Newsletter

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HAPPY CHRISTMAS HADAS

Christmas is nearly here, so this Newsletter opens with greetings to all members for the Christmas season and best wishes for 1980.

This is the first year that the Newsletter is able to provide something like a Christmas card. It isn’t exactly a card, but our illustration at the back serves the same purpose: it is a token of our good wishes. It is a new drawing, by HADAS artist Mary Allaway, of the parish church of Hendon St Mary’s.

(EDITORIAL – to see this picture, select the following link)

This could almost be called the Society’s “mother” church. Our founder, the late Mr. Constantinides, when he brought HADAS into being in April, 1961, did so because he hoped to prove archaeologically that both St Mary’s and the community which it had served for centuries were of Saxon origin.

St Mary’s was therefore closely linked with our Society right from the start. Mr. Constantinides did not, alas, live to see his hunch proved right, as it was in the excavation which took place just south of St Mary’s from 1973 onwards. That dig, directed by Ted Sammes, produced the first solid evidence, in the form of ditches containing grass-tempered pottery, for Saxon Hendon. It was the churchyard of St Mary’s, too, that saw the start of another activity in which HADAS has specialised – the recording of tombstone inscriptions.
DIGGING PLANS

PADDY MUSGROVE writes: Our dig at Church Crescent, Finchley, having continued for six weekends, has ended for the time being at least. We hope to investigate further in the New Year when days are longer and dryer. Medieval pottery and two struck flakes nave been found, but the chief feature of interest has been the gently sloping edge of a large pit, the purpose of which has not yet been established.

Meantime DAPHNE LORIMER reports that digging will continue later than usual at West Heath because we appear to be in the early stages of uncovering another hearth; and if this materialises, we would rather deal with it quickly and not have to cover and leave it.

It is therefore proposed to continue digging on Wednesdays until further notice, although there will be no more weekend digging till after Christmas. Such is the chanciness of the weather however, that intending diggers should check with Mrs. Lorimer before making the journey to Hampstead even on Wednesdays.
HADAS PROGRAMME

The next HADAS “meeting” (perhaps “encounter” would describe it better) will, of course, be the Roman banquet on Dec. 8, of which members have all details.

Our opening meeting of 1980 will not be on the usual first Tuesday of the month, because in January the first Tuesday falls on Jan. 1, a bank holiday.
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We meet therefore instead on Tuesday, Jan. 8, at Hendon Library, The Burroughs, NW4, to hear Sinclair Hood speak on the Art of Bronze Age (Minoan) Crete. Coffee 8 pm, lecture 8.30.
BOOKBOX CORNER

We have a plaintive plea from our Hon. Librarian, George Ingram, about some of the Society’s books which have been on loan for rather a long time. Would the members who have borrowed the following please phone George and let him know that the books are safe:

Prehistoric and Roman Enfield; The Age of the Vikings; London before the Conquest.

Another problem is worrying our Librarian. The Society should possess a run of Transactions of the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society from 1970 onwards; but the volumes for 1974 (No 25) and 1977 (No 28) are missing, and there is no record of who has them. Is any member aware of having borrowed these or does any member have a copy of either volume which he would be prepared to put on permanent loan to the Bookbox, to make our set complete?

An earlier copy of Transactions – New Series vol VI pt IV (1931) has been presented to the Box by Paul Craddock. This volume contains some material of particular interest to HADAS. Norman Brett-James’s paper on Some Extents and Surveys of Hendon; a report on an exhibition on the History of Hendon; and “St Mary’s Church, Finchley,” by Ernest H Rann.

