Don Cooper

No. 625 April 2023 Edited by Sue Willetts

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming Lectures and Events

We are pleased that we are able to resume lectures face-to-face following Covid, though lectures in winter may be on Zoom. Lectures are held in the Drawing Room, Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE. 7.45 for 8pm. Tea/Coffee/biscuits available for purchase after each talk. (Cash please)

Buses 143, 125, 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.

Tuesday 11th April 2023 Robert Stephenson (Also with CoLAS)
The Thames: its myths and mysteries

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Bill Bass – Hopscotch in High Barnet: a HADAS dig.

Several of us worked on this short but enjoyable ‘backyard’ dig last year, directed by Bill, and the report is being serialised in the newsletter.

Tuesday 13th June 2023 HADAS Annual General Meeting
Followed by a lecture to be arranged.

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HADAS President – news:

At the AGM our long serving President Dr Harvey Sheldon will be formally retiring, and we are delighted that Jacqui Pearce has accepted the invitation to take up this position.

Due to the untimely death of Steve Brunning we are seeking a new membership secretary.
Informal enquiries to Don Cooper are very welcome.

Membership Renewals

It’s that time of the year again! However, HADAS have not increased their subscriptions again this year, therefore the amounts are: Full member £15, Additional member at the same address £5, Corporate member £15, under 18 or student under 25 in full time education £6. The HADAS membership year runs from 1st April to 31st March, and so this is to remind all members who pay by cheque that their renewal subscription will be due on or soon after 31st March 2023.

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With the closure of many banks, it is helpful if payment is made by Bank Transfer using Account Number 00083254, Sort Code 40-52-40 (CAFBANK). Please include your surname and first initial in the reference field.

If you do need to pay by cheque, please post it to Don Cooper, Hadas, c/o Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE.

Members who pay their subscription by standing order need take no action.
Following Steve Brunning’s untimely death in January 2023, there may be queries about membership issues, please address them to Don Cooper:

By email to chairman@hadas.org.uk or olddormouse@hotmail.com
By letter to Don Cooper, 59 Potters Road, Barnet, Herts EN5 5HS
By phone to 020 8440 4350 or 07802763285

We look forward to receiving your continued membership and thank you for supporting HADAS in its objectives.

Highgate Roman Kiln Project Information from Eric Morgan

The most complete Roman pottery kiln found in Greater London will be put on public display for the first time, thanks to a £243,550 grant by The National Lottery Heritage Fund to the charity Friends of Highgate Roman Kiln. In the 1960’s and 70’s archaeologists excavated the kiln from Highgate Wood in Haringey, which is managed by the City of London Corporation as a registered charity.

The pieces of this unique find have been in store beneath Bruce Castle Museum, inaccessible to the public. Made possible by money raised by National Lottery players, a joint project between Friends of Highgate Kiln, the City Corporation and Bruce Castle Museum will return the kiln to Highgate Wood to be displayed in a visitor centre from September 2024. The project is called Firing London’s Imagination: An Inclusive Approach to Highgate’s Roman Pottery Heritage.

The kiln is one of the best-preserved Roman pottery kilns found in the UK and thought to be the last one built by Roman potters who worked in Highgate Wood between 50 CE –160 CE to supply Londinium, the capital of Roman Britain, and southeast England with distinctive Highgate Ware pottery. The Friends of Highgate Roman Kiln was formed in 2018 to work with Bruce Castle Museum and the City Corporation to conserve the kiln, restore it to public view, and allow everyone to learn about an important aspect of London’s Roman Heritage.

My life in Ruins by Robin Densem Sue Willetts

On Tuesday 14th March HADAS members and a few visitors were treated to a well-illustrated talk by Robin on his career in Archaeology from his early days as a volunteer, as a digger and later a manager on archaeological projects taking a degree in Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology in Gordon Square (1973-76) along the way. He gave us an overview of how archaeology had changed from the 1950/1960’s to the present day with the change to mostly developer funded projects. We were entertained and educated with this talk which was not recorded.

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HADAS Excavation at ‘Hopscotch’ 88 High St, Barnet EN5 5SN
(Part 4 the finds – Clay Pipe, Tim Curtis and Andy Simpson.)
Site code OPS22

Only a limited number of stratified clay pipe bowl and stem fragments were recovered from the top two of the five contexts recorded during the excavation, though the area excavated was quite limited.
It is perhaps of note that none of the fragments featured decoration or makers’ marks of any sort, other than rim milling. The date range of the identifiable fragments, using the standard Atkinson and Oswald typology, is quite tightly dated to the Early Stuart/English Civil War/Restoration periods of the Seventeenth Century, with a total date range of some 70 years, 1610-1680.

The pipe fragments are discussed below, in context order.

UNSTRATIFIED

A single 50mm stem fragment plus bowl are recorded as unstratified.

In true archaeological tradition they were spotted on the spoil heap by a team member on the last day of the dig just as backfilling was about to begin. Dated 1610-1640, bowl type AO5, just a quarter of the bowl rim survives, but it does seem to have been fully milled, and is well burnished.

This is of course the earliest datable clay pipe bowl from the site.

CONTEXT 001
This is the modern/’Victorian’ topsoil/dumping context within which the vast majority of finds from the site were recovered – considerable quantities of roofing tile, pottery and both vessel and window glass in particular.

There are no clay pipe bowls and just twelve (12) well broken up and quite short stem fragments with a length of 20-40mm. Three bear signs of burning/heat through original use, and several have a very visible horizontal seam. Two lengths actually conjoin.

