology

December,. 12-14, _The origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms

Two linked day schools, Making the Most of Statistics: An Introduction for local Historians’,

Saturday.15 November and Saturday 10′

January. 1987. Further details from Archaeology/Local History Course

Secretary, OUDES, Rewley House, 1. Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JA

RESCUE ARCHAEOLOGY – WHAT’S NEXT.

A conference will be held on this theme at the University of York on 19-21 December 1986.

An impressive line of 19 speakers are billed, including our Chairman. Fee is £20 -.nonresidential, Residential accommodation is available for an additional £42. Details: from Brenda Hobbs,.

RESCUE, 15A Bull Plain, Hertford, Herts., SG14 IDX.

This conference marks the final fifteen years of RESCUE; and is an opportunity to look into the future of rescue archaeology, and to assess its past achievements.

THE PAST IN THE PIPELINE (Archaeology. of the Esso Midline)

This is a glossy, coloured booklet published by The Trust for Wessex Archaeology. -This has been funded-entirely by the Esso Petroleum Company. The pipeline runs from Seisdon in Staffordshire to Fawley in Hampshire, in all crossing parts of five counties. There has been a major archaeological effort on Esso’s part throughout the pipeline route. They have financed radiocarbon dates, specialist reports, and the preparation of sites and monument data for five counties.

The booklet describes how the pipeline was built. Separate sec­tions deal with: Early Man, Iron Age farmer, After the Roman Conquest, Ancient Monuments, Wansdyke (a Saxon frontier), the Middle Ages, and, to conclude, living archaeology. It contains excellent material for teaching, especially the double-page spread of an Iron Age farmstead.

Free copies may be requested from: Corporate Affairs Department, Room T/11/22, Esso U.K. plc, ESSO House, Victoria Street, London SW1E 5JW TED SAMMES

Newsletter 188: October, 1986
TWENTY-FIVE NOT OUT

HADAS’s silver jubilee year is nearing its end. There’s, still a final flourish to come in the middle of this month – the opening on Oct. 18th of our exhibition “One Man’s Archaeology” at Church Farm House Museum. More of that later.

Four years ago, when we were 21, the April 1982 Newsletter published a year-by-year potted history of the Society. This time we hope you will enjoy a quick fly-past of some high spots in our 25 year existence. .

Starting point is the founding of the Society by a Graeco-Hendonian, Themistocles Constantinides, who badly wanted to establish Hendon’s Saxon origins. He gathered together a group of like-minded enthusiasts at Hendon Library in April 1961. From that meeting HADAS emerged, to be quickly equipped with a President, Vice-Presidents, officers, committee and 73 members. The first dig began almost at once, in the grounds and outbuildings of Church End Farm, which was then still standing. We dug each summer for 5 years, during which time we established a tradition of exhibiting at Church Farm House Museum by showing our finds there twice.

Those were the days when our archaeological belt had to be pulled very tight. How would today’s Hon.Treasurer feel if he had only £25.14s. 5d (old money) to juggle with at the end of the year? That was our credit balance in 1964, when we were 3 years old. When we were 10, in April 1971, we still had only £234,81 in the kitty. In 1972 we broke through to a four figure surplus The balance sheet presented at the 1986 AGM showed that our bank accounts (now plural, ‘please note), plus such assets as surveying equipment, amounted to £3980.13. Such figures would have seemed an impossible dream, as late as 1971.

When we were 4 on. April 1, 1965 – the London Borough of Barnet, created by the Local Government Act of 1963, came into being, taking unto itself the boroughs of Hendon and Finchley and the urban districts of Friern,Chipping and East Barnet, Our founders had, with foresight, given us the title of ‘Hendon & District.’ In the new, larger borough the ‘&’District’ took on a fresh meaning, as later digs in Friern Barnet, Finchley, High Barnet and Hadley were to testify.

In the early years. membership, like money, stayed stubbornly low, plummeting to a miserable 56 in 1963 and sticking at not much above 100 till 1972, In ‘73 it broke the 200 mark, in ’76 the 300 and in ’77 the 400. We stayed in the 400s until 3 years ago, when we began to slip back into the upper 300s (377 at the 1986 AGM). That sort of slippage seems to have happened in many areas of archaeology in the 1980s. The ’70s were heady times, both for, HADAS and for archaeology in general. The ’80s are not proving as propitious

Now for some of those high spots we mentioned.

Among them must be rated the recording of the tombstones in Hendon St Mary’s churchyard not only for itself but because it broadened our vistas and introduced us to a whole new area of work. We began at St Mary’s in 1970 and went on right through the decade. It was a happy experience. The church- yard was both pleasant and historic; its inscriptions led down many unexpected by-ways. Later we did similar recording in part of St James the Great, Friern Barnet; and there were two-‘rescue’ jobs – one at the Dissenters Burial Ground in Totteridge; the other in an early area of New Southgate cemetery,

The Quincentenary celebrations of the Battle of Barnet were, in large part, a HADAS brainchild, and the Society provided three of the 7-member organ­ising committee, including the Chairman and Hon Sec. The Committee spent 18 months on its plans, particularly those for the 3-week exhibition in the old Council Chamber in Wood Street, In the end the whole Borough, and many people outside it, became involved, Local Women’s Institutes and Townswomen’s Guilds embroidered 8 magnificent banners of the main commanders in the battle, as well as guidons, crests and pennons; local War-Gamers provided a spirited model of the entire battlefield, hillocks and ditches, mill and church, troops, horses, weapons, the lot, The Tower of London lent 15c armour and weapons and the British Museum lent mediaeval retainers badges; student calligraphers from HGS Institute produced, genealogies of the houses of York and Lancaster, and fine-lettered the eve-of-battle speeches of Warwick and. Edward IV. Lord Brook lent Warwick’s mace from Warwick Castle; and the University of Ghent made a special transparency; which we showed in a light-box, of their greatest medieval treasure, the 15c Ghent Manuscript. It was the illuminated heading of the chapter on the Battle of Barnet. HADAS members played a notable part both in setting up and in stewarding the book stall and exhibition, which was visited by 10,000 people..

