Newsletter 148 June, 1983

GENERAL MEETING: PROGRESS AND CHANGE

HADAS held its 22nd AGM on May 18 at Hendon Library, with some 75 members present. The Chair was taken by one of our longest standing Vice-Presidents, Mrs Rosa Freedman, who recalled with pleasure our 21st birthday party last year at which, when she was Mayor of Barnet, she had been guest of honour.

In his annual report Councillor Brian Jarman detailed the various changes in the Society’s officers and administration which had taken place during the year – Brigid Grafton Green’s retirement as Hon. Secretary last October and Brian Wrigley taking over that office; Ted Sammes retiring this year as Vice-chairman a new post of Hon. Member­ship Secretary being created and ably filled by Phyllis Fletcher; and various research and field groups replacing a single research committee.

Victor Jones, our Hon. Treasurer since May 1982, presented his first report and accounts on which a lively discussion followed, ranging from why we endured bank charges to how profits from publications could best be recorded. The Society4s membership at March 31, 1983, was 407 – as against 433 last year. The Hon. Treasurer foresaw a probable need for a rise in the subscription at the start of the next financial year (that will be on April 1, 1984). All members were therefore invited to brood on this problem until such time, next autumn that a Special General Meeting may be called to discuss it in detail.

Our Hon. Secretary, Brian Wrigley, introduced a report, circulated at the meeting, on the activities of the Prehistoric, Roman and Docu­mentary Groups; and on the establishment, under the co-ordination of Elizabeth Sanderson, of local field groups; Bill Firth followed with a few words on the work of the Industrial Archaeology Group, mainly concerned at the moment with aviation history. Brian Wrigley also dis­cussed possible excavation plans for the coming year. Permission to dig at the Hadley earthwork in June or July has already been sought from the Management Committee of Hadley Common. Anyone interested in taking part should ring Brian WFigley on 959 5982 for further details. All offers of help will be warmly welcomed.

The Meeting confirmed the Society’s list of Vice-Presidents, to

which one name – that-of Edward Sammes – was added this year. Our Vice-Presidents are:

The Bishop of Edmonton; Mrs Rosa Freedman, MBE; Mrs Grafton

Green; Miss D P Hill; Sir Maurice Laing; Andrew.

Saunders, MA, FSA; Edward Sammes; E E Wookey.

The Officers for the coming year, who were declared elected are:

Chairman: Councillor Brian Jarman

Vice-chairman: Brigid Grafton Green

Hon. Secretary: Brian Wrigley

Hon. Treasurer: Victor Jones

Committee members elected for 1984-5 are:

Christine Arnott Kate Balen

John Enderby Phyllis Fletcher Pete Griffiths Daphne Lorimer Isobel McPherson

Dorothy Ncwbury
Nell Penny
June Porges
Edward Sammes
Tessa Smith
Sheila Woodward

Under Any Other Business Andrew Selkirk drew attention to the recent grant by the GLC of £250,000 for professional archaeology in Greater London (see further report below) and suggested that HADAS might put in for something towards expenses for e.g. accommodation, obtaining radio carbon dates, etc. Bill Firth asked that the Society should consider producing an annual journal or proceedings, in addition to the monthly Newsletter, Alec Jeakins wanted lecture on West Heath, drawing the subject together and bringing members up to date with the latest post-excavation work. Brigid Grafton Green commented on the marvellous change which the Roman Group had wrought by paint and elbow grease in the appearance of our accommodation at College Farm.

Business over, Percy Reboul produced an audio-visual treat, helped by Liz Holliday as projectionist and Christopher Newbury, who provided some magnificent sound equipment.

This was a replay, with slides, of a lecture on Byegone Hendon, first given by our founder Themistocles Constantinides, on Nov. 2, 1963, when HADAS was two years old and had a mere 100 members. One of “Mr Constans” great hope was that HADAS would find, by excavation, evidence for Saxon, Hendon. How he would have reveled in the discoveries at Church Terrace of the Saxon ditch with grass-tempered pottery and our fine spiral-headed Saxon pin.

TIDYING UP ARCHAEOLOGY IN LONDON

In the February 1983 Newsletter we mentioned the professional rescue archaeology service which the GLC was proposing to set up for the outer London Boroughs, in which the Borough of Barnet would have a part.

SAMMES now sends us this note:

Prior to 1972 only two full-time archaeological posts carrying out excavation work existed for Greater London: Both were based at the then London Museum. All other excavation work was undertaken on a part-time voluntary basis, partly guided by LAMAS and other organisations.

1972 saw the foundation of professional units in the London area, drawing money from a wide variety of sources. Of the 32 London boroughs, however, only 22 were covered by the full-time teams.

The GLC, through its Historic Buildings Panel, felt that this situation was untidy and over the past two years discussions for reorganisation have taken place. This was also important in view of the changed attitude of the DOE to funding excavations.

April 1, 1983, saw the official start of a new organization, which will endeavour to cover the whole of the GLC area for rescue archaeology. This London Archaeological Service was officially launched at a reception held in County Hall on April 20 last. I was privileged to attend as a representative from the LAMAS Borough Secretaries committee (on which I serve as a representative of HADAS) and the Working Party for London Archaeology.

The new employer will be the Museum of London, which will receive the funds from the GLC (£250,000 per annum, as Andrew Selkirk mentioned at the AGM) and will control both how the funds are used and the archae­ological effort. Money will still be needed from other sources.

Beneath the Board of Governors is the Director of the Museum, and then the Archaeology Officer, Harvey Sheldon (already an old friend of many =LS members).

The London area (which includes parts of Kent) is covered in six sections:

1. Southwark and Lambeth (a special area)

2. Camden, Westminster, Hackney, Islington, Tower Hamlets, Kensington & Chelsea, Barnet, Enfield ,Harrow, Harringey

3. Hillingdon, Hounslow, Ealing, Brent, Hammersmith

4. Richmond, Kingston, Sutton, Croydon, Merton,and Wandsworth

5. Boroughs covered.by Passmore Edwards Museum, Romford Road

6. Kentish boroughs, covered by the Council for Kentish Archaeology.

The Inner and North London Unit, which deals with area 2 above, will be headed by David Whipp.

No major increase in staff is envisaged, thus a greater activity is not possible. What the new set -up means for the Borough of Barnet is that we shall have access, should we require it, to a professional on a firmly established basis.

To discuss the new arrangements it is intended to hold a meeting inviting two representatives from any interested society, plus local museums. No date has been fixed for this meeting. The new organisation virtually marks the end of the Working Party for London Archaeology, but there will still be a. need for a body to speak in an unbiased manner on matters of policy and to represent the London area on CBA Group 10.

DIARY DATES

Saturday, June 18. Our visit to Northern Essex will include a short stop at the Bartlow Hills, those impressive Roman barrows so often referred to, so seldom visited. Hedingham Castle, one of the best-preserved Norman keeps in Europe, is our next stop, followed by a visit to a farm at Guestingthorpe where deep ploughing turned up many Roman artifacts, leading to the excavation of an unusual industrial site. There will be time to explore the village of Castle Hedingham and, per­haps, to stop briefly at the Iron Age hill fort of Wandlesbury. If you wish to join the party, please fill in and return the enclosed form as soon as possible. Please read the forwarding instructions carefully. DO NOT SEND TO DOROTHY NEWBURY AS SHE WILL BE AWAY FROM JUNE 6.

Saturday, July 16. Visit to Cirencester
Saturday, August 13. Visit to Peterborough

Wed. Aug. 31-Sun Sept 4. Trip to Gower Peninsula

CELEBRATIONS AT ST PAUL’S, MILL HILL

The Church of St Paul, on the Ridgeway at Mill Hill, celebrates its 150th anniversary this month. A varied programme of events begins with an opening celebration service, taken by the Bishop of Edmonton, at 10 am on Sun. June 26, and ends the following Sunday with a United Evensong. A ‘trail’ through the churchyard, an Open Day at St Pauls School, a lecture on William Wilberforce, a Flower Festival, organ recitals and an historical exhibition will be other events.

HADAS has been invited to take part in the exhibition; to be held in St Paul’s Church Hall from June 26-July 3. Tessa Smith, helped by June Porges and Phyllis Fletcher, is planning a display using both objects and photographs (details of times the exhibition is open from Brigid Grafton Green, 455-9040).

We invited HOWARD MALATRATT, author of the official history of St Pauls, to write some notes on the Church for the Newsletter, and he has kindly sent us this: –

This year sees the 150th anniversary of the consecration of the Church of St Paul Mill Hill. It was built in the first part of the 19c by William Wilberforce, the great champion of the slaves, who intended it to be his own private chapel. His strenuous campaign against slavery and his untiring labours in other directions for the betterment of his fellow men had weakened his physical resistance. He retired at the age of 67 to Highwood, in Mill Hill, where he had acquired a small estate on which he intended to spend the rest of his days in peace and quietness. He was a devout Christian and was disturbed to find that the nearest place of worship to his new home was St Mary’s, Hendon; he was also distressed that his poorer neighbours in Mill Hill village were being deprived of religious solace and pastoral care by reason of the great difficulty they had in attend­ing service at Hendon. He resolved to build his own.Great opposition to his plans was voiced by the Vicar of Hendon, the Rev. Theodore Williams, who accused Wilberforce of using his public position to influence the Bishops to agree to the church being built; and bitter exchanges ensued. The Church Commissioners, however, did give their assent and the Church was erected. Legal wrangles on the patronage delayed the actual consecration, but eventually it was consecrated on Aug. 8, 1833. Unfortunately, owing to increasing illness, Wilberforce had been compelled to leave Highwood and reside with one of his two sons. He died ten days before the Church was consecrated, and was buried on Aug.5th , 1833, in Westminster Abbey, near his Parliamentary colleagues of many years, Pitt and Fox. The 150th anniversary has, thus, another significance – it is also the anniversary of the death of the church’s great founder. The outstanding feature of the Church is the East window; which con­tains a large, beautiful painted panel of the Death of Christ,. Mourned by the three Maries. This was painted by Charles Muss, leading painter on glass of the 19c, and is the only known example of his work signed by him.

The Church has close associations with the Middlesex Regiment and houses eight Colours of the Service Battalions of the Regiment. In. addition there are several memorials to regimental members.

*Note: A History of St Paul’s Church, by H. Malatratt, price £1, will be on sale during the celebrations.

THE MARY ROSE TRUST a note from CHRISTINE ARNOTT

Members who contributed to the raising of .the Mary Rose Tudor warship through contributions at the last Minimart may like a progress report on the Trust’s activities.

‘On Dec. 8, 1982, the Mary Rose was finally dry-docked in No 3 dry ‘ dock, Portsmouth Naval Dockyard – only a short distance from HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship. It was a home-coming, because the Mary Rose would, in 1509-10, have been built within a stone’s throw of No 3 dry dock. Although the dock is nominally ‘dry,’ in fact continuous wetting of the hull timbers is being carried out by pumps.

Archaeological work on the hull is continuing, with many operations that will ultimately result in putting back 3300 timbers removed during the years of underwater excavation. In 1984 it is hoped to open a full-scale display of objects from the Mary Rose, in buildings close to the hull itself (perhaps a possible HADAS outing for 1984?) Already in 1983 visitors will be able to glimpse Mary Rose, for they will be able to pass over a footbridge spanning the dock.

Once again the Mary Rose Trust will be launching a fresh round of fund-raising to ensure that the exhibition can be adequately housed and the final conservation work can take place. A number of souvenir replica items has been produced, and sales of these will boost the fund. A list of these will be willingly supplied (rang Christine Arnott on ‘ 455 2751). Two of the less expensive items are a pewter spoon at £8.75 or a lion’s head book end (pair £16.50). Any member wishing to make a donation should write direct to the

Mary Rose Trust, Old Bond Store, 48 Warblington Street, Portsmouth P01 2ET.

TEACHING ARCHAEOLOGY IN SCHOOLS, by James Dyer. Shire Archaeology £1.95

This short handbook breaks new ground for the Shire series and should prove invaluable to teachers, many of whom will already be familiar with other titles in the list. Mr Dyer, general editor of Shire Books, who has experience of teaching children from 5-18 years old in schools and Further Education, is well aware of the pitfalls and temptations which confront the teacher of archaeology at these levels: his con­viction of its usefulness as a school subject does not blind him to the difficulty of fitting it into the overstuffed school timetable, especially at Secondary, level.

However, having conceded that if it is taught in its own right, then it has to justify its existence. It has to be examined he devotes six pages to outlining the available external examinations. This section is admirably detailed; anyone planning to introduce the subject to 11-18 year olds should carefully weigh the absence of CSE Mode 1 Exam­inations, the cost of text books £15 per head + £20 per head on library books at A Level), against the undoubted educational value and fascination of archaeology.

This the most sobering chapter. The rest of the book is warmed by the author’s personality and full of excellent advice drawn from his contact with children in actual classroom and field conditions. The notes on Visual Aids and on sources of information are invaluable, chapters on Field Visits, Museum Experience, Excavation and, in particular,. Experi­mental Archaeology are full of useful advice and there is an excellent basic library list for teachers at the end of the book.

The reader is constantly aware of Mr Dyer’s grasp of essentials. The possible chronological confusions of topic work at the junior stage do not worry him. Time lines will keep some degree of order and in any case few children develop a sense of time before the age of twelve. Field walking is best reserved for small ‘out of school’ groups. Abusing the system with a group of unruly children often prevents legitimate workers from visiting the fields! All this information is lucidly presented in compact form.

Given a little more space, Mr Dyer might have considered Archaeology as a Special Subject for concentrated study at the end of term. Especially at the end of the Summer Term in Secondary schools there is often a space after examinations are over, When such a subject, tapping many skills – Mathematics, Geology, Biology, Crafts History – is a welcome change for staff and for children. Enthusiasm for something new something not directed to an examination – can produce remarkable. results. , At such times too it is easier to organise open-air activities and whole day visits, and the natural reluctance of teachers to lose, say, half a French class to the competitive delights of grave-stone recor ding can be more easily overcome. Much can be achieved in a limited time, if the course is thoroughly planned and Mr Dyer’s

excellent booklet has plenty to say on that subject.

ISOBEL MCPHERSON

Note: copies of this booklet and others in the Shire series be obtained from Pete Griffiths, 8 Jubilee Avenue, London Colney, Herts AL2 1QG (61 23156).

NEWS FROM THE GROUPS

ROMAN GROUP. As already announced (Newsletter 146) the Roman Group will be visiting Colchester Museum on Sat. June 11. Because this is a behind the scenes Museum visit the maximum number is 15. A few places are left, and if you are interested, phone Tessa Smith on 958 9159 for further information.

The Group’s next meeting will be on Tues. July 12, place to be announced later, depending on transatlantic movements: Meanwhile, work on Brockley Hill pottery continues on Wednesday evenings, 6.30-9.30 pm. Again if interested phone .Tessa. HELEN GORDON

THE DOCUMENTARY GROUP has been taking part in a protest orchestrated by the record, Users Group. Our Chairman, Brian Jarman, kindly’wrote to ‘our four local MPs (Peter Thomas, Hendon South; John Gorst, Hendon

North; ‘Margaret Thatcher, Finchley; and Sydney Chapman; Chipping Barnet), urging them to press for changes in the Public Records (Amend­ment) Bill, a measure which would have affected many documentary researchers. It had already passed the House of Lords and was due for second reading in the Commons on May 13.

As it happened, that was the very day of dissolution of Parliament so this particular Bill was “lost.” However, we shall need to watch in case it is introduced in the same form again. The intention of the Bill, at which no one can cavil, was to passthe records of the Registrar General (births, deaths and marriages) tothe Public Record Office, so that Registrars would no longer have to spend time showing them to anyone who wanted (and at present has the legal right) to consult them. It was the method, not the intention, which was worrying.

A clause in the Bill sought to apply to the Registrar’s records a ‘100 year rule similar to that which operates with Census returns. Census returns are confidential; but most people want to publicise’ birth, deaths and marriages. The result, had the Bill been passed, would have been that you would have to wait 100 years before consulting an entry at the PRO about a birth, death or marriage; whereas some research in the local or national press at Colindale Newspaper Library might probably have produced full details of the interesting event, complete with the hymns sung at the services and the colour of the bride’s mother’s hat. Talk about making the Law look an ass;

There was a second, even deeper worry. This was not part of the Bill, and was therefore the more difficult to oppose. During the debate in the Lords, the Lord Chancellor made it abundantly clear that research -workers wanting to consult the Registrars records at the PRO should expect to pay a fee for doing so… The figure of £10 per day was mentioned, although outside the House a figure of £20 was being bandied about. Were this to come about it might sound the death-knell of local history research as we know it.

For one thing, it would not be long before the PRO would say ‘It’s unfair to charge for looking-at the ‘Registrar’s returns and not to charge for the Census returns and before you knew where you were you would find it cost up to £20 a day to examine Charles II’s hearth tax returns, Edward III’s feet of fines or a Clutch of’19c enclosure maps. ‘Once a fee is introduced for one class of document, it will soon apply to all.

When that happens, the rot will soon spread to local record offices. There are already half a dozen local authorities who have looked longingly at-the idea of imposing fees for-consulting local records; they have been resisted most nobly by archivists and librarians at county record office level. The resistance wouldn’t have a leg to stand on once the PRO had shown the way. This insidious suggestion is therefore something on which both archaeologists and local historians should practice eternal vigilance. BRIGID GRAFTON GREEN

THE COMMON CHRONICLE

HADAS member ANN KAHN Sends us details of an Exhibition of Archives, called The Common Chronicle, which takes place at the Victoria and Albert Museum from June 1-Aug 31. It brings together for the first time the finest archival material that has come into the possession of county record offices, and will range from the Saxon countryside to the slums of Victorian Sheffield.

The opening will coincide with the publication by the Association of County Archivists of a discussion paper on national archives; which will point out present inadequacies in looking after what is rather grandly called our written heritage and will suggest ways of improving them also coinciding with the exhibition will be a one-day conference for record users at the V and A on June 25. It will spend the morning discussing the discussion paper, while the afternoon will offer a choice of still more discussion or of visiting one of eight record repositories, including the British Library, the National Monuments Record and the GLC Record Office, Further details from BALH, 43 Bedford Square, WC1.

FIELD GROUPS. A note from Elizabeth Sanderson

I reported in the March Newsletter the setting up of field groups in Finchley and Edgware districts. Now another group has been formed in the northern part of the Borough, where 17 Sites are currently being watched.

FROM OUR POST-BAG
Dear Editor,

Congratulations to the Roman Group for having put into print (Newsletter 146, .April. 1983) what I have been quietly saying since before Brian Robertson dug his series of trenches in 1967-8.

We none of us know the age of any footpath but on the earliest Ordnance Survey maps Hendon St Mary’s Church certainly had its share of them. At least five can be seen and of these what is clearly a long-distance path can be traced southwards right back to the Edgware Road somewhere about Cricklewood Broadway; and in the other direction across Sunny Hill Fields to Copt Hall. It is not difficult to extend this up Hammers Lane along a short length of the Ridgeway and at the Forge across the fields (by footpath) to the end of Hendon Wood. Lane. Such a route would have avoided much of the damp clayey plain area between Cricklewood and the bottom of Brockley Hill.The suggestion of such a route does not preclude Brian Robertson’s road being another branch or loop. Let us be clear in our minds we are not looking for a major route but one linking or branching to settlement sites.

The Roman sherds of pottery for Church Terrace, Hendon, are late Roman – 3c-4c – and whilst Ralph Merrifield suggested that they might have come from a religious site, there could have been a settlement as well in the area, as evidenced by the material from The Grove, Hendon, and the Sunny Gardens burial urn. One should perhaps discount the gold coin from the area and also the problematical piece of tessera.

Brian Robertson’s stretch of road could be connected in some way to Ashley Lane, itself a very old route. I would like to suggest that close to where he dug his final section, at the end of Archfield Allotments, there was a farmstead, possibly just to the east of that point.

TED SAMMES

NEWSLETTER CONTRIBUTIONS

The Editor is delighted to receive letters, news reports or articles for the Newsletter’, and. as -you see from the contributions to this issue, many members keep-an eye open for items which will interest us. Contributors may like to know that copy should reach the Editor at 88 Temple Fortune Lane NW11 by the 20th of each month at latest for use in the succeeding month’s issue. It needn’t be typed – though if your writing is dodgy, please print difficult words and particularly proper names:

Of course we also use illustrations. These should be A4 size, line only, clearly drawn and, if possible, with letraset headings/ captions. Anyone in doubt about illustrations’ is asked to ring the Editor first to discuss the problems.

A WALK THROUGH ROMAN LONDON A report by HELEN GORDON

Despite the heavy rain in the .morning, the lecture room at the .museum of London was packed by 54 HADAS members listening to an absorb­ing lecture preliminary to the walk round Roman London.

Fortunately the weather had cleared by the time a quick lunch had been taken, and the Roman Gallery of the Museum inspected. Setting out smartly in two parties, we went into the vault under the modern road at Roman Wall, opened up for us to see the west gate of the fort where the addition of the city wall to the earlier fort is so clearly visible; then on to where the junction of the city wall with the fort is to be seen, to the Mithraeum to the site under excavation at Fenchurch Street – various levels; mud and other walls.; various earths -‘black earth, red burnt earth; miscellaneous wells square Roman ones, a round Victorian one; a cesspit.

By this time we were running well past schedule, but although there was a distinct falling off, the hardy persevered to the last Tower of London section of the Wall, eventually returning to fetch cars from the long-closed Museum, and to extricate Vice-President Eric Wookey, patiently awaiting collection in the nether regions of the Museum , car- park. – dangerously reminiscent of the long-lost Egyptian archaeologist who was discovered years later in a mummified condition in the Valley of the Kings. A very well-spent day and our thanks to Ted Sammes, who arranged it, and to the Museum staff.

TWO THOUSAND YEARS OF LONDON

As a footnote to our City walk on May 15, here is news of a day of lectures on London, called “London: the First 2000 Years” which will take place on Sat. Oct. 8 next.

This will be organised by Citisights, with the City of London Archaeological Trust, and will be held at the Museum of London, starting at 10 am and running through to about 6 pm. All speakers will be either past or present staff of the Museum, and HADAS members will know many of them – Ralph Merrifield, Jean Macdonald, Hugh Chapman, Gustav Milne are just a few names plucked at random. Subjects run from pre-history to the present day.

Tickets (including coffee and tea, but not lunch) are £5 each and obtainable from P Herbert, Citisights, 87a Thurleigh Road, SW12.

BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR LOCAL HISTORY

This organisation (of which HADAS is a corporate member) was founded last year and held its first AGM on April 23, in the Meeting rooms of the Zoological Society. It was a fairly vociferous occasion, with much comment and suggestion from the floor. Perhaps a first AGM, when an organisation is still feeling its way (and occasionally having to admit to teething troubles) must be like that.

Most pressing problem the new association faces is, predictably, finance. It got off to a good start with a £3,300 one-off donation from the National Council of Voluntary Organisations and a handsome grant of £25,000 for its first year from the DoE. For this year the DoE grant will be £20,000 for 1984-5 it goes down to £15,000 and then the fledgling is likely to be on its own, and will probably need to find all its own feathers to fly with.

Were expenses to remain in the same region as this year – heaviest items are office accommodation and staff – it was estimated that by the time the DoE grant goes it would cost £24 per annum per member to run the Association for 1200 members – the present membership. However, that supposition is full of imponderables which may change in the next few years, particularly if BALH is prepared to forego a central London address and use some voluntary help.

There was a good discussion on the necessity for building some kind of regional structure into the organisation: this was one of many problems referred to a newly-elected 21-strong Council for action.

For the time being the subscription to BALH remains at £4 for both individual and corporate members. Any HADAS member who wishes to support this worthwhile organisation – it will seek to do for local history what CBA does for archaeology – should write to the General Secretary, BALH, 43 Bedford Square, WC1P 3DP.

TRAVELLING BARNET

A new exhibition has just opened at Church Farm House Museum, and will continue until June 26 at the usual hours. It is called “Getting There, and deals with three forms of transport in the Borough – road, rail and air. The material on show – photos, objects and models – comes from many sources, including private collections, the London Transport Museum and various transport societies. A note at the end warns us that owing to a change in the previously announced programme, the exhibition had to be mounted very quickly. However, the brochure suggests that it covers a wide and interesting range of topics and should be well worth a visit.

WANT TO JOIN A SUMMER DIG?

Many HADAS members know Dale Fort Field Centre, which is housed in a Victorian fort at the entrance to Milford Haven harbour, in the most south-westerly parish on the Pembroke coast. Even more will know it in a few months’ time, as.Dale Fort is the centre from which our 5-day visit to South Wales in September will be organised.

Near Dale Fort is the site of 6 Bronze Age promontory fort. Here HADAS’s President, Professor Grimes, has organised a three-week dig every summer for the last 12 years or so, and several HADAS members have taken part in it. We asked one of them, PADDY MUSGROVE, who has dug there for four successive seasons to tell us a bit about it

He describes it as a most attractive site, and one where there is a lot to learn, archaeologically speaking. It is also very complex. While he was there the fort ditch and the environs of the entrance, which has been rebuilt several times, were being excavated. The ditches, some of them as deep –as 12-14 ft, are cut into rock, so that trowellers can see just where they are going.

Finds from the site include flints (e.g. Bronze Age arrowheads) and some very grotty pottery. On the surface of a field on the landward side of the fort Paddy has picked up many struck flint flakes, cores and other artifacts.

Living quarters for diggers are in a recently-built additional block – Paddy describes them as “luxurious bed-sitters.” This year the dig will be two weeks only – July 20-27 and July 27-Aug 3. You can get further details from the Warden, David Emerson, at Dale Fort Field

Centre, Dale, Haverfordwest,, Dyfed SA62 3RD.

COMPASS SURVEY OF HADLEY WOOD EARTHWORK, A report by

APRIL 1983 BRIAN WRIGLEY

Victor Jones and I, assisted by Alec Gouldsmith, John Creighton and Joan Wrigley, have completed a survey of the line of as much of the ring of this earthwork as, is now identifiable. The result has been an accurate plot of the outlines onto the 1:1250 Ordnance Survey sheet; and a drawing of this on a smaller scale, is appended (Fig;. 4).

The plan as yet does not show more than the outer slope from the outside of the crest of the bank down to the lowest visible line of the presumed silted ditch (vertically rarely more than, 0.5m). In a few places an inner slope of the bank can be detected and an outer edge to the ditch (which is, however, nowhere prominent enough to be dignified with the name of counterscarp). The identification of these by eye, however, is so subjective that it was not thought they should be indic­ated on the scale plan as yet: we hope to be able to add further detail, which might include these points if and where it can be confirmed by resistivity survey. A larger-scale plan at 1:500 is in course of preparation which should be useful for smaller detail. Whilst the survey was being done, other research was pursued. We now have copies of the reports of:

Horace Taylor, Trans. LMAS (New Series), vol IV (1920) pp 97-9

(with sketch plan, see Fig. 1 attached)

Derek Renn, Trans. East Herts Arch. Soc (1952-4) pp 204-6

(with scale plan, see Fig. 2)

Enfield Arch. Soc. Bulletin March 1973, No. 48

(with sketch plan, see Fig. 3)

It is clear from both the 1920 sketch plan, with its careful mark­ings of broken rampart in several places, and from the 1952 plan, with its almost complete outline of both slopes of bank and both slopes of ditch for a large part of the circuit, that there has been considerable erosion since those dates. It was therefore high time that an accurate plot of the remnant was made.