Other recent additions to the Bookbox include:
Archaeology General The Archaeologists’ Year Book 1977, Dolphin General Press, Poole
Archaeology and Society, Grahame Clark, Methuen 1939 (Presented by Jeremy Clynes)
Archaeology, GB 204 The Lake Villages of Somerset, Arthur Bulleid (not Roman) (Presented by Miss Rhona Wells)
Archaeology, European/Foreign F41 The Bronze Age in Barbarian Europe, Jacques Briard
Local History 239 Story of Hampstead Illustrated (Priory Press, 1909) (Presented. by Mrs Worby)
240 Flying at Hendon – A Pictorial Record. Clive Smith (Presented by Dorothy Newbury)
261 Mill Hill School Buildings, 1968 (Presented by Daphne Lorimer)
Misc 213 Pollen Analysis – illustrated guide, P D Moore & J A Webb (Presented by Philip Venning)
214 The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, trans. from Greek by Meric Casaubon. Dent 1908
Periodicals World Archaeology, vol 10 No 1 June 1978
vol 11 No 1 June 1979
Collection of 19 issues of London Archaeologist, Winter 1968-Autumn 1978 (incomplete) (Presented by Dr Ann Saunders)
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ARCHAEOLOGY OF ROMAN BRITAIN

Last month we listed the lectures under this main title which are being delivered up to December each Thursday at 7 pm at the Institute of Archaeology. The following are the post-Christmas lectures in the same series:

Jan 17 – The Potteries and Pottery Trade in Roman Britain – M G Fulford

Jan 24 – Death and Burial in Roman Britain – R Jones

Jan 31 – Small Towns and non-Villa Rural Settlements, Lowland Zone – M Todd

Feb 7 – Rural Settlement in the Highland Zone – lecturer to be announced

Feb 14 – Coastal Defences in Britain – J S Johnson

Feb 21 – Britain and the Roman Empire – M Hassall

Feb 28 – The End of Roman Britain – Prof P Rahtz
GREETINGS TO NEW MEMBERS

In this final Newsletter of 1979 we welcome all those who have joined the Society in the second half of this year, and hope they will enjoy the various activities HADAS offers. Our new members are:

Simon Aldridge, Highgate; Linda Barrow, Muswell Hill; Victor Bignell, Barnet; Mrs Braithwaite, Garden Suburb; Maurice Cantor, Edgware; Percy Cohen, Mill Hill; Dennis Crane, North Finchley; Renee Deyong, Hendon; Terry Finn, Fulham; Audrey Fletcher, Southgate; Rachel Gershon; Hendon; Beth Gewell, Harrow; Anne Hayman, Hampstead; Eric Heggie, Cricklewood; Kathleen Herbert, Colindale; Aubrey Hodes, Belsize Park; Rosalind Hunt, Hendon; Carole and Ruth Kent, Hendon; Sarah Lawson, Hampstead; Miss Loney, Eltham; Phillipa Lowe, Garden Suburb; Anne McMullan, Garden Suburb; Liza Maher, Harrow; Mrs Marsh, North Finchley; . R G Micbel, Colindale; , Michael Nixon, Southgate; Joelle Noguera, Hampstead; Renee 0berlander, Golders Green; Eric Paulson. Edgware ; Miss Rawlings, Harrow; Joyce Richards. Hendon; Tessa Sholl; Highgate; Mrs Fay and Mrs D Sputz, Kensington; Mrs Wagland, Colindale; Jean Walton, Hampstead; Mrs. Wibberley, Barnet.
THE MILKMAN’S TALE

A further episode in PERCY REBOUL’S series of tape-recorded interviews.

From 1910-1921 there were a number of small one-man dairy businesses set up mainly in local shops. They employed between three and ten milkmen, assisted by boys; and very often had six or seven “battery” cows in a shed behind the shop. The competition was intense and the milkman would use the old street cry of ‘milk-o’.

The dairy owner had negotiated with a farm for supplies of milk, and this came up by the milk train to the nearest station – for example, Oakleigh Park, Church End Finchley, New Southgate or Winchmore Hill. The dairy collected the milk in a special horse-drawn low-loader van at 5.30 am. Each milkman had his own round and for his first round of the day he would be issued with enough milk just to do the round. In some oases the milkman would have to harness his horse; others had push floats and would set off on the round accompanied by 2 or 3 boys at 6 am.