Two digs stand out from among many; Church Terrace (1973/4) and West Heath (1976-81, 1984-6), Church Terrace established Hendon’s Saxon origins beyond doubt thereby fulfilling the vision of our founder and justifying the Society’s’ existence. Ditches of Saxon date, grass-tempered pottery and a rare Saxon pin was found. Only sad thing was that Mr. Constantinides had not lived to see his beliefs so triumphantly vindicated.

In l976 West Heath, with its attendant excitements, began, Apart from providing the London area with one of its most important Mesolithic sites, HADAS found itself appearing on ITV and on the BBC’s Chronicle programme; and moving up the academic ladder by providing training weeks for London University’s extramural Diploma and. for the Certificate in Field Archaeology.

1979 produced an unforgettable event: our Roman banquet, at which Roman food was served, Roman fashion, under Roman lighting, to guests attired in toga or tunic. (and even in centurion’s gear); the menfolk sported laurel wreaths, the tables stood under the eye of Roman household gods and the guests enjoyed Roman type entertainment(including readings from Homer) between the courses. As one member wrote afterwards “when we archaeologists let our hair down, we do it in style!

Skipping to 1984; we come to a day All Fools Day, naturally – when HADAS tangled with the clowns. This was the hilarious occasion (culmination of months, even years, of laborious and far-from hilarious HADAS work on the project of increasing the number of Blue Plaques in the Borough) when one of our most illustrious members, Spike Milligan, flanked either side by a clown in full dress (Mr Woo and Barney) unveiled a Blue Plaque on Finchley Memorial Hospital to the great clown Joseph Grimaldi who used to live nearby. Spike described it as the craziest opening ceremony of my life (a description which in itself was something of an achievement by HADAS)

Those are a few of peaks: in HADAS’s career so far, don’t forget, though, that you can’t have a peak unless there’s a good solid foundation underneath for it to spring from. So to end with here’s a reminder of the foundation which underlies our finer flights of fancy that foundation is our day-to-day archaeology, composed of many jobs done by many people- our research and field groups, our dedicated band of active diggers, our officers and all our members who deploy their talents on HADAS’s behalf. The jobs are manifold: they include the many smaller digs which don’t make headlines (except occasionally in the Newsletter) but all of which add to our knowledge. In 25 years we have dug on 26 sites all over the Borough of Barnet: no bad record.

Field exercises of various kinds come in this category -.resistivity meter­ing, field walking, street surveys, recording buildings and features. Then there is the job of spreading the knowledge we acquire as widely as we can by exhibitions, by publishing occasional papers, town trails, pamphlets by talks to schools and groups, even by getting the Newsletter into your letterbox each month. There is work on finds – pottery weekends at the Teahouse or flint Studies to back up West Heath reports; and research into maps, plans, photos and documents which precedes most digs. Last, but certainly not least, there is our programme of winter lectures and summer outings which holds the structure of the society together; and fund-raising efforts, like our inimitable Mini-mart, when 3 hours frenetic salesmanship usually earns our surplus for next year as well as plugging a few financial holes in current expenditure.

Taken one by one such ploys may sound bread and butter stuff: but you don’t grow into a healthy archaeological body unless you have your bread and butter. We’ve grown pretty strongly up to our 25th birthday: let’s hope we will continue to thrive in the years ahead which lead to a golden jubilee.

ONE MAN’S ARCHAEOLOGY

This exhibition, from Oct 18-December 7th at Church Farm House Museum, celebrates our 25th birthday and has been designed and organised by one of our founder members and vice-presidents, Ted Sammes.

It will be, so I’m told (I haven’t seen it yet, of course) a Ted’s-eye view of archaeology, describing how a younger Sammes was lured into the toils of this most addictive of hobbies and why it has provided a near life-time’s pleasure,”Toils” isn’t a half-bad word to describe what archaeology does to you: many is the time I’ve seen Ted wielding a pick-axe in a downpour, hacking through a layer of gravel compounded into the sticky clay of Middlesex – and if that isn’t toil, in pursuit of knowledge, I don’t know what is.

Though I haven’t seen the exhibition, Ted has kindly given me a preview by providing the manuscript of the brochure which will accompany it. I can assure HADAS members they are in for a treat: a visit (and probably more than one) is a definite must,

This is perhaps the moment to let you know that SUN OCT. 19 HAS BEEN EAR­MARKED AS A SPECIAL DAY FOR MEMBERS. Do come along then, between 2-5.30.pm to see the show, meet your HADAS friends and shake hands with Ted himself. He might even autograph his new booklet on the Church Terrace dig, which will be on sale- if you press a pen firmly into his hand.