An interesting point shows in the small SW segment. It, is clear from a measurement marked on the 1973 sketch, and from scaling off the distance in the 1952 plan, that the banks shown on these two plans are not one and the same, but are different features, both of which are now shown on our scale plan. My opinion is that it is the more northerly one, shown on the 1973 sketch, which is clearly the continuation of the line of the main ring. What, then is the other?

If it was, in 1952, as clear and as long as indicated, it does suggest, that it was part of the earthwork, hence that there were multiple banks (?an entrance) in this area. It seems (although they do not co­incide exactly when scaled off) that the more southerly feature in our 1983 plan is the remains of the feature drawn by Renn in 1952. It is now not nearly so plain nor so long as then shown; and is diffuse and un­certainly defined. Our opinion.is that it is, or is confused by, the remains of the old road shown in the 1920 sketch. Earlier maps showing the old road remains to be researched.

Multiple banks, or at least some complexity that might suggest an entrance, are also possibly suggested in the small SE segment. Our plan shows a most southerly feature which may be the most southerly feature shown in 1952; however, we cannot reconcile the distance, when scaled off on the 1952 plan, with our findings.

Both the small southerly segments have a general slope down more or less southwards to a very wet and soggy area, confused by trees and roots and numerous humps and bumps, whilst we are looking, for features no more than centimetres high the eye of faith needs to be guided by an agnostic skepticism.

In the NE segment the line of the earthwork appears to suggest that it may have continued in a curve outside the N boundary of the wood (now the Borough boundary) and re-entered the wood near the angle formed by the boundary and the railway at the northernmost point; this continuation is shown on the 1952 plan. We were unable to any trace of this identifiable by eye, but have shown on our plan two dubious and amorphous features which were all we could find in this area,

Dr John Kent (of the British Museum) and Geoffrey Gilliam Arch. Society to whom we are indebted for the help, have both confirmed that they have seen, from the ground, a crop mark in the past (when the land was under cultivation) an area outside the wood. We are trying to obtain an aerial photograph which is referred in Renn’s 1952 report. We are also grateful to Brian Warren of the Enfield Arch. Society, who gave us the benefit of his earlier research.

This is merely an interim report on work done to date we feel that the amount of erosion it shows confirms the need for further investiga­tion of this interesting site.and proposals for further work are

under consideration.

Newsletter No 147: May, 1983

SPOTLIGHT ON A HADAS DIG JENNY GRIFFITHS describes the

Conference of London Archaeo­logists on April 16

This year’s LAMAS Conference at the Museum of London provided its customary interesting fare with its usual mixture of short lectures on current research in the morning and lengthier afternoon ones on a set theme. The attention of HADAS members (we counted 18 in the audience) focused on the second speaker of the morning session Ted Sammes, who talked about the HADAS dig at Church Terrace. With only 20 minutes at his disposal, he chose to concentrate on the finds rather than the struct­ural features of the dig, after discussing the considerable documentary evidence for the early settlement of the site, close to St Mary’s parish church, Hendon.

Ted began his clear and well-illustrated talk by considering the earliest pottery from the site – sherds of Roman colour-coated ware; poss­ibly from the Nene Valley, and a delightful face-mask from a flagon.

There are also sherds of Saxon vegetable-tempered ware, in themselves nondescript but Ted indicated that the amount over 400 grams – is significant he described a beautiful double-headed in-turned spiral pin as the prize find of the dig. It has been dated stylistically to the Dark ages, although it was found in a later context.

From a 13th c ditch have come two rather puzzling pieces of Purbeck marble. Ted indicated that animal bone from ditches on the site provides evidence of a much more open habitat than is usually considered to have existed in the north London area.

Four burials were discovered, not unexpected so close to a church yard. They were rather decayed, due to damp and the acidity of the soil, and unfortunately the best skeleton was vandalised.

Medieval pottery includes sherds of Surrey and Herts grey wares and part of a 15th c lobed cup, not of the best quality which perhaps indicated local manufacture, but nonetheless rather pleasing. Over 40 pins were discovered in a layer of plaster.

Ted’s research on a polychrome Delft tile has led him to consider it could have been made in London, while he thinks small yellowish bricks, found in large quantities on the site, might be Dutch in origin. These excited some comment from other archaeologists at the exhibition of prinicipal finds set up in the Museum Education Department.

More modern finds include the neck of a spa water bottle, chamber pots of redware and pearlware and Chinese-type bowls and tea cups.

Two of the other morning reports highlighted the problems of archaeology on very disturbed sites. Jon Cotton discussed his complicated, multi-period gravel extraction site at Holloway Lane, Harmondsworth,

while Lesley Atkins talked of the difficulties of excavating a Roman villa onan old sewage farm at Beddington. Two members of the Museum of London staff described their finest recent acquisitions: Jean Macdonald on an unusual Iron Age bronze brooch found by a treasure hunter on the Thames foreshore’; and John Clark on the widely reported find at Foster Lane of 50 fragments of 14th c glass decorated with coloured enamel*. Steve Roskams’ lecture on the construction techniques of the Roman and medieval waterfronts at Billingsgate heralded the theme of the afternoon session: archaeology and the river Thames.

This session began with a rather technical account by John Penn of river mechanics. One HADAS member at least lent it a especially attentive ear: Sheila Woodward, who said afterwards that she got some useful pointers from it for the Prehistoric Group river walks in Edgware. Then Stuart Needham discussed the role of the Thames in prehistory in fostering cul­tural contacts between peoples. This study was based not just on artifacts found in the river but also on settlement sites which still exist along it, many awaiting proper investigation.

After tea, Peter Marsden entertained us with a lively lecture on the evidence for Roman and later shipping found in the Thames. Apparently London is lucky in providing more information on shipping than any other European city, possessing no less than three Roman wrecks, two medieval and one dated to the time of the Great Fire. Now waterfront excavations are providing more information on ship construction from re-used timbers and are also setting the ships in the wider context of contemporary quays and dock, facilities. Peter’s account of the joys of working within a coffer dam, high tide 40 ft above his head, feeling changes in pressure as shipping passed by, was nicely calculated to send any archaeologist home well content with even the most urban of sites.

*An exhibition of these unique enamelled glass beakers will be on display in the Museum until midsummer this year.

HADAS DIARY

Sun May 15 Museum of London talk and walk. Meet at the Museum, London Wall, EC2 at 12.20 for talk with slides in Education Dept at 12.30. Packed lunch may be eaten there afterwards, followed by a short session in the galleries at 2 pm when the Museum opens. The walk will begin about 2.30 and end about 4.30/ 5 pm. Full details in the enclosed application form which please complete and return to Dorothy Newbury if you would like to take part.

Wed. May 18 22nd Annual General Meeting at the Library, The Burroughs,

NW4 to be chaired by Vice-President Mrs Rosa Freedman. Coffee 8 pm, business meeting 8.30, followed by Percy Reboul’s presentation of an illustrated lecture, first given on Nov 2, 1963 (24 years after the Society started) by our founder, Thermistocles Constantinides. Mr “Constans” later recorded his lecture and the recording was recently discover­ed in the Local History Collection, accompanied by the original slides. Percy has transferred it to cassette tape for the AGM. He believes this will be the first time recorded sound has been used in one of our lectures.

Sat. June 18 Outing to Castle Hedingham

Sat-. July 16 Outing to Cirencester

Sat. Aug 13 Outing to Peterborough

Wes. Aug 31-Sun. Sept 4.Trip to the Gower Peninsular

NEWS FROM THE GROUPS

From the Prehistoric Group comes this latest note on WEST HEATH:Oxford University is now using the thermoluminescence of struck flint to date Mesolithic sites. HADAS is fortunate in being allowed to submit material from West Heath for this project. Flint for this purpose has to be at least a 3cm cube in size, delib­erately struck and freshly dug from a point 30 cm from any exposed surface. It has also to he wrapped immediately in black polythene to prevent modern contamination; and a kgm of the surrounding soil included with it. All this meant, unfortunately, that the many pieces of burnt stone so lovingly preserved in black paper by’West Heath diggers over the years were no use at all! Needless to say, HADAS was not be be deterred and on the last Saturday in January, with the blessing of Mr Challon (GLC guardian of West Heath) four diggers re-lived their days of glory by the Mutton Pond. It was really quite like old times: all the fan club appeared with glad cries (we have been much missed) and the inevitable newcomers wanted to know what it was all about. By a proced6 of analysing the find spots of previous burnt flint (and a little inspired guesswork) two holes were dug in the middle of hitherto undug trenches XVN and XLVO and fortune attended the results. Suitable samples were retrieved, bagged and duly despatched. We have just heard that the preliminary examination has proved them suitable for the full dating technique. This is a lengthy pro­cess which includes a measurement of the background thermoluminexcence of the soil, so we shall have to await the results with patience as well as trepidation. DHL

The Roman Group (who enjoyed a successful visit to the Welwyn Bath­house early in April) announce that they hope to do some much needed main­tenance work on our College Farm premises in the weekend of hay 7/8. This will be'(literallY)a white-washing job. Volunteer helpers will be warmly welcome, but please let Tessa Smith know in advance, on 958 9159, if you intend taking part.

P.S. You don’t have to be a Roman enthusiast to wield a nifty paintbrush!.

The Documentary Group continues with a number of long-term projects, most of which have already been mentioned in the Newsletter. .One which will shortly come to frui tion is researching and writing up material on the links which the Express Dairy Company – oldest of London’s individual dairies – has with the Borough’of Barnat. LBB Library intend6 to pUblish this as an illustrated booklet, called Milk for the Millions, in the near future. It is the story of the Barham family, because the Express Dairy is the business Barham built. The booklet deals with the huge interwar bottling’ plant built at Cricklewood – in its time thO biggest milk bottling works in the world; with the experimental kitchens and laboratory at Colindale; with the farm for milk-delivery Welsh ponies at Frith Manor; and-with various other places in the Borough which had Express assodations.

Of course there is much on the history of the Express’s “shop-window” College Farm, Finchley. Members may recall that we had a large display on the history of the farm at our 1981 exhibition at Church Farm House Museum, and some of the photographic material from that will be used as illustra­tion. The booklet is particularly apposite because College Farm celebrates its centenary this year. BGG

Anyone want a good cot, good mattress, left from Minimart? ,£10 or best offer. Phone Dorothy Newbury 203 0950.

FOR JUNIOR MEMBERS

KATE BALEN, our junior representative on the Committee, asks us to say that there will be an outing specifically for junior members to the museum of London on the afternoon of Sun. May 8, at which all junior members will be welcome. Meet outside the main door of the Museum at 3 o’clock, but please let Kate kmow (on 202 0347) if you intend coming, so that she can look out for you. If you have-any suggestions for further junior meetings please let Kate know.

You may be interested also to know about the Young Archaeologists Club, which is open to all between the ages of 9-16.years. For a sub­scription of 2 a year you get a magazine called Young Archaeology which contains information About competitions,, projects and sites you can visit; Further details from Dr Kate Pretty, Young Archaeologists Club, New Hall, Cambridge. Send an sae.

NOTHING NEW ABOUT TOWN PLANNING

Last month we reported the excellent conference organised by the Pre­historic Society at the Museum:of London on the Wetlands of Europe. The following weekend – the last in March – an equally good conference was put on by the Council for British Archaeology and the Museum itself. Its Official subject was Romano-British Urban Topography but it was best

– summed up by Brian Hobby as the first ever conference to.be held in Britain on Roman town planning.”

Again, it is almost impossible to pick out even the highlights from a crowded two days of lecture and discussion. Eighteen papers were delivered, many by speakers whose names are household words in Romano-British circles; Professors were two-a-penny: Barry Cunliffe, Malcolm Todd, Sheppard Frere, 0 A W Dilke, John Wilkes, Martin Biddle.

Some of the subjects provided unexpected insights. Sheppard Frere, for instance, spoke on civic and family pride as a factor town planning. He pointed out that certain matters were often dealt with by the rich, so that they became almost a form of surtax: transport, for instance, enter­tainment, food (the giving of public banquets) and public building. A group of prominent local families might donate 3000 sesterces each towards the building of a basilica; or one leading figure might provide 30,000 sesterces for a market; and there was an instance of two million sesterces being given for constructing an aqueduct – but that was “munificence beyond the line of duty.”

Someone might pay for a street to be metalled; for a fountain and the -laying of .the_bronze-pipes to or or a portico for the public bathhouse. At Wroxeter.-. as an example of communal rather than family pride ­the temple was erected by the “civitas Cornovii.”‘ The provision of such buildings was a mark of rank and status – just as in Julio-Claudian times, a rampart and a bank were a mark of rank for a town: which explains why some towns were not walled until the 3rd century.

Then Dr John Casey of Durham University brought the noisy, crowded, jostling, quarrelsome city of ancient Rome to life with his vivid and exuberant description of the Roman property market of the early centuries AD. Some of his statements about developers and lawyers wouldn’t have’ been out of place today.

Much of the evidence comes from Rome itself -a “jerry-built city,” he called it – but he felt that it could be extrapolated to cover the provinces, where legal problems must have been similar. Investment in urban property paid good dividends, but was risky.’ You might lose your shirt because the buildings you owned burned down.

Early 1st c jurists’ reports provide a body of law about the relation­ship of owner and occupier. Roman law had a strong bias towards the former. There was practically no security of tenure. In an Egyptian document of the 5th c, for instance, the tenant undertakes to lease a room on the ground floor, with appurtenances, and to surrender it, in good nick, when­ever his landlord wishes.

The tenant was at an advantage, however, in that he never had to pay in advance. His rent was normally paid once yearly, or at the end of his lease. Annual payments were at the end of June, and if a tenant defaulted then, the landlord could, on July 1, distrain on his goods. According to certain Roman writers it was not uncommon in the last week of June to see people staggering along the street under various articles of furniture.

On rented property change of use was not allowed – i.e. you couldn’t put up a partition to turn your rented room into an office and a living room. Leases specified repairs to be made when the property was given up; in­cluding particularly the proper reinstatement of doors and windows. Property could be sold by auction or by private treaty. Two advertise­ments for sales are known from Pompeii. Dr Casey reckoned there were rich pickings for lawyers practising at the Roman property bar; many houses were divided (vertically, never horizontally) so that you could buy a small part of a house. There is evidence in a document – we would call it a convey­ance preserved in ultra-dry conditions on an African site, of someone buying 2/15ths of a house – and, of course, paying full legal fees.

THE ‘CORNER SHOP,’ HIGH STREET, ELSTREE A report by DAVE KING

HADAS members will know Stephen Castle for his digs at Brockley Hill, but in the last few years he has turned his attention to later periods by carrying out a comprehensive survey of the buildings in Elstree village. Recently he contacted HADAS to report a new discovery.

The ‘Corner Shop’ site at the junction of Barnet Lane and Elstree High Street (TQ 1782 9523) is in fact occupied by two shops, currently selling children’s clothing and antiques respectively. The rooms above these pre­mises are at present being converted into a dentist’s surgery, and it was during this work that a roof of late medieval date was revealed. By a process of painstaking observation Mr Castle has discovered the remains of a 3-bay timber-framed late medieval hall house.

Features dating the roof to about 1500 include the use of small king-struts in the two central trusses, with queen-struts in the north gable of the end truss, and the presence of curved wind-braces. The generally high quality of the woodwork (all oak) also confirms such a date. The original width of the building was about 4m; its length along the High Street front­age probably more than double this, the building being constructed in 3 bays. It is clear that the northernmost bay was separated from the 2-bay open hall by A partition, its rafters, unlike those of the hall, not being soot-encrusted. A fragment of late medieval octagonal window mullion was discovered in the back wall of the open hall.

During the 17c it was decided to add an upper storey to the original structure. The roof was removed and oak posts about 1.5m high were tenoned to the top of the wall plates. A new tie beam was added at the N gable end and the roof re-assembled. At the same time the central tie beam of the open hall was moved about lm away from its original position, presumably to accommodate a larger window. Two sets of carpenter’s numerals are visible on the roof timbers; one in correct order from the rebuild, the other original set somewhat out of order showing the roof beams were not all replaced in correct position.

During the 18c the frontage of the building was faced in red brick, hence the present *Georgian* appearance, and in the mid to late, 19c a large brick fireplace was inserted at the south end. Part of the S end of the building was demolished c 1900 to facilitate the construction of High Street House next door. In the later 19c the yard to the rear of the shop saw the building of an abbatoir and the extension of the living accommodation. Although the current conversion work is likely to conceal much of the medieval structure it is intended that the original roof is exposed to view.

Stephen Castle has almost completed his investigation of the buildings of Elstree village, and hopes to publish detailed drawings and histories of each building as part of a village survey. A more expert and detailed account of the history of the *Corner Shop’ will be included in it.

Note: Mr Castle also advised us that a service trench might be cut across the back garden of the *Corner Shop,’ and kindly put us in touch with the owner. We have now negotiated permission to site-watch, as soon as any work takes place – so expect a further site report in due course.

PAID YOUR SUB YET? A reminder from Membership Secretary

PHYLLIS FLETCHER

With the April Newsletter I sent out reminders about subscriptions, so I look forward to receiving yours (unless of course you’ve paid it already) in the near future. New members who joined since Jan 1 1983, can ignore this – their first sub takes them up to March 31, 1984.

As before, I will save your stamps (and thanks to those who have given me more stamps over the year) to give to charity. The last I gave to the Friends Society, who acknowledged them with thanks; I will give the next lot to Cancer Research.

Incidentally, I have been asked by some members if HADAS collects green shield stamps. The answer is that we have stopped doing so, but I suggest they might also go to Cancer Research.

AUDREY HOOSON reviews

Medieval Waterfront Development at Trig Lane, London, by Gustav & Chrissie Milne. LAMAS Special Paper No.5

This recent publication is sub-titled “An account of the excavations at Trig Lane, London, 1974-6 and related research.” The excavations re­vealed a series of timber and stone revetments dating from the 13th-15th a. The waterlogged conditions preserved the timberwork which survived in places to a height of 2 metres.

The detailed excavation section has many photographs and drawings of the timberwork in situ, all of which have been very well reproduced and are of the high standard that we have come to expect from the Dept. of Urban Archaeology. The analysis includes information on the dating, the original form of the’ revetments and the development and use of the waterfront. The text of this report was completed in 1980 and many finds, which came fromText Box: the large amounts’of rubbish dumped during reclamation and consolidation specialist reports on Dendrochronology and C14 dating, Coins, Jettons and Tokens, Pilgrim Souvenirs and Kindred Objects and the Pottery. The pottery was sampled and the dating evidence given is based on the Surrey White Wares.

Few people are likely to sit down and read this report in full, but members interested in medieval carpentry, urban drawing and photography or the combination of a detailed structural report with analysis and research should certainly borrow it from the HADAS Library or buy it from LAMAS at the Museum of London. Price £10 a £l p & p.

THE LLOYDS DANK ARCHAEOLOGICAL AWARDS by VICTOR JONES

As mentioned in the April Newsletter, we recently applied for and obtained a small award for a prismatic compass for more accurate survey of the earthwork in Hadley Wood.

We were invited to a presentation party at the Society of Antiquaries in Burlington .House by the Royal Archaeological Institute, which organises the award fund on behalf of Lloyds Bank. It was suggested that. as your Treasurer, should go along to collect the cheque.I went expecting a brief and somewhat formal affair. The presentation however proved very interesting and was. followed by an equipment exhibition and some generous refreshments – all provided through the generosity of Lloyds Bank. Fifteen groups received’ awards and each had to give a brief comment its project and activities and say a word of thanks to the Lloyds Bank chief general manager, John Davis, who made the presentations. The projects varied from Bronze Age cairn surveys in Scotland to photographing furniture and buildings in Lancashire; from Neolithic sites in Thanet marshes to organising a children’s archaeological group in Northumberland.. It was interesting that the objectives for which awards were made ranged far more widely than is usually permitted by more academic awards and grants. For instance, part of one award was earmarked for help with publication of results – something that is often explicitly excluded from other types of archaeological award. There was an award of £2OO for specialist reports, including C14 dates for bones. Camera film and a tape recorder for oral history were two others – so Lloyds cast an admirably wide-net.The machinery exhibition included new surveying equipment resistivity survey instruments and new magnetic instruments capable of detecting small soil variations including ancient ditches, pit. and even sites of fires; literature on some of these has been-lodged in the HADAS library at Avenue House*. Supervising the event for the RAI was Andrew Selkirk, who is also HADAS member. I talked to various representatives from other societies, some of them HADAS had visited in the past. The Nene Valley society, in particular, asked to be remembered.to old acquaintances and said they would welcome further visits.

*Note: Members who take Current Archaeology will find an excellent piece in the March 1983 issue (p93) on the very latest in machines: an advanced magnetic susceptibility meter, which costs around £600 and specialises in looking at the topsoil. It is suggested that it will be particularly useful when used in conjunction with phosphate analysis … to distinguish houses or areas occupied by humans.and those occupied by animals.

THE BATTLE OF HADLEY WOOD A front-line despatch from HADAS’S scratched and scarred heroes, led by BRIAN WRIGLEY

Face and arm-slashers of resilient holly, trip-wires of prickly bram­ble, quagmires of boot-swallowing mud – these are the foes against which a few of us have now fought for seven or eight days in making our initial survey of the Hadley earthwork. Then again; perhaps they are not alto­gether foes – we may owe them a great deal for having protected from erosion the remaining traces of the bank and ditch,

We have now found, measured, taken bearings on and plotted onto the 1/1250 OS sheet nearly the whole circumference of this egg-shaped feature, measuring some 300m. E/W and.200m N/S.

We have copies of a sketch plan published in 1920, and of a scale plan published in 1952; some features indicated on these are no longer trace­able (at least not in the location where they are shown!) This may be due to erosion or disturbance but clearly very careful search is needed to establish what has been lost in the intervening years, and whether we have found any features not noticed before.

The original discoverer in 1913, Horace Taylorl postulated a gateway on the S side and this certainly is an area where there is quite a lot of uneveness in the ground, some of which may be manmade; this seems a likely area in which to seek the possibility of multiple ramparts protecting

an entrance. Up to now the job had been one for a small team – which is what we have been. Now that we have a basic, accurately plotted, outline, further investigations will need the help of many more enthusiastic members, to whom we can pass on some of our newly-invented surveying techniques – such as pushing the end of a tape through a holly-bush on the end of a ranging rod. Whatever artifices one may use, however, the fact remains that thorn proof calves would be a major qualification:

We plan another field exercise – for which we could happily use up to 20: volunteers – for Sat. May 14 next. Meet at the railway bridge in Hadley Wood (TQ 263 972) unless it’s pelting (a little drizzle won’t put us off). Bring a picnic lunch if you like, but three pubs nearby serve food. Clothing should be waterproof and thorn proof, and headgear would save scraches, especially for those not liberally endowed with hair, Pencil, notebook or clipboard: and secateurs useful.

Please come if you can. It would be helpful if you let Brian Wrigley (959 5982) know your intentions beforehand.

RESEARCH INTO ANCIENT METALLURGY

A report by ALEC GOULDSMITH on the HADAS April lecture

It was a great pleasure to welcome an old friend, fellow-member Dr Paul Craddock, for the April lecture. He reminded us that he had often sat in the audience and admired the high standard of our speakers, and hoped he would not disappoint us. He certainly did not – he gave a most lucid account of his subject “Early Mining and Metallurgy from its inception to the Bronze Age,” illustrated by many slides (most of them obviously taken by himself)

He began by describing the work carried out in the metallurgical section of the. British Museum Research Laboratory. Their job was to decide how artifacts were made and what they were made of. What they could not say was why they were made. The first step was to visit the site and find out as much as possible from the production debris. Samples were then tested in the laboratory using modern technique’s and instruments. Later simulated furnace runs were carried out. Metallic objects first started appearing about 10,000 years ago. They were very small – mostly gold: and copper beads – and were no doubt fabricated from pieces of metal found lying about. Soon native metal ran out and man learnt to smelt the ore from which it came. The ore itself was often in fissures in the massive rock, from which it had to be extracted This was done with the ‘grooved axe’ -a sizeable stonewith a groove round it; Rope was wound around the groove, with enough left over to form a handle so that the axe could be swung – often in a confined space. These axes are found in large quantities around old mining sites; pock-marks on the rock face are often visible. By the year 2000 BC the industry had expanded vastly – this was the period of the Bronze Age empires. Besides western Asia, sites are known in Cyprus, the.A3alkans and Spain. Bronze picks were used to claw out the ore. A typical example is the copper site Timna, Southern Israel, where some 6000.Vertical shafts were sunk at this period, involving great numbers of workers. Thousands of tons of production debris are scattered around, consisting of slag, furnace linings, broken tuyeres unsmelted ore, charcoal and small pieces of metal. All these can be tested in the laboratory to establish working conditions. The-furnaces were cylindrical and quite shall – about 20-30 cm diameter and 1 -1½m high. Crushed ore and charcoal were fed into the open top, while air, pumped by bellows, entered through one or two tuyeres at the bottom. The molten contents ran into a shallow depression before the furnace. The British Museum is also involved in a project at Rio Tinto, SW Spain – the largest massive ore body in Europe. Some 20-40 million tons of slag and debris remains, mostly the result of Roman greed for silver. However the mines have been in use from at least the.4th c BC. Another site under examination is Zawar India, where large inclined airy shafts had been driven into the zinc ore-body. The debris included thousands of fire-clay retorts, many of which have been used by the neighbouring villagers to build walls. Associated with the mines are three-Jain temples, which Dr Craddock dated to approx 14th/15th .c – Some 400 years earlier than zinc distillation in Europe.

The lecture concluded with: a series of slides showing experimental furnaces being,operated under simulated conditions – not the most comfort­able, of tasks operating a foot-bellows continually for & hours! We thank Dr Craddock for a most fascinating and informative evening.

CHASING TOMBSTOE8

Many HADAS members have experience of and enjoy churchyard recording, so we regret that we did not have sufficient details to tell you in the last Newsletter of a project which starts in the May Day weekend- April 30 and May 1 & 2. However, it seems likely to be an on-going event, so you may be able to help later on.

The General Arts subcommittee of Barnet Borough Arts. Council (HADAS has long been affiliated to BBAC, and is represented in its general arts section) is sponsoring the. recording of all tombstones in Christchurch Graveyard, St Albans Road, Chipping Barnet. This is a relatively modern graveyard of over 2000 graves, opened in 1901 and officially closed about 1970, although some family graves are still in use. Its upkeep has been taken over by the Borough.