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CONTEXT 002
Lying immediately below context 001, this context also featured quantities of CBM and pottery but just two small fragments of vessel glass.

There are 21 lengths of stem, six of them with traces of contemporary burning indicating actual use. Length 15-70mm, with no evidence of decoration or maker’s marks. Of the three bowl types represented, one is just a fragment of bowl side and appears to be type AO12, 1640-1670.
Also present is an almost complete bowl, missing its top rim, with heel plus 80mm of surviving stem attached, type AO13, dated 1660-1680.

Also of the ‘Restoration’ period are two fully milled and well burnished bowls of type AO15, also dated 1660-1680 as is the A013 bowl described above.

The clay pipes from context 002 (photos Bill Bass)

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Return of the Beverley…sort of Andy Simpson

HADAS members of, shall we say, longer standing may well remember the Blackburn Beverley four-engine RAF transport aircraft that formerly stood at RAF Hendon East Camp from 1968, and latterly at the RAF Museum itself until 1990.

The Beverley on the former RAF Hendon East Camp, with the RAF Museum main building in the background; note the ‘Middle East’ camouflage scheme… (Commercial postcard)

Blackburn Beverley C.Mk.1 XH124 was one of 47 production aircraft of its type, and was built at Brough, East Yorkshire by Blackburn and General Aircraft Ltd, making its first flight on 1st April 1957, entering RAF service the following month. Robust and reliable, and with its distinctive rear loading doors, and carrying up to 94 troops or 70 paratroops, and a crew of four, the ‘Bev’ served with five RAF Squadrons; the Beverley saw widespread service in the Middle East, including Aden, Bahrein and Muharraq, and also in the UK, Singapore and Kenya. https://www.baesystems.com/en/heritage/blackburn-beverley

RAF popular belief had it that Beverleys did not need navigators, simply following the line of the four 2,850hp Bristol Centaurus 273 engine oil leaks left by fellow Beverleys as they cruised at around 170 mph across the desert! XH124 left Squadron service in April 1967 as the type was replaced by the turboprop Lockheed Hercules during 1967-68, of which a handful of later models remain in RAF service today, and after a period of storage made a final appearance at the RAF 50th Anniversary Royal Review at RAF Abingdon on 14 June 1968.

On 19 June 1968, with the new RAF Museum Hendon in the early planning stages (prior to opening in November 1972), XH124 became the last RAF fixed-wing aircraft – and at 63 tons one of the largest- to land at RAF Hendon before the runways were torn up to make way for the new 1700-home Grahame Park Council estate.

The aircraft flew in from RAF Abingdon; by the time it came to a halt after using only half the length of the main runway, its brakes were red hot and its unexpected appearance generated calls to the

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emergency services from concerned members of the public ; it had clocked up 4,478 flying hours, and was struck off RAF charge the following day, being given the static maintenance serial 8025M. Six months later, on 22 December 1968, a final fixed wing landing occurred using the extant perimeter tracks – a small Piper Cherokee aircraft flying from Blackbushe airfield which became lost in bad weather, taking off the following day.

The airfield had officially closed to powered flying on 14 November 1957 as it became ever more surrounded by suburbia, although occasional accidental landings by individual American and German air force transport aircraft did still occur in 1964 ,1965, and 1967 and the local Air Training Corps 617 Volunteer Gliding School still used it for gliding until 31 March 1968, as still remembered by some HADAS members.

After some 21 years standing outside in all weathers, the MoD, as owners of the airframe, decided that the Beverley was too corroded for safe further display, and the financially constrained RAF Museum had no money for its restoration, so it was put up for tender for disposal in December 1989. The successful bidders were scrap merchants Turnidges, who surveyed the aircraft in early January 1990 and were due to complete the actual scrapping within 30 days of starting the task. On Friday 26 January 1990, a group of RAF Museum staff (including your author, as a newly minted and very junior curator) paid a final visit inside the aircraft. During this visit the smaller of the two panels shown in the photo below, ahem, ‘fell off’. It covered the escape rope which drooped down from the rear of the tail boom for crew to shin down in event of an emergency.

Scrapping of the aircraft commenced on Tuesday 30 January 1990, and on Valentines’ Day 1990 of all days I purchased the larger of the two panels, originating from the starboard outer engine, from the scrap merchants for £5. Scrapping proceeded using axes, cutting gear and a JCB to wrench off major sections, starting with the outer wings and tail section on 30 January; the engines were simply cut free and allowed to drop to the ground. The last of the Beverley, its cockpit section, left Hendon by road on Thursday 1st March 1990. One of the four-bladed propeller units was retained by the RAFM, but has yet to go on public display, currently being stored at the RAF Museum facility at MoD Stafford.

After some 30 years in my airing cupboard (!) it was time to hand over my two panels from XH124 to long term care, and I contacted the South Yorkshire Air Museum at Doncaster – South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum | Doncaster – they are located not far from where she was built and include other Blackburn built aircraft in their collection, including a small section of cockpit from fellow Beverley XL149. They were delighted to accept and despatched their volunteer Chris to meet me at Hendon for the handover in the wind and sleet at a point close to where XH124 latterly stood.

One other Beverley cockpit/flight deck (from XB261) is preserved, and the last fairly complete Beverley airframe, XB259, currently hangs on by a rather decayed thread on Humberside.

