Newsletter

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Archaeology in Action

The new HADAS exhibition, or Archaeology in Action, got off to a flying start at Church Farm House Museum when the Mayor of Barnet, Mr Andrew Pares, came on 19 February to open it. He was accompanied by the Mayoress, who has been a HADAS member for some time.

We knew that the exhibition was to have this auspicious send-off only ten days or so before it happened. Despite the short notice, however, the occasion was splendidly stage-managed by Christine Arnott and Dorothy Newbury. Our chairman, Brian Jarman, who presided, warmly welcomed several Vice-Presidents — Mrs. Rosa Freedman, Miss Daisy Hill and Mr Andrew Saunders — the Borough Librarian, Mr David Ruddom, representatives of the press, many members of the Society’s committees and those who had helped to design and mount displays.

This is the Society’s 4th exhibition at Church Farm House Museum, and the first to have the honour of being opened by the Borough’s first citizen. HADAS appreciated the mayor’s visit very much, and the appreciation was mutual — as this note from the Mayoress, dated the day after the exhibition, shows:

“The Mayor and I would like to thank you most sincerely for your welcoming hospitality on Saturday, and to congratulate everyone concerned in mounting such a comprehensive and stimulating exhibition at Church Farm.

We hope very much that the great number of people in our area will take the opportunity to see it, and we shall certainly recommend it to friends and acquaintances.”

The exhibition continues until 27 March, so we hope there will be ample opportunity for all members to see it. To whet your appetite, we asked Research Committee member Helen Gordon to go round and described what she saw. This is report:

The Archaeology in Action exhibition illustrates well the scope of HADAS’s work. It brings alive the history of our Borough right back to Roman times. Indeed the Church Terrace dig, only 100 yd from the Museum itself, reveals that in Roman times Hendon may have been a centre of some little importance. There are straws of evidence which suggest that it may have been the site of the Roman Temple, or some other building where religious rites were carried out. When you visit the exhibition, notice particularly in one of the Church Terrace showcases the neck of a redware flagon with a face on it, and the fragments of a possible multiple vase — both types of vessel probably used in religious ceremonies.
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Church Terrace was one of several digs conducted by HADAS in the last few years, and on show now are finds from the St. James the Great, Friern Barnet: Woodlands, Golders Green Road: and, just outside the Borough, West Heath Mesolithic dig. Out of the 6,000 man-struck flints found at West Heath a selection of shining, delicately-shaped artefacts are on show. Their workmanship would do honour to any modern display of arts and crafts. Detailed legends make plain both the subject matter and the archaeological processes by which the information is obtained, while the many excellent photographs portray vividly the bewitching magic of a dig, come rain or come fair weather.

Other aspects of HADAS’s work are also on view — a case full of material picked up on field walks, another of chance finds; one section illustrates the recordings of the relics of our industrial past; another describes the tombstones in the Dissenters’ Burial Ground at Totteridge and the people those tombstones commemorate. Yet another illustrates the Parish Boundary Survey, including photos of the beating of the bounds, and one of the bumping of the Mayor of Finchley in 1935. We are glad admirable Mayor was prepared to risk the danger of this custom being revived when he kindly opened the exhibition, with a warm appreciation of the work HADAS dollars in the Borough of Barnet.
Volunteers Needed

The Department of Urban Archaeology, Museum of London, is calling for volunteers, and will be happy to help hear from any HADAS member who is interested.

Finds from recent City digs have accumulated and work on the backlog is just starting. Volunteers prepared to help clean and sort pottery, bones, leather and building material will be welcome. Many finds come from waterfront sites where wood, leather, cloth, iron, bronze and pewter to have been preserved intact.

Work takes place at Old Guildhall Library on Wednesdays and Thursdays, 9.15a.m.-4.45p.m.; within those hours volunteers may come and go as is convenient to them. This is an excellent opportunity for those who want to gain practical experience of dealing with finds and learning different techniques of processing.

Any HADAS member who is prepared to help should get in touch.

One HADAS member, Clodagh Pritchard, has already signed on for this voluntary work. Here she describes what it is like:

I started working at the Old Guildhall library just before Christmas for the Department of Urban Archaeology, Museum of London. Since January I have been going there on Wednesdays. I arrive about 10.30 and leave about 3.30 to avoid the rush hour.

I have been working on finds from the various City digs dating back to 1974, washing leather, pottery, bone and building material, or marking sherds. On my first morning I was excited to find a small buckle; later its pair turned up — both on pieces of leather that I was washing. Shoes, soles and sandals are often found, as well as belts, straps and off-cuts.

Pottery ranges through early shell-tempered coarseware, Medieval green-glazed ware, Samian and even occasionally Victorian Pottery. I have been marking pottery for several weeks now. Some pieces, showing a clean break, can be stuck together. The experts from another department often come down to see what we are doing; they will always identify your pieces and point out the differences between lead, tin or salt glaze — something I hope to learn more about.
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I work with four or five general assistants (GAs for short); sometimes two other volunteers turn up. We are down in the basement of the building, where files are stored tier upon tier in labelled boxes. The building itself is a formidable Gothic structure belonging to (and I believe still partly used by) the Corporation of London. An extra floor has been inserted, so that the once huge Gothic pillars are truncated and looked very squat; arched doorways leads to a labyrinth of other departments; and the books which remain on the shelves are huge dusty tomes containing the Minutes of the Court of Common Council, or Law Reports of the Probate Division back to 1875.
Operation Minimart

A most important event in the HADAS calendar is coming up — the Minimart, on Saturday 12 March at the Henry Burden Hall, Egerton Gardens, NW4 from 10.00a.m.-12.00p.m. This year, with all our costs sky-rocketing, the minimart fund-raising capacity will be more important than ever. Its success will depend on members being able to help every way they can.

The more goods we have for sale, or more funds we shall raise, so first and foremost:

If you haven’t done so yet, please turn out whatever you don’t want and let us have it for sale;

If you have already had a turn-out, how about taking a final look in case you’ve missed anything?

If you have time, please make something for the produce stall — scones, sausage rolls, pies, marmalade, chutney, sweets, cakes.

Let the organisers Christine Arnott or Dorothy Newbury know what you have and where and when it can be collected.

There are other ways to help too. Could you display a poster advantageously at your house? Or could you persuade a local shopkeeper (specially in the Hendon/Golders Green area) to do so? Will you make sure to come along yourself on 12 March and have morning coffee at the Minimart, and patronise any stall you fancy?

One innovation will be a notice board, which members can place “For Sale” or “Wanted” postcards, at £0.05 the time. Should a transaction result, a small donation to HADAS funds by the buyer or seller would be very welcome!

Tailpiece: after the Minimart comes the clearing up. If you would like to take over any unsold goods for the use of your pet charity, please let Christine or Dorothy know and be prepared to remove the leftovers from the hall by twelve noon on Minimart day.
The Next Lexture

On Tuesday 1 March, this will be by a Dr John Kent, FSA, on the Coinage of Pre-Roman Britain — the subject of much of Dr. Kent’s current research.

Dr. Kent takes a considerable interest in local archaeology. He is a of Vice-President of the Barnet and District Local History Society and of the Stanmore and Harrow Historical Society. He directed the excavations which took place over several years at South Mimms. He is Assistant Keeper of the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum and is an outstanding authority on his subject.
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His lecture will be preceded by a brief Extraordinary General Meeting, details of which have already been circulated.
Dates Ahead
April 5 – Denmark – Ted Sammes
May 24 – Annual General Meeting

All meetings will be at central library, The Burroughs, NW4 at 8.15p.m.
Provisional Summer Programme

Many members like to jot down the summer outings in their diaries as early as possible. The following is a provisional programme only: and the later outings, particularly, are subject to possible alteration. We hope to publish the final program in the April newsletter.

April 23 – St. Albans
May 14 – Stanstead/Saffron Walden/Long Melford
June 18 – Northampton
July 16 – Grimes Graves
August 20 – Swindon

This year all outings are on Saturdays.

Members will also be delighted to know that Dorothy Newbury is already hard at it planning a weekend away towards the end of September.
Mr. Geoffrey Corlet

It is with deep regret that we record the recent death, after a long illness, of Geoffrey Corlet, who was a member of HADAS for seven years and served on the main Committee of the Society from 1973 until illness caused him to resign in 1976.

Mr Corlet’s work at the Public Record Office had made him an expert palaeographer. On HADAS’s behalf he began transcribing, in 1972, the early parish registers of Hendon St. Mary’s — a long-term task which, alas, he was never able to complete.