BBAC held a meeting at the end of January to inaugurate the project and HADAS member Harold Cover, who has recorded tombstones for us at St James the Great, Friern Barnet and at New Southgate Cemetery, went along to it. He will be keeping in touch with events, though he won’t be present at the first weekend.

The project is already off to a good start with the Borough Surveyor’s Department offering co-operation in clearing weeds, etc and providing a full plan of the graveyard; and the North Middlesex Family History Society checking the parish burial registers, which fortunately carry the plot number of each burial.

If you get your Newsletter in time, and are interested in helping, turn up on any or all of the first three days, between 10 am-4pm. Bring a Picnic lunch, but coffee will be available. Equipment in case you have not recorded before, and beginners will be very welcome should include clip board and pen, wellies if it’s wettish, kneeling pad, trowel, soft brush and – for overgrown areas – secateurs.

Later sessions at Christchurch will depend on progress made during the initial weekend and that, in turn, may well depend on the weather). .No further dates have yet been decided, but you can get further information from the organiser, Mrs Doreen Willcocks,.

FOURTH INTERNATIONAL FLINT SYMPOSIUM

A report by CAROLINE ELLIS Geology Dept, Imperial College

This was held at Brighton Polytechnic, Sussex, from April 10-15 last. It was attended by over 200 people from Britain and abroad, including America, Hungary, Germany, Sweden and France. It was interdisciplinary, with sessions ranging from the origin of Chert and Cretaceous chalk to the -Quaternary era, flint technology and microwear studies. For each session there was a keynote speaker whose lecture gave a general introduction to the seminar and a review of recent work in the field. The conference was opened by an amusing lecture by Professor Schmid from Hanover on Flint and Cretaceous stratigraphy in NW Europe. A nice touch was added by a presentation of his favourite piece of red flint to Mr G de G Sieveking, the chairman of the conference.

Local excursions were arranged for the Wednesday afternoon and for all day Thursday to see the local chalk stratigraphy and flint bands at Seaford and Beachy Head and to visit Quaternary sites at Asham Quarry, Lewes, and at the Devils Dyke, near Brighton, where research is in progress. Most memorable was the visit to the Neolithic flint mines at Harrow Hill near Worthing which had been excavated especially for the conference. At the end of the week there was a long field excursion to visit Grimes Graves in Norfolk and then to see chalk and flint stratigraphy in North Lincolnshire.

The conference gave insight into current work being carried out by archaeologists and geologists involved with flint both in Britain and abroad. Thanks must go to the organising committee and especially to Mr Sieveking and Dr R Mortimore who so successfully masterminded the operation.

EXCAVATIONS AT FINCHLEY, 1978-79 Pt. 2 Report by Paddy Musgrove

HADAS Newsletter of February, 1982, contained a report of the excavations carried out in 1978 on the site ‘of the Victorian Rectory of St Mary-at-Finchley, Hendon Lane, N3. The plan of the site accompanying that report also indicated the position of Trench D, excavated the following year in an adjoining garden in Church Crescent.

33 Church Crescent, 1979

The purpose of opening Trench D was to ascertain if a pit or ditch with a gently sloping profile (shown in Fig 2 of our earlier report) extended into 33 Church Crescent and, if so, to establish its purpose. In the event, part of the lip of a shallow pit was found (Fig 1 herewith) but it could not be established if this was related to the feature in the old rectory garden. Fig 2. shows the profile of the pit at the east end of the trench. The area of excavation was limited by the-presence of a garage build­ing and other factors, so we were left with a variety of interesting, but puzzling, features, one of which was the corner of a floor of sparse cobbles (Fig 1). Along the lip of the pit were numerous pockets of small concretions of deteriorated metal which, though not responsive to a magnet, were identified by the laboratory of the Museum of London as being derived from iron. Similar fragments found amongst the stones of the nearby floor suggest an Association between the two, features, perhaps of an industrial nature.

The Finds

Because of the extensive transference of soil and building materials around the site at the time the Victorian Rectory was built, the exact locations of find-spots, though recorded, are of limited significance and are not indicated in the following summary of the more interesting finds from both the Rectory and the Church Crescent sites.

Prehistoric: 4 struck flint flakes from the Rectory garden have been drawn and recorded by Daphne Lorimer, who writes: “three show signs of retouch and/or wear and are of Mesolithic type.”

Two additional flakes of similar type were found at 33 Church Crescent.

Medieval Neck of biconical jug with partial heavy dark brown glaze: Cheam kilns, 14th/early 15th c, 8 sherds of off-white sandy fabric, dark green glaze with press-moulded wheat-ear design; Kingston,13th/14thc, 17 sherds of rims and body sherds of gritty grey wares 12th/14th c

Portion of base and three sherds of gritty red ware 12th/14th c, 16 assorted sherds in red-ware, 8 with traces of green or brown glaze. One small sherd, pinkish fabric, yellow glaze; possibly Stamford ware, 10th/11th c (?).

Post-medieval and Sundry

The four trenches which were excavated, As well as several rubbish pits disturbed by recent builders’ operations, all provided large quantities of 18th/19th c pottery, stoneware, bones and oyster shells. Some fragments of wine bottles were of globular 17th -c type. 6 small fragments of sheet glass, about 1 mm thick and partly degraded, are probably of considerable age. The neck and mask of a Bellarmine wine jar are of 17th c type.

35 portions of clay tobacco pipes include the Highgate pipe mention­ed in oar earlier report (see Fig 4 herewith); also one bowl of period 1660-80 and a spur with initials ‘D.C.’ (perhaps Dan Crabb of London, c.1723).

Cornet of blue-and-white glazed ceramic tile is illustrated. (Fig 3).

Examination of Flint Fragments

Trench A in the rectory garden yielded two pieces of what seemed to be crazed and heat shattered flint, but with blue-grey interiors and on the outside a brown crust about 1 mm thick. One piece was submitted to the Geological Museum where, because of its unusual colour and the surface layer, .Miss C H Woodward arranged for the Petrology Unit of the Institute of Geological Studies to x-ray it twice. Their report is as follows:

“Both the grey interior and the brown exterior of the flint consists of finely crystalline quartz (films X8216, A, 8217). No impurity was detected on the films, but the brown ‘shell’ to the flint presumably contains some iron oxide.”

To this Miss Woodward adds: “We can offer no explanation as to the origin of colour or surface layer.” When first found, the flints wore quite a bright blue colour. Miss Woodward explains: “The core probably appears less blue than when found due to natural drying-out process … moisture seeps into the tiny spaces between the minute quartz crystals of which it is composed.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am personally grateful to Mrs Daphne Lorimer, Miss C M Woodward, Mr B R Young (of the Institute of Geological Studies), and the laboratory staff of the Museum of London for help as indicated in the above report; also to Mr John Clark of the Museum of London for his advice and the opportunity to examine pottery in the Museum’s reserve collection; and to Mrs Mary Allaway for her drawing of the Highgate clay pipe.

Newsletter 146: April, 1983

PROGRAMME NEWS

Tues. Apr. 12. (Please note: second, not first, Tuesday of the month)

The last winter lecture will be by an old friend – and member – of HADAS, Paul Craddock. His title is Early Mining and Metallurgy from its inception to the Bronze Age. Mr Craddock, who used to live in our area but has now loved to Kent, works in the British Museum Research Labora­tory, in charge of metallurgical investigations generally.

His lecture will give a rapid survey of the first 8000 years of metallurgy, concentrating on mining and extractive processes, with specific examples from Bronze Age copper smelting sites in Israel, Iron Age and Roman silver smelting at Rio Tinto, Spain, and medieval zinc distillation in India. Some of the new research techniques developed at the B M Research Laboratory will also be described, and the policy of collecting ancient smelting debris to form a world-wide study collection.

Wed. May 18. (Please note: not May 11, as on your programme card) is the Society’s AGM. Further details in the May Newsletter.

Both the above meetings take place at 8 pm for 8.30 at Central Library, The Burroughs, Hendon NW4.

Sun. May 15 (afternoon).The proposed route for our conducted walk in the City of London will cover the fine stretch of Roman Wall at Coopers Row, visit to the remains of the Mithras temple and another stretch of wall at St Alphage and Barbican. We hope to see the corner of the Roman fort at Noble Street and visit the West Gate site which will be opened for us, ending at the Museum of London with time to visit the galleries or to have tea. If you wish to join this tour please let Dorothy Newbury (203 0950) know as soon as possible, as approximate numbers are required. Full details in the May Newsletter.

WALKING THE STREAMS OF BARNET (with the Prehistoric Group)

The exploration of Deans Brook continues and we have now walked the brook northwards as far as Stoneyfield Park. The stretch from Brookfield Avenue to Hale Lane is almost entirely constrained and the bed has been concreted. From a point about 50 yards north of Male Lane to the south boundary of John Groom’s Crippleage the stream became too deep for wading and tile banks proved inaccessible, but we were again able, to follow its course northwards alongside the Crippleage grounds and beyond Edgware Way into Stoneyfields Park.

In this area the stream again flows over natural gravels and its east bank is for the most part unconstrained. Within the small park the stream is very convoluted, and it is now showing signs of cutting itself a new channel by eroding the narrow necks of lands between its meanders. This area might repay further watching.

A further walk is planned for Sun. April 24. Meet at Riverdene, Edgware, a small crescent which gives access to Stoneyfields Park, If you intend to come, please notify Sheila Woodward (952 3897). And please wear wellies: Sheila Woodward

FROM THE ROMAN GROUP. A guided tour of Colchester Museum has been arranged for Sat. June 11, at 2 pm, to include a talk and slides of special interest to Roman enthusiasts. The museum has limited us to 15 members only, so if you are keen to come, contact Tessa Smith (958 9159) without delay to arrange times and transport.

SITES OF INTEREST IN LBB

In the planning application lists of the last six weeks the follow­ing sites may be of possible archaeological interest – that is, of course, provided permission is given for the proposed development:

Land at rear of Oakhurst & Ryecroft, Barnet Lane, N20

.1-4 The Causeway, N2

3 Potters Road; New Barnet

Former carpark, Elmhurst Crescent, .N2 .

Land N1 of Silk Bridge, The Hyde, NV9

Queenswell School site, adj. Almshouses

Any members who notice signs of development activity on these sites (and it may not be for some time) are asked to let Elizabeth Sanderson (950 3106) know.

WETLAND ARCHAEOLOGY

The Prehistoric Society’s spring conference at the Museum of London on March 19/20 was on the prehistoric wetlands of Europe. Speakers came from Denmark, the Netherlands, North Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland and Ireland, as well as four from Britain. It was one of the most varied and interesting conferences the Society -has sponsored and the ten or so HADAS members who attended had a feast. Almost every paper was memorable, which makes it tricky to choose what, in this short space, to report.

Perhaps the deepest impression made by the conference as a whole was the importance of these wetland sites for filling in gaps in know­ledge left by dry sites, It is only when you study the wetland that you begin to appreciate the tremendous importance of organic materials like wood. ii providing early peoples with the artefacts of everyday life. Indeed, a Danish paper on .a submerged Ertebolle site with aft occupation sequence from 4000-2200.BC suggested that we should perhaps, on wetland evidence, consider re-naming the later stone ages The Wood Ago.

Another great gap filled by wetland sites is what our Mesolithic to Iron Age ancestors ate. There was hardly a paper that did not list evidence, far fuller than most dryland sites can provide, of remains of animals (domestic and hunted), fish, birds and plants (cultivated and gathered). This ranged from the pointed-base pot, half full of fish bones (suggested as the residue of a Mesolithic bouillabaisse), to the 25 stone of hazelnut shells from Seamar Carr in Yorkshire and the flat loaves and recognisable apple halves from a submerged Neolithic village with a 2500 BC radio carbon dating near Grenoble in France.

It was all enough to make you long for a nice stretch of ancient wetland to explore in the London Borough of Barnet.

The Prehistoric Society, incidentally, is excellent value both for amateurs and professionals. The Proceedings alone – anything up to 500 pages annually – are worth the £10 subscription, and additional perks include monthly lectures, plus the right to attend an annual spring conference and a week’s summer meeting, held in regional centres such as Dublin, Exeter or Orkney.

COMMITTEE CORNER

Some membership changes have taken place recently in the Committee ­one to rejoice in, others greatly to regret. Taking the good news first, we warmly welcome a new junior representative, Kate Balen of North London Collegiate School. There has been no one to speak on the Committee for young-members since Bryan Hackett had to resign last May – so Kate’s presence is much appreciated. In fact, there are always places for two junior members on the Committee.

If anyone else among the under-18s feels moved to join, please let the Hon. Secretary, Brian Wrigley, know on 959 5982. The sad news is that two members have resigned from the Committee (though not, we are glad to say, from the Society). One is Ken Vause, a stalwart in HADAS’s team of photographers. He has been a committee member for the last three years. The other is one of our senior members, George Ingram. George joined HADAS 10 years ago and within a year came onto the Committee as Hon. Librarian. Now he says “my sight is becoming a bit dim, so committee work isn’t on. Tell everyone I’m keeping going though, and making the best of it.” Everyone, we are sure, will learn of George’s eye problems with real sorrow. We shall certainly miss his cheery presence on Committee, and hope to continue seeing him – and Ken – at other HADAS events.

The Committee has had several reports on the Society’s new field groups, described by convener Elizabeth Sanderson in the last Newsletter. The object of each group is to keep a close watch on events in its immediate locality which might have archaeological repercussions.

Albert Dean, who heads the Burnt Oak group, has produced a form for members who go site-watching to fill in. It covers such points as where the site is (grid reference as well as address); archaeological details of trenches observed – length, depth, position on site and what, if anything, could be Seen in the sections; name of contact on site (developer, builder, etc) and type of access; what is to be built there and what was there originally.

It is hoped to continue publishing in the Newsletter – as we have done .in the past – brief reports on site-watching. Regular publication of such information from various parts of the Borough, no matter how brief nor how negative the evidence, will gradually build up a picture of what has been observed which could be invaluable in the future.

Members who would like to join a local field group should get in touch first with Elizabeth Sanderson (950 3106).

The Committee has approved a report from a small working party on excavation policy, which states that it is highly desirable for the Society to mount at least one dig each year; and that at present no site in the Borough is known to be in urgent need of rescue.

The working party suggested six sites on which, given various provisos, trial trenches or perhaps more extensive excavation might to possible. First site on the list was the Hadley Common earthwork, which is the subject of a further note later in this Newsletter.

Ann Trewick was warmly thanked by the Committee for putting up an exhibition of photographs and finds on last year’s dig behind the Old Bull. The display is at the Old Bull, High Street, Chipping Barnet until just before Easter. The excellent photographs are the work of HLDAS member Eric Ward.

The Borough Librarian has written to the Committee about the Moxom collection of Roman pottery from Brockley Hill. He hopes to put this on regular display in one of the downstairs rooms at Church Farm House Museum.

HOSPITAL CORNER

Most members have probably heard the sad news that our ex-Treasurer, Jeremy Clynes, has been literally laid low for the last 6 weeks. On almost the only frozen morning of this winter he was proceeding along Hoop Lane towards Golders Green station at his usual brisk trot when a piece of ice intervened and he landed – not at all gently on one hip. Since then he’s been under traction in the Royal Free, and remarkably philosophies about it, too.

Good news is that the traction should be over by the time you read this – and then in his own graphic words “they’ll have to dig various bits of metal out of me and after that I shall have to go vertical – and that’s said to be quite shattering after 6 weeks lying flat.”

When he leaves hospital hopefully at the end of March – it may be crutches for a bit: but it’s. nice to report that the worst is clearly over and Jeremy will soon have his feet firmly on the ground again.

HADAS INVESTIGATES THE IRON AGE by BRIAN WRIGLEY

The Society has been successful this year in obtaining a Lloyds Bank grant to buy a prismatic compass (it may stretch to two!) We hope to make a survey of the earthwork in Hadley Wood and to do so adequately necessitates the use of such a compass.

Frequent strollers in the wood may well enquire “what earthwork?” This is, indeed, partly the point. The remaining surface traces of bank and ditch are slight, hard to find and well worth recording before they become further eroded, in a manner which can be plotted on the large-scale OS. Sheet. The earthwork has, it seems, been known since 1913; it is recorded by the Museum of London as an Iron Age hillfort. I have not yet been able to get hold of the earliest report in the LAMAS Transactions for 1920; it would be interesting to know on what evidence the identifica­tion of it as Iron Age is based.

Alec Gouldsmitht Victor Jones and I recently looked at it (and with­out Alec’s intimate. knowledge, would never have found it!) and sketched part of it. We hope to complete a proper scale survey by prismatic com­pass – the only means possible in the tangled growth in April. When this has been done it may well give a lead to the best approach for fur­ther investigation such as soil surveying, trial trenching, phosphate testing – to try to confirm its date and (dare one say?) even to suggest its purpose. Should a dig seem desirable, we have high hopes that the Curators of the Common, one of whom is HADAS member Andrew Pares, may look kindly on the scheme.

CALLING ALL MEMBERS

With this Newsletter comes a subscription renewal form, and our Hon. Membership Secretary, Phyllis Fletcher, asks us to remind you

Full membership £3.00

Under 18/over 60 £2.00

Family Membership

1st member £3.00

Additional members £1.00 each

It would be a big help to Phyllis, and to HADAS, if you could sit down right’ now and pay your 1983-4 sub, so that there is no need to send out reminders. Thanks:

COMING EVENTS

Sat. Apr. 16 from 11 am. LAMAS Conference of London Archaeologists, at which Ted Sammes will be speaking on the HADAS Church Terrace dig of 1973.

Summer Courses. Butser Ancient Farm will run 6 residential courses this summer, each of 5 days and limited to 10 students, who will take part in the general and specific research projects of the farm. These include prehistoric farming techniques, pottery manufacture, smelting of metals. and prospecting methods and devices (including magnetic susceptibility and phosphate analysis). Cost per course is £59.50, which covers board, tuition and equipment. Further details, including dates of courses from Brigid Grafton Green, 455-9040.

Our colleagues in the Camden History Society ask us to give details of their forthcoming meetings, which we are glad to do. They are at 7 pm at Holborn Library Hall: Apr. 14, Hugh Meller: London’s Cemeteries; May 12, Mrs Ferrugia History of the Post Office.

EGYPT, GIFT ‘OF THE NILE OLIVE BANHAM reports the March lecture

We were favoured at this meeting by the visit of Miss Vivienne Constantinides (daughter of our founder) who showed magnificent slides of Egypt and talked as if we were all old friends – as, indeed, we felt.

She got off to a flying start by running through ten or so slides from Hendon days. Half a dozen were of HADAS’s very first dig, in 1961 at Church End Farm. There were few faces that today’s members could recognise among the diggers – and those there were looked quite remarkably young: Ian Robertson, who directed that dig and was just going up to Oxford; Mr Wookey, studying a hole in the ground with nicely combined zeal and knowledgability; and Liz Sagues – then Elizabeth Watkins ­looking positively dazzling in brief emerald shorts and a lovely length of leg.

These slides, plus others taken in Hendon in 1960, were presented to HADAS at the end the evening – a much appreciated addition to our collection, particularly as Miss “Constans” both 21 years ago and now, is clearly a master of the camera where slides are concerned.

Then it was on to the main business of the evening – our trip down the Nile, bordered here by cotton fields and date palms, there by funerary temples and majestic ruins. From Cairo to Mephis to Luxor we wandered, through modern mosques with wonderfully precise geometric decoration and ancient tombs whose walls were alive with the painted peoples of the past.

The tiny figures of tourists made the huge carved and painted re­presentations of priest and Pharaoh seem even larger; and the expertise which had made them even more marvelous. The construction, in mudbrick or stone, of ramparts and pyramids of huge size suggested that early Egyptian man possessed skill and patience we no longer have. No sooner had that thought come to mind, however, than a slide of the Aswan Dam, a triumph of Modern technology, got things into perspective again. We have our moments, too – and the saving of the Aswan temples was one of them. This visit by Miss Constantinides made a fitting end to a splendid anniversary year.

ROMAN ROADS IN THE BOROUGH OF BARNET

A round-up of evidence for Roman occupation in the Borough of Barnet was made in 1979 (HADAS Newsletters 102 & 103). The 1st and 2nd a. pot­teries at Brockley Hill are, of course, by far the most important Roman

1 features known in this area. Waste pits excavated at Burnt Oak (a) suggest a living site there, and some sort of settlement in Hendon is indicated

2 by small quantities of pottery found on the two sites (b). Of two sherds found on the Church Terrace site the excavator writes “It is interesting to note that both these types of vessel have associations with religious beliefs” (c). Other chance finds listed in the roundup are too scattered to allow sensible interpretation, with the exception of the cremation urn found in Hendon; Roman graves (other than infant burials) were commonly situated beside a 3 road.

The Viatores in ‘Roman Roads in the South East Midlands (d) suggested that three roads passed through, or beside, the Borough: Watling St on the western boundary, Route 167 from Arkley to Hampstead on its way from Verulamium to Londinium, and Route 220 from Stevenage on the eastern boundary. Watling St (Edgware Rd), long acknowledged as a Roman road on evidence elsewhere, is not included in the present investigation; metall­ing has been observed during excavations at Brockley Hill, and HADAS maintains a watching brief on the part within the Borough whenever road or building operations allow. Route 167 is more doubtful, the last firm evidence being a section at Well End, just north of the Borough; Route 220 is also doubtful. Evidence for these two roads has been the subject of this investigation.

The study has included 10 walks between 23.8.80 and 20.2.82 along all the footpaths which might lie on a Roman road, and on some of the roads where evidence might be visible; three other investigations were made, including a trial dig and the use of an augur; aerial photographs have been studied, and documentary research has been carried out, mainly study of early maps. No positive evidence for these two roads has been found, and the signs of agger and metalling reported by the Viatores were not now found to be visible (p. 121-2 and maps on p.390-391).

Viatores Route,167

Route 167, as postulated by the Viatores, enters Barnet Borough on a line from the established section at Well End, obliquely across Rowley Lane, passing through fields (now mainly sports fields) to Barnet Gate. The

4 route cuts Barnet Lane, again obliquely, and joins the footpath on the west of Hendon Wood Lane which runs S and SW past Hendon Park Farm (also

7 called Mote End Farm) and across Nan Clark’s Lane to Highwood Hill. This is an old footpath (appearing on Crow’s map of 1754) (e) and it crosses the Totteridge Mote Mount ridge at Mote End Farm, about 200m W of its highest point, 145m. The various stretches of agger and metalling sighted by the Viatores 20 years earlier did not appear to the present investigators to be visible, although there were features lying on either side of Nan Clark’s Lane, in private property, which might merit further investigation.

4 The possible agger and ditch in Field 7083 was examined later after plough¬ing, but no clear evidence of metalling had been turned up.

The Viatores admit that it cannot be said that there is any certain sign from Highwood Hill onwards, and alternative routes were studied in the present investigation. Probably the road made for the next highest

5 point, Holcombe Hill, 125m by St Mary’s Abbey, at the N end of the, Ridge­way which the road is likely to have followed at least to its next highest

6 point, again 125m by Wills Grove at the top of Milespit Hill. From there it must descend to cross the low lying Copthall Fields before ascending the higher ground at Hendon. Alternative ways between Highwood and Hol­combe Hills have been considered in this study, and the route favoured by the Viatores down Milespit Hill (previously Dole St), across Copthall Fields and to Brent St via Downage, and thence to Golders Green and Hamp­stead, has been compared with the possible alternative from Wills Grove by the footpath across Mill Hill School playing fields, Arrandene open space, Page St and the footpaths through Copthall Fields and Sunny Hill Park, past St Mary’s parish church, continuing by footpaths now mostly enclosed between houses and gardens to the river Brent.

7,5 Five possible alternative routes from Highwood Hill to Holcombe Hill were surveyed with a resistivity meter by HADAS’in 1968 (f) , and trial

trenches wore dug in the Lawrence St allotments, all with negative results.

7 The present investigation reviewed these areas by walking; the low bank lying about 20m from the eastern edge of the modern road ‘Highwood Hill’ and parallel to it, has been interpreted as the boundary of the drove road on Crow’s map (where already a small section is shown as parceled off, thereby narrowing it to the modern size), rather than a sign of a Roman road. However the possibility still remains that the route lies

5 directly under the modern road and straight up Holcombe Hill by the Old Forge.

From the Ridgeway Route 167 is supported by 3 street names: Dole St (now Milespit Hill), Parson St and Brent St, all early names; and also by field names on Crow’s map: ‘693 3 A by the Road on the W edge of Dole St, ‘316,Perry or Footpath Field’ which lies 80 poles (440 yds) S and ‘Lower Long Lands or Bridge Field’ .another 50 poles (275 yds) SSW. HADAS in 1967 (g)’ following a resistivity survey of Copthall Fields near Sanders

8 Lane, uncovered two sections of metalled road, 650 ft apart, dated by Romano-British pottery to 50-100 AD. Although the general orientation of those two sections was S, .the northern piece was orientated NNE/SSW while the southern. piece was NNW/SSE, suggesting that the road made an obtuse bend at a point between the two sections, continuing across the golf course on a line supported by reported sightings of metalling at.TQ233911. During the present investigation Ashley Lane was examined for signs of this projected road, particularly for evidence for the bridge of the field name on Crow’s map, but with no result. At the southern end of Brent St, in a garden abutting on the W side of the modern road; where a piece of glass and a sherd which could be Roman had been found, two small trial holes were dug to a depth of 40-60 cm.’ A layer of cobble and pebbles in clay were found at this level. This could be a road surface, but there was no dating evidence, and early maps show houses at this point.

9 Father south previous excavations (h) have failed to demonstrate a Roman road.

6 The alternative route from the Ridgeway has been studied, commencing near the Wills Grove 125m High point, and following the footpath past the E side of Ridgeway House to the top of Page St. Where the footpath leaves the garden area at Ridgeway House and there is a small mound with trees, a considerable amount of pebbling was observed. However, investigation with a 2ft augur both on the mound and at the side revealed only 50cm topsoil above London clay; the pebbling was considered to be partly garden rubbish, partly the outcrop of pebbles common in this area. Beyond this point the garden had been levelled for school playing fields, and no evidence was found in Arrandone open space. After Page St footpaths continue the line of his route through Copthall Fields and Sunny Hill Park following, on Crow’s map, an unbroken straight line of 9 field boundaries, the longest straight line on his map with the exception of the fields bordering Watling Street. Of the postulated road-lines this route is the nearest to the urn

3 at 111 Sunny Gardens Rd (i), a distance of about 150m, and it passes close to the possible Roman settlement near St Mary’s Church. From the church this route follows a further line of footpaths to the river Brent, passing by two fields on Crow’s map called ‘Great Footpath Field 789’ and ‘Little Footpath Field 702’. Its subsequent route is quite uncertain. These footpaths were walked from the Ridgeway to the Brent, but no additional information was obtained.