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South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum volunteer Chris takes delivery of the two Beverley panels at the RAF Museum Hendon (now known as RAFM London), Friday 10 March 2023.

References
Oliver, D Hendon Aerodrome – A History Airlife 1994
Renwick, A RAF Hendon The Birthplace of Aerial Power Crecy 2012
Thetford. O Aircraft of the Royal Air Force since 1918 Putnam 1995

What the Romans did for my grandson Janet Mortimer

As memories of the Pandemic lockdowns fade, and in the certainty that Sue Gray will not be reading this, I can admit to making the not quite essential trip to visit my son and daughter-in law at their home in Lancashire in June 2020 as I hadn’t seen them in many months and the grandchildren were growing up fast.

Whilst there we decided to have a day out to Chester. In the car on the way there I explained to my then 3 year-old grandson, Frankie, who the Romans were, how they had come over to conquer us, and how they had built things that we would still be able to see.

He seemed very excited about this and, when we got to the car park, there was a large map with a picture of a Roman soldier on it. I pointed it out to him and said “Look there is a Roman” only to see the disappointment etched on his little face. He didn’t want to look at pictures of Romans. He had expected to see legions of them marching around the streets. I tried to explain that they were there two thousand years ago, but trying to explain the concept of time to a 3 year-old for whom the week before their birthday seems like a thousand years was not an easy one!

Sadly the Museum was shut, but we visited some of the Roman sites like the gardens and the amphitheatre and Frankie did seem fascinated by them. We stood in the centre of the amphitheatre and he liked my tales of how the gladiators would bravely fight lions. I am not really sure whether there

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were any lions in Chester (except perhaps at the Zoo) but grandmothers are allowed a bit of poetic license.

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Despite the lockdown there were lots of people in the town that day. Although nearly everything was closed, we managed to find a sandwich shop that was open and headed for the park, also needing a toilet break. There were public toilets there, but they had a notice saying they were closed due to Covid restrictions. It was amusing to see other people heading for them, watch the anguish on their faces when they realised they were closed, then watch them furtively head for the nearest clump of bushes. I am not sure which was more dangerous – the risk of catching Covid or getting cholera. It was a good day out and I am sure we will go back again when more things are open to the public, especially the toilets!

Ancient stone arrowhead comes to light in Coldfall Wood in Muswell Hill Ann Bronkhorst.

(Reproduced with permission from The Archer (www.the-archer.co.uk) January 2023)

“One day last year I was watching a bird. I looked up, then down, and there it was at my feet.” Philip Hogg, a Haringey resident and a regular dogwalker, had almost trodden on an early Neolithic arrowhead in Coldfall Wood. Luckily he was not barefoot.

The photo shows a leaf-shaped, nicely napped object, still capable of giving a cut or two. It is thought to date from 4,500 to 1,500 BC and is one of many small archaeological finds such as weapon parts, pottery shards and coins discovered in London over the years. This, however, is much earlier than most such finds. In the 1940s a Neolithic axe head was found in Windermere Road, Muswell Hill, but little else has emerged in Haringey. As Adam Single of Historic England says, “Our understanding of the early human occupation of the area is not great.” Adam is one of several experts consulted about this arrowhead. He clarified its ownership: like most similar finds it belongs to the landowner, in this case Haringey, and not the finder. Digital information about it will become available to anyone, however, on the Portable Antiquities Scheme site at finds.org.uk. Another helpful source of expertise in this case was the Finds Liaison Officer at the Museum of London, Stuart Wyatt.

Where should the actual arrowhead find a home? Philip should hear more this month from the experts who are examining it. The consensus is Bruce Castle Museum in Haringey, where the curator, Deborah Hedgecock, hopes to welcome it to the museum’s fascinating and varied collection. The Archer

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(appropriately) will tell readers when and where to view it. Meanwhile, back in the wood, the arrowhead’s exact resting place for the last 4,000 or so years must remain unidentified.

Local news: Hendon Hub – The Burroughs – Middlesex University plans – update.

Campaigners are calling for a major development planned for Hendon to be scaled down, warning it poses “great risks” to a “historic neighbourhood”. Residents’ group Save Hendon has urged Middlesex University to reduce the size of the Hendon Hub – a Barnet Council-led scheme that is set to see hundreds of student flats built on sites in The Burroughs and Church End. More details in this link from the Barnet Post.

Professor Brad Blitz, an administrator of the Hendon Residents Planning Forum, which represents 2,500 residents, has written to the university to urge it to scale down the scheme. He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service residents who saw the latest plans were “shocked” to find their scale was apparently unchanged, with the only proposed alterations to be made to internal space. Professor Blitz said if the council could make changes to the library, he believed it could make further amendments. Cllr Houston has indicated that the project will be going ahead, and that further substantive changes to the scheme are unlikely. He pledged to meet with Save Hendon campaigners “in a couple of weeks’ time” to speak to them again about their concerns.

New exhibitions

Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Islanders: The Making of the Mediterranean. 24th Feb – 4th June 2023. Many of the more than 200 objects from three of the largest Mediterranean islands, Cyprus, Crete and Sardinia will be seen in the UK for the first time. This exhibition helps us understand the ways these island cultures reflected, and even shaped the larger Mediterranean world with its migrations and movement of peoples.