Our warmest sympathy goes to his widow, Joyce, also a HADAS member of a long-standing; and to their son, Andrew Kirkwood, who was a member of the HADAS main committee, 1970-72.
New Thoughts on Ancient Britain

A report by Elizabeth Holiday on Andrew Selkirk’s February lecture to HADAS.

In a controversial and ingenious talk, Andrew Selkirk urged his audience to erase traditional thinking about prehistory from their minds and to reconsider the accepted divisions of the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. Mr Selkirk maintained that the periods of British prehistory should be redefined, for the present conventions are not only arbitrary but unsubstantiated by recent evidence and far from being the neat categories suggested by many scholars.

Mr Selkirk suggested that the identification of the periods of development of our prehistoric forebears from their technology and artefacts is a narrow and misleading approach; and that the key to understanding the changes that occurred during the 2000 years before Christ is a better understanding of the social organisation of the groups and tribes which produced such monuments as Stonehenge, the barrow cemeteries and the hill forts.
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The Age of Stonehenge, he suggested was the age of a dynasty of priest-kings and was followed by a period of instability and insecurity — the Age of Excalibur — during which the population kept its wealth in a portable form (jewellery, and particularly swords) rather than lavishing it on extravagant building projects. The building of hill forts identified the return to a stable society and immediately preceded the greatest change of all — the introduction of money, and with it the development of the market place and the beginning of a market economy. It was this last factor, Mr. Selkirk suggested, that destroyed the previously unassailable chieftain system.

The lecturer concluded with yet another challenge to traditional thinking, by suggesting that not only did the Roman conquest of this island make much less impression than is generally supposed, but that far from imposing servitude to Rome, the conquerors provided the first taste of freedom for the native inhabitants. Food for thought indeed!
Queen’s Jubilee Booklet

A reminder from the Hon. Treasurer.

So far we have received £125 in loans towards the Society’s next Occasional Paper, which will be called a Queen’s Jubilee and will tell the story of how Queen Victoria’s two Jubilees were celebrated in the areas which now make up the Borough of Barnet. We greatly appreciated the response of all those who have sent contributions, and to thank them warmly.

Any member who would like to lend the Society up to £5 for the booklet, but has not yet got round to doing so, is invited to send his or loan to the treasurer as soon as possible, with the form which was attached to the last Newsletter. If you have lost your form, the Treasurer will gladly supplier another.
Running the Mail

The production of this Newsletter involves members from all parts of the Borough. One problem that arises to is the transportation of material between members. It usually needs to be done promptly to catch deadlines.

The Hon. Secretary would therefore be happy to hear from any members who commute through the borough, and would be willing to collect and deliver an occasional envelope on their way to or from work. One particularly vital run is between Edgware and the Hampstead Garden Suburb.
Patents in the Borough of Barnet

By William Morris.

Patents form a basis for studying Industrial Archaeology. Often they show what industries have been present in an area, throwing light on the products made by various companies. In some areas patents may fall within a limited field of industry. In other areas, mainly non-industrial, the pattern is different, as there are often private inventors working on very disparate ideas and the range of invention is much wider.

The residents of the area which we now call the London Borough of Barnet — from Edgware to Chipping Barnet, from Arkley to Cricklewood – were in days gone by (and no doubt still are) an ingenious lot, as a study of the records at the Patent Office shows. Indeed, for its size our area has been granted an almost disproportionate number of patents. If you take a sample year like 1916, for instance, to this is what you find.
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Early that year a patent was granted for an apparatus for disinfecting, perfuming and purifying air in theatres. It was invented by A. Jackson, of “Woodleigh”, Temple Gardens, Golders Green. This device took the form of a tank, which was filled with an appropriate as liquid and provided with the nozzle on a vertical tube depending (?) into the tank. A horizontal tube supplied compressed air to the nozzle to blow the liquid out, in the manner of a giant scent spray. One wonders if it was ever considered for use in the Ionic or the Hippodrome at Golders Green!

Next came a patent for a sign illuminated by varying coloured lights. This was invented by R. Atherton of 16 Cavendish Avenue, Church End, Finchley. Each lamp on the sign was surrounded by a multi-coloured chimney or funnel, which was to be rotated, through the hot rising from the lamp, by means of vanes.

To A. Claflin of 30 Corringham Road, Golders Green, went a patent for a soundproof typewriter cover. This has an opening at the top covered by a pivoted, counterweighted cylindrical window which allowed access to the platen but left the keyboard exposed.

Another local patent went to H. Webb of 38 Meadway Court, Hampstead Garden Suburb, for his hand truck, designed to mount curbs. This had an auxiliary pair of wheels whose axle position was variable along truck to take into account variations in kerb heights.

Interest in dairying is revealed by the parent granted to C. Harrison of 22 High Road, East Finchley and R. Cole of 98 High Street, North Finchley, who jointly invented a novel milk churn lid which snap-fitted onto the churn. Spring biased bolts in the neck of the churn slotted into the holes in the lid. (Incidentally, would High Street, North Finchley, now correspond to some number in High Road, N12?)

An electric torch patent was granted to A. King of 65 Lichfield Grove, Finchley. This had an electrically conductive ball in a conical tube between its two its cells. The ball would roll to make contact between the cells and so light the torch — but only when the latter was tilted downwards.

J. Cooper of 6 Sunnydale Gardens, Mill Hill, and his co-patentee, Mr Kay, acquired a patent for a method of making metal hoops for wheel rims. They round a strip of metal round and round the rim and then welded together the superimposed layers.

The last local patent granted in 1916 was to H. Gregory of “Al-Araf”, Dudley Road, Church End, Finchley, for a novel tobacco pipe. This had two separate smoke-bores, one of which could be stopped and cleaned by a rod secured to the mouthpiece of the pipe, while the other was still in use. Withdrawal and rotation of the mouthpiece allowed insertion of the rod into the other smoke-bore, while the cleansed one was used in its turn.
Recently Acquired for the Book Box

— “Leakey’s Luck” – The Life of Louis Leakey, 1903-1972, by Sonia Cole. excellent and readable account of the work of one of the most colourful of archaeologist-anthropologists, and his finds act Olduvai Gorge which have radically changed our thinking about the evolution of man.

Newsletter

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We hope this Newsletter of will reach most members in time to remind them of the February lecture there but it is always rather a hustle when the lecture comes on the first day of the month, as it does in both February and March. Please making mental notes now that you have a date with HADAS on 1 March, also.

The February lecture, on Tuesday 1 February, will be given by Andrew Selkirk. He is, incidentally, a HADAS member, but one of his main claims to archaeological fame is as founder and editor of Current Archaeology, a monthly journal to which many HADAS members subscribe. His talk will be on “Continuity or Change — a fresh look at Prehistoric Britain.”

Meetings for the remainder of this season are as follows:

March 1 – Coinage of Pre-Roman Britain – Dr. John Kent
April 5 – Denmark – Ted Sammes
May 24 Annual General Meeting (details later)

These meetings will be at Central Library, The Burroughs at 8.15p.m.

Tuesday 8 February is a date for 100 HADAS members who have booked to attend the Pompeii Exhibition. Details were in the January newsletter.

And don’t forget that, starting on 19 February and continuing until 27 March, HADAS will be staging an exhibition at Church Farm House Museum, Greyhound Hill, on Archaeology in Action. The museum is open on weekdays (not Tuesday afternoon), 10.00a.m.-12.30p.m. and 1.30p.m.-5.30p.m.; and on Sundays from 2.30 p.m. to 6.00p.m. We hope that you will all be able to drop in some time to see this demonstration of the Society’s activities.
Follow-up to Pompeii

The Institute of Archaeology is a ranging a series of five lectures on Pompeii — Life and Art in the early Roman Empire.

These will be on Mondays, from 14 February – 14 March at 6.45p.m. Each lecture will be given by a specialist in a particular field. First lecture is by a Dr Malcolm Colledge, who gave the Society an excellent talk on Pompeii last November. Subsequent speakers will be Martin Fredericken, Dr John North, Brian Caven and and Amanda Claridge. The full course, at the Institute in Golden Square, costs £2 or £0.50 pay-at-the-door for individual lectures.
Conference of London Archaeologists

The Conference will be held for the first time at the Museum of London, on Saturday 19 March. Another new feature will be its early start — at 11.00a.m.

