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No. 645 DECEMBER 2024 Edited by Don Cooper
We would like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers a Merry Christmas and Healthy, Happy and Prosperous New Year.
HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming lectures and Events
Lectures take place in the Avenue House Drawing Room.17 East End Road, Finchley N3
3QE, 7.45 for 8pm. Buses 13, 125, 143, 326 and 460 pass close by, and it is a five to ten-minute walk from Finchley Central Station on the Barnet Branch of the Northern Line. Bus
382 also passes close to Finchley Central Station. We are also on the new SuperLoop Bus,
SL10. Tea/Coffee/biscuits will be available for purchase after the talk.
Saturday 18 January 2025, 10.30am to 4.00pm. A Study Day at Avenue House by Jacqui
Pearce of the Museum of London Archaeology entitled “Clay Pipes: how to identify them
and what they mean” See Poster/invitation below.
Tuesday 11th February 2025 by Nick Peacey on The Highgate Wood kiln’s site. See article
in November issue of the HADAS newsletter (No. 644).
Weekend June7th & 8th 2025 Barnet Medieval Festival at Lewis of London Ice Cream
Farm, Fold Farm, Galley Lane, Barnet, Herts. EN5 4RA
Tuesday 11th of March 2025 by Robert Stephenson from COLAS on London’s most curious stones and bones. London possesses many unusual and out-of-place stones as well as several curious bones and burial places, all of which have fascinating tales to tell.
Roman road found under school sports field offers a 2,000-year-old history lesson by Stewart Wild
A Roman road has been unearthed beneath a primary school playing field. The paved
pathway was discovered in the Oxfordshire village of Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, near Didcot,
along with a range of Roman coins.
The road, uncovered by the Wallingford Historical and Archaeological Society, is believed to date back to the early days of Rome’s occupation of Britain, which began in 43AD. It is
hoped that the find will bring history to life for pupils at the primary school.
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“It’s not every day that you find a Roman road beneath your school field,” head teacher Sue Potts told the BBC. “To have the children come out here every day and watch the dig progress has been fabulous for them.
“I’ve often found them gathered round the fence having a watch, seeing what’s going on, looking at the artifacts and what’s been dug up or just asking questions. We absolutely wanted to help [with the dig]. Historians thought the road was there and we wanted to be able to help them prove it, one way or the other,” she said. “It was an absolute ‘yes’ from us.”
Roman roads continue to be found in Britain. Work for the HS2 rail project in 2022 uncovered a “dual carriageway” twice the size of an ordinary Roman road, running through a site near Chipping Warden, west Northants. It was probably constructed to ease congestion from merchants’ carts.
Other Roman roads include Watling Street linking Dover, London and Wroxeter and the Fosse Way from Exeter to Lincoln.
SOURCE: Daily Telegraph, 25 July 2024, item edited by Stewart Wild
A Study Day at Avenue House by Jacqui Pearce of Museum of London Archaeology (MoLA)
Clay tobacco pipes: how to identify them and what they mean
Saturday 18 January 2025, 10.30am to 4.00pm at Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE
Clay pipes are a well-known and common class of finds on excavated sites in London from the end of the 16th century onwards. They can be closely dated and, when marked, are often traceable to pipe makers known from documentary records. They also provide valuable insights into everyday life, the ways in which people enjoyed their leisure time
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and the development of an industry that flourished at the local level across the London area for over 300 years.
This one-day workshop is aimed at unravelling the mysteries of the clay tobacco pipe. Using a large handling collection, we will be looking at the history of smoking in Britain and offering instruction in classifying, dating and recording examples made throughout the period of manufacture. We will also be looking at makers’ marks, decoration, evidence for use, manufacture and the wider evidence for smoking pipes in other countries. Attendees are also invited to bring along clay pipes for identification.
Tea and coffee will be provided. Please bring your own lunch.
Places are limited with priority for members and not confirmed until payment is received of £5 for members and £10 for non-members.
HADAS Bank code: 40-52-40 and Bank account: 00007253
Please ensure that you put your surname and SD125 as a reference with the payment.