,

Displays at the Museum will deal not only with aspects of HADAS with which Ted has been specially concerned, but also with the new horizons, here and abroad, which archaeology opened for him. He’s an outstanding photographer (as many of you already know, and as everyone will be able to see at the exhibition the places he has visited on trips abroad, camera in hand, read like a digger’s litany: Ayia Irini (Cyprus),. prehistoric temples in Ephesus, Catal Huyuk, Sogazkoy, Yasilikaya. Come and see them, and many more. Brigid Grafton Green

Ted’s booklet on Church Terrace – HADAS Occasional Paper No 6 – is called Pinning Down the Past – Some Finds from a Hendon Dig. Price isn’t yet finalized but will be around £1.50.

GLASS FROM THE END OF THE DAY

While you are at Church Farm House Museum, don’t miss a display downstairs of the John Franks Collection of English Cottage Glass. Here GERRARD ROOTS, Curator of the Museum, describes it:

“Until Dec 31 Church. Farm House Museum is holding an exhibition of this unusual glass sometimes referred to as ‘end-of-day glass” which was produced throughout the Victorian period. Made sometimes as apprentice pieces, but more often produced by small glass-making concerns by using up all the pots of coloured glass left over from their main work (hence end-of-day) cottage glass was primarily aimed at a working class market.

The shapes of the glassware on show illustrate in a popular manner changes in taste during the 19c, from the elaborateness of Gothic to the sinuous lines of art nouveau, whilst their method of manufacture ensures that the coloring of each piece is unique. Some of the glass is bizarre, some is most pleasing, none is without interest. I do hope that HADAS members will visit what is the most comprehensive display of this material to be shown in Britain in recent years”.

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

Sat Oct 4. The outing to Winchester Domesday Exhibition is full, with a short waiting list. If anyone still wants to go please phone Dorothy-Newbury (203 0950) the night before sometimes there are last minute cancellations

Tues Oct 7. Opening lecture of the winter season at Hendon Library: Lost Kingdoms of the Middle Nile- Valley by Dr John Alexander

Many members will know Dr Alexander from his Diploma courses some years ago; others will recall his previous excellent lectures to HADAS on Quasr Ibrim and the History of the Safety Pin. He is Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and we welcome his return visit.

LECTURE INFORMATION for new members. Buses 183 and 143 pass, the. Library, which is 10 minutes’ walk from Hendon Central Underground Station and a few minutes’ walk from the 113 (Edgware) and 240 and 125 (Quadrant Hendon) buses; There are 2 free carparks opposite the Library. Members may bring guests to one lecture, but if they wish to attend further lectures visitors should be invited to join the Society. Will new and old members please make every effort to introduce themselves to each other.

Getting to lectures is becoming quite a problem nowadays for those who don’t drive. Some older members can’t face the journey alone in these times of muggers and disturbance on streets and public transport. If you are a driver, can you help by offering a lift? Not necessarily regularly, as that can be a tie; but by giving members who live near you your phone number, so they can ring and ask if a lift is available? And when you are at a lecture, could you offer a lift home?

Sat Oct.1st, MINIMART, St Mary’s Church House, Greyhound Hill, NW4, 2.30. Goods and help still needed. Last minute offerings can be handed in on lecture night, Oct 7 but we would prefer to have them earlier for sorting and pricing: bric-a-brac, clothing, books, toiletries, unwanted gifts and jewellery. Please let us have them and help the Society’s funds. Food on the day will be most welcome: cakes, pies, bread, sausage rolls, jams, chutneys; sweets, fruit, herbs, Brigid Grafton Green will be delighted to know, on 455 9040, what goodies you hope to bring.

And a special SOS for 2 or 3 tough people to transport goods to the hall on Saturday morning between 8.30-9 am again ring Dorothy if you can volunteer.

Sat Oct 18 – Dec17. HADAS exhibition, One Man’s Archaeology, at Church Farm House Museum, Hendon (see above). Several members have offered to man our bookstall on Sats & Suns during this 7-week period. We have a rota -please ring Dorothy Newbury if you can add your name to it, even a couple of hours will help.

Tues Nov 4. Lecture, Hendon Library: The Roman City Project 1986. By Gustav Milne

Fri Dec 12. Christmas Supper and tour at the Gatehouse of the Priory of the Order of St John in Clerkenwell.

DOROTHY NEWBURY

A LETTER FROM 1821

(with some notes in brackets by Nell Penny)

Dear Reader,

Please take a short walk with me on May 31, 1821. I will be your guide to the ‘Burrows’ and Church End. I know the district well because I live there and I am Clerk to the Hendon Vestry. I have been told that Golders Green is named for one of my forbears. Today I am working as an enumerator for the national Census. At the front of my notebook I have copied down the questions I am ordered to ask at each door. They are:

1. The name of the householders

2. The number of families in the house

3. The occupation(s) of the head(s) of the household (s)

4. The number of males/females in the house and their ages

Filling in the details of the answers to the last question is going to take some time. I have to divide the householders into occupational classes: (a) agriculture; (b) trade, manufacturing, handicraft; (c) others.

The vestry has ordered the enumerators to ask three further questions, of ‘cottagers’ (as distinct from gentry, NP). What rent do they pay? How many windows has their house? Have they a dog? The motives for asking these further questions are not quite clear. Window tax is not payable on houses with fewer than seven windows. No cottager owns land to be taxed at about 4s (20p) in the £ and poor people’s dogs are exempt from the 3s (15p) tax. Perhaps the gentlemen of the vestry wish to find out which dogs have been worrying sheep and birds.