Viatores Route 220

The case for this route is no more certain. No section of it had been cut at any point by the Viatores, but they quote considerable docu­mentary evidence for an early road leaving Londinium at Cripplegate, the gate of the Roman fort, and continuing by an old bridleway E of Islington over Highbury Hill, the first high ground north of the city. They admit doubt as to the line of the road for the next 5 miles to Southgate, but claim that vestiges are to be found further north. There is more evidence of occupation along the whole route than there is along 167 (including tombstones and other burials, a farm site and much pottery, coins, etc), but none of it in the Borough of Barnet. The Viatores publish a photograph (Plate X) of the agger seen at Muswell Hill golf course.

10 The present investigation studied the proposed route between Pinkham Way and New Southgate station along the Borough boundary. No evidence for the road was visible. Between Blagden’s Lane and Ashfield Rd, where the Viatores had found pronounced agger, Geoffrey Gillam (j) reported examination of a partial section across the supposed agger when building operations cut into the bank for 150-200ft, from the centre to the western edge. There was no sign of-metalling; he suggested the agger was no more than the county boundary bank, possibly increased in height and reinforced with rubble to improve the footpath.

The opportunity to examine the east side of the bank at Blagden’s Lane was offered by kind invitation of Mr Vandervell. A trial trench was dug in his garden at The Oaks in November 1982.

A 2m x lm trench was dug at right angles to Blagden’s Lane which runs NNE across the front of The Oaks, TQ 296938. It was dug as close as possible to the fence between the Lane and the narrow strip of garden lying S of the house; the trench was situated approximately at the centre of this fence and at right angles to it. It was dug to a depth of 45cm, and a further 45cm was augured. Findings nearest the fence, about l0cm of stony topsoil lay above yellow clay containing little stone and no artefacts. 30cm from the fence the yellow clay profile began to slope down­wards forming the edge of a ditch filled with a black mixed soil contain­ing garden and building rubbish, and a large proportion of pebbles; The eastern edge of the ditch was not determined.. Auguring showed a continu­ation of the yellow clay (see illustration). These findings confirm Mr Gillam’s conclusion that this bank is probably the boundary bank; There was no evidence of a metalled surface.

In conclusion, it is apparent that while this investigation of the sections of the Viatores Routes 167 & 220, lying within or on the boundary of the Borough of Barnet, has reported only negative results, none is conclusive, with the exception of this last piece of Route 220. The alter­native routes of 167 are still open to re-examination in the light of new information. The interpretation of the sections of road uncovered in 1968 in NE Copthall Fields remains a challenge. Projecting its direction in a line NNE, a straight route could be followed up Salcombe Gardens and thence by the public footpath which emerges on the Ridgeway near Burton Hole Lane. Now the only unknown street of the seven in Hendon mentioned in early documents is Gladwin Street*; in 1635 R Nicol of Mylespitt owned 3 fields-now called ‘Drivers,’ earlier called ‘Gladwyn Field,’ Fearne Croft’ and ‘Long Croft.’ No other Gladwin has been identified; (on the other hand, no other field bears the same name as a street). These fields (plus a fourth, ‘Further Drivers’) appear on Crow’s map on the line of this foot­path; moreover, they lead towards the field ‘693 3 A by the Road.’ If the road did ascend the Ridgeway by this route, it must have taken a sharp turn to continue along the ridge; but if it went straight on, what could have been its destination?

*The other 6.are: ‘Berwestrat/Berewrestratel (Burroughs), ‘Braintstrete,’ ‘Dole Street,’ ‘Lawrence Street,’ ‘Page Street’ and ‘Parson Street’.

NEWSLETTER 145 MARCH 1983

HADAS DIARY

Tuesday March 1: Egypt, Gift of the Nile, by Vivienne Constantinides

This lecture could, perhaps, be described as the most gracious of apologies. Miss Constantinides, daughter of the society’s founder Mr T. Constantinides, was invited to the 21st birthday party last year. Regretfully, she was away at the time – on the Nile, in fact and sent her apologies, offering to lecture to HADAS was some compensation. We accepted, gratefully.

Tuesday April 12: Early Mining and Metallurgy, from its inception to the

Bronze Age, by Dr Paul Craddock. Please note: This lecture is the second Tuesday of the month.

Wednesday May 184 Annual General Meeting

All these meetings are at Hendon Library The Burroughs, NW4 Coffee 8pm, lectures 8.30pm.

Roman Group:

Tuesday March 29: Roman group meeting, hosted by Enid Hill, 56 Northway, NW11, 8pm. Everyone welcome, though Enid would welcome prior notice from those attending (455 8388). The Roman group is also planning outings to Welwyn Bath House and to Colchester, with experts on hand to show members behind the scenes.

Walking the Streams of Barnet: The walk planned for January 30 had to be cancelled, but the exploration of Deans Brook was continued on February 20 and will be reported in the next Newsletter. A further walk has been arranged for Sunday March 6 – meet at 10am at the junction of Hale Lane and Highview Gardens, Edgware. If you intend to come, please notify Sheila Woodward, 952 3897.

An event elsewhere: Tuesday March 8: Open meeting to discuss two recently produced reports: one by a British Museum Working Party (Chairman Ian Longworth) on the Selection and Retention of Environmental and Artefactual Material from Excavations; the other by a Council for British Archaeology Working Party (Chairman Barry Cunliffe) on the Publication of Archaeological Excavations. To be held at the lecture theatre of the Linnaean Society, Burlington.House, Piccadilly, W1. Programme: 11am to 12.30pm Longworth Report; 1.30pm to 4pm Cunliffe Report.

Copies of both reports may be obtained from CEA, 112 Kennington Road, London SEll 6RE (please send an A4 Self-addressed envelope, stamped 20½p). The meeting is open to all. You are asked as a courtesy, if you intend to go, to notify Lyn Greenwood at CBA (582 0494) beforehand.

Barnet’s Neighbour is the title of the current exhibition at Church. Farm House Museum, celebrating 50 years of the Stanmore and Harrow Historical Society.

There’s much of neighbourly interest, and it remains on show until March 13.

ELIZABETH ALDRIDGE

West Heath diggers will be saddened to hear of the death of Elizabeth Aldridge at the end of January. Only 42, Elizabeth had been disabled for 15 years and had also been fighting cancer for the last two years of her life.

Liz was a person of immense courage and gaiety and so made light of her disabili-, ties that her wheelchair was seen forgotten in the enjoyment of her company and it was not allowed to interfere with her many activities Among these, processing and section drawing at West Heath were just two. Liz not only sailed through her extra-mural Diploma in Archaeology, wrestled with the organisation of site watching for HADAS, but she also founded the Highgate Antique Collectors’ Club and still found time for Church and other Highgate activities.

Liz will be much missed and it will be a long time before her example is forgotten. We send our deepest sympathy to all her family and are very pleased that her son, Simon, is still a junior member.

PINNING DOWN THE PAST

In a little under an hour, Dr. John Alexander pinned down the past most compre hensively for HADAS members at the February lecture. Not that that was surprising, given that Dr Alexander’s subject was the Origins and Development of the Safety Pin.

That modest invention, so useful to generations of modern mothers, was not the Victorian inspiration it might have been assumed he revealed. There was a 19th century patent for it, taken-out by an enterprising American and turned into a fortune in hard cash by the-Birmingham manufacturer who bought it from him for just 000. But the American’s design did not copy one of the few safety pins which had survived through medieval and later times.’ It bore far more resemblance to those early in the European pin tradition, back in the first millennium BC.

“Small inventions like the safety pin often get very little attention,-even though the impact they-made upon society was very considerable,” said Dr Alexander, explaining his own reasoning for studying them. “Once invented, the safety pin took on various roles apart from simply holding clothes together. It developed into very decorative brooches, it was used-to indicate status in’ society.

His detailed study had shown several thousand different types were in use in first millenium BC Europe, and far more throughout the world. Study of them helped in the recognition of regions and trade connections and in dating. They were found in graves and at settlement sites, in-votive deposits, in craftsmens’ hoards.

Safety pins- or fibulae as they were more familiarly known to archaeologists – may well have developed from long thin shoulder pins, pierced to-take a piece of wire or ‘cord to aid their fastening potential. Simple pins-of the safety type tame into use in the northern part of the European plain around 1200 to 1000 BC and the style lasted for some 600 years. A quite different-line of development could be traced in the northern Alpine region, spreading through into Greece even. And the safety pin was eventually in use from Scandinavia to Persia. It was, particularly, the badge of the Celts.

Dr Alexander’s slides showed the variety of pins, plain or highly decorated. Prizes among the latter are surely due to an.extraordinary Etruscan ‘find, in gold, and another, also in gold, in Scythian style, the functional pin decidedly inferior to its animalistic decoration.

The Romans’ effectively killed off the safety pin, wearing clothes which rendered

it unnecessary, Dr Alexander continued, though “whenever the Roman ‘Empire collapsed

safety pins came flooding back”. But only temporarily, for from the middle of

of the first millenium AD to the 19th century they were little usedI

“Even if the origins and early development of these fibulae are now fairly obvious there are many thousands of safety pins that can be studied and fitted into the general pattern,” he said, exhorting his audience to do the work. “There is work waiting to be done on their local significance, who was wearing what kind, which sort of social or sexual grouping was wearing them in which region. This knowledge will only come through very detailed study of the ways of making them and styles of ornamenting.

“When their distribution and associations are worked out, and their chronological position, then perhaps eventually their social significance will be worked out. Certainly for the first millenium BC we will know much more about what is now an obscure set of communities.”

LIZ SAGUES

AN UN-AXE-PELTED SHOPPING TRIP

One of the most appealing things about archaeology is its unexpectedness. One of our members was going shopping the other week – just an ordinary everyday trip to the butcher and baker. As she passed a friend’s house, out he came. “Hey,” he. said, “I’ve got something for you – something you can use in exhibitions or suchlike.” He dived back inside, returning a moment later with a plastic carrier.

“It’s rather heavy, I’m afraid,” he said, handing it over. It. was it weighed a metaphorical ton. However, when she got it home she knew it was worth every ounce. Inside were 11 Paleolithic hand-axes, in dark grey flint with tobacco brown streaks. They range in size from the tough largest, which are roughed-out, unfinished shapes between 5.8 and 6 inches at their longest and 3.7 and 4 inches at their widest, to .a completed job, which fits snugly into the palm of the hand and is 3.5 inches by 2.8 inches at its maximum points..

Alas, the donor had no idea of the provenance. They had been given to him with no word of whence they came. He will try to find out, but is a bit doubtful of success.

However, though their archaeological value is minimised by this fact, they will be very useful as specimens for demonstrations, displays, etc. And they do underline the text with which we began. Who else but an archaeologist could return from a shopping trip with 11 stone axes, thousands of years old, nestling between four fillets of plaice and a pound of sprouts?

ROMAN EXIT

The End of Roman Britain was the subject of the CBA Group VII conference at Welwyn Garden City on February 19. Five papers were read by a distinguished list of speakers – Coinage and the End of Roman Britain by Richard Reece, Farming in the First Millenium by Peter Fowler, Roman to Saxon Mucking by Margaret Jones, Towns of the South East in Later Roman Britain and Beyond by Harvey Sheldon and Problems of the Late Frontier as exemplified by Wroxeter and North Wales by Graham Webster, with a splendid review of the proceedings by Kate Pretty.

There was general agreement about the timing of the collapse of Roman rule in Britain – new issues of coinage end about 410 AD, town life declined at different times though Wroxeter continued into the 5th century and many villas in the country-side continued in occupation as well, until economic reasons or personal danger caused them to be abandoned. The official connection with Rome ended in 410, but Roman civilisation was to some degree maintained until 442.

No doubt a large section of the population continued to live in their own area merely changing Roman rulers for Saxon. Others moved to the west of England.

At Mucking, in Essex, there was a site in occupation from Neolithic to medieval times. Saxon houses have been found on top of Roman dwellings and Roman arte­facts and Roman technology were adopted. A radio-carbon date of 470 for Anglo-Saxon material suggests that there may not have been much of a time lag between Roman and Saxon occupation.

ENID HILL

ROUND-UP OF REVIEWS

So many publications have stacked up recently for review in the Newsletter that all we can offer you is a quick skip-through.

First, four books from Shire Publications – the first three in the Shire Archae­ology series, the fourth another “Discovering”.

Medieval Roads, by geography lecturer Brian Paul Hindle; 29 pages of text, 21 pages of graphs and maps (showing itineraries of medieval kings and reproductions of part of the Matthew Paris and Gough maps) and 11 pages of photographs. Throws light on a rather neglected subject.

Medieval Fields, by David Hall; 55 pages of mixed text, photos and plans of field systems, written by an archaeologist. Good material on how to reconstruct

medieval open-field furlong patterns even when a ridged field has been virtually ploughed flat in modern times.

Village Plans, by Brian K. Roberts (another geographer). Only three photographs (a miniscule number for a Shire book) but many plans, distribution maps and models. Some of these are reproduced in too small a scale to be useful. An attempt is made to classify types of villages according to basic shapes, regularity or irregularity of pattern and presence or absence of greens. Interesting, but rather heavy going.

Discovering Churchyards, by Mark Child. Eighty-page booklet (centre 16 pages photos) with irdex and bibliography. This is a “dipping” book rather than a steady read. There are, among other plums to be plucked from it, a slightly hit-and-miss list of famous.graves, ranging from Algernon Charles Swinburne (buried Bonchurch, Isle of Wight) to Unity Mitford (Swinbrook, Oxon); a survey of lychgates and boundaries; a chapter on churchyard crosses; something on types of memorial, from headstones and graveboards to chest, bale and tea-caddy tombs; and a section on the flora and fauna of the churchyard.

All the above are available from HADAS, the first three price £1.95, the fourth£1.75, plus postage. Don’t forget that Pete Griffiths has taken over as distributor of publications, so you can get these from him at 8 Jubilee Avenue, London Colney, Herts AL2 1QG (phone 61 23156).

Archaeology in Camden: 12-page illustrated booklet produced by the Inner London Archaeological Unit, price 80p including postage from Imex House, 42 Theobalds Road, WC1X 8NW. Interesting for HADAS members because it mentions the West Heath dig and has a photo of the site (by Peter Clinch) and of some of the finds (by Eric Ward).

The Kemps of Hendon and Church Farm House, by F.W.H. Abrams (published by the Mill Hill and Hendon Historical Society). Story of the Kemp family’s Hendon links onwards from Tudor times, when they leased the moated manor of Clitterhouse from St .Bartholomew’s Hospital. Details of Daniel Kemp’s tenure of Church Farm and the building which is now Church Farm House Museum. Obtainable at £1, including postage, from John Collier, 47 Longfield Avenue, NW7 2EH.

The Ravenscrofts: Barnet and District Local History Society Bulletin No. 22 (November 1982). This account, by Ralph Walker, follows three generations of a family linked with Chipping Barnet in the 17th century. After first-providing the family background in 16th century ?lintshire, Mr Walker brings Thomas

Ravenscroft (whose effigy can be seen in the Ravenscroft chapel of Barnet Parish Church) to Fold Park, Galley Lane, Barnet. Thomas was father of Barnet’s “great benefactor”, James Ravenscroft (1595-1680), who endowed the Ravenscroft alms houses, or Jesus’ Hospital, in Wood Street,HADAS members interested in this booklet can find out further details from Mr W.S. Taylor, Curator of the Barnet Museum, Wood Street, Barnet.

Camden History Review No. 10 Another excellent issue in this series by the Camden History Society. This is the last issue to be edited by Christopher Wade, who has many links with HADAS. Members who came to the 1982 Christmas dinner will remember him speaking on the history of Burgh House, of which he is the honorary curator. Articles in the review include one on H.G. Wells’ Camden connections; Georgian Catholics in Hampstead; census studies in the Vale of Health; Highgate’s Fitzroy Farm; and winning essays in a competition about Camden schooldays.

Copies from 28 Willoughby Road, NW3 1SA, £1.90 plus postage.

Cuttings from the Harrow Observer for 1932, compiled by Gordon Dodd. This 30-page roneod publication is the golden jubilee edition of Chronicle, the Stanmore and Historical Society’s journal. The society was founded in 1932 as the Edgware and Stanmore Historical and Antiquarian Society. We start at the top of page 1 with what was showing at the Cosy Cinema, Harrow on the Hill, on January 1 1932 (Richard Barthelmess and Clark Gable in The Finger Points, Richardo Cortez and Loretta Young in Big Business Girl), and we go through to December 30 1932, when the leading article has some depressing – but so familiar – points to end on: “The year has been a disappointing one to all classes of the community and it leaves most people poorer than they were at the beginning. Unemployment has increased, wages have been reduced, salaries cut, and those who have what the tax authorities called an ‘unearned income’ find themselves with mostly reduced dividends or none at all… The Few Year holds out no very definite promise of incomes going up or of income tax coming down…” Copies of the booklet are obtainable from Roy Abbott, 7 The Ridgeway, Stanmore, HA7 4BE, price 50p plus 20p postage.

HADAS FIELD GROUPS

The committee of HADAS recently gave its approval for the setting up of Field Groups throughout the borough. The groups will be mainly responsible for identifying by means of surveys, site-watching, field-walking, etc, potential sites for excavation and reporting features noted in trenches on building sites, particularly in areas of known archaeological interest. Much of the job requires a network of people able to keep an eye on their local area and for which no expert knowledge is needed.

Two groups are already in action – Finchley and Edgware ­ and it is hoped that other groups will be formed soon. If you are interested in taking part and have not yet been contacted, get in touch with:

Mr G.H. Musgrove (346 0128) for the Church End and St Paul’s wards of Finchley Mrs T.M. Smith (958 9159) for the Edgware area

Mr A.F. Dean (205 3201) for the Burnt Oak area

For other areas contact Elizabeth Sanderson (950 3106) who is co-ordinating the activities of the groups. She would particularly like to hear from people who are able to visit any of the borough planning departments during office hours to look at planning applications.

June Porges writes: I regret that owing to a little absent-mindedness I have no record of the donors of some of these publications. I would like to know the members who gave them if they would care to contact me. In the meantime, many thanks to the named and to the un-named.

Council for British Archaeology: Archaeological Bibliography for Great Britain

and Ireland 1977.

Council for British Archaeology: Archaeology in Britain, 1980 and 1981.

London and Middlesex Archaeological Society: Transactions, vol 32, 1981.

Popular Archaeology May 1980, July 1982.

World Archaeology, vol 14, no 1, June 1982 Quantitative methods.

Omnibus (a new magazine for sixth-formers and others interested in the ancient

Greeks and Romans, published by JACT) Nos 1-4, 1981 and 1982.

Fedden, R(ed) Treasures of the National Trust, Cape, 1976.

Wilkinson, F. The castles of England, Philip, 1973.

Lawson, A. Discover Unexpected London, Elsevier Phaidon, 1977.

Larousse Encyclopedia of Prehistoric and Ancient Art, Hamlyn, 1970.

Voronikhina, L. The Hermitage: guidebook.

Oakley, K.P. Man the Toolmaker Sixth edition, 1975.

Colyer, C. Lincoln: The Archaeology of an Historic City, 1975.

Working party of the Ancient Monuments Board for England Committee for Rescue

Archaeology: Principles of Publication in Rescue Archaeology, Department of

the Environment, October 1975.

Bagshawe, R.W. Roman Roads, Shire, 1979.

Hedges, A.A.C. Bottles and Bottle Collecting, Shire, 1975.

Harris’, R. Discovering Timber-Framed Buildings, Shire, 1978.

Hodgkiss, A.G. Discovering Antique Maps, Shire, 1975.

British Museum Society Bulletin, March and November 1979, March and July 1980

Bulletin of Experimental Archaeology, no 3, 1982.

Burgess, C. Excavations at Houseledge, Black Law, Northumberland, and their implications for earlier Bronze Age settlements in the Cheviots, Northern

Archaeology, I (1) 1980, pp 5-12.

Jobley, G. A Field-guide to Prehistoric Northumberland, part 2, Northern

History booklets No 46. (photocopy)

From Miss V Sheldon:

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

1935.

From Philip Venning:

Vafpoulou-Richardson, C.E. Greek Terracottas, Ashmolean Museum, 1981.

Aaron, H. Pillar to Post: Looking at Street Furniture, Warne, 1982.

From Ted Sammes:

The Scroll: journal of the Maidenhead Archaeological and Historical Society,

vol 3 nos 1-5, September 1977 – Autumn 1982.

DOCUMENTARY GROUP ON THE TRAIL…

One project on which the Documentary Group is currently working concerns a leaflet on the Archaeology of the Borough of Barnet, to be published later this year by LBB Council.

Many HADAS members will remember the Town Trails which the Borough Planning Department produced a couple of years back. There were four of them, on Hadley, Mill Hill, Church End, Finchley and Hampstead Garden Suburb. (At about the same time the Libraries Department published a fifth Town Trail on Hendon.)

The first four trails were concertina-like leaflets which, when opened, contained maps, line drawings and an explanatory text about each locality. The Planning Department is now working on a leaflet in a similar format (though not a Town Trail) which will des ribe the known archaeological sites in the borough and the various chance finds which have been made, as well as giving a few general ideas about the aims and techniques of archaeology.

The idea of this leaflet was first floated at a meeting organised by the Planning Department to which representatives of the Mill Hill and Hendon Historical Society, the Barnet and District Local History Society, HAMS and LAMAS were invited. Following this meeting it was agreed that HADAS should be responsible for collecting together the material for the text of the leaflet, and this has now been done, with the help of several members, including Daphne Lorimer, Brigid Grafton Green, Ted Sammes and Bill Firth.

Now the information is assembled it’s surprising how much there is to say about archaeology in our area: at the moment we’re wrestling with the problem of how to cram an archaeological quart into a pint-sized leaflet. We’ll let you know how we get on!

BRIGID GRAFTON GREEN

A THURSDAY LAMENT

All the indications are that, next evening lecture year, there’ll be a sad omission from the University of London Extra-Mural Department prospectus – the Thursday evening lectures at the Institute of Archaeology, which for so long have been used as a platform to air new archaeological information in series with a variety of expert speakers expounding on a common theme.

The reason for their ending, though it may be only temporary, is two-fold. The first, and most distressing, is the poor attendance. This year particularly some

evenings – in a season hampered only once by weather problems – saw only a dozen faithfuls scattered about the institute benches. Inevitably, such lack of support means a hefty loss and the cut-hit extra-mural department simply cannot afford to continue that. Second is the pressure on the time of extra-mural lecturer Tony Legge, who needs to visit more of the department’s archaeology classes. With his own lecturing commitments in diploma and post-diploma classes, plus taking the chair on Thursdays, there’s effectively only one evening left for class visits.

If we’re lucky, the lectures may be resumed after an interval of a year or two.

HAMS members have been less enthusiastic than usual in their support of the 1982-83 series, on New Techniques in Archaeology. Few, even, turned up to support member Paul Craddock, whose subject last month was not that on which he’ll be speaking in the HADAS April lecture (he’d given that at the very beginning of the series) but one of particular interest to anyone who has worked on the West Heath dig.

He was describing the technique of soil phosphate analysis, to identify sites of past human and animal habitation through the phosphate-rich rubbish which had been deposited and which remains easily and cheaply identifiable today despite the passing of years or the disturbance of sites. He tried out the technique at West Heath, though that was not among the sites he talked about last month. Instead, he revealed how phosphate study showed that the body of the Saxon king

Redwald could have been buried at Sutton Hoo, how work in the Fenlands project had revealed an iron age village where no archaeological remains had previously been suspected, how it seemed that the neolithic and bronze age flint miners at Grimes Graves had no settled habitation in the vicinity and how crucial evidence could be recovered from sites otherwise so ploughed out that they seemed totally archaeologically barren. Another, earlier, talk was also essential for Mesolithic enthusiasts, though as Peter Rewley-Conwy was standing in at the last moment for a flu-struck expert on the microscopy of ancient ceramics there could have been no advance warning of the subject.

Dr Rewley-Conwy described his work on the Danish late Mesolithic sites of the Ertebolle culture, where he had established a pattern of unusually settled habi­tation, based on central campsites, where a variety of natural resources were used. These central sites were supplemented by seasonal camps whose occupants exploited particular seasonal resources – wild pigs, porpoises, eels, cod, whooper? wens and, crucially, oysters. Oysters, he said, formed only a small proportion, if the diet, some five to ten per cent of the calorific total, but their avail­ability in the early spring.when other resources were scarce was vitally important. And the changes in seashore conditions around 3,000 BC, which prompted a decline of the oyster beds, had been the factor which had upset the delicate balance of the Ertebolle economy and led to the acceptance of farming.

I’d have regretted missing, too, Harry Kenward’s entertaining and informative, if hardly always palatable, account of compost-covered Viking York, an image reconstructed from beetle remains. Or learning from John Gowlett of the possi­bilities provided by accelerators in C14 dating, meaning that far smaller samples were required and offering the possibility one day of precise dating of Paleolithic cave painting. Or Mike Baillie’s splendingly delivered account of how the dendrochronological sequence for Ireland, and beyond, was built up. Or Gordon Hillman’s revelations of the dietary habits of cock-fight watchers in medieval Usk (groats, not particularly well digested, and blackberries, so the seed remains indicated).

But the sparsely-filled benches were in sad contrast to the sort of audiences earlier series attracted. There must be many HADAS members who remember Michael Day demonstraiting the gait of 1470 man – or was it one of his later descendants? to a lecture hall with every seat filled, aisles crowded with extra chairs and several rows of listeners standing at the back. And that wasn’t exceptional. Thursday evenings at the Institute of Archaeology will be sorely missed.

LIZ SAGUES

NEWSLETTER NO.144 FEBRUARY 1983.

HADAS DIARY.

Tuesday 1 February Origins & Development of the Safety Pin Dr. John Alexander.

We welcome a return visit by Dr. Alexander of the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge. His last lecture to us, in January 1981 was on his excavations at Qasr Ibrim. Back in November 1955 he lectured on World Archaeology. This time the intriguing title alone will, we are sure, bring members flocking in. Volume 48 (1982) of The Proceedings of The Prehistoric Society carries a long article by Dr. Alexander on the same subject, beginning on P.40: Those who like to come well-prepared are recommended to read it. By the way, we understand that some members found themselves locked out of the Library – and the January lecture – at 8:10:p.m. If it happens to you, please BANG until someone comes. We are trying to solve one or two Library problems at the moment.

Tuesday 1 March Egypt, Gift of the Nile Vivienne Constantinides. Miss Constantinides is the daughter of our Society’s Founder.

Tuesday 12 April PLEASE NOTE SECOND TUESDAY OF MONTH
Early Mining & Metallurgy from its inception to the Bronze Age. Dr. Paul Craddock.

Wednesday 18 May Annual General Meeting.

PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING NOTICE.

The Library has made a double booking and we have had to alter the date of this meeting. Please mark your programme card and diary accordingly.