Oxford. Ashmolean Museum. Knossos: Myth and reality. From 10 Feb – 30 Jul 2023. According to legend, an elaborate labyrinth was built at Knossos on the island of Crete to hold a ferocious Minotaur. The palace of Knossos, discovered and excavated over 100 years ago, was the centre of a Bronze Age civilisation of people we now call the Minoans, named after the legendary King Minos. This is the first UK exhibition to focus on Knossos. It will include over 100 objects which have never left Crete and Greece before, alongside discoveries from the Ashmolean’s Sir Arthur Evans Archive and an exclusive experience of Knossos Palace from the acclaimed video game Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. His archive at the Ashmolean has been central to our understanding of the site of Knossos, and many of his excavation plans, artworks and records will be on display alongside objects from the site.

Mea Culpa Corner Andy Simpson

In my review of the newly published book on the Life and Times of Dr Henry Hicks of Hendon in the previous newsletter, I managed to miss out the most important detail of all – the authors’ name! The very understanding author who responded to my apology sent with a copy of said newsletter is Dyfed Elis Gruffydd, who kindly says of HADAS ‘It’s good to see such an active organisation’.

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Other Societies’ Events Eric Morgan

Not all Societies or Organisations have yet returned to pre-covid conditions. Please check with them before planning to attend.

Friday 21st April, 7.30 pm. Failed to Return; Amy Johnson and Leslie Howard. Talk by Tony Eaton. On their disappearance on board aircraft. Wembley History Society. St. Andrew’s Church Hall (behind St. Andrew’s New Church), Church Lane, Kingsbury, NW9. Visitors £3. Refreshments available.

Tuesday 25th April, 7.45 pm. Saving for old buildings. Talk on zoom. An introduction to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings by Douglas Kent (Technical and Research Director, SPAB)
St. Alban’s Architectural and Archaeological Society. Talk will explain the society’s approach to caring for old buildings and present an outline the activities it undertakes today plus an account of the award-winning SPAB work the speaker has carried out on his own Grade 1 listed Medieval house in Saffron Walden in Essex. www.stalbanshistory.org for details. Non-members may be charged £5.00

Thursday 4th May, 6pm. Lecture, Gresham College, Barnard’s Inn Hall, The History of Bart’s Hospital; Bart’s at 900. Talk by Charles Knight. Ticket required. Register www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/barts-900 and view on-line. St. Bartholomew’s is the oldest hospital in London still operating on its original site. Telling its history from 1123 to today, via its people, buildings and the events that defined this iconic medical institution.

Tuesday 9th May, 6.30 pm. LAMAS. Joint event with Prehistoric Society. Talk on zoom. by Andy Dakin (MOLA). Excavations of a Roman Cemetery, Hoard and Prehistoric and Post-Medieval remains of Principal Place, London. Incl. inhumations, cremations and a large hoard of Roman Coins, and discussion of extensive remains of the C17-18th buildings and yards and the remains of the early C19th Curtain Road Gasworks. Please book via www.lamas.org.uk/lectures.html.

Wednesday 10th May, 8pm. The Brunel family-father, son and grandson Talk on zoom by Bill McNaught. Hornsey Historical Society. Please email hornseyhistoricalchairman@gmail.com for link. Visit www.hornseyhistorical.org,uk. NB The speaker for the Wed. 12th April talk mentioned in the March newsletter is Suzanne Bardgett.

Monday 15th May, 8pm. Monarchs, Courtiers, Technocrats and Kitchen Boys of Elsyng Palace. Talk by Dr. Martin Dearne E.A.S.) Enfield Society. Jubilee Hall, 2, Parsonage Lane / jnc. Chase Side, Enfield, EN2 OAJ. Non-members £1.

Wednesday 17th May, 7.30 pm. Grunwick Strike, 1976-78. Talk by Christine Coates. Willesden Local History Society. St. Mary’s Church Hall, bottom of Neasden Lane, NW10 (Round corner from Magistrates’ Court). May also be on zoom. If not a member buy a ticket (£3) For details. please visit www.willesden-local-history.co.uk.

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Thursday 18th May, 7pm. The Archaeology of Wren given by John Schofield. London Archaeologist. UCL, Institute of Archaeology. 31-34, Gordon Square, WC1H OPY. AGM followed by Annual Lecture. May also be on zoom. On the 300th anniversary of the death of Sir Christopher Wren and reviewing the archaeology of St. Paul’s and the parish churches in the City. Please book on www.londonarchaeologist.org.uk.

Thursday 18th May, 7.30 pm. Pickford’s Stables. Talk by Peter Darley (Camden Railway Heritage Trust Camden History Society) Primrose Hill Community Library, 14, Sharpleshall Street, NW1 8YN. Non-members £2 at the door. Please visit www.camdenhistory.org for details.

Wednesday 24th May, 7.45 pm. Westminster at War: How the Luftwaffe destroyed The House of Commons. Talk by Barry Hall. Friern Barnet and District Local History Society, North Middx. Golf Club. The Manor House, Friern Barnet Lane, N20 0NL. Preceded by AGM. Please visit www.friernbarnethistory.org.uk click on programme or phone 020 8368 8314 for up-to-date details. (David Berguer, Chair) Non-members £2. Bar available.

Thursday 25th May, 6.30pm. A Tour of Avenue House and Gardens. Finchley Society. Avenue (Stephens’) House, 17, East End Road, N3 3QE. Please note earlier time, For further details. please visit www.finchleysociety.org.uk Non members £2.