When we have finished we shall have called at 83 houses, finding 4 of them empty. Gentlefolk, among whom I count myself, live in 10 of the houses, but we do not hold ourselves aloof from common folk in a special district; I live in a house between those of a ‘taylor’ and a cordwainer. It is difficult to decide which persons can be classified under ‘agricultural occupations.’ I am noting down 19 such which means I have decided to class farmers and `yearly contracted farm workers together, but to enter day labourers as “others” along with gentlemen-and gentlewomen and those employed in what you might call the service industries,. Tradesmen are shopkeepers like Thomas Jackson who has a general shop in the Burrows, and Thomas Bennett the baker. Of ‘manufacturers’ we seem to have none, but of men ‘engaged in handicraft’ I can find you carpenters, blacksmiths, cordwainers, taylors, gardeners and a sawyer.

You say there is ‘a great deal of noise along the road? No wonder there are have two workhouses -You say you cannot see either of them? Our own parish house is a low building near Burrows Pond (the-modern flats at the Prothero Gardens corner of Watford Way/The Burroughs are nearest to the site now, NP), I have counted 35 inmates, including 2 infants, 4 young children and 18 men and women between 60-80 years old.

The other workhouse is the orphanage belonging to St Clement Dane’s parish, in 1815 that parish bought the lease of Burrows Place from Mr James Allen of Clerkenwell. The property consisted of a “messuage, gardens, stables and a coachhouse.” If you cannot see Burrows Place you must look for a house with a row of poplars in front of it. The house had 99 inmates – 31 of them infants and 38 children between 5-10 years. If you think it must be expensive for a London parish to maintain some of its poor in a village outside London, you must remember that 50 years ago, when Parliament was told that four out of every five children born in the City and Westminster workhouses died before they reached their first birthday, it was enacted that children under 6 years old must, be boarded out more than 3 miles from the City.

A much quieter establishment than the workhouses is Mrs Williams’ school. At present she has 10 boarders between 5-15 years. Mary Burneby looks after a few young children in her cottage with 5 windows; the parish may pay her to care for orphans and bastard babies. But we have three women who maintain themselves and their families by taking in washing. Widow Weston lives alone in her cottage with one window, but Widow Piggott has a family of two to support in her cottage with two windows (do windows, in these instances, mean rooms? NP). She pays £10 a year rent and keeps a puppy for the children.

Now I have finished my task and. I must go to the Greyhound Inn at Church End. Census enumeration is thirsty work, and I shall kill two birds with one stone. I will also deposit my notebook in the cupboard in the parish room at the inn – the one with the bow window.

I am, dear Sir or Madam,
Your obedient servant

JAMES GOODYER

Clerk to the Vestry
St Mary’s, Hendon

NEWSLETTER INDEX

HADAS is lucky in having two professional indexers among its members, who have been prepared to put their expertise at the Society’s, disposal, indexing, as well as being time-consuming, is a highly-skilled occupation.

The first 10 years of the Newsletter (1969-79) were admirably indexed for us by Freda Wilkinson. When she found, regretfully, that she must give up, Jean Neal took on the task, and produced the index for 1980, Now Jean has completed the 2-year index for 1981-82; and she tells us that1983-84 is nearing completion, -When it is ready we shall be as near up to the minute .as we’ve ever been, index wise.

That news will be rapturously received by those members who like to acquire a photo-copy of each index; and also by the various libraries that receive regular Newsletters and want to be able to refer to them quickly.

We have further cause for congratulation: HADAS also has a member who is prepared to type Mrs Neal’s manuscript indexes – another time-consuming job which needs expert handling. For that we are indebted to Deirdre Barrie, who is in fact typing. 1981-82 as this Newsletter is published.

Will any member who would like a copy of the latest index please let Brigid Grafton Green know (455. 9040)? It will probably run to same 14 or 15 double column A4 pages: a photo-copy may cost about 75.-90 pence, plus postage. At this stage we can’t be more exact than that.

FRAGMENTS. FROM OUR FINDS TRAY

The Repton dig (HADAS visited Aug ’84) unearthed a sculpture of a Mounted warrior who Martin Biddle thinks is King Aethelbald of Mercia. He ruled for 41 years & was buried at Repton AD 757. If true this would be earliest known sculpture of an English king.

Annual Museum of London Archaeo­logy Lecture will be by Harvey Sheldon, Dec 1, 6pm, on Work of Dept.of Greater London Archaeo­logy. Tickets from Museum Press Office.

LAMAS Conference at Museum of London on Archaeology of London Region to 1500: Oct 25/26. Powerful panel of speakers (many well-known to HADAS) from John Wymer on lower Palaeolithic (10.15 am Sat) to Bridget Cherry on mediaeval churches (4.45 pm Sun). Tickets £8.

TL dating on flints from Le Moustier (type-site of the Moueterian) has produced dates between 115,000 – 40,000, says a recent paper in Nature. This suggests a time over­lap between Neanderthal Man and Homo sapiens, and therefore the possibility of interbreeding

Museum of London’s autumn attractions include “Capital Gains” – story of the last 15 years of excavation in London (on until Feb 1 1987). Lectures and workshops tie in with the exhibition – including two workshops (Dec 4, 11): on environmental material illustrating medieval diet. LAMAS private view. (open to HADAS members as affiliates) Oct 29, 6.30-8.30 pm.Tickets £2.50 (send a sae) from Mrs Parnum, 28 Wolseley Gns W4 3LR).

“Common Ground” founded 1983, to promote the community heritage common plants and animals, local places and local links with the past – has launched its first pro­ject: making of parish maps by local groups. More information from Common Ground, 45 Shelton. St. WC2.