The first lecture on the programme, at 11.10a.m. will be of outstanding interest to HADAS, as it will be by Desmond Collins, on our own dig at West Heath. Many members may wish to attend, to hear this, the first official exposition of the site, and to see the fine slides of the dig taken by Peter Clinch. Tickets are obtainable from Miss Jenny Hall, LAMAS secretary (LAMAS members 60p, non– members £0.80). Tickets include tea; lunch can be obtained from the Barbican Tavern, near the Museum, or there is a small “rest space” in the Museum for those who wish to bring a packed lunch.
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Other talks on the programme will be on Documents and Archaeology (Tony Dyson); Origins of Coinage in London (Dr Kent); Tower of London Excavations (Philip Walker); Work in SW London (Scott McCracken); and Excavations at Keston (Brian Philp). Local societies will show displays of their work, and HADAS will have an exhibit on West Heath.
No Mean Museum

London now has in Barbican one of the most modern museums in the world; and, more to the point, one of the most exhilarating and stimulating. A visit to the new Museum of London is a must for anyone with the slightest interest in the history of the City or of Greater London.

One visit, indeed, will not suffice: it may even take a week of visits to see it properly. The first time I went I never got beyond the displays on Roman London, beguiling as they are. A mock-up of a Roman kitchen, looking so authentic that you can imagine that cook has just nipped out to pick a handful of radishes, horse-parsley or endives (all of which figure in Roman recipes) repays the closest study. So does the display of inscribed stones, many of them historic landmarks in the Archaeology of Roman Britain, like the reconstructed tombstone of Julius Classicianus, the first century procurator, which was found in two bits, one in 1852 and the other over 80 years later, in 1935. Both had been re-used in different parts of the same fourth century bastion.

The riches of two museums — the London (until recently at Kensington Palace) and Guildhall — have gone to make these many displays, plus much completely fresh material. So, too, has a great deal of imagination and thought. The result is a distillation of the best of both collections, excellently laid out. Parts of the Museum are open-plan, so that even as you move to study early pottery you catch, from the corner of your eye, a glimpse of the sparkling golden roof of the Lord Mayor’s coach; or as you make your way towards a reconstruction of the Great Fire (complete not only with flames that flicker, rise and fall, but also roar and crackle) you can pull aside a small curtain and find yourself looking through a narrow slit into a Jacobean nursery with its carved wooden cradle.

Don’t be put off by the fortress-like exterior of the Museum. It is possible to scale those apparently impregnable walls. The entrance is on the first floor, so it takes a bit of walking round at ground level to find the narrow stairway which leads up from London Wall. (BGG)
From Muscle to Steam

A report on the last HADAS lecture by Nigel Harvey.

Denis Smith, chairman of the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society, who is an engineer as well as an historian of technology, spoke on 4 January on the development of the energy conversion systems which have played so important and pervading a part in our history and have left us a unique heritage of buildings and equipment.
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The original energy sources were man — or more probably, woman — and animals. These sources survived in industrial use to the nineteenth century, the former turning capstans in the docks, the latter driving gins in the mills. Waterpower, operating through waterwheels, was harnessed in Roman times; windpower, operating through the windmill, in the middle ages; and the more revolutionary thermal energy, operating through the steam engine, in the eighteenth century.

Development was highly practical, much of it by rural craftsmen who were responsible for an astonishing series of technical achievements, such as the servo-mechanisms which enabled windmills to respond to changes in the strength and direction of the wind and the varied transmission systems whose scope and importance are not always fully appreciated. The famous nineteenth century Laxey water wheel in the Isle of Man, for example, drove a mine pump half a mile away, while some seventeenth century German mines depended on transmission systems 17 miles long.

London contains numerous relics of industrial history, such as the Liberty water wheel on the Wandle, the Walthamstow mill, the mid-Victorian steam engines at Thamesmead which powered the first major sewerage systems in the world and the primitive coke-fire ventilation systems of the Houses of Parliament, as well as the steam engine, still working, for pumping sewage there.

A particularly interesting group of survivals stands at New River Head — the remains of a windmill and of the building which houses an atmospheric steam engine and also the tall narrow building which housed a beam engine. The atmospheric engine there was built by Smeaton, so the site preserves the memory of one of the pioneers of engineering research and development and the first man to describe himself as an “engineer.” The lecture made clear the reason why the words engineer and ingenuity derive from the same route.

Members may be interested to know that the steam pumps which once helped to win this country is leadership in the development of pure water supplies, and are now maintained by the Kew Bridge Engines Trust, can be seen in steam at the pumping station near the bridge from 10.00a.m.-1.00p.m. and 2.00-5.00p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.
Bank on the Ball

Some bright spark in the Publicity Department of Lloyd’s Bank has come up with a fetching idea. He (or she) has designed a poster which sells, at a stroke, both banking and Archaeology. A copy has been sent to every archaeological Society in Britain, including HADAS.

It shows a splendid giant reproduction, about 1 ft in diameter, of a bronze Centenionalis of the Emperor Constantius II (AD 337-361) — the coin unearthed during the redevelopment of a branch of Lloyd’s at Alcester, Warwickshire. When Roman finds began coming up on this site, known to lie within the area of the original Roman Town, building work was halted for two months while Warwick Museum carried out a rescue dig — with Lloyd’s heaping coals of fire on the diggers’ heads by helping to finance the project.

The poster makes the point that many Lloyd’s branches are situated on historic sites — notably, at Lincoln and York where, as Peter Addyman told us last year, one of the most significant Viking sites found in Britain was discovered under the bank vaults.

Is the inference that all good archaeologists should bank at Lloyd’s? One can certainly infer that the Lloyd’s advertising boys don’t Miss many tricks.

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Buttons but not Bows

By Christine Arnott.

We hope to have a new stall at the HADAS Minimart next month — for remnants of material, odd balls of wool and BUTTONS. Mrs. Holliday (Elizabeth’s mother) intends to put sets of buttons on cards, if possible. Please look through your stores and let her know if you can provide anything or tell the general organisers Christine Arnott or Dorothy Newbury.

The Minimart on Saturday 12 March, will be open from 10.00a.m.-12.00p.m., at its usual venue, the Henry Burden Hall, Egerton Gardens, NW4. We hope as many members as possible will come along to support it.

We also intend to widen the scope of the Home Produce stall this year, as home-made food is so popular. If we can stock the stall with home-made bread, rolls and small dishes such as lasagne or good old shepherd’s pie, I am sure we shall do a roaring trade. All contributions of this kind will therefore be most welcome.

Other stalls will include books, garden, good-as-new, bric-a-brac, miscellanea (cosmetics, stationery, jewellery, unwanted gifts). Contributions to these can be brought to the February or March lectures, or can be collected if desired (ring the organisers about collection). Please let us have your offerings as soon as possible, as everything has to be sorted and priced in advance. Will members who have in the past indicated their willingness to do fund-raising, please “come to the aid of the party now” and help get together a bumper collection for this, HADAS’s main fund-raising effort of the year?
Urban and Suburban History

Harrow College of Further Education, Uxbridge Road, Hatch End, is organising a one-day Local History Conference, as it has done for the past 3 years. This year the subject is “Urban and Suburban Growth.” The Conference will be on Saturday 5 March, from 10.00a.m.-5.00p.m. Fee, including morning coffee, lunch and tea, £3.

The morning session on Medieval towns will be led by Tom Hassall of the Oxfordshire Archaeological Unit; in the afternoon Victorian urban growth will be the subject, under the chairmanship of Dr Reeder of Leicester University. HADAS members who are interested should write to R.W. Edwards, at Harrow College.
Central Public Health Laboratory, Colindale

By Bill Firth.

This is the complex of buildings, built by the Government Lymph Establishment in 1906 (probably by the Office of Works), where all vaccine for public vaccination in England and Wales was made.

The main buildings are: 1. A main office/laboratory block brackets still used as such) facing south fronting on the north side of Colindale Avenue.

2. Four animal houses sited at what are believed to be the four corners of the field in which hay was grown. These are behind (i.e. north of) the main building. They are still used as animal houses but no longer for calves. Though considerably altered inside, enough remains to enable the original layout to be discerned.

3. A large lymph preparation building sited between the southerly pair of animal houses, now used as a library.

4. Down the western boundary is an engineering block, housing a boiler with an original boiler chimney and two smaller buildings apparently used as a carpenters’ shop.
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5. The northwest corner is occupied by a house, originally used by the Manager.

6. along the North Boundary, a one-storey building — original use are known.

Over the front entrance of the main block 1906 is carved; there is an Edwardian clock face inside the main door (with modern mechanism). Built to the latest standards for hygiene and cleaning the floors are wood blocks, the walls are tiled from floor to ceiling and there is a curved coving at floor level. There are large sash windows to give maximum daylight and the interior doors are all glazed — some with the original glazing. The corridors of wide (about 6 ft 9 in.). There’s an old hoist to serve the first floor, made by Evans Lifts Ltd, London and Leicester.

