Newsletter
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BARNET COLLEGE
Although no formal planning application has been lodged as yet, there are plans for the main building of Barnet College on Wood Street to be demolished and rebuilt. The nearby Grade 11 listed Tudor Hall, which fronts on to Wood Street and sits in a conservation area would be kept and there are plans to create a largc civic sciume with iandscaping and seating. The site stands near to the Parish Church and the old centre of Barnet and could be of archaeological potential. (More “Planning Matters “from Bill Bass on page 2)
HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming Lectures and Events in 2007
Tuesday 13th March – Eileen Bowlt (LAMAS Chairman) The London and Middlesex Archaeological Society (LAMAS) in the early Days.
Tuesday 10 April 2007 – CHANGE OF LECTURE Stephen Bruning writes: “It is with regret that I have to announce that Denis Smith is unable to speak to us about Thomas Telford on 10th April as arranged due to family commitments. Denis is available later on in the year and the lecture will now take place in October 2007, still in the anniversary year of the civil engineer’s birth! As this newsletter went to press a replacement has not yet been found. However, it is hoped to have a new lecturer confirmed in time for the March edition. Please keep an eye on the HADAS website for up-to-the- minute information. . I will also send out an email to everyone on the discussion list as soon as someone is in place.
Tuesday 8th May David Berger (Frier Barnet and District Local History Society Chairman and curatorial lecturer at London’s Transport Museum) -Trams of North-West London.
As ever, lectures and the AGM take place at Avenue house, 17 East End Road, Finchley, N3 3QE. Fronts begin at 8pm. Non-members £1. Tea, coffee and biscuits 70p. Fifteen-minute walk from Finchley central tube station. Turn left on exiting the station and go down the hill – East End Road is a turning on the left. There are also several nearby bus routes; limited parking.
A tribute to Adrian Gibson by Don Cooper
As a tribute to Adrian Gibson (the timber building expert), who died recently, the Essex Historic Buildings Group in conjunction with the Herts & Essex Architectural Research Society are holding a day school on Saturday 28th July 2007 at Cressing Temple Barns, Braintree, Essex. The cost is £20 with f7.50 extra for a ploughman’s lunch. Bookings should be made with Ian Greenfield, Yew Tree Cottage, Stanbrook, Thaxted, Essex CM6 2NL
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Adrian Gibson (MBE), lecturer, author and expert on timber-framed buildings, died on 16 March 2006. It was Adrian Gibson’s spade which found the Swanscombe skull, when he was working with John Wymer. He was also the author of Instructions in Archaeology (1963). a general introduction to British archaeology for amateurs, and in 1987 he became involved with the development programme for the superb Cressing Temple barns at Witham, Essex, a site of international importance.
PLANNING MATTERS – Edgware BILL BASS
Compass Archaeology has kindly sent us a report of an excavation they carried out on behalf of Thames Water in Edgware, below is a summary: “An archaeological watching brief took place in the area of Hale Lane and Farm Road, Edgware, between September and December 2006. This was carried out during groundwork for a Thames Water engineering scheme. Initial works involved stripping of turf, topsoil and some made ground within the site, followed by substantial excavation for an 8m-diameter water storage chamber. The site was considered to have potential for a range of archaeological remains, based on its proximity to Watling Street and associated finds spanning the prehistoric, Roman and Saxon periods. Archaeological observations of topsoil stripping across the site did not reveal any significant remains. Exposed deposits were either recent made ground associated with landscaping of the area, or an earlier and apparently truncated subsoil. Observations of subsequent excavation for the installation of the water storage chambers did not reveal any other archaeological features or deposits. However, the watching brief appears to confirm the geological record, in terms of alluvial deposits on the south-east side of the site. These were exposed below the subsoil, in the area excavated for the construction of the storage chambers. The deposits were about lm thick, overlying the natural London Clay, and reflected the proximity of Dean’s Brook just to the west of the site. However, the alluvium was quite sterile and no palaeo-environmental remains were found.” Thanks to Geoff Potter of Compass for keeping us informed.