At 1.15 Weds, Oct 15-Nov 19 in’ British Museum lecture theatre, 6 lectures to celebrate the Brit­ish School at Athens, including talks on Knossos, Lefkandi, Mycenaea, etc. No tickets needed.

Digging inside Danebury hillfort has finished, though Barry Cunliffe plans excavations outside the fort next season. One fifth of the interior will be kept as an archeological reserve & not touch­ed for a century. A Museum of the Iron Age is opening at Andover for finds from 18 years excavations at Danebury.

At British Museum next month spe­cial Sat study days: Nov 1 pre­history, Nov 8 Roman Britain; Nov 29 Medieval Britain. Details from 636 1555 ext-511

Excavations at York this summer produced evidence for the ‘lost’ 8th/9th c Anglian city of Eorforwic which suggests it was a riverside trading town like London’s Aldwych and Southampton’s Hamwic. The ‘wic’ towns are one of the most exciting areas of British archaeology at present.

Shire Archaeology’s latest: Rock Carvings of Northern Britain by Stan Beckenstall, £2.50. Cup and ring marks, concentric circles, ducts and channels, spirals, peck marks, even what looks like an outside game of noughts and crosses.

Letter to The Times from Acting President of the Church Monument Society calls for more care for sepulchral monuments inside churches as well as in churchyards. He describes some as “being allowed to crumble away from lack of interest,’ and appeals for more people to try to save monuments in churches.

Our colleagues in Enfield Archaeological Society (who have an enviable record of publication) have produced “Theatres, Music Hall and Cinemas in London-Borough of Enfield” by Geoffrey Gillam (56 pp, numerous illustrations) price £4.30 inc; postage. From author, 23.MertonRd, En­field EN2 OLS.

Repair work on the shrine of St Alban, in St Albans Cathedral, is likely soon to provide a chance for Martin Biddle to examine the site under controlled archaeolog­ical conditions – a unique oppor­tunity to disentangle the history of the shrine and of the cult of St Alban.

University of Sheffield Archaeology Dept. offers weekend “Skill Schools:” intensive weekend courses (max 15 students), using its labs on Environmental Archaeology (Oct 24/26); Human Bones (Nov 21/23); Animal Bones (Feb 6/8). Fee £49 per week­end inclusive. Book with Dept. Archaeo­logy) Sheffield University, Sheffield S10 2TN.

Niall Sharpies, directing the Maiden Castle dig, has (says The Times) found 3 circular houses (c.200 BC) with stone ovens and paved entrance porches; grain-storage pits; 30,000 animal bones; and many small finds. English Heritage intends to build a “visitors centre” about a mile from the site;’ & a-flock of English Heritage sheep (15 in The Times, 12 in The Guardian) in care of their own shepherdess, are in future to ‘nibble-mow’ the grass.

From Ireland news that peat-cutting has unearthed, in a bog in Co. Longford, evidence of timber trackways similar to those found by John Coles in the Somerset Levels – a Bronze Age track dated c 1250 BC and another Iron Age, one dated by dendrochronology to 148 BC. Incidentally Somerset Levels Paper No 12 is now available, £6 plus 80p. Postage, from Dept. of Archaeology, University of Exeter (Queens Building), Exeter, Devon EX4 4QH.

HADAS AT THE OLD BAILEY

STEWART WILD reports on a visit on Sept 18 to the Central Crimi­nal court.

A select band of some 20 HADAS enthusiasts was fortunate to participate recently in an after-hours tour of the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, organised by Mary O’Connell. Visits to this august and historic building are normally limited to foreign dignitaries and persons with connections in high places, but through Mary’s professional contacts as an official London guide we were privileged to enjoy a fascinating tour conducted by the Keeper of the Old Bailey, Captain Ray Whitehouse.

We started in a memorabilia room below ground at the corner of the building where Old Bailey joins Newgate

Street. This of course is the site of the New Gate in the old Roman wall (a section of the wall can still be seen) and as Bailey means a fortified place, thus its use as a prison. The old Newgate Gaol was demolished around 1770 and rebuilt as a prison and sessions house in 1776. Outside opposite the famous Magpie and Stump public house, ­public executions were held; the last was in 1868. The current building dates from 1907 and was considerably extended in 1972; there hasn’t been a prison on the site for more than a century.

We saw the central gallery on the first floor, recently refurbished and showing no sign of the considerable damage caused by a flying bomb in 1943. Interesting comparisons were made between the original murals painted and dated in 1906 and these by the same artist (G Moira) painted 48 years later when repairs to wartime damage were completed in 1954.

Our next stop was No 1. Court, since. 1907 the most famous in the land, in its dock has stood the majority of the most infamous and notorious criminals of our time, from Crippen onwards. Captain Whitehouse proved an. excellent guide, full of knowledge and anecdote to hold our interest, Mary O’Connell stood in the dock whilst court routine was explained, but was released with a recommendation that this sort of thing be done more often!.

Afterwards we visited Court No 5, one of the 12 ‘modern style’ courts built in 1972, and then downstairs again to see the holding cells and transfer area where the accused are brought and kept pending their appearance in the docks upstairs, but (fortunately for us) never held overnight. Some members expressed disappointment that recent renovation had robbed them of the oppor­tunity to see any graffiti on the corridor walls. What a contrast between the prisoners’ quarters below and the law courts above.

The tour ended in the sumptuous Sheriffs’ dining room on the first floor with a hearty vote of thanks for Captain Whitehouse for giving us such a fine tour and to Mary O’Connell for making it possible.