The animal houses have many interesting features. Ventilation is through a duct from the ground floor through the first floor to a central roof turret. The roofs are lined (warmth for animals) and have an interesting arrangement of iron supports and wooden trusses. The windows have no mouldings — no dust trap, easy to clean. The outside steps to the first floor have slanted rainways in them for drainage and to keep the water away from the iron railings. The floors slope to gulleys for drainage an easy washing down. It appears that there were ten calf pens in two rows of five in each house, but this needs confirmation. Two of the animal houses (on the west side) have large doors in the first storey wall equipped with hoists, presumably for raising hay for storage. There are particularly good remains of the hoist in the north-west house.

These buildings are at some risk, since there are tentative plans for redevelopment, but the present public expenditure cuts have probably postponed these. Further investigation is in hand — both of the documentation which exists, and of how much recording is necessary.
Hon. Treasurer’s Department

Several enclosures accompany this Newsletter. One is the notice of an Extraordinary General Meeting, to be held before March lecture. At this a formal resolution will be put, to raise the Society subscription to £1.50 from the start of the next financial year on 1 April. We regret very much the necessity for this; but, as members know, we have managed to hold the subscription at £1 since 1 April, 1972 — and that has taken some doing, with rising prices! Now an increase has become essential.

Another enclosure concerns our latest publishing venture — a booklet to coincide with the Silver Jubilee — and how we propose to fund it. Whether or not we finally decide to publish will depend in large measure on the response we get from members. We hope therefore that you will read the enclosure sympathetically and help if you possibly can.
All Change

With this issue of the Newsletter two changes take place in its preparation and distribution. First, the Society’s duplicator has been given a new home by Irene Frauchiger, who will in future run our duplicating. We thank her warmly for accepting this responsibility.

Second, our membership has risen so sharply that we decided to buy an addressing machine. Angela Fine undertook the formidable task of typing the stencils for the machine and a Raymond Lowe is housing and operating it. We would like to thank both very much for their help.

We’d also like to seize the chance of thanking one of the Newsletters “old hands” — Harry Lawrence, who has for almost exactly four years handwritten each month a complete set of envelopes. Recently this has been a mammoth task. Harry will continue to collate and distribute the Newsletter, but we hope in the future he’ll be free of a writer’s cramp!
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As this is the month of the change-over, will you please check the address on your envelope in case, among over 300 addresses, one or two may contain an error? If you find a mistake, please let our Hon, Secretary know.
Field Walking Report

By Ann Trewick and Daphne Lorimer.

During December two further mornings were spent field walking — healthy exercise, especially on Boxing Day, after all that turkey. Both walks were muddy, and one felt one was carting an extra ton around on one’s Wellingtons.

However, so far as Roman Pottery is concerned, the walks had been most rewarding. Sherds, including handles and necks of Brockley Hill ware, and fragments of tegulae, or roofing tiles, were found. The latter suggest a building — and this, of course, has interesting and exciting implications. Over 100 Roman pieces have now been discovered, most of them concentrated in one area of the same field. Fragments of many other kinds of pottery have also been collected, right through from mediaeval to modern; not to mention bones, worked stone, bits of tobacco pipe and metal objects.

The results of our field walks so far will be on show at the HADAS exhibition at Church Farm House Museum. You will perhaps be surprised to see that what variety can be found on a walk — everything from part of a Roman flagon to a twentieth-century teaspoon from the Royal Free Hospital!
Presentation to the Book Box

On Librarian, George Ingram, has received from Irene Frauchiger two handsome new volumes. They are inscribed “Presented to HADAS in memory of Leslie Frauchiger.” They are:

Recent Archaeological Excavations in Europe, edit. Rupert Bruce-Mitford, pub. Routledge Kegan Paul 1975.

Heritage of Britain, pub. by the Readers Digest, 1975.

We thank Irene very much for this generous gift, and for finding such an appropriate way to keep Leslie’s memory green. George Ingram proposes to make special arrangements for lending these books which are weighty and cannot easily be brought to meetings. Any member who wishes to borrow one should contact George.
The Records on Non-Conformity

Many Nonconformist churches, chapels and meeting houses exist in our Borough and most of them must have an interesting history. The Research Committee has decided that it would be a worthwhile project to get in touch with as many as possible and collect details of their history — how early the first records are, when the church was built, the names of important past members of the congregation and so on. We may sometimes find there is already a written history, in pamphlet form.

George Ingram has kindly volunteered to take charge of this project. If any member has material which might help him, or can provide him with details of the church from which he might obtain information, would they please let him know?

Newsletter

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Looking Forward

— a seasonal occupation at New Year –-so let’s envisage some of the prospects of lying ahead of HADAS in 1977.

Lectures for the rest of the season will be:
January 4 – From muscle to Steam – the Archaeology of Energy. – Denis Smith
February 1 – Continuity or change: a fresh look at Prehistoric Britain – Andrew Selkirk
March 1 – Coinage of Pre-Roman Britain – Dr. John Kent
April 5 – Denmark – Ted Sammes

To top of the programme, the Annual General Meeting will be held as usual in May — exact date to be announced later.

All these events will take place at Central Library, The Burroughs, NW4; and this brings us to a bad sign of the times. Since HADAS was founded, back in 1961, we have enjoyed free use of the Library for monthly meetings, at first through the kindness of Hendon Borough Council and later thanks to the London Borough of Barnet. From this month on, however, that arrangement ceases; in future we should pay a rental of £4.20 per lecture, with an additional small fee for the use of the Library projector.

We would like to take this opportunity of thanking the Library authorities for their generous treatment in the past; and of saying that we are sure both councillors and officials regret as much as we do that, owing to present financial problems, this much appreciated helping hand can no longer be extended to small amenity societies.

To further social events will take place in the near future:

THURSDAY 6 JANUARY. A second HADAS dinner at the Tower of London will enable members to celebrate Twelfth Night. Arrangements will be as for the December dinner; in case you mislaid your last Newsletter, here they are again:

The coach will leave the Quadrant, Hendon, and 6.15p.m. and The Refrectory, Golders Green at 6.25 and cannot be held after those times. If you are unlucky enough to miss the coach, please make your own way to the Tower — dinner is at 7.30p.m. Members are asked to let Dorothy Newbury know in advance whether they intend to use the coach or go straight to the Tower.

Dress is informal — but please bring suitable clothing for watching the Ceremony of the Keys in the open. During the ceremony no smoking, photography or recording are allowed.

Wine is not included in the price of dinner, but you can buy it by the glass or bottle. Hot punch at the end of the evening is included in the ticket.
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TUESDAY 8 FEBRUARY. Visit to Pompeii Exhibition, Royal Academy, 7.30p.m. No more places are available; would any member who has reserved and not yet paid £1.75 please send the money to Dorothy Newbury as soon as possible? Tickets will be sent to you. Note: no transport has been arranged for this event.
Money for the Future

Fund-raising is also on the future agenda. The next Minimart world, as announced last month, take place on Saturday 12 March at the Henry Burden Hall, Egerton Gardens, NW4 from 10.00a.m. to 12.00p.m.

The Minimart stalls will be: in Good as new (including clothes, men’s women’s and children’s ); Good Shoes and Boots; Bric-a Brac; books; plants and garden; toys and cosmetics; home produce.

Our fund-raisers will be grateful for their help you can give. Please collect anything you can for any of the stalls; items for Home Produce (which will include jams, marmalade, jellies, chutney, pickles and wines) and for Plants and Garden will be particularly welcome. Don’t forget that not only are costs escalating, but so too are HADAS’s needs. We do more each year; and the more we do, the more funds we need to raise. In 1976 we bought our Gestetner duplicator and a new addressing machine. In 1977 digging equipment, surveying equipment and publication costs are three out of many calls which will be made on our reserves.
HADAS Exhibition at Church Farm House Museum

This will be another early 1977 event. From 19 February – 27 March the Society will mount one of its periodic displays at Church Farm House Museum, under the title Archaeology in Action. It is hoped to illustrate a number of different aspects of local archaeology during the last two or three years.

Many of the finds from West Heath will be shown, together with some of the excellent photographs taken at each stage of the dig by our “resident” photographer, Peter Clinch. Material from three earlier digs will also be on display — from Alec Jeakins’ site at Woodlands, Golders Green Road; from Ann Trewick’s dig at St. James the Great, Friern Barnet; and from the closing stages of Ted Sammes’ Church Terrace dig. None of these finds have been on show at the Museum before.