Saturday 27th May. Alexandra Palace. Alexandra Palace Way, N22. The Big Birthday Party at Ally Pally, Alexandra Palace celebrates its 150th Anniversary this year. This Special Event’s theme is “Living Archives” with focus on connections between Heritage and Current Activities. Hornsey Historical Society should be represented here.

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With many thanks to this month’s other contributors: Bill Bass, Eric Morgan, Janet Mortimer, Andy Simpson
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Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Don Cooper, 59, Potters Road, Barnet EN5 5HS (020 8440 4350)
e-mail: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer, 34, Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121) e-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman, 50, Summerlee Ave, London N2 9QP
(07855 304488) e-mail: treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Secretary Vacancy

While we have no Membership Secretary

for the present, please address any correspondence such as change of member addresses or other miscellaneous correspondence to:

HADAS, c/o Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley, London N3 3QE

Website at: www.hadas.org.uk – join the HADAS email discussion group via the website.

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No. 624 March 2023 Edited by Deirdre Barrie

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming Lectures and Events

We are pleased that we are able to resume lectures face-to-face following Covid, though lectures in winter may be on Zoom. Lectures are held in the Drawing Room, Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE. 7.45 for 8pm. Tea/Coffee/biscuits available for purchase after each talk.

Buses 82, 143, 125, 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.

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Tuesday 14th March 2023 Robin Densem (HADAS) A Career in Ruins –
Robin’s career in Archaeology.

Tuesday 11th April 2023 Robert Stephenson (Also with CoLAS) – The Thames:
Its Myths and Mysteries

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Bill Bass – Hopscotch in High Barnet: a HADAS dig

Several of us worked on this short but enjoyable ‘backyard’ dig last year, directed by Bill, and the report is being serialised in the newsletter.

Tuesday 13th June 2023 HADAS Annual General Meeting
Followed by a lecture

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Membership Renewals

It’s that time of the year again! However, HADAS have not increased their subscriptions again this year, therefore the amounts are: Full member £15, Additional member at the same address £5, Corporate member £15, under 18 or student under 25 in full time education £6.

The HADAS membership year runs from 1st April to 31st March, and so this is to remind all members who pay by cheque that their renewal subscription will be due on or soon after 31st March 2023.

With the closure of many banks, it is helpful if payment is made by Bank Transfer using Account Number 00083254, Sort Code 40-52-40 (CAFBANK). Please include your surname and first initial in the reference field.

If you do need to pay by cheque, please post it to Don Cooper, Hadas, c/o Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE.

Members who pay their subscription by standing order need take no action.

Following Steve Brunning’s untimely death in January 2023, there may be queries about membership issues, please address them to Don Cooper:

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By email to chairman@hadas.org.uk or olddormouse@hotmail.com
By letter to Don Cooper, 59 Potters Road, Barnet, Herts EN5 5HS
By phone to 020 84404350 or 07802763285

We look forward to receiving your continued membership and thank you for supporting HADAS in its objectives.

Obituary – Edward Harris

We have received a letter from Mrs Valerie Harris informing us that her husband Edward Harris has died. Mr & Mrs Harris have been members since 2009.

Mrs Harris says in her letter “we have had a lot of pleasure from attending meetings and thank everyone for their welcoming kindness”

On behalf of the committee and members of HADAS we express our condolences to Valerie and members of their family.

The Dorothy Newbury Memorial Lecture Jim Nelhams

Although a relatively recent introduction to the Hadas calendar, this is intended as a special event in our year. Most appropriate therefore that it should be the first face-to-face lecture since lockdown. Those attending clearly appreciated being able to meet up not just for the lecture but also the tea and coffee that followed. What a splendid lecture it was!!!

The speaker was Signe Hoffos, a member of the Colas committee (as is our April speaker) who spoke on “Bombed Churches of the City”.

Bombing first happened in the 1914-1918 war, starting with airship raids on Great Yarmouth in January 1915, followed by Stoke Newington in May. The first London air raid by bombers was in June 1917. The development of airships largely stopped following the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 but aircraft development continued into WW2 (during which unmanned machines, the V1 and V2, appeared) and beyond.

In parallel ran the development of bombs. The first ones were small and dropped by hand. These could be incendiary or explosive. As bombers improved, they could carry heavier loads, dropped mechanically. In the City, much of the damage came from incendiaries, which also caused fires identifying target areas for following bombers.

The first WW2 raid on London was on 24th August 1940, with the Blitz running from 7th September to 21st May 1941 during which time, there were 71 raids on London. Signe gave a detailed timeline of the raids which occurred on 29th December 1940 which caused much damage with comparatively little loss of life. As with the 1666 Great Fire of London, this was in the holiday season, but also the Thames was at low tide and the Fire Services were unable to draw much water from the River.

There are now 40 functional churches within the City, many of which were damaged by fire and needed restoration. Signe listed the details. In 1666, there had been around 110, and the remains of some of these were demolished after WW2, being surplice to requirements and in some cases beyond repair.

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HADAS Excavation at ‘Hopscotch’ 88 High St, Barnet EN5 5SN
(Part 3 the finds – glass, Tim Curtis, Janet Mortimer and Andy Simpson.)
Site code OPS22

Glass Report
A variety of utilitarian glass food and both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink containers were found, mostly in fragmentary form, with some drinking vessel pieces and some window glass and a number of

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unidentifiable fragments, but seemingly not much in the way of ‘decorative’ domestic glassware. Most appears to be of twentieth century date, with a small number of earlier fragments.