NEWS ABOUT HADAS PEOPLE

One member who travelled far this summer – to the American Deep South and beyond is D MAIR LIVINGSTONE, who retired a year or two back from the Public Health Laboratory-at Colindale. One of her specialties is the study of mycoplasida. “It’s a little organism I’ve always been fond of,” she-explains. “It’s not quite up to being a bacterium, but it can cause a lot of trouble.” Apparently throughout the world people are studying mycoplasma for varying reasons. Dr Livingstone is interested in its effects in gynaecology but since it concerns animals, insects and plants as well as humans, its researchers.’ include vets, bee-keepers and plant pathologists, to name a few. Every two years they all meet at a different centre to tell each other what they’ve found out. Two years ago, it was Jerusalem, before that Tokyo this year it’s Alabama. After the US the Livingstones intend to go north to Vancouver Island.

Sad news about two members this month. CRAIGIE MEYER (a HADAS member for 15 years, who joined when she was Craigie Beswick) says that her husband FRANK (also a longtime member), had a nasty accident last May. He was knocked down by a car in Kenton Road and has not yet completely recovered from his injuries. We wish him a full return to health in the near future.

And ERIC WARD who has so often helped us with photographic assignments, reports that he is no better: indeed, although he manages in the house without a wheelchair, he uses one when he goes out. All his HADAS friends will feel greatly for him – someone so active must find it horribly frustrating.

A sharp-eared HADAS listener, tuning in to BBC Radio London on the morning of Sept.161 picked up a familiar voice – PERCY REBOUL being interviewed about one of his pet hobby-horses – the need for a museum of plastics. Percy is Chairman of the Plastics History Society, which aims to preserve the records of the discovery and use of plastics (first material which could be called plastic was parkesine, an early type of celluloid, invented around 1860).: Percy has promised to write a piece about the subject for the Newsletter -. so that’s a treat in store.

Some time ago we reported that NIGEL HARVEY,.near-founder member of HADAS, was carrying out a study of historic farm buildings for the Ministry of Agriculture (MAFF) and the Council for British Archaeology. Earlier this year his first publication for this project appeared: Historic Farm Build­ings Study: Sources of Information (published by the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service of MAFF at £5). It is designed as a working tool for those involved or interested in ancient farm buildings and is jam-packed with solid facts. Want to know what surveys of old barns have been made, where, when and by whom? This will tell you. Want to know what’s been written on the subject? The bibliography is extensive, with lists of modern books/booklets; details of county inventories nearly 2 pages giving titles and whereabouts of unpublished texts.

A delightful final appendix provides historical facts and quotations that you might like to have at your fingertips should you wish to argue about “repellent modern buildings.’ It is surprising to find that the first protest 1810, by William Wordsworth. It concerns a building that a Leicestershire farmer who had moved to the Lake District tactlessly built near the poet’s home at Grasmere. Wordsworth demolished it verbally as “a huge unsightly barn, built solely for convenience and violating all the modesty of rural proportions.”

LITA SILVER – a keen supporter of outings and lectures; who joined us 10 years ago, when we had an exhibition in an empty shop at the then brand new Brent Cross has recently moved to Chinley, near Stopkport Like many members who move, she’s decided to keep up her HADAS membership. She writes to say that her new home is near a good starting point for the Pennine Way and she would be happy to welcome any HADAS friends who may be in the area.

PETE and JENNY GRIFFITHS: were active HADAS members till recently pillars of the Roman Group, keen West Heathers and participants in most HADAS acti­vities. That was while they lived first in Barnet and, then London Colney. Now they have moved further out, to Litlington, a village hear Royston on the Cambridge/Herts border. They still keep up their HADAS connection although now, alas; we don’t see them nearly so often.

There is a wealth of local archaeology and history around their new abode – but not many of their neighbours seem to be interested. Jenny is hoping they may be able to change that. She has started by researching the history of their own house, which she describes as “originally 2up, 2down with a passage through the middle.” It has a suggested date of 16/17c. Though it has been remodelled outside, some early features remain within, including a huge walk-in fireplace and many original beams. You can even see the Tudor carpenter’s marks – like a little “3” on a mortice joint and a corresponding “3” on the tenon .that fitted it. The house has been extended at the back so when you walk along the passage to the master bedroom you are walking along the top of the old back wall..

The village is as interesting as the house at neighbouring Lithlow Hill there are the-remains of a round barrow; nearby runs Ashwell Street – a road that has caused much argument it the past about whether it is Roman or a branch of the prehistoric Ickneild Way, .Romanised later; ‘.and modern histories of Cambridgeshire record, that a large Roman courtyard villa was excavated on the outskirts of the village in 1822, in what Jenny suspects may have been a rather hit-and-miss excavation. Some finds from it are in the Museum of Archaeology .and Anthropology in Cambridge. Near the villa was a 3c Romano-British cemetery in a field with the evocative name ‘Heaven’s Walls.’ ‘Part of the villa/cemetery area has been destroyed or sealed under a modern housing estate; but part is probably still under open fields. It sounds the right sort of setting for a pair of HADAS enthusiasts.

DIGHT ME A PEACOCK

by

Muriel Large

An interest in medieval cookery was aroused by the chance find in a public library .of Lorna Sass’s book “To the King’s Taste,” in which the recipes of Richard 11’s cooks are set out with modern equivalents of measures and in­gredients, I was rather put off by recipes which began “Hack your chicken in pieces and cast him into a boiling cauldron.” It evoked a vision of a large castle kitchen, hot and steam-filled, with many cooks hacking and casting. The total effect was more of a battlefield than a temple of culinary art.