A photographic record of the parish boundary survey to date will be included; and also some of the material assembled for another project — the Buildings Survey, carried out by a group of 30 or so members who helped to make recommendations to the Borough Planning Department about the updating of the Statutory List of Buildings of Architectural or Historic Interest.

Industrial Archaeology, chance finds, field-walking, the survey of a burial ground at Totteridge and a “HADAS at play “section, showing social events, will also be included.

The exhibition will not only be open on weekdays but also for some six weekends. In the past we have always tried, on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, to have one or two members present at the Museum to act as stewards and to answer questions about the Society and its work. We hope to do similarly with this exhibition. Committee member June Porges has kindly agreed to organise a weekend stewards rota — so if you feel that you can spare an hour or two on any Saturday or Sunday afternoon between 19 February and 27 March inclusive, please give Mrs. Porges a ring and let her know.
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Digging Ahead Too

We can’t provide precise dates at this stage for the next HADAS excavation, but you don’t need a Crystal Ball to foretell that, come the summer, we shall certainly be digging again.

Arrangements have already been made, thanks to ready co-operation from the GLC, for a further dig on two sites at West Heath. One will be a short (and undoubtedly muddy) dig on the “spring” site from which come the waters of the Leg of Mutton pond. It lies about half a mile up the hill from 1976 site. We shall probably dig there for about a fortnight sometime in May, and because of conditions the number of diggers may have to be limited.

In the following month we hope to start work again on extension of the 1976 site. One object of this will be to try to find the limits of the area used by early man. We shall probably dig well into the autumn, as we did in 1976.

Not only has the GLC be most cooperative about 1977 excavation plans; we have also had helpful conversations with a representative of the Nature Conservancy, the London Natural History Society and the Heath and Old Hampstead Society. As a result it is proposed that the area excavated at the spring site should not be completely back-filled. Part of the site will be left open to form a small pond, around which it is hoped that the rich marsh vegetation which used to exist here will re-establish itself. Of recent years the site has become overgrown and many rare plants and mosses have vanished.
First Steps in Surveying

By Paddy Musgrove.

In expectation of HADAS soon acquiring its own surveyors level and levelling staff, eleven members spend two cold December Saturday mornings learning how to use of this type of equipment.

Our short course (it is hoped that it may merely be an opening salvo, with more to come) was held in Friary Park, Friern Barnet, close to an area we may one day wish to survey in earnest in our search for lost sight of the old friary or preceptory of the Order of St. John. Our ever-patient and lucid instructor, Barrie Martin, cheerfully allowed us to put his equipment at peril.

Overcome by early successes, some students eventually claimed readings correct to the nearest millimetre. In public places, we now talk casually of “temporary benchmarks,” “backsights,” “reduced levels,” “flying levels,” and even “the height of plane of collimation!” Such esoteric back chat can, however, easily be countered by asking casually: “How did you get on with the figure-work? You know, the simple addition and subtraction?”

We may not have been too good as that side of things, but we have learnt some skills that in time to come may be of use to the Society. Moreover, our appetite for surveying has been whetted — and Mr Martin hopes that in the spring he may be able to spare some more time to assuaging it.
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Turkey and Towers

An Impressionist view of a HADAS Christmas outing with a touch of history.

Towers, round and square and nearly 1,000 years old, against a night sky in winter. Cold moonlight, picking out the black mortar lines separating the white stone blocks of which those towers were built. Between two towers the elegant pencilling of a leafless tree, etched against a faintly luminous sky. Between others, half-seen hsalf-timbered buildings, Tudor intrusions into a scene otherwise entirely Norman; and high on the upper skyline, topping a curtain wall of fully 30 ft, reminders of a later era — Georgian houses perched on the top most level of the wall. That was the setting: a back cloth of massed centuries.

Separating curtain wall and Tudor House, between circular tower and rectangular, ran a broad cobbled way, leading from one sombre gateway to the next. In the distance rang a word of command. Then, their heavy army boots clattering on the cobbles, four smart, small soldiers with alien faces, all the way from the foothills of the Himalayas, came stamping down the centre of the pathway. An older man, clad in scarlet cloth and flat black cap straight from the pages of a Tudor manuscript led them, and another brought up the rear.

The small party halted where the Bloody Tower looks across the cobbles to the Traitor’s Gate, and the staccato questions came. “Who’s there?” “The Keys.” “Whose keys?” “Queen Elizabeth’s keys.” Two questions asked every night for over 400 years; two questions answered in the same terms in 1576 when the first Elizabeth’s ruled and today, when the second does: that’s the continuity of English history.

HADAS stepped back into history — a most appropriate thing for an archaeological society to do — to celebrate its 1976 Christmas party. To start with, in the setting of a modern dining room, we had what was probably for most of us the first taste of Christmas this year — turkey and trimmings. Then, by contrast, out we went into Medieval England for the Ceremony of the Keys. Afterwards we watched the soldiers, their quicker rat-a-tat of questions over, wheel smartly away through the second gateway and up a small hill, where trumpeters played the dying falls of the Last Post.

Then we came back into modern life, to drink cups of punch provided by attendance dressed a la mode 1976, to sing Auld Lang Syne to the accompaniment of George Ingram’s flute and finally to make a warm and well-fed way home to a more everyday world.
Answer Needed

Bill Firth — who joined HADAS last year with the specific intention of brightening up our Industrial Archaeology scene — keeps coming up a with abstruse questions. This month he writes “a fellow industrial archaeologist wants information about the Great North Northern London Cemetery, and particularly the rail link to it. Can a member enlighten him?

If you know anything about this, please give Bill a ring and tell him.
Kiln Seminar

The London Kiln Study Group is organising another of its kiln seminars on 23/24 April next. This will be on Kilns of the Potteries and will be held at Gladstone Pottery Museum, Stoke-on-Trent. Cost of the seminar is £7, which includes tea and coffee, but not a main meal. Further details from the London Kiln Study Group, the Cuming Museum, 155 Walworth Road, SE17.

Newsletter

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HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Happy Christmas to all HADAS members.

Festivities will get off to an early start this year — on 7 December when, in place of the annual Christmas party, HADAS meet for dinner as the Tower of London. Here are the last minute instructions from Mistress of Revels Dorothy Newbury:

Members who have not yet indicated where they intend to board the coach are asked to let Dorothy know. Coaches leave the Quadrant, Hendon, and 6.15p.m. and The Refrectory, Golders Green at 6.25 and cannot be held after those times. Should you be unlucky enough to be late, please make your own way to the Tower — dinner is at 7.30p.m.

If you plan to go straight to the Tower, please also let Dorothy know. When you get there, ask if party has arrived; if it hasn’t, please wait for the main party.

Dress is informal — but a word of warning. If it is cold and wet, please bring suitable clothing, as we shall watch the ceremony in the open for about half-an-hour. During that time the authorities allow no smoking, photography or recording.

Wine is not included in the price of dinner, but you can buy your own by the glass or bottle. Hot punch after the ceremony is included in the ticket.
Twelfth Night Party

We shall be giving 1977 a good HADAS send-off, too. The second “overflow” dinner at the Tower on 6 January is now a definite booking, and all details of the same as for 7 December.
Dates for your New Diary

4 January. First lecture of the New Year by Denis Smith, an outstanding speaker on Industrial Archaeology. “From Muscle to Steam” is the title of his talk; the history of energy is its theme.

Other 1977 HADAS lectures will be:
February 1 -Continuity or change: a fresh look at – Andrew Selkirk
Prehistoric Britain.
March 1 – Coinage of Pre-Roman Britain – Dr. John Kent
April 5 – Denmark – Ted Sammes

8 February. Visit to Pompeii Exhibition. This, too, is now a definite date. Will members who have booked, but not yet paid, please send £1.75 to Dorothy Newbury as soon as possible? Tickets will be sent to you, so that you can make your own way to the Royal Academy at 7.30 and go straight into the Exhibition. Please note that no transport has been arranged for this event.
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Field Walks

Two further field-walking expeditions have had been arranged. One has a specific purpose of enabling you to walk off the effects of a weekend of Christmas fare! They will be on Sunday, 12 December and Monday, 27 December (boxing Day).