Context 001
There were five complete vessels from this context – four bottles and one jar.
One Pint milk bottle, probable 1930s date, of clear glass with relief moulded ‘A1’ Dairies, base moulded ‘A1’ and UGB (United Glass Bottle) machine mark of 1913-1968. Has a distinctive wide neck for a card stopper. This former company had local links, being based at 1411 High Road, Whetstone by 1920 until at least the late 1960s. (There is also the broken base of a half-pint A1 Dairies bottle).

Half Pint brown glass beer bottle, post-1892 crown cork bottle cap rim, with no identification marks. Machine-moulded seams running across the rim (pictured below).

Small brown glass cylindrical bottle with external screw threaded rim. No identification marks, UGB makers’ mark (post 1913) and machine-made mould mark running across the rim.

Small clear glass cylindrical bottle with external screw threaded rim. No identification marks. Machine mould running across the rim.

Squat clear glass ramekin canning style food jar, machine made, with no identification marks.
Other Bottles

A variety of bottle shapes were recovered, mostly in clear glass but with some green and brown bottle glass also.

They include one post-1872 Codd-neck bottle rim lip, familiar to older readers as ‘marble bottles’ comparable to a complete example owned by co-author Tim Curtis, plus a fragment of base and side,

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possibly also from a Codd bottle, marked ‘’’ATE & CO… ARM moulded into bottle side and ‘12’ on base bottom (pictured below).

Green bottle glass frags include a well broken up but part reconstructed ‘rich green’ soft drink bottle, probably lemonade, marked ‘BANKS OF DEPTFORD’ with ‘1/4D DEPOSIT CHARGE ON THIS BOTTLE’ in relief moulded lettering (pictured below x2).

George Banks of Church Street, Deptford in South-East London also produced ginger beer sold in stoneware bottles by the 1890s.

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There are further fragments of body and base of a similar bottle of ‘R. WHITE’ also with ‘1/4D DEPOSIT CHARGED referring to the one farthing charge on each bottle. This Camberwell, South London-based company, R.White & Sons Ltd, started to charge the farthing deposit from the 1890s to encourage the return and reuse of its bottles.

There are other green glass fragments which may be parts of those above, but we cannot be certain.
They include three quite substantial and weighty internal screw thread top/neck fragments, bagged separately by slight differences in the shade of green of the glass, plus a further fragment of 1/4D deposit from a likely further bottle. There is also a miscellaneous green base fragment with part sides and an interesting internal dome, being notably thick walled with an unstable base. Additionally, there are five fragments, four cojoining, of a thin-walled cylindrical bottle with external screw thread rim.

Brown bottle glass fragment: there is one fragment of bottle neck with external screw thread and two seemingly associated fragments of ferrous threaded bottle cap.

Clear bottle glass: there is a selection of bases from six other anonymous cylindrical bottles, one with an interesting ‘TVT’ base mark and another with the familiar ‘UGB’, and one-part base with registered number on base ‘792625’
.
One particularly nice item is a glass stopper, possibly for a sauce bottle, such as Lee & Perrins Worcester Sauce or HP Sauce.

There is a single fragment of the ribbed side with ‘S’ of the maker’s name of a distinctive Chichester-based Shippam’s Paste jar, introduced by that company from 1906 with airtight metal caps. An interesting (and appropriate, given the shop at the front of the site) group is the ‘BOTT SQ 1’ square glass bottle or jar fragments, including eight body and rim fragments from one large square vessel with rounded corners, possibly an old-style sweet display jar, and two large co-joining body fragments also with rounded corners, possibly part of the vessel first described.

Nearby leisure drinking is indicated by the bases of two substantial vessels with notably deep and heavy weighted bases, identified as tumblers.

A variety of fragments of further GLASS JARS were found, consisting of one base and eight rims, including two heavy externally threaded rim fragments and two collared rims.

A number of fragments were too small too definitively identify as to vessel type;

There are three fragments of green bottle glass with surface patina, two of them base fragments with a notably pronounced kick up, possibly of nineteenth century date. Also two heavy dark green fragments, one a shoulder fragment of a large bottle embossed with the word ‘PROPERTY’ the other ‘-KO-‘ plus seven miscellaneous fragments of green and brown glass, probably bottle glass.

There are also 34 miscellaneous clear glass body sherds from bottles and a wine glass.

Several varieties of window glass were found, 37 fragments in all, of four different thicknesses between 1-7mm, including clear glass, 15 frosted/obscured glass fragments, some with a distinctive ‘star’ design and others with a triangular raised facet design, and four pieces which joined, identified as possibly being from a table-top.

Context 002
Yielded just two small body sherds of green glass, probably 19th century in date. One was from a cylindrical bottle, possibly wine, probably mould blown with bubbles and an irregular surface. The other

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had an irregularly shaped profile and was possibly part of a mineral water bottle, of patent shape, possibly Codd patent of 1872.

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had an irregularly shaped profile and was possibly part of a mineral water bottle, of patent shape, possibly Codd patent of 1872.

Hopscotch in one of its previous incarnations as ‘Loraine’ in the 1950s or 60s – this shows the nearby ‘King’s Head’ McMullens pub and other establishments which could have generated the dumping of glass and other materials in the back yards. The tree (now gone) at the back of ‘Loraine’ was the site of our dig and caused a few problems with soil disturbance.

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Flooding in the basement Don Cooper

Following torrential rain and falling leaves on the weekend of 5th November, the HADAS Sunday Morning group arrived to find water flowing down the wall nearest the window in the basement creating a small lake on the floor. The storage unit in that corner contained some of our new books store. Note the amount of water in the storage box in the photo below.