ALL MEETINGS AT HENDON LIBRARY, THE BURROUGHS.N.W.4. COFFEE AT 8.P.M. LECTURES AT 8:30pm

OTHER EVENTS:

The New End Theatre is no longer dark. A new Revue,”War to War”, dealing with the Twenties and Thirties, should interest our members. It runs from January 25th to February 26th, starting at 8.p.m and groups of 11, or more ,H.A.D.A.S, members are offered concessionary prices – £2.50 or £3.00.

BOX OFFICE MANAGER 435 6053/4.

WATERY NOTES – continued, by Sheila Woodward.

The third and fourth walks in the series designed to explore the watercourses of the Borough of Barnet took place on 27th December and 16th January. We completed walking the Silk Stream to the confluence of Deans Brook and Edgware Brook and found that this stretch of the stream is heavily constricted, ‘sometimes inaccessible, and sometimes completely underground. We then followed Deans Brook Northwards from Deansbrook Road, along its meanders between steep and for the most part natural banks. It provides a classic illustration of the characteristics of such a stream with the bank on each outer curve heavily undercut and deposition on each inner curve creating small gravel beaches. Flint pebbles abound but so far no worked stone has been found. Subsequently the brook enters a hundred yard long culvert which carries it un the old railway line and the Northern Line, just South-East of Edgware Station. Walking, or rather wading, through the culvert proved an interesting if slightly eerie experience. The water was deep and the roof was low, so a stooped posture and shambling gait reminiscent of Primitive Man/Woman had to be adopted. The dimness of the light and profusion of cobwebs tended to impede Archaeological observation. The bone we found did not belong to a Sabre Toothed Tigre, and the cry that there was a hand floating in the water proved to be a false alarm.

We ended our walk at Brook Avenue. The investigation will continue on 30th January and 10th February. For details of meeting points, please phone Mrs. Brigid Grafton Green, 455 9040.

COMMITTEE CORNER.

Rescue Archaeology Service for Outer London Boroughs. There has been under consideration for some time a proposal for the GLC to set up a professional rescue Archaeology service for the Outer London Boroughs, similar to the one which operates in inner London. Discussions started some years ago between LAMAS, GLC and the Museum of London; about a year ago proposals (later revised) were put before the Councils of the Boroughs which would be concerned.

The initial reaction of the London Borough of Barnet was that such a service was unnecessary in our area; however, if a service should be instituted, LBB would be required to contribute to it under precept arrangements.

The Committee has now heard from Mr. Bennett, Chief Executive and Town Clerk of LBB, that if the service comes into being, Barnet will take advantage of it as necessary. Mr. Bennett has told GLC that LBB’s involvement “will be on the basis of a close liaison with the Hendon and District Archaeological Society.”

Mr. Bennett also tells us that “the Council attaches great importance to the close working relationship with HADAS and other local voluntary bodies.”

HADAS Lectures. Two Committee members will be lecturing in April, to very different audiences.

At the LAMAS Conference of London Archaeologists at the Museum of London on Saturday April 16th Ted Sammes will speak on the Church Terrace excavations of 1973-4. We’ve heard that just es we go to press, so more about it in subsequent Newsletters.

On Thursday April 21st, Sheila Woodward has been asked to talk about Archaeology in North-west London, from the viewpoint of a local society. This occasion is the Ladies Evening of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, Greater London Branch N.W. Panel. The talk will be at the Harrow College of Further Education, Northwick Park, Harrow, at 6:30 for 7:00.p.m. Chairmen of the Branch (another HADAS member) Alfred Gower, asks us to say that any Society members who care to attend will be most welcome.

The Publication of Archaeological Excavations. A public meeting to discuss this a vital topic in times when publishing costs soar and storage space for finds dwindles – is to take place in London on March 8th next. To open the discussion there will be a paper from the British Museum on the subject, and another from a joint working party of the Council for British Archaeology and the Department of Environment.

15 day Archaeological Tour of Israel. We have received notice of a very interesting 15 day Archaeological Tour of Israel from the 2nd to the 16th of October, 1983, accompanied by Roberta Harris, Lecturer in Biblical Archaeology for many years at the City Literary Institute. The Itinerary is most impressive and the cost £578. Further details from Project Expeditions Ltd. 36, Great Russell Street. WCl B3PP.Te1:636-1262.

SITE WATCHING:

Here are some more sites for which planning application has been made. Some, perhaps all, of them might be of Archaeological interest if permission to develop is given.

Should you happen to live near any of them, and should you notice any kind of building activity,’ please let Elizabeth Sanderson know on 950-3106.

54, Fairfield Crescent, Edgware.
136 Edgwarebury Lane, Edgware.

Land adjoining 83 Milespit Hill.

Land rear of 136, Audley Road/92, Vivian Ave. Land rear of Birchglade, fronting Oaklands Lane Arkley.

Land rear of 16/18, Brookside, East Barnet. 167/9, High.Street, Barnet (after demolition of modern building.)

Building adj. 1, Wellhouse Lane,Barnet.

REPORT ON THE JANUARY LECTURE. by Nell Penny.

Call it the Manor of Tyburn – the parish of St. Mary-le-bone – Regent’s Park: Dr. Ann Saunders knows all about it, and has shared her knowledge with HADAS members in two friendly and lively but scholarly lectures. The first one, given at extremely short notice, took us from a hamlet on what was to become the Oxford road, to Henry VIII’s creation of a hunting park in the forest North of a later village. Dr. Saunders would like to think the irregular circle of Marylebone Park was the King’s own ‘doodling’ on an empty map.

This month’s lecture, by the ‘chalk and talk’ method, began with the Tudor deer park. Edward VI’s treasury paid for a fence on top of the perimeter mound, Elizabeth paid for a wooden standing from which she might shoot deer and she entertained her patient suitor, the Duc d’Anjou in the Park in 1582. The early – Stuarts preserved the hunting park, but hard pressed Charles I had to pawn it to two Royalists, Sir George Strode and John Wandesford in return for “Musquettes, Match and Pikes”. In 1650, after the execution of the King, the Commonwealth Government was as poor as he had been, and was willing to sell royal estates for cash. Marylebone Park covered 500 acres; there were 124 deer and over 16,000 trees largely oak, ash and elm. Elizabeth’s bakenstand was at £3.6s. 8d. Three New Model Army Officers bought it for £13,000 and set to work to recover their money as quickly as they could. The trees were felled and sold (many were ear­marked for the Navy) and the land let out in small holdings. So the royal hunting park boundaries were ploughed out and the land was farmed mainly as meadow.

At the Restoration the Park reverted to the Crown but it remained farm land until the inception in 1809 of Nash’s grand plan of a residential estate and public park connected to London by magnificent new roads. There were three farms: Marylebone Park Farm, White House Farm and Coney burrow Farm in the East. They grew hay for the thousands of horses in the capital and had dairy cows to supply milk to the human inhabitants.

We hope that Dr. Saunders is willing, sometime soon, to tell us about the realization of Nash’s designs and the subsequent development of the Regent’s.Park.

Our Chairman, Mr. Brian Jarman, who had welcomed us to the first meeting of 1983, thanked Dr. Saunders for her thoroughly enjoyable lecture.

BLUE PLAQUE CEREMONY Cont’d

One of the prayers offered by the Minister during the service gave thanks by name or all those who had had a part in the day’s ceremony, from Benjamin Waugh himself downwards. You will, I am sure, be glad to know that HADAS was not forgotten, but was commended to God for its initiative and research!

Tailpiece: many thanks to Ella and Eric Ward for filling one of the gaps in our information about Benjamin Waugh.

In last month’s Newsletter we listed the other commemorative plaques which have been erected to him; and we mentioned that we thought there was one in Southgate.

Mrs. Ward remembered taking her children to see it in years gone by; she provided the Newsletter with the information that it is on Barclays Bank, 33, The Green, Southgate, in the Borough of Enfield; that it is square in shape and that it carries, among other things, the quotation “the only cry he heard was the cry of the child.” She also sent us an admirable little map to show how to get there.

That plaque was erected in 1934.
NEWS FROM THE DOCUMENTARY GROUP.

In the December Newsletter the group was seeking volunteers for research into the use of flint as a building material in the Borough. We are happy to report that the Wibberleys – Brian, Rosemary and the children —have offered to undertake this as a family project; so we look forward to further reports from them from time to time in the Newsletter. Meantime, any member who notices a flint building in the. Borough (either a public building or a private house) is asked to let the Wibberleys know, on 440-7606.

Some research into an area of land near High Barnet Station, which is being undertaken by Alec Gouldsmith, has produced one interesting query. Where do the two streets, Potters Land and Potters Road, near the foot of Barnet Hill and to .the east of the main road, get their name? Is it associated with an ancient pottery? Any information on the derivation will be gratefully received by Brigid Grafton Green (455-9040).

In course of research some time ago Percy Reboul found a set of old glass lantern slides, 3″ x 3″, of Mill Hill and Hendon about the turn of the century. They are particularly interesting in showing old roads, buildings, bridges, farms now demolished and so on. Percy reports that, with the owner’s permission, LBB Local History Collection has been able to re-photograph the slides so that they can be made available for general research.

MUSEUM WORKSHOPS.

There are some interesting Workshops at the Museum of London this month – at 1.10 on Thursdays in the Education Department:

MEMBERSHIP .

A number of new members have joined the Society in recent months.

the Newsletter welcomes them warmly and wishes them enjoyment and interest from their membership. They are:-

Naomi Alexander, N 2; Kate Balen, Hendon; Daphne Bauer, Finchley;

E.G. Brassington, N.W.5; Mrs. Collingwood, N.Finchley; Mr. & Mrs. Court, Hendon; Melanie Kent, W. Hendon; Linda Langenfeld, Maida Vale; Miss A.M. Large, Finchley; Mr. & Mrs, Leeb, Finchley; Diana Mansell, Garden Suburb; Mary McGhee,Edgware; Andrew Pinto, Mill Hill; Edward Sewell, Colindale; Pat Tyler, Garden Suburb;_ Mary Wood, Canterbury.

And talking of members, you will find a new membership list, complete to January 1st, 1983, enclosed with this Newsletter.

Preparing it is one of the trickiest jobs our membership Secretary, Phyllis Fletcher, has to face. Eight pages of addresses and (worst of all) phone numbers is a nightmare to type correctly. If, despite checking and double checking, a mistake has crept in somewhere, Phyllis asks you to let her know as soon as possible – so will you look at your entry right now?

A JOURNAL TO PRIZE.

Many members, we feel sure, already subscribe to that excellent magazine, Current Archaeology, whose co-editor, Andrew Selkirk, lives in Hampstead and has been a HADAS member for the last 6 years (the other co-editor is Andrew’s wife, Andy).

For those who are not familiar with it, Current Archaeology is published six times a year (which doesn’t necessarily mean at regular 2-monthly intervals) at a subscription of £5, which includes postage.

The journal, which is just starting its 16th year, has become an essential of the British archaeological scene. for one thing, it isn’t a “learned journal” in the full sense of that phrase, which means it can air opinions and ideas that the “heavies” can’t touch. A reference to it in the recently published Roman Britain volume of the Oxford History of England, by Peter Salway, pinpoints its importance:

“Current Archaeology is of prime importance in making up-to-date information on excavation and theory available in an attractive format both to professionals and a wider public.It’s most important function is the spreading of news about current work and its implications outside the increasingly narrow compartments into which specialist archaeology is being divided.”

You can take out a subscription to Current Archaeology by writing to Andrew Selkirk at 9, Nassington Road, N.W,.3; and just now, to celebrate its 15th birthday, there is a special offer: you can get the last 6 issues for £4 instead of as well as taking out your new subscription.

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY AT SCRATCH WOOD AND ARKLEY. by Bill Firth.

A Planning Application for an extension to Arkley Mill prompted an investigation on the ground and provided an opportunity to look at some other sites in the vacinity. Hero was a good case for a day out on I.A.

I started at Scratchwood, walked the length of the Southern boundary and at the Western Boundary in the next field there is a brick ventilation shaft from Elstree tunnel ( TQ 196 951). This is not marked on all maps. Downhill at the Southern end of the wood I came out by the railway and the porticoes to the two bores of the tunnel. (TQ 947 948). The more Easterly one is in blue brick rather ornate and obviously dates from the Midland Railway London Extension opened in 1867 .convd….

Industrial Archaeology at Scratch Woods Arkley (Cont’d…)

e plainer red brick westerly portal basically similar must date from the four-tracking of about 1890. On the east side of the fast lines (the western pair) there is a brcken sign – Elstree Tunnel. 1058 yards – probably put up in the 1930’s when the Railways were trying to woo the passenger from increasing coach

competition by adding interest to the journey. On the top of the Tunnel there is evidence of at least one earlier fence and the remains of some iron palings of typical Midland Railway type but nothing to confirm this.

Back on Barnet Way I reflected that this itself is I.A..It was built as a three lane arterial road in 1920-24 by the Ministry of Transport as part of an unemployment relief programme as the new motor route from London to th North on a line recommended by the London Arterial Road Conferences of 1912-16.

A bit further North between Barnet Lane (TQ 208 953) and Ripon Way (TQ 210 958) there is almost the only stretch of Ribbon Factory development along, the considerable length of arterial roads in the Borough. It seems that Middlesex County Council took powers to control such development earlier than the 1935 Restriction of Ribbon Development Act and, in fact, the development at Borehamwood was one of the few attempts to integrate housing and industrial development around a new motor road. John Laing acquired 470 acres for a “Garden City Estate” for houses and factories separated from the main road by a service road. The scheme was never completed because of the Second World war. Six factories were built of which three are still immediately obvious from their 1930’s style – at Stirling Corner (now Thann Synchronome) at the corner of Ripon Way (now Carl Zeiss) and, most obviously, the Kalle factory with a typical 1930’s circular tower over the entrance.

So, East up Barnet Lane. to turn left into Brickfield Lane. The reprint of the 1 inch O.S. First Edition shows kilns along the North Side of Barnet Lane but no brickfield. Later maps show evidence of a pit filled with water. The 6″ O.S., of 1873 shows an extensive brick and tile works on the South side of Barnet Lane. There is now no real visible evidence of a brickfield off the lane. The area is part of the grounds of Arkely Mill and has been landscaped but it is tempting to assume that the ornamental lake was once a clay pit. The other side of Barnet Lane is covered in Modern property and no evidence of a works remains.

One can go round the back of the windmill by the footpath from Brickfield Lane to Rowley Lane and can get glimpses of it. It can also be glimpsed behind the house from Windmill Lane. (It is the house that is being extended). It is evident that there is no hope of sitewatching but in any case it has been so landscaped that most of it must be made ground and not very revealing.

On the East side of Rowley Lane there is a reservoir (not marked on earlier maps) and in the ‘V’ where the lane is joined by Rowley Green Road there is a modern concrete water tower(TQ 219 957). At the Rowley Green Road entrance there is a modern notice (Lea Valley water Co. Arkley Tower and Reservoir”. The evidence is that the reservoir is as modern as the tower.

At the same junction there is a signpost. The post is obviously not old but the arms are. The length of Rowley Green Road is lit by old gas lamps converted to electricity. On the left hand side of the road there is an older reservoir (TQ 221 958).

In the almost rural nothern marches of the Borough I had found much of I.A., interest and a number of things to follow up. It had been a good day out.

IMAGES IN CAMERA.

Are any HADAS members junk-shop addicts – or would it be more sensible to ask “Are there any who aren’t?”

If you are one of those who find it herd to pass any shop selling bye-gones, we have a little job for you. Will you very kindly keep your eyes skinned in future for a camera obscure?

In case you’re not quite sure what that is, it’s a drawing aid: a piece of apparatus which makes it possible to project from a distance onto drawing or graph paper the excate outline (and also some of the detail) of, say, a worked flint.
Then even e ham-handed draughtsman can draw around the outline and can indicate the detail. The apparatus is still used in museums – for example, at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington for drawing moths and butterflies – but it is otherwise out of fashion.

Daphne Lorimer has been trying to find such a piece of equipment for HADAS’s use, and has been told that it is no longer made. However, it is suggested that a second-hand one can sometimes be picked up in an antique or junk-shop. £60 would be a fair price for it: anything above that would be too much. but some camera obscure have been found at real knock-down bargain prices like £1.50p.

What does it look like? Well, Daphne describes it as a narrow wooden box, perhaps 21″ or so long, with inside it a series of prisms. Should you ever see one, please let her know – especially if it’s nearer the £1.50. end of the scale.

DEMISE OF THE BLUE ANCHOR.

The final three pages of this Newsletter are devoted to the record of an interesting local building – the Blue Anchor -pub at Whetstone. This was demolished last summer. Before the pub was knocked down HADAS members Mary Allaway and Percy Reboul did some documentary research into its history; and they spent the best part of the Sunday before demolition began studying,measuring and recording features.

This-was rather an eerie experience, as the building had been closed for some weeks, part of it was boarded up and the electricity had been cut off. Mary Allaway’s drawings show you the results.

There are also photographs to complement the drawings: some taken by Percy Reboul, and others by the Local History Collection of LBB.

The site has now been levelled and when redevelopment begins, HADAS hopes to watch any service or foundation trenches that may be cut across it. The Agents are very co-operative, and tell us that no activity is likely to start until March at least.

NEWSLETTER No. 143 January 1383

BEST WISHES, FOR: THE NEW YEAR TO ALL MEMBERS

HADAS DIARY

Tuesday 4 January Marylebone Park 1537-1811 Dr Ann Saunders

Tuesday 1 February Origins & Development’ of the Safety Pin Dr. John Alexander

Tuesday 1 March Egypt, Gift of the Nile Vivienne Constantinides

Tuesday 12 April Early Mining and Metallurgy from its inception to the Bronze

Age Paul Craddock

All these lectures will take place at Hendon Library, The Burroughs, N. W. 4,with coffee at 8pm and the lecture following at,8 .30 .

Other events

Billingsgate Dig The viewing gallery, is still open and may continue so for some time best ring the publicity office at the Museum of London (600 3699) before visiting, to check times.

January 19 & March 16 Museum of London theatre at 1.10pm introductory talks on general-archaeology of London, organised by Citisights:

Text Box: • ;March 25-27 CBA Conference on Romano-British Urban Topography at Museum of London, star-studded list of lecturers Non-residential fee (covering lunch on Sat: & Sun and set of summaries of papers) £18 bookings by Feb’ 28 to CBA, ‘112 Kennington Road, London; SE11 6RE

HADAS ROMAN GROUP MEETING

Tuesday,18 January at. 8pm. at Sheila Woodward’s home – 8 Hereford House, Stratton Close, Edgware, All members interested will be most welcome

MINOR MIRACLE by Brigid Grafton Green

The start of another year seems a good moment thank all those who, during the last 12 months, have played a part in getting the Newsletter into your letterbox around the first day of each month. Considering what’s involved, that is by way of being a small miracle

First, on the editorial side, thanks to the four associate editors, each of whom have put a couple of issued to bed during the last year, Liz Holliday, Enid Hill, Liz Sagues and Isoble McPherson. Some of them cut their own stencils (that’s a double bonus, worth double thanks) while those who don’t type have had the services of expert and kindly typists whose help has been most gratefully received, Deirdre Barrie, Joan Wrigley and Phyllis Fletcher.

Jeremy Clynes and Enid Hill, between them, have masterminded the distribution side Jeremy up to May 1982 & Enid since then, That job involves a lot of ferrying to and fro, helping to keep the mailing list up to date and dealing with the production of illustrations.

Raymond Lowe has been responsible for housing our addressograph and, helped by his family, preparing the envelopes – over 400 of them 12 times a year. Toughest part of that assignment is altering the stencils when new members’ names are added or old members change their addresses.

Last, but certainly not least,.-we come to the queen-pin of the whole operation – Rene Frauchiger, without whose utterly dependable help you might never see sight nor sound of your Newsletter. She lends her garage to the duplicating machine (a grubby monster, which takes up a lot a space) and looks after it like a mother, arranging its servicing and coping with its occasional tantrums

Rolling off stencils with an .average of 8-10 pages per Newsletter, and sometimes insertions – takes five to six hours, while collating, folding; stuffing and stamping the envelopes is a good two days work.

HADAS really is lucky 🙁 and judging from the comments ‘that come my way; most

members appreciate the fact) to have so many willing volunteers, ready to give their

free time to producing this minor monthly miracle.

As a footnote, we would particularly like to thank Raymond LOWE this years for

5 years help, He is, about to give up his job. as addresser-in-chief, and this issue is in

fact his swansong. He has done the job. ever since Harry Lawrence gave it up in 1977,

and for that long and reliable service HADAS is greatly in his debt.

HADAS CHRISTMAS PARTY 1982 Report by Peter Pickering

“How does Dorothy Newbury manage to find a different historic venue each year

for the Society’s Christmas event?” and “How does she make each one seem to be the

best ever ?

These were-questions ;asked by,85 members’ and guests who came to the Supper Party at Burgh ,House on .13th December

After an instructive visit to the exhibition of prints, post cards and memorabilia, upstairs, we came down: for the supper. Those of us seated’ in the paneled Music Room got to know each other more closely than ever before’, through double doors we could see our fellow diners seated at separate tables in the Hall, and hoped they ‘could hear Christopher Wade’s interesting talk as well as we could. He; gave a fascinating account of the history of the house and of the’ foul-tasting waters which attracted visitors to Hampstead in the eighteenth century.

The supper itself was a great success, although some of those present found the choice between Sherry, trifle and mince pies an agonising: one !

THE DOCUMENTARY GROUP

I • t

… has had a request from a member for help in going through and listing or cataloguing a large book of Victorian press cuttings, which deal mainly with Parliamentary and similar matters. If this sort of thing is up your street, please let Brigid, Grafton Green. (On 455 9040) know:

The group will be happy to hear from members interested in documentary research,of all kinds – in the LBB Local History Collection at Egerton Gardens, at the Newspaper Library at Colindale or in other record offices and libraries further afield, Again, please. Let Brigid know if you would like to help.

REPORT FROM THE ROMAN GROUP By Tessa Smith

A group of HADAS members visited the Verulamium Museum one Saturday recently Those of us who arrived early and eager enjoyed a conducted walk, led by Jenny .Griffiths, encompassing `the Hypocaust, with its splendid mosaic floor, diagonal channels for underfloor heating and box flue tiles in situ, Then on to the foundations of the Roman Gateway and road leading to London, via Brockley Hill and known as Watling Street. We admired the strength of the Roman Wall and bastions that have defied the centuries and were equally impressed by the huge ditch and bank defences, .at the S.W. corner of the old city.

Hurriedly we retraced our steps over grassy pitches which cover the hidden foundations of Roman streets, glimpsing the majestic scene of St Albans Cathedral over the lake in the distance.

At Verulamium Museum Chris Saunders, the Assistant Director of the museum, met us: all and allowed us to examine the pottery which is usually kept packed away. He chatted informally about each piece while we exclaimed on the weight of the mortaria, the sharpness of the grits, and attempted to read the potter’s stamps and counter stamps, His easy manner encouraged everyone to question and .discuss their ideas and pet topics “How exactly did Roman potters attach the neck of flagons and amphorae to the body of the pot?” “How were Roman cooking pots actually used?” “Where was Lugdunum? “Were there any square-sided pots in the museum?” Chris then unlocked the cases in, the museum, so that we could examine those exhibits of special interest to us – the pierced colander, the opus signinum flooring, the black

burnished ware.

Actually handling the pottery impresses. the pieces much more vividly in the mind,

and benefiting from Chris Saunders’ knowledge, we all learned more about Roman

pottery that afternoon than we could have done from any book.

Tempus fugit, and all too soon the visit was over. But not before we had admired

the little Venus figure which has been stolen twice, now safely restored after having

been found this time under a .hedge.

Our hearty thanks to Jenny and Peter Griffiths who masterminded the whole’outing and of course to Chris. Saunders for the pleasure of his instruction:’

COMMITTEE CORNER

Here, as promised in the November Newsletter, is another bulletin of ‘Committee news.

Donations Each year the Society .makes a small donation. to a good cause – it’s never much, but it gives the feeling we are helping.- In the past we have contributed to such projects as the Painted House at Dover .and the: Salisbury Museum appeal, This Year’s cause almost picked itself it’s an industrial archaeology project our own Borough – the new Bomber Command wing of the RAF Museum.

As well .as that, Christine. Arnott had. .a• collection box .for the Mary Rose at the

Mini-Mart, in which she raised £10. She received a nice thank-you .HADAS letter

from the Mary Rose Appeal. Fund.

Publications The Society has been falling behind with its publishing we haven’t produced anything since Percy Reboul’s Those Were the Days in February 1981. Now a new publishing sub-committee has been. set-up to plan a further, programme, Victor Jones chairs it, and Enid Hill, Ann Kahn, Pete Griffiths and Brigid Grafton Green sit on it, with Camilla Raab as an interested helper on the editorial side. It has been decided to let one of our early publications – Money, Milk and Milestones , of which stocks are virtually exhausted – go out of print and, as a first step to replace it with a new miscellany taken from the Newsletters of 1977-82…Other booklets,- we hope will follow, Jeremy Clynes is ,bowing out soon as organiser of publication and distribution – both our own booklets and Shire publications Pete Griffiths has kindly agreed to take over the job, and is in the process of acquiring the know-how.

Digging up the Past The course which HADAS arranged at the Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute under this title finished last month and was most successful. Student numbers kept up well throughout the course (that’s often a problem with adult education) and student’s comments and questions showed real interest. John Enderby, the Institute’s Principal, reckons that some participants have, become hooked on archaeology. .

Resignation One Committee member – Marjorie Errington – has resigned, to our considerable regret. The problems of getting to (and even more, from) meetings at night proved difficult. We shall miss her cheerful presence, but she intends to continue working hard for HADAS. Thanks, Marjorie

THE SPORTS PAVILION SITE – EAST BARNET Site-watching report by Dave King

With kind permission of the Club Secretary, I have recently been able to watch the digging of foundations for the new sports pavilion for the Crusaders football club at Church Farm, East Barnet.

The position of the pavilion is shown on the attached map. It lies about 40 metres south west’ of St, Mary’s; church in an area occupied by farm buildings as early as 1832 when the Tithe map was, produced. Much earlier occupation seems likely, as the church is of Norman foundation and the site is near to the presumed .positions of a possible D. M. V. at East Barnet:

The church is situated at the summit of a low hill of glacial gravel. A cursory visual inspection suggested that the area. to the south and west of the church had been built up and terraced in order to increase the area available for building.

The building excavations consisted of the digging of thirty holes, about 0 6m square and 1 2m: deep, which were subsequently filled with concrete to provide pile foundations for the. pavilion.

A generalised drawing of the section, observed is included on the attached sheet

Near the church the top soil was quite shallow, and was immediately succeeded by glacial gravel,. A few metres further away there was evidence of dumping, presumably to flatten the site:with a layer of older top soil preserved beneath the dumped material, This deposited material consisted of clay and top soil, but also contained a considerable amount of brick rubble .and slate The presence of slate fragments, combined with sherds of typically Victorian pottery in the rubble layer; suggests that the dumping occurred in the nineteenth century.