The milk was in bulk, of course, which the milkman poured into the customer’s own can and the boy delivered. These cans were important because one of the ‘fiddles’ was to knock up the bottom of the can (and with an easy-going customer the front of the can as well). In some cases the milkman might be able to ‘save’ a quarter pint of milk in this way.
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The milkmen each kept a book but their memory was fantastic: they could remember the daily requirements of, say, a hundred customers.

Delivery was to the tradesman’s entrance and the first round finished about 8 am. The milkman would have breakfast at the dairy and some employers provided cooking facilities. The second round was at 9 am and on this round customers were supplied with butter, eggs and cream and the milkman called at each household himself, finishing about 2 pm.

The third round of the day was in the afternoon, where only part of the round was visited. It was back to the dairy about 4 pm, where we washed up the churns, measures, cans, etc and would ‘book-in’ with the book-keeper. The horse was also unharnessed.

I want to say something about ‘chance’ sales which were an absolutely essential part of the milkman’s existence. Chance sales gave the milkman a chance to sell for cash the milk he had ‘fiddled.’ In the big houses with weekly or monthly accounts there was collusion with the housekeeper, who would order a pound of butter and ask to be charged for two pounds.

Wages and Conditions.

In 1910 a milkman worked 11 or 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, for 25s a week, with another 25s made on fiddles. There were no holidays. My father was a milkman before me and from 1910-1916 when he went into the forces, he had only 3 days holiday. You worked Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and you could not go sick otherwise your book-keeping would be discovered.

You did not retire – you worked till you died, and there was no commission or pay incentives. Our rent was 12s 6d a week and there wore no increases in wages at any time. I started to help my father when I was 5 years of age and worked on the first round before school and, when I was 6, also worked from 12-2 pm during the lunch break and sometimes in the evening. Later on I helped another milkman at the Friern Watch Dairy and with Saturday and Sunday work, was paid 3s 6d a week.

We never saw the people who owned the houses. Everything was done at the tradesman’s entrance via the servants such as the cook or house-keeper. A pound of butter cost 10d for Salt; 1s 2d for fresh; eggs were 10 1/2d a dozen.

In 1920/21 the small dairies were frozen out by the combines such as United Dairies. Two things happened; they stopped using cans and went over to bottles. Chance was finished, and the milkman was back on his basic pay. In 1921 there was a milkman’s strike which lasted 3 days and the violence was terrible. My milk float was tipped up by flying pickets. The milk went down the drain and I had to pay for it. The strike failed and all we got was a ‘choking off’ by the boss.

The combine served the public by giving more hygienic milk in bottles, but it meant death to the milkman. Incidentally, I never heard of a single case of illness through ‘bad’ milk. Many times on a hot summer day the milk would curdle in the churns because of the movement of the cart. I used to strain it through a piece of rag, otherwise I would have to pay for the milk. No one worried about hygiene. The only worry was to get rid of the milk!

NOTE : an interesting term used by the milkman in this interview was, ‘a barn of milk.’ Apparently milk was bought by the dairy from farms in a measure called a ‘barn’ which was a little over a gallon. Can anyone throw any light on this word?’ Was it, for example, just over a gallon to allow for spoilage, or was it a multiple of a smaller measure such as a gill?
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CHURCH FARM HOUSE MUSEUM

Members may like to have warning that the Museum will be closed for a minimum of some 7 weeks in the early part of next year.

The building is to be re-wired, and will certainly be closed from Jan 7-Feb 29 – longer if the work is not completed in that time.
HENDON CEDARS IN SUSSEX

A member of the Barnet & District Local History Society who is studying market gardening in Barnet in the 18th c has asked if any HADAS researcher can throw light on John Clark, a Barnet butcher who also had a nursery garden and who in 1761 sold 1000 cedar seedlings, at a price of £79 6s to the Duke of Richmond for planting at Goodwood House.

The point at which Hendon enters this tale is that the seeds from which the seedlings were raised were obtained by John Clark from cones of the Great Cedar of Hendon Place – the manor house of Hendon, later Tenterden Hall. The seedlings, when sold, were 5 years old, therefore the seeds were probably planted in 1756, at which time Hendon Place was in the occupancy of the Nicoll family. It is possible that anyone who has done work on the Nicolls of Hendon Place may have come across a reference to John Clark or may be able to enlarge on the history of “the Great Cedar” and on its ultimate fate.