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Fortunately, although the cardboard boxes in which the books were stored, were destroyed, only about 38 books were damaged.

Once we had mopped up and removed the racking it was clear that there was black mould on the wall. It must have happened before!

The cause appears to be heavy rain on the flat roof, a blocked hopper (probably incorrectly sited anyway) and autumn leaves. When informed Avenue House said a builder was coming.

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As a result, we are replacing the cardboard boxes with secure plastic ones, relocating the books and in the meantime, we are clearing the drains and downpipe hoppers. We are writing to Avenue House for them to take action on the mould and redecorating the space.

Thanks to all who helped to clear up and supplied the photos.

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BOOK AND MAGAZINE REVIEWS Andy Simpson

Dr Henry Hicks (1837-99) The Life and Times of Dr Henry Hicks of St David’s, and the Bubble that refused to Burst.

Published by Y Lolfa Cyf 2023 Softback, portrait format. 105x212mm, 24 colour and monochrome images. ISBN 978-1-80099-331-0.

Available from the publisher – www.ylolfa.com

HADAS occasionally get sent newly-published books; some are of direct relevance to local history; some, like this slim but readable 42-page volume received in January 2023, contain unexpected gems relevant to our local history.

Welsh born and speaking, the energetic Dr Henry Hicks MD, MRCS, FRS was a GP, chemist, amateur archaeologist and renowned and widely respected amateur geologist, who was at one time President of the Geological Society of London. Though dying in Hendon relatively young aged 62 years on 18 November 1899, he left a legacy in UK geological research and many publications. He lived and practised in Hendon for nearly three decades from early 1871, and is buried in Hendon St Mary’s church-yard, although his gravestone is now lost. However, he is remembered on a plaque inside the church.
He was a long-time resident of the long-lost Grove House – which stood in extensive grounds to the north of the Burroughs. Grove House (otherwise known as Hendon Grove or The Grove) was a large stuccoed two-story building built by 1753 and shown, un-named, on Crow’s 1754 map, and was originally owned by John Cross and Mrs. Marsh jointly, being sited to give commanding views westwards towards Harrow and north to Mill Hill. By 1796 Cooke recorded it having ‘coach-house, stabling, out office, yards, garden etc. with road leading to the same.’

‘The Metropolitan Convalescent Institution’ accommodated 40 young girls at Burroughs House c. 1874. It was substantially rebuilt in the 19th century by a Mrs. Campbell, who in turn leased it to Dr Hicks who ran it as ‘Hendon Grove Asylum’ – a private nursing home, from February 1879 to 1898. By 1881 it was caring for 12 mentally-ill female patients and was home to Dr Hicks, his wife, three daughters and staff. He was greatly active in local affairs and by 1888 Chairman of the Hendon Drainage Committee.

Grove House later continued as a mental home run by Dr Edridge-Green.

It was demolished in 1934, following purchase by Hendon Council. The now-levelled site of the house and part of its grounds survive as a small public park called The Grove at the rear of the Fire Station and University, with the original entrance avenue off the Burroughs which led directly to the house. The entrance is still extant between University buildings and now leads to the park and site of the house.

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As originally reported in the ‘Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries’ for 5th December 1889, page 16, and the ‘Hendon and District Times’ of 13 December 1889, the earliest recorded find of Roman material in the Hendon area is that from the former Grove House.

At a point 730ft W.S.W of the church and 300ft north of Grove House, during the digging of a gravel pit its then occupant, the St. David’s, Pembrokeshire-born Dr. Hicks found bone fragments, flanged roofing tile, brick, millstones, a complete 19 cm high ring-necked single-handled flagon of second century date (see below) and other fragments of mortaria food mixing bowls, water jugs and other pottery, including ‘broken cinerary urns’ all scattered about in the soil a foot below the surface, mostly in a ‘well defined longitudinal excavation’ some ten feet long, and extending down for about 18 inches into the undisturbed sand below.

Dr Hicks had previously excavated prehistoric sites in the St. David’s area.

The approximate OS ref is TQ 2270 8940, SMR/HER 081913-01, 02. Whether in a Roman pit or even a burial is not now clear. (See Robertson, B 1973, ‘Roman Material Found at Grove House, Hendon, in 1889.’ Transactions of The London And Middlesex Archaeological Society 24, 146-150)

Four pieces of this material reportedly survived in the Barnet local history collection, including two pieces of brick, one of them, most interestingly, a section of circular brick of the ‘bessalis’ type used in hypocausts, sculpture bases or to build small diameter columns which would be faced with moulded
cement and painted plaster; the surviving material is considered to be of late first or second century date,
and includes the single-handled Roman flagon of c.175-250 A.D, presented by Dr F.H.K Green, a relative
of Dr Hicks, in March 1949, as were the two brick fragments, and a small, cased fragment of 133 plain buff tesserae tessellated pavement believed to have also been found at the Grove, though this is disputed, as there is no evidence to link it to the Grove House finds, since it was not listed with them at the time. Supposedly found in Hendon prior to 1890, it was donated in December 1948 by Miss N.F.Waters and looks more like a collectors’ item from elsewhere.