Bennet’s School, Hendon dig 2024 by Andy Simpson
As many readers will know, and saw for themselves when participating or visting, on the long weekend of 6-8 September 2024 Hadas undertook a highly successful dig in Church Road, Hendon, on a small plot of land adjacent to the surviving Daniel’s Alms houses of 1729 and opposite the Claddagh Ring pub. There was plenty of interest from local residents and the weather thankfully stayed kind.
Largely co-ordinated by Roger Chapman, and supervised overall by Bill Bass, the main purpose of the dig- site code CVA24- was to establish the level of archaeological survival of the former Bennet’s Schoolhouse, founded by John Bennet as a charity school in 1766 and constructed sometime between 1766 and 1772 on waste ground given by actor David Garrick in Church End. It merged with a previously established charity school in 1788, and another schoolroom was then added.
The teachers were examined annually by the supporting subscribers, and in 1789 the schoolmaster and his wife ‘too imbecile and full of engagements’ were dismissed. It further united with the National School Society in 1828 and renamed St Mary’s National School. With the available accommodation too small for its 175 pupils by 1851, it moved to new premises in nearby Church Walk in 1857.
The old premises were then used by Hendon Baptist Church, and as a working men’s club, but by 1888 were King’s Furniture Warehouse – post excavation work has already identified a couple of probable finds from this later period of use. They were demolished in 1937, and the site had some sort of unidentified use during WW2 and has been a public open space for many years.
This area of land is being improved as an urban garden with an emphasis on food plants and trees, with landscaping work well underway by late October 2024, and we wanted to establish the depth and condition of any underlying remains. This was successfully achieved with substantial wall footings and floors located in each of the three metre square trial pits, two of which were considerably extended as more remains became
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evident. A large number of finds were recovered, including a number of 18th century pottery sherds including earthenware, stoneware, and slipwares (seemingly the earliest dated pottery from the site) , much building materiel including hand-made unfrogged bricks and limestone fragments, some moulded, possibly from a later remodelling of the front of the building when the buildings acquired a neo-Tudor façade in the early nineteenth century.
Post excavation work by the Sunday morning team is proceeding apace; at the time of writing all finds have been washed, marking is underway, and the bulk finds sheets, building materials, clay pipes (just one bowl fragment and a few stem fragments found…), glassware- especially window glass- and pottery recording sheets completed or underway. A particular gem is the ceramic toast rack from Trench One pieced back together by Tim Curtiss.
No doubt more detailed reports will appear in the newsletter in due course, but in the meantime I offer this ‘photo essay’ of the site. Our thanks to everyone who took part especially the new people we hope you enjoyed it and will dig with us again. – that overlying demolition rubble took some shifting! And for the remarkably quick backfilling on the Sunday afternoon, no doubt spurred on by the prospect of an excellent meal at the Claddagh afterwards…
One of the few known images of Bennet’s School, other than a pre-demolition photo taken in 1937
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World’s oldest wine discovered in Spain Daily Telegraph, 19.6.2024 , edited by Stewart Wild
The world’s oldest wine has been found in Spain after spending 2,000 years in a burial urn. Researchers from the University of Córdoba made the discovery in a mausoleum in Carmona, near Seville, where a rich and powerful family lived in the first century A.D. The wine is now the oldest discovered, beating the previous record holder – the Speyer wine – by some 350 years. The Speyer was found in 1867 in the Rhineland-Palatinate region of Germany.
The find was made during an exploration of the tomb when the researchers stumbled upon an urn made of glass but encased in lead. Opening it, they found the liquid bubbling inside. Juan Manuel Román, Carmona council’s chief archaeologist, who discovered the tomb and led the excavation, said: “The liquid had a reddish colour and was bubbling, perhaps due to the movement of the transfer.” Inside the urn were the cremated bones of a man about 45 years old, along with several other elements such as a gold ring and several pieces of carved bone. After testing the liquid, the researchers found it was indeed wine, with details published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Chemists identified wine by searching for polyphenols, chemical compounds that are present in all wines. The team found seven specific polyphenols that also crop up in wines from Montilla-Moriles, Jerez and Sanlúcar, all wine-making regions of Andalucia.