The interest was, however, further developed by the discovery of a booklet on sale at Goodrich.Castle (and no doubt elsewhere) on “Food and Cooking in Medieval Britain” by Maggie Black (English Heritage, £1.50). One or two extracts may be useful when planning the next dinner party.

The high spot, of course, is the peacock even though the flesh may be found tough and indigestible (it says). However, it must be served as in life in full plumage; the well-prepared cook will keep a cured skin with feathers; feathered head with beak, and tail feathers, handy in the drawer next to the food processor. To present the bird “as if sitting upright on its nest,” the head should be held erect by a rod thrust through the mouth and down the throat.

(If your supermarket is out of peacocks, you can always fall back on a Swan and as a guide to cost, we know that this was 3s,4d in 1380, The Bird must be presented garlanded and crowned, on a silver or gold stand with wings erect, neck arched backwards, head erect.” The effect should be stunning).

However, to return to your peacock, to dight him you

“breke his neck and kutte his throate and fle him….. draw him

as a hene …. and roste him,” When he is rosted ynowe take`him offa and lete him kele,

then wynde the skyn with the fethurs and the taile about the body and serue him forthe as he were alive.”

To accompany the fowl, what about buttered wortes (i.e. vegetables)?

“Take all maner of good herbes that you may gete and put them on the fire with faire water; put thereto clarified butter a great quantite. Whan thei ben boyled ynogh, salt hem; late none ‘otemele (oatmeal?) come therein. Dise brede small in disshes and powre on the wortes, and.serue hem forth.”

For a sweet course there are Pokerounce, i,e. honey toasts with pine nuts, a similar dish being called Poor Knights.

The book contains many other recipes as well as hints on how to behave at table, and for the whetted appetite there are further booklets covering food and cooking from prehistoric Britain to the 19c, to add a new dimension to life for the adventurous cook (with an understanding family …)

THE SEVEN AGES OF-COOKERY

As a follow-up to Muriel Large’s exploits with a peacock, here are details of the sevenfold series of cook booklets published last year by English Heritage:

Food and Cooking in Prehistoric Britain Jane Renfrew

Food and Cooking in Roman Britain Jane Renfrew

Food and Cooking in Medieval Britain Maggie Black

Food and Cooking in 16c Britain Peter Brears

Food and Cooking in 17c Britain Peter Brears

Food and Cooking in 18c Britain Jennifer Stead

Food and Cooking in 19c Britain Maggie Black

The booklets vary between 44-52 pages, and are illustrated with line drawings by Peter Brears. The first half of each deals with the culinary history of the period; the second gives recipes.

Prehistoric cookery is, understandably, the least convincing because there are no written sources however, Mrs Renfrew contrives to deduce a lot from archaeological evidence about what foods may have been available (taking climatic conditions into account) and how they might have been cooked and served. She doesn’t shirk the lower Paleolithic, in general terms; but when it comes to recipes she points out that there are “several practical restraints” i.e. mammoth steaks and rhino joints are hard to come.by.” So her prehistoric recipes are confined to “the early postglacial period… to the -end of the Iron Age.” In fact the recipes (some of which sound quite horrible) are based. on classic cookery writers such as Mrs Beeton and Elizabeth. David; on modern writers about hedgerow food; and on regional cookbooks from e.g. the Shetlands.

I to-and the Roman booklet a trifle disappointing. It will contain few surprises for HADAS cooks, since all the recipes are basically from Apicius. Mrs Renfrew has drawn heavily on the Flower & Rosenbaum translation (pub 1958 and republished 1974), not only for recipes but also for notes about ingred­ients and methods. – Experience in the Roman cookery courses run by Southampton University and our own experiments for Our Roman banquet suggest that a more practical selection of recipes might have been made; and it seems a pity to settle for anchovy essence as a substitute for garum when, as our cooks know, a good garum can be made and bottled at home.

The remaining booklets have much documentary material to draw on, and they follow an expected pattern. The booklets are obtainable, price £1.50 each, from English Heritage, PO Box 43, Ruislip, Middx HA4OXW. The set costs £9.95 plus £1, 50 postage; post on single copies is, 25p.

BGG

THE USE OF OBSIDIAN

The 1986 Bulletin of Experimental Archaeology has recently appeared it is as always, full of unexpected titbits, Here, for instance, is a piece about modern experiments with obsidian, from Fracture Mechanics, Ltd, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado. It is headed Surgery with Obsidian and Glass Blades:

For some years now we have learned from press reports that the use of obsidian and glass blades for certain forms of surgery has been successfully revived in the ‘United States. The fullest discussion we have seen is by Sharon McIlrath in American Medical News, Nov 2 1984. The starting point was the discovery by Don Crabtree in late 1960s of a technique of rapidly producing standardised obsidian blades; their surgical uses were recognised at once and tested in surgery by Crabtree himself in 1980. The Medical profession has accepted them and two Crabtree disciples formed separate commercial organ­isations (Fracture Mechanics Ltd and Aztechnics Inc.) to produce respectively glass and Obsidian scalpels to the required specifications. The blades are 12-15 cm long; parallel-sided and unretouched with a range of tip shapes; plastic coating serves as handle, and although they are sterile when supplied, they can be resterilised and – within limits – reused. Electron microscopy shows that they are 500 times sharper than surgical steel blades the finer edge makes a cleaner incision and facilitates healing. If they are correctly used, on soft tissues only, breakage is not a problem, but their use is at present specialised, they are more expensive than steel, but cheaper than diamond scalpels. The ‘medical profession is pressing for controlled trials to evaluate their uses. The direct prototypes of ‘these blades were used by Maya and Aztec Indians until the Spanish Conquest, when it is believed they were suppressed in favour of imported metal blades. The initiative in this revival has come from archaeologists, the production is commercial and (as the Aztechnics brochure puts it) “the resultant product is a perfect blend of stone age technology with space age demands.”