Clark owned a house and land off Wood Street, Barnet, and his butcher’s shop was in Wood Street. He may have been related to the Henry Clark (died 1782/3) whose effects, including nursery garden stock, were sold in February 1783, although so far it has not been possible to establish the link between the two (see Trans. LMAS vol 26, 1975, “Mid-Georgian Nurseries of the London Region,” by John H Henry).

If anyone has information on this subject, will they please let our Hon. Secretary know?
TWO THOUSAND YEARS OF CANTERBURY

Report by LIZ SAGUES on the November lecture. The formidable tidiness of Tim Tatton Brown’s rescue trenches in Canterbury much impressed the large audience at the Society’s second winter lecture. But they betrayed far more than a fetish for neatness among the Canterbury Archaeological Trust’s 7-days-a-week diggers. The finds from them, sometimes spectacular and always interesting, have revealed the 2000-year story of the cathedral city, from Belgic oppidum to 20th c shopping centre for continental day-trippers.

The rescue unit, which is directed by Mr Tatton Brown, was set up in 1975, rather later than many similar units and thus less richly provided with Government funds. Instead about three-quarters of its income came from private sources, and a good deal of that from the developers who were currently rebuilding the city to cater for the tourist boom.

The immediate environs of the city concern the Trust as well as Mr Tatton Brown showed in a slide of a rural gravel working with evidence of late bronze age, iron age and Roman occupation.

Within the city the Belgic levels were the earliest and in one of these, in what had been a muddy hollow in the former roadway, had been found the wheel marks of a chariot and the hoof prints of the horse that drew it. It was a chariot, Mr. Tatton Brown argued, rather than a heavy cart, pointing out on his slide the shallowness and narrowness of the tracks. What better evidence could there be to confirm Caesar’s comment about the prevalence of chariots in England?
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The Belgic levels also revealed a substantial number of fine and rare coins, as well as more mundane evidence of the pre-Roman population in the form of the pits from which they extracted clay for pottery, their houses, tracks and roadways.

The first Roman occupation was military, and effectively so – one ditch contained skeletal remains, marked by sword cuts, of men and horses, seeming to date from the Boudiccan rebellion. In the more peaceful times that followed, Canterbury grew into a substantial Roman town. Its theatre and public baths were known and a huge temple court had had been traced, though the temple itself has yet to yield itself to the excavators.

Mr Tatton Brown gave the lie to the theory of Roman “garden cities,” which had arisen because of gaps noticed between the stone buildings. In Roman times those gaps were filled by wooden buildings, whose traces had been too insubstantial for earlier archaeologists to recover.

Important among the Roman finds is a set square, exquisitely made in bronze and in Mr Tatton Brown’s view, certainly the finest known from anywhere in the Roman empire.

After the Romans abandoned the city in the 5th c it fell into the decay from which St Augustine revived it in the late 6th c. The Saxons cut their huts into the Roman levels, adding to the complexity of excavation but leaving behind objects of everyday life and some finer pieces – a decorated object, of 8th c date and unknown use, with ornamentation like that illustrating the Lindisfarne Gospels, and a lOth c “Stanley knife,” its swivelling blade encased in a richly carved case. That will be seen next year in London, in the British Museum’s Viking exhibition.

From around 1050 onwards, a picture of the whole of Canterbury could be reconstructed, with some streets surviving to the present day and still retaining their Anglo-Saxon names. By 1200, aided by documentary sources, the map was as complete as that of any city in North-west Europe, with the positions, of houses known and the landowners’ names recorded. Archaeology had revealed evidence of building practices – including the opportunist one of slipping an oyster shell under a timber to level it – and the perils of medieval life, in the form of a Black Death plague pit.

It had also helped to extend the history of the cathedral itself, through one Saturday morning’s excavation while new electricity cables were being laid in the crypt. That brief opportunity enabled traces of the original crypt of the church built in 1070 by Archbishop Lanfranc to be revealed.