One of the most southerly line of pits revealed a brick structure about 1 metre below ground surface. Although it was not possible to investigate the nature of this structure, it seems most likely that it was part of a brick drain, similar, to those recently found by Percy Reboul at Cedars Close, Hendon, Such a. drain could also be plausibly of nineteenth century date.

Examination of the spoil from the pits revealed traces of brick;and slate rubble, and 19th century pottery, but no material of earlier date.

There was no trace ‘of any structures in the buried soil layer, which appeared to have been normal plough soil, without evidence of a worm-sorted zone.

The evidence of the present excavations suggests that the area immediately south of the church has been considerably disturbed in the last two centuries, and so may no longer contain traces of Medieval occupation.

WATCH OUT FOR SITES

At every HADAS Committee meeting copies of the current planning applications for the 3 divisions of the Borough of Barnet – Northern, Central and Western – are available for members to examine

Those applications which, were they approved, might turn out to be of some archaeological interest are always specially noted. In future we propose to publish in the Newsletter the applications which the Committee picks out as interesting.

We do this with an ulterior (but not sinister) motive should you live near the site of one of these applications, and should you happen to observe, when passing, activity on the site, we hope you will be encouraged to let our Hon. Secretary (on 953 5982) know what you have seen, It might be a great help

The applications specially noted at the last two committees were:

879-883 High Road, N 12

1128-38 High Road, N.20

1500 High Road, N. 20

John Grooms Estate, Edgware Way

(near Stoneyfields Lane)

Ravenscroft Cottages, Potters Lane, Barnet

Land between 35-39 Bow Lane, N 12

Land adjoining 114 Wood Street, Barnet

Land adjoining Lawrence Campe

Almshouses, Friern Barnet Lane

Edgwarebury Golf Club

St Georges Lodge , The Burroughs, NW4

Land adjoining Pymlicoe House, Hadley

PROJECT FOR SCHOOLS

The Council for British Archaeology, with the help of Lloyds Bank (a real friend to archaeology for the last decade HADAS owes some of its excellent surveying equipment to a Lloyds Bank grant) has produced a series of 5 booklets designed especially for teachers who want to introduce: archaeological project work to their students. HADAS has many teacher-members who may like to know about this series. The five titles are-

Archaeology in the Primary School (ideas are included for field work, observing and recording)

Archaeology in the Countryside (studying and recording churches, work in woodland, forests and parks, visiting field monuments)

Archaeology and Science (conservation, experiments, reconstruction)

Archaeology in the Town (above ground and below, street studies, recording gravestones)

Archaeology in the Classroom (setting up archaeology in secondary school, teaching about Iron Age and Roman Britain, books, using archaeological objects in the classroom.

Each booklet is 24 pages, Al size, illustrated with photographs, drawings and plans. Price 50p or £2 for all five, including postage. Obtainable from CBA, 112 Kennington Road, London, SEll 6RE

A FIND AT AVENUE HOUSE

Many members have visited HADAS’s small room at Avenue House, in East End

Road, Finchley where our librarian, June Porges, keeps the ever-growing HADAS

library and where, from time to time, the Groups organise small working sessions

on Roman pottery or Mesolithic flints.

Most members will also know that the house has some history. it was the home

of “Inky” Stephens, owner of Stephens Inks, who left the house to the people of Finchley

when he died in 1918.

It was interesting therefore to be shown, by Mr Hudson (who with his colleague,

Mr. Mann,’ presides over the small office in the main hall of: the building) his latest discovery – a fine stained glass doorway leading from the office into the back of the hall. Until a few weeks ago the glass panels were, covered with, asbestos sheets, as part of the fire regulations; and the glass itself, grimed with the dark brown film of ages, looked nondescript.

Now Mr. Hudson has removed some asbestos (more is still to come down at the time of writing) and he has washed the glass; and behold, there are the stained-glass` upper panels of a pair of double doors, with a large stained-glass half-moon fanlight above. With the light behind, all the colours of the rainbow come through. Set in the fanlight are three crests: ra pair of lions, an’ eagle-like bird and two small birds.

Paddy Musgrove, who has delved deeper than anyone into Avenue House history, thinks the eagle is Stephens’ own crest and one of the others is probably, Mrs. Stephens’ – she was an O’Reilly from Ireland. Could the two small birds be two finches of Finchley?

Paddy also tells us that he has recently found new and interesting documentary material about Stephens and his various interests.

AN EVEN WETTER WATER WALK Report from Sheila Woodward

The rain poured down-steadily on the 12th December as four stalwart HADAS members splashed their way northwards along the Silk Stream, sometimes in the stream itself and sometimes along its banks. This was a continuation of the walk described in the last Newsletter and covered the area from Montrose Avenue toWatling Avenue at Burnt Oak.

The Stream meanders pleasantly across the park which bears its name and there is the usual flotsam and jetsam, none of which has so far proved to be of archaeological interest.

Just south of the culvert under Watling Avenue, the stream is joined by a small tributary flowing in from Watling Park. Does anyone know its name (None is shown on the 0:S.map. The tributary seems to have been the main watercourse of the land belonging to Goldbeaters ‘Farm and it passes close to Thirleby Road, the site of an early HADAS excavation which yielded some Roman pottery.

As already announced, it is proposed to continue this river walk on Boxing Day morning, when the area north of Burnt Oak will be explored. A preliminary propitiatory offering to the weather gods/goddesses is recommended!

FIRST OF THE FIVE AN HISTORIC BLUE PLAQUE

On Saturday 15th January will occur the first result of a plan originally conceived by HADAS just ten years ago. A blue plaque. will be unveiled on Christ Church United reformed Church, Friern Barnet Road, N11 to the Reverend Benjamin Waugh (1839-1908).,

Was early in 1973 that HADAS first considered the possibility of encouraging our local council to reactivate a policy (begun by Hendon Corporation in 1957) of erecting .blue plaques on historic houses and sites in the area. By June 1973 we felt ready to call a meeting of other societies in the Borough who might be expected to sympathise with such a project.

These were the Mill Hill and Hendon, Historical Society, The Barnet & District History Society and the Finchley Society. We all met (two representatives of each society) in July at our then secretary’s house, under the chairmanship of Brian Jarman. We agreed to set the ball rolling by sending a letter to the Town clerk. As a result the General Purposes Committee of the Council agreed in principle, on 15th October 1973, to the erection of,commemorative plaques at suitable sites, to a maximum not exceeding 10 plaques in any one financial year. The sum of £600 was to be included in the Council’s draft estimates for 1973/4, & also in future financial years, for this purpose,. Ah, halcyon days!

We need not recount in detail the whole sorry story since then, covering as it does-financial freezes, the invocation-of the Edward Harvist Fund, the steep rise in costs of ceramic plaques and their installation the exploration of other more reasonable types of plaque, the discussion of the pros and cons of vandalism against such memorials, the halving of the original list of ten and many other factors which upped (if a factor can up) and. hit us.

Suffice to say that after many tribulations patiently borne, there are at this moment 5 plaques sitting in the Borough Librarian’s care, engraved in white raised lettering-on an Oxford blue background, made of cast aluminium by the Royal Label Factory (which -provides most of the notices used by the Dept. of the Environment on its: scheduled sites). ‘

The first of these to be unveiled, with a special dedication service, will mark the centenary of the Christ Church URC. It will commemorate the Church’s founding congregational minister, Benjamin Waugh, who also co-founded, at the time he was working at Christ’ Church,a movement which was later to become the National Society for the Prevention ,of Cruelty to Children. The ceremony is timed for 3p.m, on January 15th, and will be attended by the Deputy Mayor of Barnet, representatives of the NSPCC, Benjamin Waugh’s granddaughter and possibly other members of the family. HADAS members living nearby may care to add lustre to the occasion and to inspect the ‘fruits of one of the Society’s labours!

Christ Church itself is a highly ornate structure of red brick, date 1909 and so built the year after Benjamin Waugh died in retirement at Westcliff on sea. There is, however, one buildingjn the complex at Friern Barnet Road which is contemporary with Waugh:-the church hall, behind the church. It faces onto Bellevue Road & was built-in 1883, its foundation stone (as recorded on the building) being laid by Samuel Marley.

A CHAMPION OF CHILDREN

A few facts about Benjamin Waugh himself may be of interest. He was born in Settle, in Ribblesdale, of.Yorkshire parents on both sides. After a private education he went into business at the tender: age of 14, but at 23 decided to enter Airedale College in,Bradford to train for the congregational ministry.

After serving as minister at Newbury and the at Greenwich, he came to New Southgate for four years in the 1880s. In 1887; .at- the: age of 48, he retired from his ministry to devote himself exclusively to philanthropic labours”.

He had, from the late 1860s, been particularly drawn to work for neglected and ill-treated children. He founded a day-care institution for vagrant boys, whom he called “the Wastepaper and Blacking Brigade” For over 20 years he edited the Sunday Magazine, using its pages as a platform for pleading the cause of misused children, and from the time of the 1870 Education Act he served for 6 years as Greenwich representative on the London School Board.

At this time a lady named Sarah Smith, who had taken the pen-name Hesba Stretton (she thought her own name insufficiently distinguished for a would-be author), was producing a flood of fiction, mostly short religious and. moral tales concerned with the woes of children. Her most famous offering was “Jessica’s First Prayer” which sold over a million copies and was translated into many languages. She met Waugh through the stories she wrote for the Sunday Magazine; and together in 1884, they established the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Waugh was clearly a forerunner of today’s ecumenical movement; when the London Society became a national one in 1888; it was with .a non-sectarian constitution for which Waugh obtained the approval of the Bishop of Bedford, the Chief Rabbi and Cardinal Manning. He and Manning (who also had links with our Borough, having been born and lived the first seven years of his life at Copped Hall, Totteridge) had, in fact, collaborated earlier by preparing a joint article for the Contemporary Review, under the title, “The Child of the English Savage’.

The name National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was not adopted until 1895, when a royal charter was granted. Benjamin Waugh was the first paid director of the NSPCC, serving from 1895 until his retirement in 1905.

Waugh who had a quiverful of his own: 3 sons and 5 daughters-had a profound influence on the legislation regarding children which was passed around the turn of the last century. The Act of 1889 for the prevention of cruelty to and the better protection of children was mainly due to him. The act recognised the civil right of children to be fed; clothed and properly treated. Under its provisions a child could be removed from parents who grossly abused it, and could be entrusted to relatives, friends or to an institution; the offending parents, however, had to contribute to maintenance. Other Acts, stengthening the position of children, were to follow in 1894, 1904 and 1908.

The plaque that is to be unveiled this month in Barnet won’t, by a long chalk, be the only commemoration of Benjamin Waugh.

There is a plaque in Settle, his home town, on a building which is now the Trustee Savings Bank and a green plaque at Southend on the house in which he was living at the time of his death. There used to be a silhouette-type plaque on NSPCC Headquarters in Leicester Square. When the Society moved to new premises in Riding House Street the plaque went too but it was never erected and now cannot be found. There is also said to be a plaque on a bank in Southgate, the place where he lived during his New Southgate ministry, but we haven’t tracked that one down yet. Finally, the GLC proposes to unveil a plaque next year on the house in which Waugh lived in Greenwich.

References: Life of Benjamin Waugh by Rosa Waugh & Ernest Betham’, 1912; The Times, March 13,14 and 17, 1908; Dictionary of National Biography, 1901-10.

AND STILL THERE WERE FOUR

That, of course, does not end the story of the current crop of plaques.because, you will recall, there are five in the Borough Librarian’s possession. Plans are at the moment being worked out for the erection and unveiling of the remaining four, which are: to Sir Thomas Lipton, at Osidge House, Chase Side to Joseph Grimaldi, near the junction of Granville

Road and High Road, to Thomas Collins, at Woodhouse School, Woodhouse Road,

at the Tudor Hall Wood Street, Chipping Barnet

We hope to provide a run-down on the history behind each of these plaques in subsequent Newsletters, and to let you know when each one will be unveiled. The Committee of HADAS has, in fact, made an offer to the Borough Librarian to finance and organise small unveiling ceremonies where these would be appropriate. Our Hon Treasurer, Victor Jones, and Isobel McPherson are looking, after this aspect of the project.

THE NORTH ROAD THROUGH MIDDLESEX

A report on the recent London local history Conference

The 17th Conference of Local historians at the Museum of London on November 20th was a lively as ever as much on account of the audience, the exhibits and the bookstalls as because of the speakers. Anyone who takes part in this event can be in no doubt that local history in the London area is alive and kicking out in many directions.

The Conference benefitted from having only 3 speakers (the comparable conference of London Archaeologists every spring suffers from trying to cram in too much) .People had time to study the stands (HADAS had an exhibit on almshouses in LBB an an excellent bookstall), meet old friends and hear about new projects.

Two of the speakers dealt with types of record which are not well known to.and are therefore rarely used by local historians. Ralph Hyde .of Guildhall Library, described the parochial assessment maps of the 1830s-1840s. Most researchers rely on tithe maps for this period (the Parochial Assessment Act and the Tithe .Commutation Act were both passed in 1836).

Where they exist (and sometimes the tithe map covered the whole parish so the parochial assessment map was unnecessary) the assessment maps provide much detailed information. Mr. Hyde encouraged his listeners to go forth and try to find such maps for their districts: the parish church or vestry would be the best starting point.

He told one chastening tale of ringing up a vicar to ask if he could look at the parochial assessment map. “I don’t think we’ve got one” was the reply. “I believe you may have persisted Mr, Hyde.”I’ve never seen it – where do you think it is:” asked the Vicar “One of your parishioners says it’s hanging on the wall over the telephone” said Mr.,Hyde. “Why, bless my soul so it is!”

The other type of document, dealt with by MR J D Gerhold, concerned the papers of the-Chancery and Exchequer courts,, to be found at the PRO in Chancery Lane (not KEW). These courts offered a remedy for those who could find no remedy in the common law. In Chancery cases were mainly on secondary matters in Exchequer ‘on more important subjects Primarily, both were concerned with the land they contain detailed depositions on topography, parish matters, land improvement, walls, manuring, manorial customs, con­ditions of fields and. roads, inns, etc. Unfortunately they are tricky and slow to use; being filed not by place, but by person concerned. Unless you are chasing an unusual name you may have problems.

Sandwiched between these two documentary lectures came a talk that was – literally right up our street. It was given by Dr. Lynch, on the Great North Road through Middlesex, from Potters Bar to London, during the turnpike age: 1700-1850 From Gannetts Corner, beyond Hadley through most of our Borough, the Whetstone Turnpike Trust was in charge of the road. Dr. Lynch described as “one of the busiest junctions in the whole of southern England in 1825″ the meeting of Kitts End road and North road (rarely called the Great North road in those days), near Hadley Highstone

Today Kitts End Road is quietly rural (or as rural as you can get on a road near London in 1983): once it carried the main traffic to St. Albans. The London-Barnet stretch of the North road was the most difficult stage in the south of England, and the hardest for horses. Not for nothing is Barnet the highest point between London and York. Most coaches leaving Barnet took the, St. Albans (Kitts End) road up to 1825 – not the north road. In 1826 Telford’s London/Holyhead road was cut through the yard of the Green Man in Barnet, henceforth taking. the St. Albans traffic,

In the early 19c tolls (which gave you the right to be on the North road until midnight) at the various turnpikes were:

A coach and 6 horses 9d

One-horse chaise, 1¼

Narrow-wheeled wagon. 3d per horse

Wagon with 6″ or 9” wheels ld per horse

In the 1930s at the Whetstone turnpike, near the county boundary of Middlesex and Hertfordshire, there was on average one vehicle each way every two minutes: nearly 1000 vehicles a day paying toll.

Further south the building of the road to Marylebone – Ballards Lane/Regents Park Road/Finchley Road – in 1825 took some of-the southbound traffic. The remainder continued across Finchley Common. One interesting sidelight on that notorious stretch of road was that the activity of highwaymen had diminished considerably after 1797, when banknotes began to be numbered.

Dr. Lynch followed the road in to Archway, Holloway and Highgate. we won’t go with him, but to anyone interested in this subject he offered the following suggestions for further reading:

The various Turnpike Trust Minutes, particularly 1830s-40s

Local newspapers

Acts of Parliament

Reports of Parliamentary commissions on turnpike roads and on the Holyhead road.

NEW LOCAL HISTORY POST CARDS

Two new sets of post cards have just been published by the Libraries Department as part of their continuing series now available are (price 30p per set), five more cards each picturing Hendon and Barnet in the 1890s/early 20c.

The Hendon set features Church End, St.Mary’s. Church, Bell Lane, Town Hall and Hendon Central Station. The Barnet set, High Street, Ravenscroft Park, the Red Lion, and Arkley Mill.

Two more sets covering Edgware and Mill Hill Village will be published soon.

The postcards-are available from all Barnet Libraries and Church Farm House Museum.

Newsletter No.142: December 1982

GREETINGS AND BEST WISHES

TO ALL MEMBERS FOR A VERY
HAPPY CHRISTMAS

PROGRAMME NEWS

Monday December 13th 1982. Christmas Supper Party at Burgh House. This has proved enormously popular, with regrettably over 20 disappointed members. If anyone who has booked finds they cannot attend please let Dorothy Newbury know (203 0950) so that someone else can attend.

Tuesday January 4th 1983. Marylebone Park 1537-1811, by Dr. Anne Saunders who is making a return visit to us to talk on her favourite subject.

Tuesday February 1st 1983. Origins and development of the Safety Pin, by Dr. John Alexander.

Tuesday March lst 1983. Egypt, Gift of the Nile, by Vivienne Constantinides.

Tuesday April 12th 1983. Early Mining and Metallurgy from its inception to the Bronze Age, by Paul Craddock.

OBITUARY

This is very sad paragraph to write. One. of our members of very long standing, Harry Lawrence, died on November 11. Most people in HADAS will remember Harry with affection and pleasure even though, because of uncertain health, he has been unable for the last few years to join us in the lectures and outings which he enjoyed so much.

Harry was a “doer”, not an onlooker; he liked to be involved in the Society’s activities as much as possible. When he went on outings ­and this despite increasing breathlessness – he was one of those who always climbed to the top of the mound or negotiated the depths of the cave.

For a long period in the ’70s he addressed, in his clear, sloping hand, all the Newsletter envelopes. The weight of this job became steadily heavier as the Society expanded. In February 1977 we bought an addressing machine to save Harry having perpetual writer’s cramp; but for some time longer he “stuffed”, stamped and posted the Newsletter, until Irene Frauchiger nobly took over from him.

He will be greatly missed by all his friends; and we send our deep sympathy to his wife, Vivien, also a member of HADAS until recently.

ADVANCE NOTICE

VISIT TO SOUTH WEST WALES

A 5 day trip to South West Wales is proposed for August 31st – September 4th 1983, staying at the Dale Port field centre (in a Victorian Port) in the most south westerly parish on the Pembrokeshire coast. The area is rich in Bronze Age stone monuments and Iron Age fortified settlements, and it is hoped that Professor Grimes will be our guide on one of the days. Roman sites, Norman castles and many other places are other possible parts of the itinerary.

The field centre needs to be booked now, so we need an indication of the number of people interested in the trip. It is hoped to keep the cost below £80. Please telephone Pete Griffiths (61-23156) to let him know if you are interested.

PREHISTORIC GROUP by Daphne Lorimer

WATER WALK

The first of a series of field walks to examine the Silk Stream and its environs was undertaken on November 14. Heavy rain cut the meeting short but – a stretch of the stream in Montrose Park, from the pavilion to the bridge over Montrose Avenue, was inspected.

The stream was fast-flowing and meandered between partially constrained banks forming narrow beaches at the curves where gravel and debris collected. A quantity of fine was retrieved, ranging from 19C pottery to butchered animal bones (including a bovine scapula) and the handles of two saws. These beaches will bear watching after heavy rain, provided the river has not risen too high.

The walk will continue on Sunday December 12, under the leadership of Sheila Woodward. The meeting place is still the gates of Montrose Park, at l0 a.m. would those intending to come please ring-Jenny Griffiths (612.3156).to say so (just so that no-onegets left behind.)

There will also be a river walk on Boxing. Day morning (very good for removing traces off Christmas excesses). This will be led by Daphne Lorimer and it would be helpful if you could let her know (after December.16,.on 458.5674) if you are going to join it. The walk will start at 10 a.m. but the precise rendezvous will be decided only after the walk on December 12 – Daphne will be able to tell you when you telephone her.

The water walk provided one of those classic moments which sometimes happen. at HADAS events. None of us will forget the sight of .a HADAS Committee member striding down the Silk Stream, the water surging half way up her wellies, while above her head she carefully held an umbrella!

CORRECTION

The Newsletter’s right hand obviously didn’t know what its left hand was doing last month: because, in describing how to get to the new premises of the Greater London Record Office, we carefully told you to walk along Farringdon Road in the King’s Cross direction and “turn left into Bowling Green Lane.” We should, of course, have said “turn right.”

As the new Record Office doesn’t open till January 4 next, we hope this correc­tion will come in time to prevent you getting lost in what has been described as “a most bewildering hinterland.” Many thanks to keen-eyed HADAS member Linda Webb, who spotted the mistake and rang us at once. “I used to live in those parts,” she said, “and it’s dead easy to get lost:”

ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND Report on the November lecture by Audrey Hooson

At the start of his lecture, Prof. Loyn referred to the memorial service which he had attended the previous Saturday for Prof. Dorothy Whitelock, one of the greatest,Anglo-Saxon scholars of this century. The occasion prompted him to give us not the expected illustrated lecture on Anglo-Saxon archaeology with reference to his own speciality of coinage but a more challenging one, introducing some recent themes in hostorical discussion and the ways in which attitudes and emphasis now differ from those in the past.

. . .

It is now considered that the flow of the conversion of the Pagan Anglo-Saxons to Christianity was both gradual and complex with the Celtic Custom coming from the North and West and the Roman brought by St.Augustine in 597 The main source for this period is Bede’s History of the English Church and People which was completed in 731. Prof. Loyn quoted from Book 3, Chapter 25, which describes the Synod of Whitby when the two Churches were brought together by Oswy, King of the Northumbrians.

From 800 to almost the Anglo-Saxons were fighting against the Danes to keep their country. The first Viking Age, from 800-950, was probably a • period of colonization by settlers looking for new land. This gave rise to the Danelaw with the division of the country by King Alfred in 880 utilising the River Lea and Watling Street. The second Viking Age was a National movement emanating from Scandinavia. While there has been little archaeo­logical evidence in the past to confirm this, recent excavations at York and Lincoln, combined with numismatic, linguistic and place name evidence indi­cate that great parts of the country were overcome and transformed. In addition to the Fortified Market Towns founded by the Vikings, the. Burghs planned by Alfred to protect and consolidate Wessex were also part of an Urban revival in the late 10th and early 11th centuries.

During the 10th century, the Benedictines were firmly established in England: It is possible that their secular influence has been underestimated. When England was united under Edgar, the Benedictines were probably respon­sible for the development of ordered government and the legal system. They also helped to mould the English language into a scholarly instrument„

The Benedictine revival was part of a European movement. One of the most exciting reassessments in recent years, partly based on. Martin Biddles’s Winchester excavations, has been the recognition of a breakthrough in architectural and sculptural development around 1050. The Norman Romanesque, previously considered to have been only introduced to England after 1066, is now thought to be a continuation of these Anglo-Norman developments. Prof.Loyn felt that there is still much that might be discovered by further excavations on both sides of the Channel and examination of buildings in the Duchy of Rouen. Unfortunately, there was not enough time for him to elaborate on this his final theme of a very interesting, informative and stimulating evening.

PHOTOGRAPHIC DISPLAY by Ted Sammes

The November lecture was made doubly memorable by Ted’s collection of photographs mounted on screens showing the Society’s history throughout its 21 years. We owe him a vote of thanks for taking so much trouble and look forward to seeing them again at Burgh House at the Christmas Supper.

A SYMPOSIUM ON EARLY FURNACE TECHNOLOGY Report by Alec Gouldsmith

This was arranged by the Historical Metallurgy Society and the British Museum Research Laboratory and held in the main lecture theatre of the British Museum on 29-30 October 1982.

Twenty-six papers were presented covering remains and discoveries from the inception of smelting to the end of the medieval period, in areas ranging from Western Europe (Spain and Britain) to the Indus Valley and from the State of Niger Nest Africa) to Central Sweden. The metals mainly discussed were naturally copper and iron, tut papers on silver, gold, zinc and lead were included.. Although the 130 registrants present came mostly from Europe, Western Asia, India and America were also represented. The proceedings will be published shortly as a British Museum Occasional Paper.

Organisation was handled by the B.M. Research Laboratory – Dr. Paul Craddock, a HADAS member playing a most prominent part. His wife, Brenda, also well known to HADAS members, provided an excellent lunch each day in the Sloane Room where the newly acquired portrait of Sir William Hamilton gazed down on us.

DOCUMENTARY GROUP

Wanted: a volunteer – or perhaps two – to undertake a project which is part fieldwork, part documentary research.

The Documentary Group has been asked to investigate how many flint-built buildings (especially public buildings, but dwelling houses could be included) there are in the Borough of Barnet, when they were built and where the flint to build them came from. Several in the north part of the Borough spring to mind Pagitt’s Almshouses in Hadley present buildings 1822 and 1849.

This is research which could be done in your own time: there is no deadline on it. The end-product will be, it is hoped, a ‘report for publica­tion in the. Newsletter. If you are interested, please give Brigid Grafton Green a ring on 455 9040: she’ll be delighted to hear from you.

POPULAR ARCHAEOLOGY

Popular Archaeology the monthly journal edited by Professor Barri Jones of Manchester University, has recently begun a circulation drive, which HADAS is happy to help.

The magazine gives a good coverage of both professional and amateur archaeology in Britain; it is aimed at the general reader, rather than the expert. Dr. David Trump of Cambridge University.(who many HADAS members will know) writes “I wouldn’t be without Popular Archaeology, and I warmly recommend it to anyone who wishes to learn more of the wide scope, significance and sheer thrill of archaeology.”

If you would like to subscribe to the magazine – which costs 95p a month – write to Popular Archaeology, Free Post, 24 Barton Street, Bath; BA1 1FH for -further details.

FIELD NAMES AND STREET NAMES by Nell Penny

I presume developers and builders have always had the right to name roads they create – or they have taken the right. The noble Russell family spread themselves and their estates all over their Bloomsbury development. Russell and Bedford Squares and Woburn and Tavistock Places are a few of the names om- humble builder in Kentish Town celebrated the Crimean War, 1854-56, with Inkerman Rd., Alma St. and Raglan St. I wonder if there is a builder waiting to name Falklands Way and San Carlos Crescent when the economic climate warms up..