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Archaeologists found six funerary urns in the tomb, containing the remains of three men and three women. In one of the urns with a woman’s remains inside, the researchers found three amber jewels, a perfume bottle containing a patchouli fragrance and fabrics believed to be made from silk. The researchers said that it was understandable that a man’s remains were submerged in wine. Wine was generally prohibited to Roman women because men feared it could lead them to be debauched and unfaithful.
Report on HADAS Lecture November 2024 by Bill Bass
‘Battle of Barnet 1471 – Where is the battlefield? New thoughts, research and surveys’ by Peter Masters, Research Fellow. Cranfield University
Peter started by outlining how the two sides, the Yorkist under Edward IV and Lancastrians under the Earl of Warwick came to Barnet. In March 1471 Edward returned from France via the Humber estuary, the Earl being based in Leicester and then Coventry. The two armies avoided each other on the route south, Edward visited London picking up Henry VI as a prisoner and then headed north to the battlefield, in the meantime Warwick had established his army to the north of Barnet. The armies engaged on the misty morning of 14th April 1471 – Easter Sunday.
The lack of eyewitness accounts and archaeological evidence means there are many theories, versions and ideas on where and how the battle was fought, this not a new problem as other battlefields (particularly medieval) have been difficult to locate. The last large scale survey was carried out by Huddersfield University under Glenn Foard and Sam Wilson which included metal-detecting, fieldwalking and trial-trenches, whilst it did not unfortunately give a secure battlefield, the resulting publication – ‘The Barnet battlefield project 2015-2018’ gives great insight into the landscape, boundaries, enclosures, settlements and so on to the north of Barnet and the part they may have played in the conflict.
In some ways Peter with his late colleague Mike Ingrams have been using the ideas in the above publication to follow on the landscape aspect of this work to develop a new idea of where the conflict took place. This area involves mostly land in and to the north of Old Fold Manor Golf Course, possibly Kicks End enclosure (Kitts End) and farmland to the west of this. Peter has access to the archive (assisted by Liz Bown) of local historian Brian Warren who has done extensive fieldwalking here.
Because of the lie of the land here – a wider open space and flatter ‘plain’ like area and other factors, Peter postulates that Warwick’s army approached from the north and lined-up in an east-west array on the plain. If this was the case the Yorkist’s would have approached from Barnet heading north, a major obstacle then encountered would have been the moat of Old Ford Manor (the present golf course club house) in this scenario Edward’s army may have lined-up ‘line astern’ – the three or so arrays following each other – an unusual tactic to enable the formation to get around the moat and then reform, line abreast once past it.
So, did the battle take place here? To this end Peter is organising a community-based project to survey and map the location taking note of landscape features such as boundaries, trees, ponds, roads and enclosures. Initial fieldwalking on the golf course has noted some of the above features and what may be the remains of ‘ridge and furrow’ a medieval farming practice which created a distinctive series of ridges across the field systems (1). These ridges if pronounced enough could have had a bearing on how the battle was fought.
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Another aspect of the project is looking through various records such as the National Archives at Kew, Hertford Archives and so on. Here ‘map-regression’ can be carried-out looking at landscape features and enclosures to see how far they date back, and could they be identified by the present day fieldwalking? In Kew there is a collection of documentation issued by Edward IV including ‘Warrants’ for the arrest of people who he thought were involved in opposition to his cause, many of these documents have his seal impressed on them. A problem here is that many of the papers are in ‘old-English’ or Latin and will need somebody who can read them.
In a further proposal Peter wondered if Monken Hadley Church could have been the site of the ‘Chantry Chapel’ built to offer prayers to the dead of the battle. The present church has a date of 1494, 23 years after the battle but the site is known to have an earlier history could this have included the battle chapel?
Peter revealed that a further £21,000 had been secured from the ‘Hadley Trust’ to fund more surveying work including metal-detecting surveys in the Hadley Green, Hadley Common and other areas. The Battlefield Trust who have proposed several versions of the battle are also involved in this. The funding could include more community involvement and inclusion of local societies including HADAS.
(1). If this is ‘ridge and furrow’ then it appears not to have been recorded on any of the heritage records such HERS (Historic Environmental Records) but more work needs to be done on this – Bill.