The Trust’s current excavation, at the King’s School, demonstrated the complexity of all work in Canterbury, concluded Mr. Tatton Brown. But it was essential for the city’s past to be recorded before it was totally destroyed.
WHERE LIZZIE SLEPT IN THE AIR RAIDS

The Newsletter has had a detailed description, complete with sketch, of another World War II relic from the Rev. David Viles, who lives in Ravensdale Avenue, North Finchley. He writes:

“We still have a sturdy brick-built air raid shelter fitted to the end of our house. Its walls are 35 cms thick and it has a 14 cms thick concrete roof. It has a small airbrick near the top of one wall. When we arrived in 1966 it still had a metal escape hatch with a weaker brick wall behind it. I am afraid we vandalised this escape hatch some years ago by constructing a narrow 55 cm entrance, using the hatch space as part of the entrance.
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The rest of the brickwork and cement was incredibly difficult to demolish but I eventually managed to knock a doorway through and now use it for storing garden sundries. There is a wooden door at the far end but this was very inconvenient for use as a normal entrance from the garden. It was obviously designed for quick entry from our French windows. There wore enough bricks from the thick wall of the narrow entrance to floor over completely the original floor level of the shelter. The metal catch to hold the escape hatch still remains.

Inside there still hangs from one wall a fold-up wooden bed-frame. Remains of the former webbing are still attached to this. On the side of the bed is a little wooden plaque with a name carved on it – LIZZIE – presumably the name of the lady who slept in it. On the opposite wall was clearly a bed for her husband, as there are still two hooks up in the wall, to one of which a wire is still attached. (Hooks and wire still survive on the other bed frame). Hinges also remain on the wall to indicate the line of the second bed, but no frame remains on this wall.

High in one corner is a little triangular shelf – presumably a ledge for some kind of light. It had an electric light, since there is still a switch, crumbling wiring and the remains of a light holder above Lizzie’s bed. I still possess the crude iron hinges on which the metal escape hatch hung.

The roof has now a layer of lovely green moss on the outside. The whole structure is almost covered on one side with clematis, honeysuckle and rose. I imagine it must have been a miserably cold, damp and depressing place to try to sleep in. Indeed, there is a small drainage channel leading out of the shelter at the bottom of one corner to the adjacent down pipe drain – to let the water out after a heavy rainstorm?”

Mr Viles is not a HADAS member, but had heard we were interested in World War II relics. It is extremely kind of him to record this shelter so carefully and vividly and we thank him very much for a11 the detail he has given us.
OVERHEARD ANY GOOD JOKES LATELY?

The following (absolutely true) conversation was overheard at the souvenir stall outside the wire-fenced and dog-patrolled entrance to the Palaeolithic-paintings cave at Lascaux, in the Dordogne, during the summer just past:

Woman Visitor (brightly, to stallholder): “We’ve come to see the cave paintings.”

Stallholder: 1 am sorry, Madame, but the cave is not open at the moment.”

Visitor (dashed, but looking at watch hopefully): “How long has it been closed?”

Stallholder: “About 16 years…”

Exit visitor, looking slightly dazed.

(Thanks for the above bit of light relief to COLIN AND ANN EVANS, who observed it)
LONDON HISTORIANS MEET

The llth Conference of London’s local historians took place at the Museum of London on Nov 17. Piece de resistance was a talk by Sir John Summerson – introduced by Chairman Max Hebditch as “our leading architectural historian” – who is Curator of the fascinating Sir John Soane’s Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields as well as being author of such standard works as Georgian London and Architecture in Britain, 1530-1830. His subject was “Nash and Regents Park,” but for good measure he gave us Regent Street as well.
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Sir John’s first book, published in the 1930s, had been on Nash; but the release in the Public Record Office of the Crest documents on Nash in 1961 (Sir John paid graceful tribute to the work of Dr. Ann Saunders – a HADAS member – who in 1969 published a book on Regents Park founded on her study of those papers) provided a large amount of new material so that, as he put it, “there are now no questions about Regents Park and Regent Street which cannot, by careful study, be answered.”