Some C19 and C20 builders in Hendon seem to have taken their inspiration from the commutation of Church Tithes from kind to money. Or was local oral tradition strong enough for the builders to have been told the names of the fields they had bought? Here are some of the street names which have been derived from field or estate names.

Hodford Road NW11 can be traced back to Hodford Wood fields which were near the Hampstead border of Hendon and as far back as 1321 when Sir Henry Scrope held the “manerium de Hodeford”.

Significantly in Mill Hill NW7 there is Longfield Av. and Tithe Walk. I do not think that it matters that they are on the wrong side of Page St. Nearer and further LongfeIds were on the other side, in the angle of Page St. and Wise Lane. In 1635 they were “a croft called Longfield at.Featherstowe Hill.”In Hampstead Garden Suburb Asmuns Hill and Place may be traced through First-and Middle Assmans Fields to Manasses Burripa, manor tenant in 1685, and Willifield Way comes from Willeyford Grove Field. Blessbury Road along the former boundary with Edgware goes back to a field Blessebe Hale in 1685.

Deerfield Cottages NW9.is on the east side of the “West Highwaye” at the Hale. It has a long pedigree – mentioned in 1321 and mapped as the property of All Saints’ College Oxford in 1590.

Downage NW4 reminds one that there were five Downage fields carved out of woodland by 1754,Thistly Downage, Little Downage Wood Field, Upper and Lower Downage and Eight acre Downage Wood. I think these fields relate to the “wood called the Donehedge” in the Black Survey of 1321.

In a C17 survey Fryers Lande is referred to – in 1754 and 1842 there were Fryant Grove Fields and today there are Fryent Crescent and Fryent Grove in NW9.

Near the Edgware boundary there were fields Hither and Further Oldberries in 1574 and today there is Oldberry Road..

Sheareshill Av. NW9 refers to the only documented “open field” in Hendon, not mentioned in 1321, but continuously recorded between 1574 and 1860.

Sunningfields Rd.NW4 is taken from the two SunnyHill Fields. Two other names show where builders were not concerned with strict accuracy in their names. Sherrock Gardens NW4 is downhill from the Middlesex Poly on Greyhound Hill, but four sizeable Sherrock Fields were between Church End and Parson St. Thornfield Av. NW7 is on the south side of Holders Hill Rd., but two Thorn Fields were on the north side of the roads. Builders seem to have chosen innocuous field names.. Nobody wanted Bottom Field, Hungerlands or Mucknell for their beautiful new roads.

SAFFRON FIELDS

There were two Saffron Fields in Hendon. Usually this name indicates that saffron was originally grown there, although we have no other evidence of its cultivation in Hendon.

One Saffron Field was in Mill Hill, on the west side of Hammers Lane. It was surveyed in 1754 and in 1842 and was about 6½ acres. A reference in the 1685 survey to a Saffron Field 5 acres, may relate to this field. The other Saffron Field was in Temple Fortune, on the south side of Bridge Lane. This was also surveyed in 1754 and 1842 and measured about 10 acres.

Field’s Dictionary of English Field names refers to the saffron crocus (crocus sativus) introduced into England about 1340. The herb was extensively grown in late medieval times in Essex where, according to Ekwall, it gave its name tope Saffron. Walden (“Waledana” in Domesday Book, but “Safforne-walden” by 1582). Saffron is the dried, orange-coloured stigmas of the saffron (or autumn) crocus. To medieval cooks it was the most important – because the-most -costly of all herbs. Originally from the east – Persia and Arabia – it had been acclimatised in Spain by the 10th C, and figured prominently in the 13C trade between. Spain and England. It takes about 75,000 flowers to make 1 lb. of saffron, and in 1265 it cost Eleanor de Montfort, Countess of Leicester, between 10s-14s (50p-70p) per lb. (See Manners & Household Expenses in 13c-15c, ed. H.T.Turner, Roxburghe Club, 1841). Eleanor never bought more than a lb. at a time. It was a popular ingredient in many medieval sauce recipes and even had its own terminology. The medieval cook spoke of “garnishing” a dish with parsley, but he “fringed” it with saffron.

Dr. Tobias Venner, a doctor of physic who lived in Bath and wrote a very early book on dietetics called Via Recta Ad Vitam Longam in 1637, had this to say on the attributes of saffron: “The moderate use of it wonderfully refresheth, comforteth, strengtheneth and exhilarateth the heart for there is so great society betwixt it and the heart that it is without delay carried thither … ”

The saffron grown in East Anglia was used mainly for the English food market, both for colouring and flavouring food; but it was also used for dyeing cloth. It produced a russet shade, for which the cloth makers of Colchester were well known in medieval times.

And we can take it back much further than that, for saffron was a herb well known to the Romans, and Apicius, in the first part of 1st C AD, includes 3 scruples of saffron in his recipe for Roman vermouth; and gives this recipe for “Aromatic Salts to be used for many things:”

“Aromatic salts are for the digestion, and to move the bowels. They prevent all diseases and the plague, and all colds. Moreover, they are mild, beyond all expectation.

Take 1 lb. dried common salt, 2 lb. dried. sal ammoniac, 3 oz. white pepper, 2 oz. ginger, 1 oz. cumin, oz. thyme, 1½ oz. celery- seed (if you do not want to take celery seed, take 3 oz parsley instead),3 oz origano 1½ oz rocket-seed, 3 oz black pepper, 1 oz saffron, 2 oz hyssop from Crete, 2 oz aromatic leaves (these can vary; bay leaf is usually used today), 2 oz dill.”

Nowadays saffron is best bought at a good herb shop, either in slim strands or powdered (the strands have most flavour). Infuse them in a little warm milk and water for 15 minutes, and use the infusion.

BOOK REVIEWS by Raymond Lowe

Recording A Church: an illustrated-glossary by Thomas Cooke, Donald Findlay, Richard Halsey and Elizabeth: Williamson. Drawings by George Wilson

Council for British Archaeology, 1982, £1.50

Each of the four authors of this 48-page booklet works for an organisation concerned with the architectural history of churches: that is, respectively for the Penguin Buildings of England series, the Council for the Care of Churches, the department of the Environment and the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (Eng). They are described-as “spending much of their working lives writing descriptions of churches.”

One day they got together and decided to standardise their use of architec­tural terms; and, after working on this idea for a while, they realised that the final glossary might well be of interest to people outside their own immediate circle. This booklet is the result. It is concerned particularly with finding the right names and descriptions for everything architectural (i.e. not moveable fittings, like chairs) in a typical parish church. It will be valuable to anyone writing a parish history or even preparing a report for the Newsletter on a HADAS visit to a church. Not only does it provide the correct word: in many cases it illustrates the object as well, and does so in simple, lucid drawings which show, for example. 11 types of arches found in churches; 6 types of capitals; gables; fonts; mouldings; vaults; traceries; and so on.

Romano-British Mosaics by Peter Johnson Shire Archaeology, £1.95

Some subjects are ideally suited to the Shire Archaeology format and mosaics are just such a subject.

Few archaeological remains capture the imagination of the ordinary man more than Roman mosaics; and there is nothing in the corpus of archaeological writing to compare with this little book. Every important mosaic) site should have a stock to sell to the public,

Mr. Johnson sets out his subject in clear logical divisions, starting with design, construction and materials. The next. four chapters take a century at a time and deal with the sites, types and schools (or officinae). The developments, evolution and devolution is clearly shown. The 44 illustrations are very well produced; and there are three distribution maps for the officinae. The book is up-to-date. The front cover shows the Orpheus pavement at Littlecote (how about that as the venue for a HADAS outing?); and there is a drawing of the newly discovered lst C. pavement at Fishbourne. The book finishes with a list of sites, and a glossary. For those who are keen there are also some non-British mosaics in the Victoria and Albert Museum. One small oversight: Mr. Johnson states that mosaics moved on to the walls of Byzantine churches in late antiquity. Anyone who has visited Pompeii and Herculaneum will remember the mural mosaics there, at AD 79.

If you are interested in things Roman do get a copy from Jeremy Clynes (66 Hampstead Way, NW11. 455 4271). Should you find you would like to continue the study, there is now a special society which publishes a twice-yearly journal: the Association for the Study and Preservation of Roman Mosaics. For further information about it, apply to Peter Johnson, Littlecote Park, Chilton Foliat, Hungerford, Berks.RG17 4SU.

R.T.Lowe

Also available from Jeremy Clynes is another newly-published Shire Archae­ology volume: Roman Crafts and Industries, by Alan McWhirr, who has been directing excavations at Cirencester (Roman Corinium) and who specialises in the study of Roman brick and tile. This book also costs £1.95 (if ordering either, please add 20p for post and packing).

MORE ABOUT MOSAICS

Corinium Museum at Cirencester reports that the Venus mosaic from Kingscote is now on display, after 2 years’ work and a public appeal which raised £5,000.

The mosaic, from a Roman-British site in the west Cotswolds, near Tetbury, is the first part of a display which will highlight life in the countryside of Roman Britain Material from two nearby sites – Claydon Pike and Barnsley Park ­will also be used in the final exhibition.

TWO INTERESTING EVENTS

At CHURCH FARM MUSEUM from Nov.20-Jan 16 there is an exhibition mounted by the Hendon & Hampstead Antique Ceramic and Glass Club of 19th century British pottery and porcelain with special emphasis on Wedgwood, Royal Worcester, Minton, Spode and Staffordshire blue-and-white ware.

CBA 7 February CONFERENCE at Campus West, Welwyn Garden City, Herts. Subject “The End of Roman Britain”. Details from Ted Heathman, 92 Charmouth Rd., St.Albans (Tel. 58136)

Newsletter 141 November, 1982

THE EXOTIC MISTS OF PREHISTORIC EDGWARE

During, the coming winter the Prehistoric Group plans to undertake two major projects: first, to walk and chart the streams of the Borough of Barnet; secondly to research known finds of Bronze and Iron Age structures and artefacts in the Borough, with the object of producing a late prehistoric gazetteer which will fill the gap between the Stone Age and Roman gazetteers published in 1979 in the July, August and September Newsletters.

The first watercourse to receive the group’s attention will be the Edgware Silk Stream. A “field” walk has been arranged for Sun Nov 14 at 10 am… Members wishing to take part (and all members of the Society will be most welcome) should meet at the entrance to Montrose Recreation Ground, the Greenway, NW9 (The Greenway is a turning off Edgware Road .just north of the Hyde). Wear Wellies:

The Silk Stream is of considerable archaeological interest, it rises by the Roman. kiln site of Sulloniacae, on Brockley Hill (hence the name) and after uniting with Dean’s Brook and, Edgware Brook it flows into the northern end of the Welsh Harp. During its course it passes the site of a 19c discovery of Pleistocene mammal bones. These bones were found about 5ft below the surface and overlaid by deposits of clay with flint pebbles, about 300-400yards north of the Silk Bridge, Colindeep lane, during sewerage excavations. They were reported by Dr Henry Hicks in 1895 to Horace B Woodward (see ‘Memoirs of the Geological Survey of England and Wales The Geology of the London District, chap. VIII: “Valley Gravel and Brick Earth” Deposits along tributary valleys”).

The bones are now lodged in Church Farm House Museum and .have recently been examined and identified by Dr. Sutcliffe of the British Museum (Natural History) as Pleistocene. They include:

two large fragments of tusk, showing signs of laterial twist, so probably mammoth;

two elephant molars in poor preservation: one possibly shows diamond-shaped plates and may be from a straight-tusked elephant, the other is larger and may be mammoth;

the head of an elephant femur, showing signs of being gnawed by a carnivore (?sabre-toothed tiger);

the upper molar of a woolly rhinoceros;

and possible fragments of a hippopotamus canine.

These, together with a shark’s tooth from an Eocene deposit, make up a rather startling and exotic collection for the London Borough of Barnet!

There is also a report of a late Neolithic or Bronze Age pick or axe being found, rather vaguely, in the Edgware district. The British Museum record it as: ‘a fragment (the business end) of a flaked axe of dark brown flint, which seems to have been broken in antiquity and re-trimmed round the fracture. It has a flat pointed oval section and its length (broken) is approx. 8 cm. It is not a transversely-sharpened (tranchet) axe but would typologically fit into a Neolithic or Bronze Age context.’

Those members who attended last year’s CBA Group conference will remember that Dr Ian Kinnes, in his talk on the Neolithic in Hertford­shire, asserted that where a Neolithic axe is found, a farm settlement is not far away with these facts in mind, we feel that the Silk Stream’s banks will bear investigation. We also hope to map the course of the stream so that we know precisely where it has been channelled (either in pipe or between artificial banks) and where it still appears to follow a natural course.

It would be much appreciated if you would let me know if you are coning please ring 458 5674 after November 10, Daphne Lorimer

MORE NEWS FROM THE GROUPS

ROMAN GROUP Some notes on past and future events by Helen Gordon and Pete Griffiths

The weekend of Oct 9/10 saw another Roman processing weekend at the Teahouse, Hampstead Garden Suburb. Our thanks are due once again to John Enderby for kindly making possible all the arrangements. Work on the finds from the Brockley Hill digs of 1948-56 is still proceeding. This time we were concentrating on bowls, amphorae and imported ware. Marking and indexing of Roman (and other) material from various HADAS field walks also continued and is nearing completion.

Some members of the group dug a small experimental trench in a private garden on the line of the Viatores Route 220 in Southgate, on October 17. This was just outside the boundary of our Borough, and was done with the kind agreement of our colleagues in the Enfield Archaeological Society. A report will appear in a later Newsletter.

The group will visit Verulamium Museum on Sat. Nov 20 at 2 pm, when the Deputy Director, Chris Saunders, will show us the Museum’s collection of Roman pottery. Anyone interested will be welcome tojoin us: numbers must inevitably be limited, so please apply early to Jenny Griffiths.

(812 5156); lifts can be arranged. An admission fee is charged, which includes admission to the park, containing a stretch of Roman wall and hypocaust there is an extra charge for the Roman theatre. Jenny will conduct anyone interested round the park before the Museum visit ­notify her beforehand, and meet at. 1pm in the car park..

A Visit to Welwyn Roman Bath is planned early in the New Year. Watch the Newsletter for further details. The Roman Group is always happy to welcome’ additional members – just-ring either Helen Gordon. (203 1004) or Tessa Smith (958 5159) if you would like to know more about it.

DOCUMENTARY GROUP

The group has several projects on the go at the moment, and would welcome offers of help. For instance, Nell Penny is engaged on a survey of field names throughout the Borough of Barnet and that’s quite a sizeable project. As London’s third largest borough, with an area of 35 square miles, there were a lot of fields in the area in the 1840s -“the time that has been taken as the basis of the survey. Our main tool is the Tithe maps pro­duced between 1838-54 as a result of the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836.

Mrs Penny is working steadily from parish to parish. She would be particularly happy to receive offers of help from members prepared to research field names in Edgware Chipping Barnet or East Barnet parishes. Ring her on 458 1689 if you would like to help, and she will give you details of the methods being used in the survey.That’s only one of several projects. If you would like to hear more about them, please give me a ring and I’ll be glad to tell you. One of them may be right up your street! BRIGID GRAFTON GREEN

PROGRAMME NEWS

Tues Nov 2. Anglo-Saxon Britain, by Professor Henry Loyn (see October Newsletter for details)

Mon Dec 13. Christmas Supper party at Burgh House, Hampstead. Application form enclosed. This replaces the Dec 7 entry on the Programme card (Stationers Hall).

Tues Jan 4. Marylebone Park,’1537-1811, by Dr Ann Saunders

Tues Feb 1. Still to be arranged

Tues Mar 1. Egypt, Gift of the Nile, by Vivienne Constantinides (who is the daughter of our founder)

Tues Apr 12. Early Mining and Metallurgy from its inception to the Bronze Age, by Paul Craddock

(Please note this meeting is on the second Tuesday of the month).

Wed Nay 11. Annual General Meeting

CHANGE AT THE SECRETARY’S DESK

During his report to the Annual General Meeting last May our Chairman, Brian Jarman announced the impending resignation of our Hon. Secretary of the last 12 years, Brigid Grafton Green. She had intended to resign at the AGM, but had agreed to continue for a few more months until a successor became available. That successor has now materialised, and as from October HADAS has a new Hon. Secretary – Brian Wrigley. Members who dug at West Heath will remember him – often accompanied by his younger son, Stephen ­as a weekend digger; they may also recall that one of our popular “tea-ladies” at West Heath was Brian’s wife, Joan, who used to revive us on Sundays with that essential to all successful digs – a nice cupper. Joan will be as big a help to Brian as she always was a comfort to the West Heath diggers, because she is a trained secretary and prepared to do all his typing for him. Lucky chap

Brigid asks us to say that she doesn’t propose, once she has passed the Hon Secretary’s work over to Brian, just to sink into a state of blissful inertia. She is remaining on the Committee and will continue to edit the HADAS Newsletter, helped from time to time by four stalwart associate editors – Enid Hill, Liz Holliday, Isobel McPherson and Liz Sagues. Brigid will also do some exhibition work for the Society and will continue to organise the Documentary Group – with, she hopes, a bit of time left over for some actual research.

NE’W HOME FOR LONDON’S RECORDS

The Greater London Record Office will open in its new premises at 40 Northampton Road EC1 on Jan 4 next. Members may like to have a note of the opening hours, which are:

Tues-Fri 10 am-4.45pm

Tues 4.45-7.30 pm (late opening)

Mons closed

Late opening on Tuesdays is by appointment only; ring 633 6351 to make an appointment. The office will be closed during the 3rd/4th weeks of October and between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

The nearest Underground station is Farringdon Road, on the Circle and Metropolitan lines. From there you walk west (i.e. towards Kings Cross) along Farringdon Road and turn left at Bowling Green Lane. The Record Office and History Library is on the left-hand side, at the junction of Bowling Green Lane/Rosoman Street, with its entrance in Northampton Road. If anyone would like a leaflet giving this information plus bus routes and a map, please ring Brigid Grafton Green .(455 9040).

A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE By OLIVE BANHAM reports on the last of the summer outings

That’s exactly what it was for two of us as we turned the clock back 21 years, and drove through undulating Essex countryside to Chipping Ongar. In 1961 things were very much played by ear. In 1982 they were meticulously – and beautifully – planned.

Mike Eddy gave us an interesting tour of the large motte and bailey of Ongar Castle, which was built in the early 12c by the de Lucy family. Only a few bricks of the entrance gateway remain. We then looked round the church, dedicated to St Martin of Tours and built about 1083 AD of Coggeshall bricks and rubble. A brass and a stained glass window in the chancel are dedicated to Elizabeth Sammes, wife of an earlier Edward Sammes. She was the grandmother of our own Ted Sammes, planner and compere of the 1982 trip. That made us feel we were right at home! Livingstone stayed for a time in the town and Jane Taylor, author of “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” lived there.

At Greensted the sun shone brilliantly and we were able to picnic in the churchyard before looking round this survival of a Saxon church, built about 845 AD. The walls of the nave are made of split oak logs. We even got caught up in a wedding there were more HADAS members than wedding guests!

On again to Waltham and a look round the Epping Forest Museum which now serves the whole district and is housed in a timber-framed house nearly 500 years old. Ken Bascombe ably guided us round the precincts of Waltham Abbey ­a large area which was formerly covered by the monastery cloisters and the magnificent conventional buildings. Part of the main gateway is still standing; also Harold’s Bridge, so-called because of his close association with the Abbey.

After a scrumptious tea (one of the best we’ve ever had), we went inside the existing church which is entirely nave with Norman and Gothic or Pointed arches. The rose window at the east end was one of the earliest works of Sir Edward Burne Jones. The present ceiling, painted in 1862 by Sir Edward Poynter, depicts the four elements and the signs of the zodiac. On the east wall of the Lady Chapel is a fresco of the last judgment. A worthy anniversary outing, I’m sure Mr Constantinides would have agreed.

SCRAPS OF HISTORY

This is just to remind members that three scrap-books of press cuttings, of historical and archaeological interest, have now been com­piled. They cover the period 1974-81.

It had been intended to obtain cuttings from each of the local papers serving our area, but this could not be arranged. The collection consists mainly of cuttings from the Barnet Press and the Hendon Times. I should like to express my grateful thanks to Daphne Lorimer, who used ­to save copies of the Barnet Press for me while she lived in Totteridge and to Charmian Lewis, who has now taken over this job from Mrs Lorimer.

As well as cuttings of pictures and events with a bearing on local history and archaeology, there is a special section on HADAS’s own activities. The other cuttings are kept in separate folios for each district.

It is hoped that this collection will be of use to researchers, but to make the record more useful and to facilitate easy reference, it needs an index. I would greatly appreciate the help of any member (or better. still, two members) prepared to take the completed volumes home and to compile a typed index. If you can help, please let me know.

GEORGE INGRAM

53 Selborne Gardens, NW4.

202-8441

COALHOLE COVERS RUTH WAGLAND describes the first of the winter lectures

The first meeting of the new autumn season opened at Hendon Library on Oct 5. A moderately sized audience came to hear a lecture by Mrs Lily Goddard on Coalhole Covers and Victorian domestic life.

She began by showing us several covers of different designs from various parts of London. These were made by unknown pattern makers, using mahogany and yellow pine to make their moulds. We saw slides of present day casting taking place at the Ironbridge foundry. The method of rubbing was described and slides of rubbings made by Mrs Goddard, not only in London but in Brighton, Hove and Hastings,were shown.

Rubbings are used as a source of inspiration for designs by Mrs Goddard’s students. We were shown bags and cushion covers which had printed designs on them, together with a wall hanging extending and embellishing the original coalhole cover design. There was also the ubiquitous tee-shirt with coalhole motif. Mrs Goddard had been commissioned by Harrods to produce a design for linen place mats and serviettes to be part of a craft exhibition held in the store. A mounted ceramic wall plaque of a cover formed part of a small display of covers and literature which the lecturer brought with her. Mrs. Goddard concluded by urging us to be more awareof Victorian street furniture, such as boot scrapers, door knockers and railings. She asked that we should try to ensure that those surviving did not dis­appear overnight as had happened to so many artefacts in the past.

A vote of thanks for this interesting lecture was proposed by Paddy Musgrove

CHRISTMAS IS COMING and are you having difficulty finding Christmas presents?

Why not give a publication from HADAS, either an Occasional Paper or a book from Shire? Details of both are enclosed with this Newsletter. Also don’t forget HADAS notelets with a drawing of Warwick the Kingmaker, which make excellent Christmas cards or presents.

These offers are open to everyone, so encourage your friends to order At the same time. Extra catalogues are. available from Jeremy Clynes, G6 Hampstead Way, NW11. . (Phone: 455 4271).

COMMITTEE CORNER

It has been suggested that the Newsletter should have a Committee Corner, with news of Committee doings and decisions. It may not be possible to publish such a feature every month, because dates of Committee meetings and Newsletter press dates won’t always fit; but whenever possible, we propose in future to give you some Committee low-down. ‘Here’s the first batch:

College Farm. A determined effort (led by Christine Arnott) has been made this autumn to clear up our room at the farm. The finishing touch will be to erect shelving to hold boxes of finds: Peter Fauvel Clinch is working on this at the moment. As well as finds, some of our digging equipment can be stored, and we have tables for processing finds. The room has been a godsend in preparing the West Heath material for publication.

Our premises at the farm consist of a small room next to a stable, with a further walk-in storage area opening from it. It is kindly pro­vided for us, free of charge, by the tenant farmer, Chris Ower who has long been a true friend in need to HADAS. We are deeply grateful to Mr and Mrs Ower for this most valuable roof over our heads. We have our own key and can come and go as we please. Just as a token of our gratitude, we try to make an annual contribution to Mr Ower’s expenses – and the Committee has just arranged to send off a cheque.

Conservation Area Advisory Committee in Finchley. A new CAAC has been setup for the three Conservation Areas in Finchley – Church End, Moss Hall and Finchley Garden Village. HADAS was invited by the Borough to nominate two members. June Porges and Isobel McPherson have kindly agreed to serve for this year.

Surveying equipment. During the summer the Committee decided to add to our surveying equipment. We have for some time had a level, tripod and Sopwith stave, which have been much used: now we have bought a plane-table, tripod and alidade. These were a great bargain found by Daphne Lorimer and purchased with rapidity by our Hon. Treasurer, Victor Jones, who knows a good thing when he sees one.

Members’ help would be much appreciated with one matter which came up at the last Committee. Possible site watchers in the northernmost part of the Borough are, we find, somewhat thin on the ground. There is a site in Barkley which may be developed in the near future; and if it is, we would very much like to find someone who would be prepared to watch the foundation trenches. If you either live near Mays Lane, or have occasion to go along it frequently, and you would be prepared to help, please let Brian Wrigley (959 5982).

A GALLERY WITH A VIEW_

If you haven’t already been to see the Billingsgate dig in Lower Thames Street from its special public viewing gallery, do go before the end of November when the gallery closes. Admission is 25p for adults, 15p for children, pensioners and students. Nearest station is Monument. The gallery is closed on Mondays, but open Tues-Sat, 11 am-5 pm. Suns 2-5 pm.

On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 1.10 pm you get a talk on the progress of the dig thrown in. Lunchtime season tickets are available for £1, and admit to 5 lunchtime talks, so you can keep tabs on the progress of the dig by going several times. The dig is organised by the Museum of London, who point out that this is the last – and only ­chance to discover what the Saxon harbour of London was like.

HISTORIC BUILDINGS

Our Borough Planning Department kindly keeps us up to date about buildings in LBB which have been added to the Statutory List of Buildings of Architectural and Historic Interest – a service for which we are most grateful. We are particularly happy to have the citations which form the detail of the List. A now batch has recently arrived, and here it is:

Osidge House Chase Side, East Barnet. This large early 19c mansion, just near the eastern boundary of our Borough, was once owned by the millionaire grocer, Sir Thomas Lipton, who lived there during the days when his “Shamrock” yachts were trying-unsuccessfully to win the America Cup. It’s a three-storey house in yellow brick and stucco, and is now a nurses home. It is also one of the buildings at which HADAS hopes a Blue Plaque will soon be erected to commemorate its historic associations (more of that in a future Newsletter).

East Finchley Baptist Church Hall, Creirhton Avenue, N2. Designed by George Baines, 1902, An art nouveau Gothic church hall of knapped flint, rich in interesting architectural detail.

Friern Hospital, Friern Barnet Rd, N11. Designed by S W Daukes of Cheltenham. The foundation stone was laid in 1849. The building was opened, as the Colney Hatch Asylum serving the county of Middlesex, in July 1851. It was re-named Friern Hospital in 1937. There is a central block, with two towers and a dome, flanked by long wines. The full length of the front is 1881 ft, in yellow brick with stone dressings. Its historic interest, according to the citation, is in its work for the more humane treatment of the insane, who were “kept without shackle or even strait-waistcoat.”

Listed as well are the single-storey lodge of the Hospital and the garden-house which is an attractive feature of the grounds.

EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY

An interesting new group, the Experimental Firing Group, has been formed recently to promote interest in and research into the processes and methods employed in the manufacture and use of ceramics in antiquity. Inspiration for the new group comes from the Archaeology Department of Leicester University.

The first meeting will be on Nov 6 from 10.30 onwards at Attenborough Building, Leicester University. There will be reports on projects already undertaken, discussion of plans for proposed future research and – unless the heavens open- a demonstration open firing. Further information about the group, which hopes to publish “modest reports” of its experiments, from Ann Woods, Dept. of Archaeology, Leicester University (enclose an sae, please).

THEY’VE DONE IT AGAIN!

As the Newsletter went to press on October 23 another highly successful HADAS Minimart took place, masterminded by our fund-raisers-in-chief, Dorothy Newbury and Christine Arnott. It was held at St. Mary’s Church Hall, at the top of Greyhound Hill in Hendon. A large number of HADAS members attended and provided varied skills – pricing, selling, cooking, fetching and carrying, catering, door-keeping and accounting, to name just a few.

The stalls were as crowded with goodies as usual, the Ploughman’s Lunch – rapidly becoming a highlight of HADAS Minimarts – was delicious, as ever, the salespeople as persuasive, the atmosphere as friendly. And – pretty good for what had originally been intended as a “mini” Minimart – our Hon. Treasurer went home with a pleased smile on his face and some £500 extra in his pocket. (The precise figure is not yet available, but that’s a good rough one – and it’s net, not gross.

The special flavour of a HADAS Minitart (no pun on the Ploughman’s Lunch intended) comes, we’ve decided, as much from it being a social gathering as a money-making-exercise. Indeed, prices are pitched low enough, both in what we heard being described rather grandly as “The Food Hall downstairs and upstairs among the good-as-new and white elephants, that everyone can go home with that warm inner glow that comes from buying a bargain.

Helpers were so thick on the ground that naming names would not be fair. Let’s just, leave it that HADAS is again deeply indebted to Dorothy and Christine, whose idea it was and to who fell the major part of the organisation and work.

Newsletter 140: October, 1982

LOOKING AHEAD WITH HADAS

GROUP ACTIVITIS

Sat/Sun Oct 9/10. The Roman Group will meet at the Teahouse, Northway, on these dates, 10 am-5pm each day. Object: to study in depth material from the early Brockley Hill digs and to continue process­ing field-walking finds.

All HADAS members, whether experienced in handling Roman pottery or not, will be welcome. Bring a picnic lunch if you wish (there are facilities for making hot drinks). Please let Tessa Smith (958 9159) know if you intend coming.

The Roman Group also plans a visit to Verulamium Museum in the fair­ly near future, details in the November Newsletter.

Fri Oct 15. A meeting of the Prehistoric Group to discuss plans for the coming season will be held at 24 James Close, Woodlands, NW11 at 8 pm. All HADAS members interested in prehistory will be welcome. Ring Daphne Lorimer on 458 5671 after Sept 26 if you would like to come.

Hon Oct 18. There will be a meeting of’ members of the Documentary Group at 8 pm at 38 Temple Fortune Lane, NW11. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t got round to joining the group yet – new members are very welcome. With winter coming up, this is just the time to consider the pleasures of browsing in libraries and record offices – so come along and discuss any research projects you would like to start or help with. A call to Brigid Grafton Green (455 9040) will ensure a cup of coffee!

Tues Oct 5 Opening of the lecture season at Central Library, The Burroughs, NW4 at 8 pm. Lily Goddard will speak on Coalhole Covers and Victorian Domestic Life (See Sept Newsletter for more details).

Tues Nov 2 Anglo-Saxon England by Professor Henry Loyn, DLitt, FSA, FRHistS.

Professor Loyn started his studies in English at University College, Cardiff, but later switched to history and subsequently became Professor in the History Department. While at Cardiff he was an exceptionally popular Dean of Students because of his warm and sym­pathetic personality. He is now Professor at Westfield College of London University. He is a leading expert on the Anglo-Saxon period for which he has an enthusiasm which stimulates his audience and sweeps it along with him. A strong sense of humour adds savour to his lectures and broadcasts, and we can look forward to a thoroughly entertaining evening.

CHRISTMAS PARTY (Note new date – not the one on your programme card)

Mon Dec13. This date is earmarked for our Christmas do, but we can’t give you details yet. Dorothy Newbury, having explored and dis­carded such ideas as Stationers Hall (largely because of prohibi­tive prices) is now onto what she thinks will be a good thing ­but we shall have to wait until November to tell you all about it. Meantime, please mark this date in your diary and keep it free.

MINIMART

Sat Oct 23. At St Mary’s Church House (top of Greyhound Hill, NW4 ­opposite Church Farm House Museum) 11.30 am-3 pm. Come and exchange your holiday news and gossip at our 21st birthday year Minimart. Coffee and ploughman’s lunch available. HADAS and Shire publica­tions for sale.

Home-made stall – jams, pickles, cakes and sweets. Offers of fresh fruit and vegetables also warmly received.

Small bric-a-brac

Unwanted gifts, holiday mementos, toiletries, stationery and jewellery

Good-as-new men’s, women’s and children’s clothing and household linens.

Contributions can be brought to the October lecture or phone either Chris­tine Arnott (455 2751) or Dorothy-Newbury (203 0950) for alternative arrangements.

EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY

The course mentioned above which includes the building of a prehis­toric house reminds us that it is 18 months since the Newsletter mentioned the excellent Bulletin of Experimental Archaeology produced each spring by the Dept. of Adult Education of Southampton University. The Bulletin doesn’t confine itself only to current or recent experiment. It also provides references to past experimentation which one might otherwise easily miss. For instance, Bulletin No. 3 (1982) includes the following notes:

Flint Arrowhead Manufacture. A series of experiments carried out for the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, in 1944 investigated the tools and techniques of arrowhead manufacture. Quartzite hammerstones, antler tines and Brandon flint were used; a sequence of four stages of percussion and one of pressure-flaking was established. Tools and specimens have been de­posited in the Museum. Reference: Knowles, H S, The Manufacture of a Flint Arrowhead by Quartzite Hammerstone. Occasional Papers on Technology,No 1, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1944. Reprinted 1968.

An Egyptian Hand-drill

Long-standing uncertainties over the operation of a hand-drill used by stonemasons in Egyptian tomb scenes have been settled by experiments on a functional reconstruction of the tool. The body of the device is inclined from the vertical when in use weights are loosely attached to it by straps and it continues upwards as an offset curved handle that is held at the top. The functional replica confirms that in a tool of this type muscular power is only expended in driving it by cranking in a horizontal plane, as predicted by a mathematical analysis of the mechanism. With practice, the lower end of the tool can be kept standing vertical, and deep vertical holes can he drilled rapidly, without undue exertion. This early application of the principle of hand-cranking can be dated to the 3rd millennium BC. Reference: Sleewyk, A W, ‘Hand-cranking in Egyptian antiquity’, History of Technology 1981, 23-37, London.

Equally interesting experiments on cooking in animal skins, slash and burn experiments with old woodland at Butser, field trials of replicas of the standard 8-man papilio (tent) of the Roman legions and the making and use of a device for measuring distances by road, to specifications suggested by Vitruvius, are described. There is also a full report of an international working seminar on flint-knapping, with descriptions of non-structured knap-ins” by knapping enthusiasts from all over the world.

If you want to investigate these goodies further, send an annual subscription of £1 to the Dept. of Adult Education, Southampton.

WE EXPLORE THE CHEVIOTS JENNY GRIFFITHS

Jenny describes the latest and by all accounts one of the greatest HADAS weekends

This year’s weekend trip, from Sept 9-12, was set in the wild and wind-swept countryside of North Northumberland.

We started out on a bright Thursday morning (at what seemed like dawn), stopped for an early lunch at Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, and after a surprisingly quick and trouble-free journey, reached the Cheviot Field Study Centre and Museum, Wooler, about 6 pm. Colin Burgess, due to be our guide for the next day’s exploration, was there to meet us and although he found it impossible to guide us after all, he gave us an interesting background lecture on the prehistory of the area. We were joined by Joyce Roberts (our ‘resident botanist’ of the West Heath dig), now retired to live in Berwick.

Led by Colin Burgess’s colleague, Stephen Speak, we struggled valiant­ly uphill next morning in the teeth of a force-something gale to see a complete Bronze Age landscape preserved beneath the bracken and heather moorland, too high to be disturbed by more modern agriculture. At House-ledge we were shown clearance cairns, field boundaries, hut circles and burial cairns. The fit amongst us climbed to one hill-fort, Monday Clough; the super-fit also took in another, Humbleton Hill.

We were blown back down to the coach and travelled to Roughting Linn to inspect the mysterious cup and ring marks on an outcrop of sandstone rock. Mr Speak doesn’t believe in theories about their connection with ritual sacrifices of-virgins. The marks do seem to be linked with a cult of the dead, however, but it is unlikely now that we will ever know their real purpose. Some of us trekked through the bracken to the nearby hill-fort and climbed down the overgrown banks to a secluded waterfall under its defences. The day was crowned by a visit to an excavation in progress at Milfield, Roger Micket showed us around his two henge sites.

We set off on Saturday for the city of Berwick, with a brief stop at Doddington to see a ruined bastle (fortified farmhouse). The museum of Border Warfare is small but modern. Its displays trace the complicated history of the region. The impressive walls are a survival of that turbu­lent past, constructed in the Tudor period so well that the city remains English. We split into three groups, each with a city guide, and were taken into a Georgian powder-store and a ‘flanker’ – a position on a bastion from which the defenders could fire along the walls’, catching their opponents struggling in the moat in a hail of crossfire.

Next stop was Lindisfarne. In beautiful sunshine we saw the Castle, adapted by Sir Edwin Lutyens from the originally Tudor fort for his friend, Edward Hudson, founder of “Country Life;” and the ruins of the Benedictine priory founded in 1081 on the site of the earlier monastery of Cuthbert. Refusing to be delayed by the delights of crab sandwiches and free samples of mead, we continued to Bamburgh Castle where again we went our separate ways: some to the castle, some to the Grace Darling Museum and some reprobates to beach and teashop.

Our aim on Sunday was to see as many diverse sites as possible before our return that afternoon. We saw some unusually-shaped cup and ring marks at Fowberry, including a famous one said to be in the shape of an archer (or, alternatively, a Ford back axle). We visited Akeld Bastle, built in the 16c as a defence against raiders. The stone-built fortified farmhouse was an important structure in the Border-region: the stock were driven into the lower part of the building, the family retreated to the living area above, drawing up their wooden ladder behind them.

Finally we walked for a rather long ‘ten minutes’ to Duddo stone circle in the middle of a potato field: a small circle of five stones, interesting because it is the only one in the area and the stones are deep­ly grooved. We finished with lunch at Heatherslaw Mill, in company with a hungry goat, before starting on the long journey home.

So another successful trip has ended, leaving us with happy memories and an increased store of knowledge. Our thanks for a most enjoyable trip go to Dorothy Newbury, June Porges and Pete Griffiths for their organising exertions and also to Brian, our driver, who we hope we have converted to archaeology.

FROM OUR POSTBAG

In view of the mention above of cupmarks, this letter from HADAS member Dr Catherine Delano Smith is doubly interesting

Dear Editor,

I saw the remarks in the penultimate Newsletter concerning cupmarks and their interpretation.

It may interest you to be referred to the forthcoming issue of IMAGO

MUNDI (a history cartography journal) in which I have one of my current writings on this one aspect of all Old World rock art: ‘The emergence of “maps” in European rock art: a prehistoric preoccupation with place.’ It will be volume 34 (1982)..

I would also refer your readers to Ronald Morris’s excellently dis­passionate analysis of some 104 ‘explanations’ of (British) rock art in Prehistoric Rock Art of Galloway and the Isle of Man (Blandford Press 1979).

As far as the Northumbrian cupmarks go, I do not think a case can be made for their consideration as ‘maps’ of anything. I have yet to come across an assemblage of rock carved (or painted) motifs in Britain that compare with the possible ‘topographical figures’ of Valcamonica or Monte Bego (the latter in the Ligurian Alps). Any new findings would be welcome.

Yours faithfully,

CATHERINE DELANO SMITH

PS A further, much more detailed, analysis of Old World rock art from the cartographic angle (and also dealing with the anti­quarian British literature) will appear in a year or two in ‘ Volume I History of Cartography (University of Chicago Press, Eds. J B Harley and D Woodward).

THE NONCONFORMIST CHURCHES OF THE BOROUGH OF BARNET

GEORGE INGRAM describes a long-term research project on which he is engaged

Some five years ago I was asked by the HADAS Research Committee to collect information about the Nonconformist churches in our Borough. I started by obtaining a list of all LBB churches. On analysis these were:

Church of England 42

Roman Catholic 14

Methodist 10

Baptist 14

United Reformed 17

Salvation Army 5

Other centres* of religion 23

Jewish Synagogues 27

*In this category were included the meeting places of, for instance, the Society of Friends, the Christian Scientists and others.

The three main groups of Nonconformists are the Methodist, Baptist and United Reformed churches. They were formed many years ago by religious leaders who could not accept some parts of the dogma or discipline of the Established Church. These individuals were known as “Dissenters,” as is reflected in the name of the Dissenters Burial Ground, in Totteridge.

Of recent years church memberships have fallen, and sometimes this has caused financial problems. Some Nonconformist churches today “share” a minister. The smaller congregations of others (even of different denomination) have joined together. The United Reformed Church (formerly Congregational, in Brent Street, Hendon) transferred its congregation to the United Reformed church at The Hyde, Colindale. The Brent Street church was left empty and was later demolished, so that there are now new buildings where once this pleasant-looking church stood.

The present survey has been confined to churches and meeting places of the three main groups mentioned above. An individual letter was sent to either the secretary or minister of each church, asking to see copies of any booklets that might have been issued in the past, particularly for special events such as jubilees or centenaries. Some helpful and encouraging replies resulted. In two cases the respective ministers came to see me, and one left a number of rare booklets for our Society archives.

Many churches did in fact have the kind of booklets we were looking for, and it was possible to write a short history from them. The detailed nature of the information varied considerably; but it usually included facts about the founding of the church, its early buildings and later additions and developments. One disadvantage was that each booklet usually had a definite finishing point, which was not the present time there was usually a gap. This has been or, in some instances, still is being investigated by further correspondence.

Some churches could not supply booklets either because none was avail­able or none had been published. Here it has been necessary to get a written history from someone connected with the church. Some booklets were on loan only. Here I would like to express grateful thanks to Ted Sammes and Peter Fauvel-Clinch for obtaining photo-copies to add to other material collected. Several members have lent documents regarding non-

conformity, for which I am very grateful.The Local History Collection of LBB has also produced some relevant papers.

On one important aspect of this survey I would be particularly glad to have the help of interested members. I had hoped to secure a complete set of photographs of all Nonconformist churches and their associated buildings, but so far I have not succeeded. I have only a very few prints I realise how large an area is covered by the Borough of Barnet, but I wonder if any members would be prepared to take photos of the churches in their immediate localities? In some instances it would be helpful to record the interiors, as well as the exteriors, and this would of course require appointments to be fixed. Anyone handy with a camera and ready to help is asked to phone me on 202 8441.

I hope this gives some idea of the scope of the survey. A lot more work is still required. It would be interesting to extend the survey to the 23 churches included in “Other Centres of Religion,” but for that I .need more help in the collection, writing up and typing of material – so even if you are not a cameraman, please make me an offer! You’ve got my phone number above, and my address is 53 Selborne Gardens, Hendon NW4 4SH.

FOR LOCAL HISTORIANS

The London & Middlesex Archaeological Society will hold its 17th annual Local History Conference on Sat Nov 20 at the Museum of London. The programme opens officially at 2 pm, but local societies are always keen to exhibit at this lively occasion, and their displays may be in­spected from 12.30 pm. We need hardly say that there will be a HADAS display to inspect.

Three talks are scheduled, all dealing with practical and interesting topics. Guildhall Librarian Mr R Hyde will discuss London parochial assessment maps and their uses; Dr Lynch will tell us about the history of the Great North Road through Middlesex, which should be of particular interest to our area; and Mr D J Gerhold will speak on how to get the best from Chancery and Exchequer records.

Tickets (including tea) cost £1.50 and are obtainable from Mr J Slade, 20 Bendemeer Road,. Putney SW15 (enclose an sae).

Our colleagues in the NW London branch of the Historical Association invite us to a lecture on January 20 next at 8 pm. Mr John Fisher will speak, with colour slides, on the excavation and raising of the Mary Rose. The venue is Lower Skeel Hall, Westfield College, Kidderpore Gardens, NW3. HADAS Members will be very welcome, and we are given this further information about how to get there: “the entrance to the hall is by a short passageway near a pillar box, and then through a heavy door on the right hand side.”

PHILIP VENNING reports on

A RESCUE DIG AT THE OLD BULL, 68 HIGH STREET, BARNET (TQ 246 965): Feb 6-Mar 6, 1982

BACKGROUND

The Old Bull Arts Centre was planning to build a new theatre at the back; HADAS was given a month to dig the site before work began.

There was good reason to suspect that it would be worthwhile. Situated in the centre of the oldest part of Chipping Barnet, close to the medieval church, Tudor college and early domestic buildings, the Old Bull was on a spot that had almost certainly been occupied for centuries.

HISTORY OF THE BULL (researched by Alec Gouldsmith)

The local library has a curious postcard on display. It shows what is described as “a plain glazed clay Roman (sic) jug about 14″ high and in perfect state of preservation, found in a bricked-up Roman well under the former premises of J A Clark & Sons Ltd, when the building was extended in about 1931. A Roman wall was also discovered which ran from under the premises diagonally across the Bull yard..”

It is not clear who identified the well and wall, but according to B R Leftwich the jug was dated by the British Museum as between AD 500-600. There seemed to be a fair chance that the dig would pick up this wall, and possibly other evidence of Saxon occupation.

At the time of preparing this report some potentially useful documents are inaccessible in Barnet Museum but from what is available it is ob­vious that the Bull was one of a string of ale houses and inns fronting the High Street from early times. An early reference to it occurs in a transaction dated 1553 that mentions several identifiable inns including “La Bulle”2. By the 18c a picture emerges of a rather rough establishment. The 1749 vestry accounts record a payment of 9s6d for a “coffin and shrowd” for a man who drank himself to death on gin at the Bull. In 1787 “3 one William Hoskin who had been invalided with wounds out of the Guards complained that Michael Walsh, the landlord of the Bull, had assaulted him and flung him out, after which he was assaulted by ‘several fishermen’ who kicked and carried him into Market House … Here they forcibly took away his tin box in which were his discharge papers and a guinea and a half, and his clothing was stolen from his bundle.”4 In the same year a manorial survey5 described the property as “a good house called the Bull Inn, with a yard, stabling and garden, being in the whole 1½ acres of ground.”

The earliest large-scale map – a manorial map of 1817 – indicates the “Black Bull” on the site of the present Old Bull. A tithe map of 1840 is clearer, and shows no structure on the area at the back of the Old Bull where the excavation took place. Most detail, however, can be seen in the 1876 Ordnance Survey 25″ map, which shows garden features over moat of the site.

The present Old Bull building is probably no earlier than 18c, with a 20c glazed-brick facade, and a rear brick extension probably dating from the turn of this century. (This extension has since been demolished). The Old Bull ceased to be a pub sometime after the war, and has been used as a community arts centre since then.

References:

1Annals of the Parish & Township of Chipping Barnet, B R Leftwich 195O

2Calendar- of Pat. Rolls 7 Ed VI, Pt 0 Memb; 14, quoted in Leftwich

3Notes on delinquency in the Barnet area in the 18c, Hertfordshire Past and Present No 4 1964, F N Bath

4ibid

5A survey and valuation of all the copyhold estates of the Manor of Chipping Barnet and East Barnet, made by Messrs Kent, Claridge & Pearce 1787. Herts County Record Office.

THE SITE

This consisted of a concrete covered yard, about 10m square, reached by six steps down from the back of the building. It had been enlarged by the demolition of a lean-to shed to the north, and was bounded by brick buildings and a wooden fence. It sloped to the east but even at its lowest point was at least 50cm higher than the adjoining access road and ground level to the north and east. The central feature was the large stump of a chestnut tree, felled shortly before the dig. At the outset the greatest archaeological problem appeared to be

the restrictions requested by the architect: the only trenches permitted were the foundation trenches of the planned building. This fixed their position, width and, most importantly, their depth. As it turned

out, the latter proved not to be a problem.

TRENCH A

This was the foundation trench for the east wall of the theatre, and was 6m long and 65cm wide. Lying at the lowest part of the site – ground level was close to the architect’s datum – it promised the greatest opportunity of a section across the site as well as a chance to get to deeper levels.

Beneath a thin concrete surface covering was a loamy, rubble-filled soil containing some white glazed china, bone and other 19/20c artefacts. At a depth of 20cm a tightly packed mass of winkle shells was found – possibly the reject stock of a stallholder. The winkle pit was resting on a sloping, sandy-cement floor (see section drawing) that extended over the northern half of the trench. The southern end was-largely occupied by a still functioning soil pipe from the Old Bull. This pipe was encased in a brick channel, bedded on flint cobbles, and capped with concrete. It was clearly contemporary with the rear extension of the Old Bull. This drain crossed the trench diagonally, apparently cutting through an earlier brick gulley. The sandy-cement floor was bedded in a layer of clay and pebbles, which in turn was deposited on an irregularly laid soft redbrick floor. This was lifted to reveal what appeared to be natural. Though this was at the maximum permitted depth of the trench, it strongly resembled what was positively identified as natural elsewhere on the site.

All layers contained recognizable 19c finds (some were under the redbrick floor), though some earlier finds. also came to light. These in­cluded a 17c clay pipe bowl, two small rim sections of Metropolitan slip-ware, dating from late 16c, and a piece of bone comb of 17/18c origin.

TRENCH B

This was a 1m square trench, designed for the foundation of a pillar. It also contained a similar glazed soil pipe, still in use. What little room was left consisted of a rubble fill, containing some finds including a reckoning counter.

The counter was identified by the British Museum as a rechenpfennig, by Hans Krauwinkel of Nurnberg, dated c.1580-1610. Because it was un-stratified it was of no value in dating. In spite of the German origin of the counter it was not unusual vast numbers were imported. ,

Because the two soil pipes appeared to join under the baulk, the trench was extended slightly northwards and eastwards. This extension was named Trench E.

TRENCH C

Because the tree stump had to be removed we were allowed to excavate an area immediately round its roots to a depth necessary to extract them. This gave rather more scope than the narrow confines of the foundation trenches. The trench began as a 2m square but was steadily enlarged. For the first 50cm the soil surrounding the stump was highly dis­turbed, and contained large quantities of broken roof tile, glazed 19c china and pottery (little of it from the same vessel), the necks of wine bottles, bone and clay pipe. Among the finds was a small sherd of partly-glazed pottery, identified as a piece of a chafing dish, possibly late 16c in origin. (These dishes were filled with charcoal and were used for keeping food warm). In the northern end of the trench, at a depth of 54cm, a floor ­or more probably a pathway – was found. This consisted of an area of broken peg roof tiles set neatly and symmetrically on edge (and partly covered with a thin burnt layer). These vertical tiles alternated with smaller areas of the same tiles laid flat. The pathway appeared to have been constructed to accommodate the trunk of the tree when it was much younger (though later roots had grown across it). The tiles were lifted, and beneath some of them was a disturbed layer containing white glazed china, willow pattern and other 19c arte­facts. But the majority of the tiles had been placed directly on top of an identical lower layer of vertical tiles. In the north western part of the trench these lower tiles were laid in the same direction. In the eastern part they were grouped in a more random way.

This lower pathway was bedded in a thin layer of clay, which contained no dating evidence. It, in turn, rested on natural – confirmed by a deep pilot hole. However, on top of the natural, seven small body sherds of coarse pottery were found. These were identified as South Herts grey ware, dating from the 13/14c.

TRENCH. D

The north wall of the theatre was to include, another 1m square pillar and this formed the starting point of the trench. Beneath the thick concrete floor of the recently demolished shed was a layer of loose rubble, containing large quantities of recent artefacts, including a newspaper dated April 1, 1950. This rested on a worn, symmetrically laid, soft redbrick floor at the same depth as a similar layer of bricks found by the contractors in the north west corner of the site and clearly part of the same floor. To investigate this further, part of the north wall foundation trench was opened. Though the floor petered out to the east (where it was much disturbed), it continued to the west where it was coated with a thick deposit of coal dust. From a pipe trench dug by the contractors it was possible to confirm that this was simply an older floor of the shed. In the 1m square part of the trench the floor was lifted. This showed that it had been laid partly on an area of brick/yellowy mortar/ tile fill, partly on soft humus like earth bordered by large flint nodules (30cm below datum). The latter was almost certainly a former flower bed. The flints were bedded in the same fill as the rest of the trench and continued downward to a depth of 90cm below datum. At this point a dark brown layer of pebbles (some of them large), tile fragments and some signs of burning were visible. Between 5-10cm below this the evidence of dis­turbance lessened, the pebbles became lighter in colour and natural began to appear. Though this was at the maximum permitted depth, it corresponded to the depth at which natural was found elsewhere.

TRENCH E

This revealed the junction-of the two soil pipes, immediately to the east of a water filled well at least 3m deep. The top 150cm of the well lining as loosely packed, but below that evenly laid brick courses were visible, suggesting a lower ground level at some earlier date. No attempt was made to excavate it. It was the second well on the site. Another had been found by the contractors between trenches A and C and had been backfilled

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

The tile areas in Trench C strongly suggest the work of a 19c garden­er and it appears as if they were laid out at the same time the chestnut was planted. The 1876 OS 25″ map even shows a garden feature that could be a pathway in that area. The roof tiles, which had been used, may have originally come from the Bull though adjoining buildings have early clay-tiled roofs, the Bull has later slates.The dig clearly showed that the ground level in the second half of the 19c was lower than at present, and must have been made up since then, probably when the rear extension of the Bull was built. The fact that this made-up ground contained some artefacts earlier than the 19c is obviously not significant. Harder to explain is the fact that natural was reached immediately beneath this 19c level right across the site. Even if this area behind the Bull had always been a garden, it would inevitably have accumulated a large quantity of domestic rubbish from the pre-Victorian period. The only conclusion must be that when the 19c garden was laid out, the site was landscaped and lowered, and the remains of earlier centuries stripped and dumped. The few medieval sherds in trench C must have escaped this levelling.

Because the Bull is on the summit of a steep hill, it is perhaps not surprising that ground levels have been much altered in the past.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Our thanks are due to:

Denis O’Brien and Pam Edwards of the Old Bull Arts Centre John Moore of 0 Mansfield Thomas, the project architect

HADAS members who took part or helped, particularly Howard Hesp Alec Gouldsmith, Audrey Hooson, Ann Trewick and Eric and Ella Ward.