Please meet for both, as usual, at Bury Farm at 10.00a.m., wearing strong shoes and armed with a plastic bag in which (hopefully) to carry your finds. It will be helpful if you can let one of the organisers, Daphne Lorimer and Ann Trewick, know if you intend to take part.
Surveying Sessions

As announced, the first of these will take place on Saturday mornings December 4th and 11 December. Will members please meet at the Friary Road entrance to Friary Park (near St. James’s church) at 9.55a.m? Please bring paper and pencil. If it rains heavily, arrangements have been made for a talk indoors, but weather permitting we hope to do practical work outside. Each session will probably last about two to two and a half hours.
Christmas Presents with a Digging Slant

Suggested by Raymond Lowe.

Do you read London Archaeologist? Four times a year, subscriptions £1.60 post free. Or if you are already a subscriber, binders at £1.50 each hold a volume.

Do you belong to the National Trust? Did you know that the Trust owns Housesteads Fort and a large stretch of the Roman Wall, as well as many prehistoric sites e.g. Avebury stone circle, Oldbury hillfort? Ordinary membership, £5; family membership £5 plus £2.50 for each additional member at the same address; life membership £75.

D.o.E. Historic Monuments season tickets. Full details from The Secretary (AMHB/P), Department of Environment, Room 106, 25 Savile Row, London, W1.

with a footnote from our Hon. Treasurer, Jeremy Clynes:

Don’t forget the Society’s notelets, with a drawing of Warwick the Kingmaker on the front, will make excellent Christmas cards. A pack of 10 with envelopes costs only 25p. We also have stocks of HADAS pens, price 12p each. Both can be obtained from the Treasurer.

And perhaps not quite Christmas reading – but still something no HADAS member should be without: a copy of the preliminary report on the Society’s 1976 dig at West Heath. This has been published in the current London Archaeologist (Autumn, 1976, vol. 2 No. 16). We have bought a number of offprints which can be obtained from Jeremy Clynes price 10p plus a stamped addressed envelope.
Church Terrace Pottery Weekends

During three weekends in November a select band of workers marked, measured and mended the pottery and glass bottles from the 1973-4 dig at Hendon.
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The finds have now been sorted into Roman, Saxon, Norman and post-Medieval. This will enable further work to be undertaken on individual periods. Much work remains to be done on the identification and sources of the pottery.

Thanks, as always, are due to John Enderby for allowing us to rent the Teahouse for these sessions.
Obituary

This has been, from one point of view, a sad year for HADAS – and particularly for three of our members.

Eric Wookey, one of our founder members and a Vice-President of the Society, lost his wife in the eartly autumn. Mrs. Wookey had been a member of the Society from the outset, and until recently came regularly to lectures and other HADAS meetings.

In October, Margaret Musgrove – many members will recall how entertainingly she organised the side-shows at last year’s Christmas party – died suddenly after an illness from which it had been hoped she was recovering. She and her husband, Paddy, have been familiar figures at most HADAS occasions for the last four years, and Paddy is a hard-working member of the Society’s research team.

Now, as this Newsletter is going to press, we learn of the tragic and untimely death of Leslie Frauchiger. He and his wife Irene (another of the organisers of last year’s Christmas party) have been members for only two years, but in that short time both showed themselves among HADAS’s keenest supporters, taking part in every activity.

The Society extends its most sincere sympathy to Mr. Wookey, Paddy and Irene in their great loss. HADAS, too, is the poorer for the passing of these three members.
A Cry for Help

If you enjoy reading this Newsletter, would you be prepared to offer some practical help with getting it out? We are looking — very anxiously, too — for a member who could do two things: first, house the Society’s duplicating machine; and second, work that machine as and when necessary.

Almost every document that HADAS uses — including minutes of meetings, notices of outings, forms, instructions for digs, and the Newsletter — has been duplicated by Philippa Bernard at her home in Totteridge. Often Mrs. Bernard has cut the stencils, as well as being responsible for rolling them off. She has housed our Gestetner in her own the spare room — greater devotion and service to HADAS than that it would be hard to find!

During that time our membership — and therefore the extent of duplicating work — has grown. So to have Mrs. Bernard’s many responsibilities. Now, to our great regret, she finds she cannot continue to do duplicating, and has asked us to find out whether any other member would be prepared to step into her shoes.

As several members have recently kindly offered to type for the Society, we shall not need to ask a volunteer to cut stencils. What will be needed, however, is sufficient space to house a Gestetner 4 ft high by 2 ft square, in a position where it can be plugged into a thirteen amp point and operated. The machine can be kept covered when not in use.
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Mrs. Bernard has offered to show anyone who wishes how to work the duplicator which is, she says, very simple to manage. If anyone feels that he or she could help in this way, would they please let our Hon. Secretary know? You need to be in no doubt that your offer will be greatly appreciated, and will be of very real help to HADAS.

This is an appropriate moment at which to thank Philippa most sincerely for her help in the past. She has never once failed the Society,, no matter how short the notice at which we asked her to work; and in more than one crisis it was she who saved our bacon.
More about Pompeii

By Elizabeth Holiday.

By the time this Newsletter is circulated, I am sure that everyone will be aware of the Pompeii Exhibition at the Royal Academy. Colour supplement articles, brochures and television documentaries abound, but in the vanguard — HADAS with, on 2 November, a superb lecture by Dr Malcolm Colledge.

A packed audience (a record figure of 175 was mentioned) Dr College recreated the bustle of everyday life in the ancient city. His quotations from contemporary literature and Pompeiian graffiti, vivid descriptions of the shops, streets and houses, the sacred and secular buildings, the wall paintings, sculptures and other works of art, brought to life the city encapsulated beneath the lava, ash and mud on that fateful day in August AD 79.

A truly unforgettable lecture.
Looking ahead to the next Minimart

Christine Arnott, chief of fund-raisers, reminds us that Christmas is coming, and asks all members please to remember HADAS if they received any “unwanted” gifts. The next minimart — our biggest annual fund-raising function — will be on Saturday 12 March. Unwanted Christmas presents would fit very nicely on a stall like “New — Good as New.”

There will, of course, be other stalls, and more about them next month. Meantime Christine hopes that everyone will keep an eye open for potential minimart “fodder” of all kinds.
Accessions to the Book Box

The HADAS book box increases almost weekly in scope, thanks to the generosity of members. Our Hon. Librarian, George Ingram, is most grateful to all those who have added to it recently. He reports the following acquisitions, and points out that the first fourteen volumes on the list had been presented by recently joined member Philip Venning — a splendid gift to the Society:

Graham Connor, The Archaeology of Benin; excavations in and around Benin City, Nigeria, 1975.

Barbara Bender, Farming in Prehistory; from hunter-gatherer to food-producer. 1975.

W. S. Whyte, Basic Metric Surveying; 2nd ed. 1976.

David L. Clarke, Analytical Archaeology. 1968

J.D.S. Pendlebury, The Archaeology of Crete (reprint 1971)

J.P.M.Pannell, The techniques of Industrial Archaeology. 1974.

P.H.Sawyer, The Age of the Vikings. 1975.

E.A.Fisher, Anglo-Saxon Towers: an architectural and historical study. 1969.

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The following numbers of the 4-monthly journal, World Archaeology: June, 1969 (vol 1 no 1); Feb. 1970 (vol 1 no 3); Oct. 1970 (vol 2 no 2); Feb. 1971 (vol 2 no 3); June 1971 (vol 3 no 1); Oct. 1971 (vol 3 no 2).

Christopher Hussey, The story of Ely House, 37 Dover Street, W1. (presented by Alec Gouldsmith)

River Brent Flood Alleviation Study (GLC document, with map)

Olive Cook, Constable’s Hampstead. 1976.

And the following duplicated papers, presented by John Enderby:

The Timestones of the Druids – Archaeology, Observation and Tradition at Stanehenge.

The Bowl of Glaeston by Ross Nichols (Glastonbury)

The Mysteries of Avebury – the Avebury-Stonehenge Axis of Powers by Ross Nichols.
Local Historians at Guildhall

The eleventh annual Local History Conference was organised by the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society at Guildhall on 20 November. Over a dozen societies and groups displayed their work, showing the increasing interest which this function arouses. When HADAS first started attending, there were wide open spaces between the various stands. Nowadays it would be difficult to insert a digger’s trowel between them.

HADAS was well represented. Christine Arnott and Daphne Lorimer, to whom the Society is most grateful, mounted an excellent exhibit on the background research which led to our booklet, Money, Milk and Milestones. Examples of Hendon tokens (lent by Ted Sammes) and photographs and other material connected with Philip Rundell (the millionaire jeweller who lived at Renters Farm, Hendon in the early nineteenth century and is buried in Hendon St. Mary’s churchyard) illustrated the “money” side of the title. Photographs of College Farm in 1893 and actual diary bygones from Totteridge (lent by Mr. And Mrs. Morley of Laurel Farm) came under the “milk” heading; and “milestones” was shown by photographs and a history of milestones on for routes in the Borough of Barnet.