Sir John took us through various changes in the plans for Regents Park from the first, in 18l1, which was a high-density development of which the Prime Minister, Spencer Percival, disapproved, to the final arrangement of the terraces and villas (only 8 of them, in the end) and the cutting in half of the southern circus, making what we know today as Park Crescent. The final part of his talk, on Regent Street, showed interesting views of the original curved colonnades of middle Regent St, demolished in the 1840s for various reasons including their use as meeting places for prostitutes and the extreme darkness of the shop windows under them. He ended with a fine modern picture of All Souls, Langham Place, “virtually the only part of the original Regent Street that survives.”

Both before the conference and during the tea break there was a chance to see exhibits staged by local historical and archaeological societies from a11 over London. The large open space behind the Museum bookstall, hitherto kept for this kind of temporary use, was alas considerably diminished, and we hope that it is not a harbinger of a future Museum policy of cutting down on space for these transient displays which so enrich conferences.

The local historians had to make do with about half the usual display area, and considering their cramped quarters they managed pretty well. There was much to see and many publications to buy. HADAS had a display, kindly loaned to us by the LBB Library Services, based on the Hendon Town Trail.

After the interval Mr N H MacMichael – who lectured to HADAS some years ago – described the material which is available to local historians in the Muniments Room of Westminster Abbey. Incidentally, his exposition of the origin of “muniment” was interesting: it derives from part of the Latin verb munire, meaning to fortify: your muniments were your fortifications against the depredations of other landlords, i.e. your documentary title to your land.

The Abbey Archives are the most complete set of records of any ecclesiastical body in this country. Because of the physical position they have always occupied in the building, the documents have been safe for many centuries from damage by either fire or flood. They are kept high up in the Abbey: as Mr. MacMichael put it, “if you come out of the Muniments Room you can look down on the High Altar on one side and Poets Corner on the other.”

The muniments deal with all the manors which, up to the Dissolution, owed allegiance to the Abbot and community of Westminster – mainly in the Home Counties of Middlesex, Surrey, Berkshire, Hertfordshire and Essex, and also a pocket of lands in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire. Among the Middlesex papers are, of course, those of the manor of Hendon.

Estate documents form the biggest part, starting with charters that are “Saxon and Genuine” and proceeding through other charters not quite so genuine – probably 12th c versions of Saxon originals. Papers get steadily more numerous as the years roll on. In the 14th c account rolls of various monastic officials – chamberlain, almoner, refectorer – appear. There are, says Mr MacMichael, “vast untapped sources” in the papers. There is a very full index – it is possible to follow place names through or, if you know the names of families, to follow them. There is also a collection of papers from estates Westminster did not own: probably there by accident. Edmonton and Penge were mentioned.
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In addition to this reservoir of Medieval material, many more modern groups of documents are included – for instance, on the organisation and running of the Abbey; police court records; and a depressingly large number of volumes of Coroners Inquests for old Westminster from 1760-1880. These are arranged chronologically and are an untapped source of social history.

The seating in the Muniments Room is limited to 4 researchers at a time: so you are invited to make an appointment if you wish to study there. The Room is open from Monday-Friday.

Final talk of the afternoon celebrated the 250th anniversary of Putney Bridge. Billed as an essay in industrial archaeology, it in fact included early material on possible places for crossing: the river between Putney and Fulham from prehistoric times onwards, and the speaker emphasised the importance, when studying bridges, of taking into account archaeological as well as documentary sources. Evidence for ferries, from the 13th-18th c, was included: large, flat-bottomed barge like boats on Which in the 17th c, n coach and 6 horses could be accommodated; and there was interesting material on charges made from the 1500s on. In 1599 foot passengers, for instance, paid a toll of 1d.

During the Civil War a bridge of boats was built to take Commonwealth soldiers across, with a fort either end. As well as the short ferry between Putney and Fulham, a long ferry started from Putney for Westminster, and was much used because of the poor condition of the roads.