HADAS GOES SOUTHWEST

PADDY MUSGROVE reports on the September weekend in Exeter. HADAS members who set off by coach on Sept 18 for Exeter wisely were equipped with woollies and rainproof clothing to cope with all possible perils of Dartmoor and Exmoor. On Sept 21 they returned with sun-reddened faces after what must have been the best weather of 1986. The 30 who left London were joined in Exeter by Julius and Tamara Baker.also by the Morgans (now of Charmouth) and for the Dartmoor expedition, by the Spiegelhalters (now of Bideford),

On the outward trip to Mardon Hall, Exeter University there was just time for a rapid assault on Maiden Castle. From the height of the viewing ‘gantry’ there we were able to observe the large area excavated this year in the southwest corner, next to one of Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s trenches of 50 years ago. The gantry also provided an impressive view along the formidable southern defences.

Niall Sharples, director of this major investigation by the Trust for Wessex Archaeology, kindly took time to comment on some of the features, such as large storage pits, round house and post holes. This, the second year of the 2-year programme, has to finish by the end of September; its main purpose has been to study the occupation of the hillfort in the period immediately before its sacking by Vespasian in 43 or 44AD.

In Devon our escorts and preceptors on the moors were to be Henrietta and Norman Quinnell, but on the afternoon of our arrival we were whisked off for a lively walking tour of Exeter with Neil Holbrook, Asst. Director of the Exeter Museum’s Archaeological Field Unit. We climbed the oddly shaped Norman motte which is squeezed into one corner of the Roman-medieval town walls, and observed in front of the Cathedral’s West End the forum site and that of the earlier bath-house of the legionary HQ. Exetert Museum hope eventually to excavate this, together with a possible cockpit.

Rougemont Castle was built by William in 1068, but only the gateway remains. Its architect obviously gave the contract to a local firm; the-masons insisted on introducing their own touches to the Norman design, such as dis­tinctive ‘long-and-shorts Saxon quoins!

Two excavations are in progress in the City One is just outside the wails, where a 12ft deep ditch, frequently re-cut and extended, is close to a suspected Roman cremation cemetery. Another is the ancient manor house and farm of Hayes Barton, which can be traced back to the 12c. Used in the Civil War by besieging Royalists as a position for cannons, the buildings were demo­lished by disgruntled Parliamentarians in a sally across the river. With no subsequent building on the site, it is providing a splendid opportunity of studying an early manor house and farm as they survived into the 17c.

In preparation for our expeditions into Exmoor and Dartmoor, Mrs Quinnell gave us an illuminating talk on the rich prehistoric remains on the moors. Few of the hundreds of sites have been dug, let alone properly dated; the purpose of many of them remains obscure; many more certainly are to be discovered.

Some of the monuments were of a type unfamiliar to many in our party in particular the Dartmoor reaves (low prehistoric boundary banks, sometimes runn­ing for several kilometres) and the ubiquitous and enigmatic “stone rows.” In Exmoor at Five Barrows (where, in fact, there are 9 or more round barrows of various sizes and shapes) we found after much searching the double rows of smallish local stones, now partly buried in encroaching spaghnum moss, known earlier as the White Ladder. In Dartmoor, however, substantial granite boulders used for stone rows stood proud as noticeable landscape features.

Reaves and stone rows abounded, but perhaps the most intriguing site if only for its complexity, was Merrivale, between Two Bridges and Tavistock. Here are standing stones, a stone circle, many stone hut circles, cairns, barrows cists and two major stone rows – one single, another ia double row incorporating a cairn with a very small cist.

Another Bronze Age settlement was on the slopes of Leeden Tor where a near-circular stone enclosure neatly surrounds a group of hut circles in an area notable for long-distance reaves. Wambarrows, Winsford Hill and the Iron Age hillforts of Shoulsbury Castle Woodbury and Blackbury were other prehistoric sites visited, together with a deserted Dartmoor medieval village cosily set in the valley east of Hound Tor.

The village was abandoned in the 14c, probably because of deteriorating climate. The stone walls of the longhouses to be seen today probably date from the 12c, at which time they replaced turf houses which possibly went back to the 8c. Maurice Beresford claims that the standing remains of these houses are amongst the most noteworthy in the country.

Even on the journey home there were sites and sights, including the cathe­dral-like caves at Beer south Devon, where beer stone has been quarried since Roman times. Beer stone is to be seen today in Exeter and Winchester cathe­drals and is recorded as being used in Westminster Hall and Abbey, the Tower of London and London Bridge.

Pleasant event on Friday was a visit to the. Old Rectory at Clayhanger, home of Desmond Collins, director at West Heath 1976-81, we are most grateful to him and his wife far entertaining the HADAS party to tea in their charming old house and gardens. So far no mention has been made of Anne and Alan Lawson, yet it was they who made the plans, did the recce and nursed and cajoled us only as necessary. They were presented; very appropriately, with a copy of Desmond’s recent book “Palaeolithic Europe – a Theoretical and Systematic. Study” (pub. Clayhanger Books, of The Old Rectory, Clayhanger, Devon!)