There were three speakers as the Conference, the principal one being transport expert Charles E. Lee. He showed an encyclopaedic knowledge of both road and rail transport, speaking apparently without the use of a single note and handling questions with great fluency. His talk was as full of fascinating detail as a pudding of plums — alas, that you couldn’t all hear all of it. This is just one of the interesting and unexpected to bits of knowledge which Mr Lee produced: the passage of the Limited Liabilities Act profoundly affected the flow of capital into — and therefore the growth of — transport services. The first company was registered under the act only on 17 July, 1856. Till then there had been no limitation on liability: any partner in a concern was deemed to be liable for a company’s debts up to the limit. This had been off-putting, to say the least, to a rich patron who, while putting a trifle of money into a concern, wanted also to have some part in their handling of it.
The Brass Cow

Charles Lee was particularly interested in the HADAS exhibit because of the link between transport and the early milk supplies to London. (The Express Dairy, which owned College Farm, is so called because in its early days the milk distributed in the capital came by express train).
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He asked if we had ever come across “the brass cow.” This was a system by which, if you ran short of milk in the evening, you could go to the local Dairy with a jug, insert a coin, turn on the brass tap and get your pint of milk. Does any member recall this system, or can you remember any Dairies in our Borough at which it was in use? Are there any “brass cows” still in situ (even if not in use) anywhere?

This may be the last year that the Local History Conference will be held against the sombre and somewhat sumptuous background of Guildhall. Plans are in hand — though not yet complete — to transfer its next year to the Museum of London.

Which reminds us that as from 2 December London will have a new and very modern Museum — when the Museum of London opens in Barbican, combining the collections of Guildhall Museum and the London Museum. The new museum will cover the history of the whole Greater London area. Its scouts were out, at least two years ago, collecting material in our Borough — from College Farm and from the Hampstead Garden Suburb.
British Museum Exhibitions

Two special displays showing from now until 1 February at the British Museum are worth a visit.

One is the British Library’s commemoration of the quincentenary of printing, coupled with the name of William Caxton. It is beautifully mounted and shows some mouth-watering documents. The catalogue costs £2 but is worth it. It contains photographs of illuminated MSS – for instance, Edward IV at exile in Bruges in 1470, just before he returned to England to win the Battle of Barnet, receiving the Chronicles of England from the author, Jean de Waurin. It has reproductions of title pages and gems like the opening page of the prologue to the Canterbury Tales (1483). It also reproduces some delightful woodcuts, such as a clerk enduring the miseries of medieval arithmetic (from Mirror on the World, 1481), and an illustration from The Game and Play of Chess, 1482, with the unlikely caption “King Evilmerodach – a jolly man without justice” – feeding his father to the vultures.

The other exhibition is “7000 years of Jewellery.” The earliest exhibit is an obsidian bead necklace of 5000 BC, excavated at Arpachiya, Iraq. The collection goes up to the mid-19th century AD. Exhibits were found all over the world. They include a Minoan gold pendant; Chinese animal, fish and insect pendants in jade; Sumerian jewellery from Ur; a bronze dress-pin from Luristan; an Anglo-Saxon gold shoulder clasp, decorated with millefiori glass (from Sutton Hoo); Peruvian ear ornaments, a Chinese silver comb and Persian, Mughal and Spanish treasures.
New Members

HADAS has pleasure in welcoming the following new members, who have joined since mid-July:

Mary Ambrose, Garden Suburb; Lewis Baker, Totteridge; Deirdre Barrie, Hendon; Paul Baylis, N2; Mrs. Bohn, Hampstead; John Bomben, East Finchley; Kate Cabot, Hampstead; Mr. & Mrs. Chapman, Colindale; Laura Chernaik, Hampstead; Mrs Clinch, Mr. & Mrs. Cooper, all Finchley; Mrs. Dawson, Mill Hill; Mrs. Earle, Temple Fortune; Miss Edwards, Garden Suburb; Angela Fine, Highgate; Clive Gould, NW6; Miss Hall, Temple Fortune; Elizabeth Howard, Edgware; Mrs. Jolly, Hendon; Miss Johns, Hendon; Terence Keenan, Hampstead; Christina Kicman, Kingsbury; Jocelyn Kingsley, NW6; Mrs. Lund, Mill Hill; Mrs. McKenzie, Finchley; Mrs. Morgan, Totteridge; Mrs. Pestell, Temple Fortune; Paul Phillips, Edgware; Simon Porges, Finchley; Mrs. Raab, Garden Suburb; Miss Silver, Hendon; Mrs. Whitcombe, Finchley; Miss Williams, Hendon; Miss Withers, Hampstead; Mr. & Mrs. And Stephen Wrigley, Colindale.

Newsletter

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The November Lecture

You may remember when Dr. Malcolm Colledge visited the Society two years ago to speak about “Rome and the East.” We are glad to welcome him again, this time to talk about Pompeii, on 2 November. His specialised knowledge of Roman art and sculpture will provide an excellent introduction to the forthcoming Royal Academy exhibition about that ancient city.

Dr. Colledge is a classical scholar. He took his degree at St. John’s College Cambridge and has travelled a great deal in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries. He has excavated at Lullingstone Roman Villa and at Petra and Tazekand in Iran. He wrote The Partians (published 1967) for the Thames and Hudson series on Ancient Civilisations.

The rest of the winter programme:
December 7 – Dinner at Tower of London and watching
the Ceremony of the Keys.(details already circulated)
January 4 – From Muscle to Steam – – Denis Smith
the Archaeology of Energy.
February 1 -Continuity or change: a fresh look at – Andrew Selkirk
Prehistoric Britain.
March 1 – Coinage of Pre-Roman Britain – Dr. John Kent
April 5 – Denmark – Ted Sammes

These lectures, all on the first Tuesday of the month, take place at Central library,, The Burroughs, NW4. The lecture room is open at 8.10p.m. We start with coffee and biscuits, and the lecture itself begins about 8.30.
Pompeii Exhibition

The Pompeii Exhibition, sponsored by the Daily Telegraph, will open at the Royal Academy on 20 November and will run daily (weekends included) until 27 February, 1977. As the Newsletter goes to press there seems some doubt about the times of opening; it might therefore be wise to check these before you go.

Original wall paintings, mosaics, sculptures and bronzes are being brought to London for display. Some of the most interesting material will be from the recently-dug and very rich villa of Oplontis, three Roman miles from Pompeii, which is thought to have belonged to Nero’s second wife, Poppaea.

The organisers intend to reserve most Monday mornings for school visits, and to allow special parties on Tuesday evenings. We have tentatively booked a HADAS party for Tuesday 8 February, when we will meet at the exhibition at 7.30p.m. and stay there till 9.00p.m.. Cost will be £1.75 each, although entrance at ordinary times is £1. The advantage of going in a party is that there will be no queuing and the number of visitors will be restricted.

If you would like to join the Pompeii Party on 8 February, please ring Dorothy Newbury as soon as possible, or tell her at the November lecture. Should sufficient members be interested, we shall let our booking stand; otherwise, we will cancel it.
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Tower of London, Dec.7

Bookings for this event has been overwhelming. The maximum number — 110 people — was reached within a few days and 42 additional names have had to go on a waiting list.

However, the Tower authorities have now informed us that they have had a cancellation for 6 January, Twelfth Night, so that we could book this for an “overflow” dinner. Would members who are on the waiting list please ring Dorothy Newbury as soon as possible and tell her if they would like tickets for 6 January? And would any other member who is interested also let Dorothy know? The maximum for the second dinner is 53.
West Heath Weekends at the Teahouse

By Daphne Lorimer.

The first three weekends in October, spent processing the West Heath finds at Hampstead Garden Suburb Teahouse, enabled members to see for the first time the full range of material found during the 1976 dig.

Preliminary sorting was undertaken and all re-touched pieces, blades and sizeable flakes were retrieved from the sieving bags and recorded individually. All burnt stones, flint and charcoal, all organic remains and manuports were removed for separate study. The flint artefacts have been roughly divided (not without considerable argument) into re-touched pieces, blades, and flakes capable of utilisation. A count was begun of all artefacts recovered.