In 1671 a Bill for building a bridge was introduced into Parliament – unsuccessfully, because of lobbying by the vested interests of watermen and ferry owners; but in 1725 fresh proposals were passed and by 1729 the first Putney Bridge (of wood) spanned the Thames. There were some interesting slides of this old bridge, with a tollhouse either end and a row of triangular protuberances down each side in which foot passengers could stand while vehicles went by.

In 1882 it was decided to build a more modern structure, which was opened by The Prince of Wales; and the wooden bridge was demolished.
SOLUTION TO YOUR CHRISTMAS CARD PROBLEM?

Talking about the Hendon Town Trail – as we were a few Paragraphs ago – we thought we might suggest that this, at its low cost of 10p a copy, would bean excellent memento to sed to any friends who know or used to know Hendon – much better value than a Christmas card.

You can get the Trail from our Hon. Treasurer. Why not ask him for a bulk order, and solve at least part of your Christmas card worries?
THE EMERGENCE OF MAN

The Royal Society, in conjunction with the British Academy, is planning one of its occasional discussion meetings on this topic for March 12/13 next. The caste – if that is not too light-hearted a term to apply to some 30 top-brass of the academic world – is star-studded. The first four papers, for instance, will be delivered by three professors (two from the US, one from South Africa) plus Dr Richard Leakey (to give a practical balance) on “the evidence in the field.”
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On the first afternoon there will be a session on the evidence from teeth and another on locomotion. Dr Mary Leakey is the final speaker.

Next day’s discussion will range over Genetic considerations, the human brain and the emergence of human behaviour patterns, with papers from top scientists from various British and American universities and from the Netherlands and Northern Ireland. Full details will be obtainable from the Executive Secretary, the Royal Society, 6 Carlton House Terrace, SWl, in about 5 weeks time.
A GOLDEN JUBILEE EXHIBITION

..is being staged by Ealing and Hounslow’s Gunnersbury Park Museum from now till the and of January. This Museum, in an early 19th c mansion which once belonged to the Rothchilds, deserve to be better known. It is centred on the history of West London and Middlesex, and has reserve collections which it is happy to show to students.

The Jubilee display shows acquisitions made during each of the last five decades. The Museum is open every day (except Christmas) from 2-4. It is near the main entrance to Gunnersbury Park, at the east end of Popes Lane (nearest station, Acton Town). Admission is free.
RECENT BOOKS AND BOOKLETS

Latest publication from the Council for British Archaeology is Research Report 30 – an assessment of the Alice Holt/Farnham Roman pottery industry, by M A B Lyne & R S Jefferies. The potteries were in production almost throughout the Roman period (from 60 AD-5th a) though their heyday was the 4th c when their grey coarsewares dominated the London market. This account differentiates various groups of kilns according to locality and analyses the contents of some of the huge waster dumps. Ono chapter deals with raw materials and how the industry was organised. Illustrated with maps, diagrams and, of course, lots of pottery types. Essential reading for serious Romanists. £8.50 or £6.35 for subscribers to CBA’s consolidated subscription.

From the Edmonton Hundred Historical Society their latest Occasional Paper No 33, price 35p, People and Parish Registers, by T Lewis. This booklet is the result of years of study of the registers of Tottenham, Edmonton and Enfield, and is intended to interest both local historians of North London and historical demographers. Tables deal with age at first marriage, bridal pregnancy, infant mortality and age at death.

From the Camden History Society the annual treat of the Camden History Review. This, No. 7, is as good as the other six have been and is an excellent buy at £1, with Gillian Tindall writing on Vice and Temptation in late Victorian Camden Town, Gavin Stamp tracing the association of the Gilbert Scotts with Hampstead, the prize-winning essay in the CHS “My Street” competition and other joys.

A “stocking filler” at 70p (inc. postage) is a delicious little booklet called Animals in Early Art -26pp. of black and white photos, of animals from the Ashmolean Museum Collection – horses, lions, ducks, fish, some delicious hedgehogs and an enchanting pig.