Sources:
‘The Barnet battlefield project 2015-2018’ Glenn Foard, Tracy Partida and Sam Wilson.
‘The Battle of Barnet, In fact and fiction’ by Hilary Harrison, Scott Harrison and Mike Noronha.
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Photos by Peter Masters
OTHER SOCIETIES’ EVENTS
Not all societies’ or organisations have returned to pre-covid conditions. Please check with them before planning to attend.
Wednesday 8th January, 2.30 pm. Mill Hill Historical Society. Trinity Church, 100, the Broadway, London, NW7 3TB. London Zoo – It’s History and stories. Talk by Simon Brown. Please visit www.millhill-hs.org.uk.
Monday 13th January, 3 pm. Barnet Museum and Local History Society. St. John the Baptist Church, Chipping Barnet, Corner High Street/Wood Street, Barnet, EN5 4BW. The HADAS’ Barnet Hopscotch Excavation. Talk by Bill Bass (HADAS). Visit www.barnetmuseum.com.
Tuesday 14th January, 6.30 pm. L.A.M.A.S. Also on Zoom. Book on Eventbrite via website www.lamas.org.uk/lectures/html. Non-members £2.50. The Fishful Thames: Fish and Fishing on the River Thames. Talk by Natalie Cohen (N.T.). who will discuss the archaeological evidence for fishing practice along the Thames through time and briefly examine the Iconography and presentation of fish and fishing focussing on the medieval period.
Thursday 16th January, 8 pm. Historical Association: Hampstead and N.W. London Branch. Fellowship House, 136A, Willifield Way, London NW11 6YD (off Finchley Road, Temple Fortune). The Decline and Fall of Britain’s Indian Empire. Talk by Dr. Sean Lang. Also on Zoom. Please email Dudley Miles (HADAS) on dudleyramiles@googlemail.com or telephone 07469 754075 for details of link and how to pay (There may be a voluntary charge of £5). Refreshments available afterwards.
Friday 17th January, 7 pm. C.O.L.A.S. Talk on Zoom. Charles Roach Smith (1806-90) and the First Museum of London by Dr. Michael Rhodes on the museum C Smith created
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behind his pharmacy in the City of London in 1834. Please book via Eventbrite. Visit www.colas.org.uk. HADAS may send out link to its members.
Friday 17th January, 7.30 pm. Wembley History Society. St. Andrew’s Church Hall (Behind St. Andrew’s New Church) Church Lane, Kingsbury, London, NW9 8RZ. Corps, Congresses and Carols. The History of the Salvation Army in Wembley. Talk by Ruth Mac-Donald (Archivist) who will reveal the story through the years. Visitors £3. Refreshments to be available in the interval.
Monday 20th January, 7.30 pm. Enfield Society, Jubilee Hall, 2, Parsonage Lane. Junction Chase side, Enfield, EN2 0AJ. Enfield Fire Brigade. Talk by Chris Whippe on its history and some of the memorabilia collected over many years. Please visit www.enfieldsociety.org.uk
Thursday 30th January, 7.30 pm. Finchley Society. Drawing Room, Avenue (Stephens’) House, 17, East End Road, London. N3 3QE. Driving Aid to Ukraine. Talk by Michael Byrne who will explain how this charity helps to deliver assistance within the conflict zones. It has an established collection system across North London and South Herts for medical supplies, electrical and educational equipment and general humanitarian aid. Please visit www.finchleysociety.org.uk. Non-members £2 at the door. Refreshments available in the interval.
Acknowledgements
With thanks to this month’s contributors: Bill Bass, Stewart Wild, Andy Simpson, Jacqui Pearce and Eric Morgan.
Hendon and District Archaeological Society
Chair Sandra Claggett, c/o Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE
email : chairman@hadas.org.uk
Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer 34 Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121), email: secretary@hadas.org.uk
Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman, 50 Summerlee Ave, London N2 9QP (07855 304488),
email: treasurer@hadas.org.uk
Membership Sec. Jim Nelhams, 61 Potters Road, Barnet EN5 5HS (020 8449 7076)
email: membership@hadas.org.uk
Website: www.hadas.org.uk
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