Small groups will now undertake different detailed studies. Members who wish to continue with this are asked to contact either Daphne Lorimer or the leader of the group which interests them the groups are as follows:
Burnt material – Myfanwy Stewart
Manuports – Sheila Woodward
Organic remains (a small group) – Joyce Roberts
Reassembly of flint nodules – Dorothy Newbury
Flint cores – Laurie Gavell
Blades, tool types, waste material – Christine Arnott
here help would be especially valuable
wear patterns – Daphne Lorimer
Post holes and stone alignments – Brigid Grafton Green and Nicole Douek
Find drawings – Daphne Lorimer (in lieu of Colin Evans)
Chart drawing – Peter Clinch

Finally, are a suggestion for a piece of research with which every HADAS member can help. We are particularly anxious to find the origin of the flint used by West Heath Mesolithic man. It is unlikely that he carried it from a great distance, since flint is so heavy: but it is clear that the flint used for his tools was not found at the site. Finchley (the area near College Farm) is one of the sources suggested, but it is certainly not the only possibility.
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Any HADAS member living in the Boroughs of either Barnet or Camden is asked to look out for possible sources of flint and to report when he or she finds one, if possible with a sample. Holes in the road made by workmen, trenches on building sites, or even your own back garden or allotment when you dig it, are all capable of providing information. If you want to be more scientific about it, have a look at the geological map of our area (either at the Public Library or ask our Hon. Secretary) and go searching for flints nodules. If and when you find any, please let Daphne Lorimer know.
More Work at the Teahouse

Although the three “flinting” weekends are over, don’t forget that members will be equally welcome at the Teahouse for the three pottery weekends which take place this month — on November 6/7, 13/14 and 20/21. Again, work will go on from 10.00a.m.-5.00p.m. each day, and facilities are available for anyone who wants to bring a packed lunch.

Ted Sammes will be in charge, and the weekends will continue the processing of finds from the Church Terrace dig of 1973-4. It has been decided not to include any work on the Brockley Hill Roman Pottery, as not enough members with a knowledge of Roman material will be available to help.
Field Walk at Edgwarebury

A report by Ann Trewick.

In spite of heavy overnight rain an intrepid group of field walkers set out once again for Edgwarebury Farm on Sunday 26 September. Conditions were, in fact, ideal. The field we walked had been freshly ploughed the previous day. The ground was still absorbing rainwater rapidly, so it was not too sticky underfoot. While Peter Clinch took action photos, the group worked its way up the field towards the motorway on which runs at the top. This field was adjacent to the one which we had walked last December and January, though nearer to Brockley Hill.

About nine fragments of Roman Pottery, considerably rolled, were found, including a strap handle in typical Brockley Hill ware. This was found at the top end of the field, but the majority of sherds were at the lower end, although they were scattered. There was no concentration of Roman finds in this field, such as we had discovered earlier in the neighbouring field.

The whole area is, however, most interesting, and further walks will be arranged as fields come under the plough.
Mesolithic Bibliography

From time to time the Newsletter has published book lists for different archaeological periods. Roman (NL 42), Medieval (NL 43) and post-Medieval (NL 51) have so far appeared. This year, as a result of the current dig, the Mesolithic looms large on the HADAS horizon. Here is a reading list for the Mesolithic period, compiled by Daphne Lorimer.

Clark J.G.D. 1934 “The Classification of Mesolithic Culture” Arch. J. vol. XC pp 52-77

Clark J.G.D. Rankine W.F. 1939 “Excavations at Farnham, Surrey” Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society vol. V pp 61-118.

Rankine W.F. 1946 “Some Remarkable Flints from West Surrey Mesolithic Sites” Surrey Arch. Collections vol. XLIX pp 6-19. (Note: the above gives Clark’s original classification of the Mesolithic, now disputed by some authorities, but very valuable.)
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Clark C.G.D. 1972 “Excavations at Star Carr: an early Mesolithic Site at Seamer, near Scarborough, Yorks. Oxford University Press £8.80.

Clark C.G.D. 1976 Star Carr: a case study in Bioarchaeology. Cummins Publishing Co. 75p.

Clark C.G.D. 1932 The Mesolithic in Britain

Clark C.G.D. The Mesolithic Settlement of Northern Europe C.U.P.

(The above two now out of print and now dated: well worth looking at if you can find it them in the library.)

Collins D.M. 1975 “Palaeoli6thic and Mesolithic” Chap 1 from the Archaeology of the London Area: current knowledge and problems”. London and Middlesex Arch. Soc. £1.

Collins D.M. (ed) 1975 “The origins of Europe”, Allen and Unwin, £6.95.

Evans J.G., Limbrey S., Cleere H. (ed) 1975 “The Effect of Man on the Landscape: The Highland Zone” C.B.A. Research report No. 11. £7.50

Daniel G., Piggott S., McVerney (ed) 1974 “France before the Romans” Chap 3. Thames and Hudson, £(.50.

Garrod, Dorothy A.E. 1965. Primitive Man in Egypt, Western Asia and Europe. Cambridge Ancient History Fascicle 30 CUP 8s 6d (out of print).

Semenov S.A. 1970 Prehistoric Technology trans from the Russian by M.W. Thompson. Adams £3.50.

Timms Peter. 1974. Flint Implements of the old Stone Age. Shire 75p.

Froom F.R. 1976 Wawcott III: a Stratified Mesolithic Succession. British Archaeologicla Reports £3.90.

Churchill D.M. 1962. “The Stratigraphy of the Mesolithic Sites III & V at Thatcham, Berks” P.P.S. XXVIII pp 362-320 (???ed)

Keef P.A.M., Wymer J.J., Dimbleby G.W. 1965. ” A Mesolithic Site in Iping Common, Sussex” P.P.S. vol. XXXI pp 85-92.

Lacaille A.D. 1942. “Scottich Microburins” Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot. (1940-1) pp 103-119.

Lacaille A.D. 1963. “Neolithic Industries beside Colne Waters in Iver and Denham, Bucks” Records of Buckinghamshire vol. XVII pt. 3 pp 143-181.

Warren H.S., Clark J.G.D., Godwin H. & M.E., Macfadyen W.A. 1934. “An early Mesolithic Site at Broxbourne sealed under Boreal peat” J. Roy. Anthrop. Inst. Vol. LXIV. pp 101-128.

Mellars P.S. 1974. pp77-79 in British Prehistory: a New Outline, A.C. Renfrew (ed) Duckworth.

Palmer S. 1970. “The Stone Age Industries of the Isle of Portland” P.P.S. vol. XXXVI pp 82-115.

Radley J., Tallis J.H., Switzur V.R. 1974. “The Excavations of Three Narrow Blade Mesolithic Sites in the Southern Pennines”. P.P.S. vol. 40 pp 1-19.

Rankine W.F. 1952. ” A Mosolithic Chipping Floor at Oakhanger, Selborne, Hants” P.P.S. vol. XVIII pp 21-35.

Rankine W.F. 1956. “The Mesolithic of Southern England”. Research papers of the Surrey Archaeological Society No. 4.

Rankine W.F., Dimbleby G.W. 1960. “Further Excavations at a Mesolithic Site at Oakhanger, Selborne, Hants”. P.P.S. vol XXVI pp 246-262.

Rankine W.F., Dimbleby G.W. “Further Excavations at Oakhanger, Selborne, Hants Site VIII”. Wealden Mesolithic Research Bulletins 1961.

Wainwright G.J. 1960 “Three Mocrolithic Industries from South-West England and their affinities” P.P.S. XXVI pp 193-201.

Wymer J.J. 1962. “Excavations at the Maglemosian Sites, Thatcham, Berks” P.P.S. XXVIII pp 329-361.

Woodcock A.G. 1975. “Mesolithic Discoveries at Perry Woods, Selling, nr Canterbury, Kent.” Archaeologia Cantiana vol. XC pp 169-177.

Note: a selection of the more important sites is included; C.B.A.s gazetteer on Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, by John Wymer, awaits publication and will give full coverage of all sites.
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Surveying Course

The mornings of the first two Saturdays in December had been booked for a short course in the use of the level by HADAS Hon. Member and surveyor Barrie Martin.

Those members who have enlisted for this are asked to meet at the gate of Friary Park, Friary Road, N12 (opposite the church of St. James the Great) 9.55 am on 4 December and 11 December. Arrangements have been made for instruction under cover in the event of rain.

It is hoped to survey, as a training exercise, an area in the Friary Park which showed, during the very dry weather, curious and regular patterns on the ground surface, and which may therefore be the site of the original Friary of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem which gave Friern Barnet its name.
First Winter Meeting of the Season