MEMBERS’ NEWS
Dorothy Newbury reported in the February 2007 Newsletter that John Enderby was not well. (He was one of HADAS’s founder members and for many years Principal of Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute). Dorothy is happy to report that John Enderby has now left hospital and is at home in Fontmell Magna, Dorset, and would no doubt still be glad to hear from any of you who remember him. RESERVE NEWSLETTER EDITORS Dorothy Newbury would be very glad of offers from people who would be willing to be put on a list of reserve Newsletter editors. The job would involves receiving items in the post until about the middle of the month, and then in about five to ten days editing them and typing them up on to A4 paper, allowing space at the top of the first page for the HADAS logo and edition details. (A computer definitely simplifies the job!) Anyone who is interested please phone Dorothy on 020 8203 0950
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[https://www.hadas.org.uk/cgi-bin/nl/nlarchive.pl?issue=432&page=3MORE ABOUT LETTER BOXES AND BARNET by Jim Nelhams
Although Jo and I had been aware of different types of letter boxes, our interest was heightened when Jo started a project with her school class based on the decade of the 1930s – a decade in which there were three monarchs: George V, Edward VIII and George VI. This triggered the question – “Were there any Edward VIII letter boxes?” Shortly afterwards, I became aware of the work on letter boxes started for HADAS by Bill Firth, and found his files in the Garden Room. Bill had joined the Letter Box Study Group, and I have since joined. I am hoping to have access to the LBSG database to compile a list of all the boxes in the Borough of Barnet. So far, 15 of the postcodes in the borough have been surveyed, and I am looking at the remaining two: HA8 and EN4, both of which cross borough boundaries. If anybody is interested in LBSG or post boxes in general, I would be happy to talk to them. A few points of local interest: • an old print of men playing football in Barnet market in the late 18th century also shows a Post Office on Barnet Hill next to what used to be the “Red Lion” and is now called “The Venue”. • a blue plaque on a house on Hadley Common marks the house where Anthony Trollope and his mother Fanny lived. His sister died during their stay in the house, and is buried in the churchyard at Monken Hadley. • Roland Hill lived at “Bruce Castle”, which is now a museum. The museum includes several post boxes, including a rare “airmail” box. • our borough has several unusual boxes including an “anonymous” box – one with Victoria’s cipher, in Cyprus Road, and a box incorporating a stamp machine in Totteridge. • the first “lamp box”, one attached to a post, was installed in 1895 just north of Avenue House in Lichfield Grove. Places to visit: Bruce Castle Museum, Lordship Lane, Tottenham, London N17 8NU Tel: 020 8808 8772 The British Postal museum and Archive (BPMA) Freeling House, Phoenix Place, London WC1X ODL. Tel: +44 (0)20 7239 2570 Prehistoric Village found at Stonehenge The village found at Durrington Walls near Stonehenge was part of a much larger religious complex. “Stonehenge isn’t a monument in isolation,” said Mike Parker Pearson of the Riverside Project, an initiative run by six English Universities and partially funded by the National Geographic Society. “It is one of a pair – one in wood and one in stone.” He.added that the dates for the village are “exactly the same time in radiocarbon terms, as for the “building of the sarsens.” (Radio carbon dated to 2600-2500 BC).The six houses so far excavated had clay floors and wooden walls, and there are outlines in the floor of fireplaces and furniture. This might have been accommodation for the builders of the monument
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OTHER SOCIETIES’ LECTURES AND EVENTS by Eric Morgan
Thursday 1 March, 1030 am Mill Hill Library, Hartley Avenue, NW7 – William Wilberforce – the Local Connection. Talk by Michael Works. Coffee 50p.
Sunday 4 March, 2.30 pm. Heath & Hampstead Society, Burgh house, New End Square, NW3. Artefacts of the East Heath. Walk led by Michael Welbank. Donation: £2. Lasts 2 hours. With apologies to anyone who expected this walk last month – unfortunately it was changed.
Friday 9 March, 8.15 pm – Celebrating the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. St Paul’s Church, The Ridgeway, Mill Hill, NW7: William Wilberforce, the Parliamentarian and his contribution to the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. Talk by Andrew Dismore, MP. Free. As Detailed in February Newsletter.
Monday 12 March, 3pm. Barnet and District Local History Society, Church house, Wood St (opposite Museum), Barnet. The Rise and Fall of New Southgate. Talk by Colin Barrett.
Wednesday 14 March, 8pm. Mill Hill Historical Society, Harwood Hall, Union Church, The Broadway, NW7. 19th Century Great Ormond Street Hospital. Talk by Dr Andrea Tanner.
Wednesday 14 March, 8pm. Harrow and Hillingdon Geological Society, Cavendish Pavilion, Field End Road, Eastcote – Mining in Antiquity. Talk by Dr Paul Craddock. Visitors: £2 donation.
Thursday 15 March, 6.30 pm. LAMAS, Terrace Room, Museum of London, 150 London Wall, EC2. Hooke and the Early Royal Society. Talk by Joanna Corden (Archivist). Refreshments from 6pm. PLEASE NOTE NEW VENUE. Saturday 17 March 2007, 1 lam-5.10pm. LAMAS 44th Annual Conference of London Archaeologists: Wilberforce Lecture Theatre, Museum in Docklands, West India Quay, E14. (For details please see February Newsletter). HADAS hope to have a stand here. Morning session 11 am-1.10 pm: Recent Work. Afternoon 2.20-5.10pm – Archaeology of East End.
Wednesday 28 March, 8pm. Friern Barnet & District Local History Society, St John’s Church Hall (next to Whetstone Police Station) Friern Barnet Lane, N20. Grandma’s London. Talk by John Neal. Cost £2. Refreshments 7.45pm and after. Thursday 29 March, 8pm, Finchley Society, Drawing Room, Avenue house, East End Road, N8. Public Houses Before the Railway Age, talk by Graham Javes (HADAS member) Non-members’ admission: £2.
Thanks to Bill Bass, Stephen Brunning, Don Cooper, Eric Morgan, Dorothy Newbury and Stewart Wilde.