In 2011, the pavement fragment at least remained in store at the now-closed and much-lamented Church Farm Museum, and passed to the care of HADAS in May 2012, with whom it remains, with original paper label on the rear recording accession no A61 ‘Fragment of Roman pavement believed to be part of a collection excavated at Hendon Grove in 1889 Don 3124 Mrs. N F Waters’;

The other Grove House fragments and three other fragments of Roman pottery, possibly from the same site, have not been seen since at least 2011, since Church Farm Museum records were incomplete and the items could not be positively identified when it closed.

And the Bubble that Refused to Burst? That was Dr Hicks and his contentious identification and dating of rocks of the Llyn Peninsula and Western Isles of Scotland.

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The High Barnet Branch by Peter Kay, published in London Railway Record Number 114, January 2023. Portrait format, 113x210mm. Numerous colour and monochrome images. ISSN 1355-8013. £4.50.

HADAS of course has a number of railway enthusiast members, and several of us already regularly purchase this particular quarterly magazine, which has proved an invaluable source since first published in 1994. Although it covers the whole of London, past and present, concentrating in particular on stations and infrastructure rather than the usual locomotives and rolling stock, the Barnet Borough area regularly appears in coverage of the Midland Main Line via Hendon and the East Coast Main Line via East Barnet, along with the interconnecting tube lines and secondary lines.

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Editor and Publisher Peter Kay has just started what would appear to be the first of several articles covering the former Great Northern/London and North Eastern Railway suburban branch lines from High Barnet, Edgware and Alexandra Palace via Finchley and Highgate to Finsbury Park, parts of which now form the Barnet and Mill Hill East Branches of the Northern Line, or leafy walks to Edgware and Alexandra Palace.
The Barnet Branch opened in 1872 and hosted regular steam-, and later diesel-hauled ‘main line’ freight trains to High Barnet until 1962 (which also ran to Edgware until the spring of 1964). This first article features Victorian/Edwardian and later photographs and detailed plans of the stations at High Barnet, Totteridge, Woodside Park, and West Finchley.

The extended photo captions and detailed text cover historical and operational matters, including an 1870s developer trying unsuccessfully to have Woodside Park, then named ‘Torrington Park, Woodside’ renamed ‘Belgravia Park’ as propaganda for his development.

This excellent magazine is always worth a look, even for those without a particular railway interest, given the breadth of its local history coverage, and is normally available from the London Transport Museum shop at Covent Garden, and local transport collectors’ fairs at Borehamwood, Enfield and Chiswick, as well as by subscription. Further details from www.londonrailwayrecord.co.uk

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Other Societies’ Events Eric Morgan

Not all Societies or Organisations have yet returned to pre-covid conditions. Please check with them before planning to attend.

Thursday, 16th March, 7.30 p.m. Camden History Society. Talk on Zoom. Ship of Lost Ambitions: The ‘Titanic’ Connections with Camden, by Kevin Brown. Please visit www.camdenhistorysociety.org for details.

Friday 17th March, 7.30 p.m. Wembley History Society, St. Andrew’s Church Hall (behind St. Andrew’s New Church) Church Lane, Kingsbury, NW9. (Please note new venue). Time and Tide, Treasure and Trash: A Mudlark’s Searches for London’s History. Talk by Monika Bettling-Smith. Visitors £3. Refreshments in interval.

Monday 20th March, 8p.m. Enfield Society, Jubilee Hall, 2, Parsonage Lane/junction Chase Side, Enfield EN2 0AJ. The World of Art Nouveau. Talk by Mark Lewis on its origins, the key exponents of the movement and its eventual demise.

Tuesday 4th April, 8p.m. Historical Association, North London Branch. Jubilee Hall (address as above). Beyond The Seas and Return: The English Catholic Cross-Channel Community in the 17th C. Talk by Dr. Liesbeth Corens (Queen Mary, University of London).

Tuesday 11th April, 6.30 p.m. LAMAS. Talk on Zoom. Syon Abbey Revisited: Reconstructing Late Medieval England’s Wealthiest Nunnery. Talk by Bob Cowie (MOLA). Please book via www.lamas.org/lectures.html.

Wednesday 12th April, 8p.m. Hornsey Historical Society Talk on Zoom. Wartime London in Paintings. Speaker TBA. Please e-mail hornseyhistoricalchairman@gmail.com for link. Also visit www.hornseyhistorical.org.uk.

Saturday 15th April, 11a.m.-2.30p.m. North London and Essex Transport. Enfield Transport Bazaar. St. Stephen’s Church Hall, Village Road, Enfield EN1 2EY. Lots of stalls selling books, photos, DVDs, maps, models, timetables, tickets and other memorabilia. Refreshments available. Admission £3.

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Monday 17th April, 3p.m. Barnet Museum and Local History Society, St. John the Baptist Church, Chipping Barnet, corner of High St./Wood St, Barnet, EN5 4BW. Enfield: The Other Royal Palace. Talk by Ian Jones (Chair, Enfield Archaeological Society) Please visit www.barnetmuseum.co.uk

Tuesday 18th April, 7.30p.m. Camden History Society. Talk, hopefully on Zoom: The Bombing of London,1940-41: The Blitz and its Impact on the Capital talk by John Conen. Please visit www.camdenhistorysociety.org for details.

Tuesday 18th April, 8p.m. Ruislip, Northwood and Eastcote Local History Society. Talk should be on Zoom. Northolt Park Racecourse (1929-40) by Colin Richards. Please see www.RNELHS.org.uk.

Wednesday 19th April, 7.30 p.m. Enfield Society, joint with Edmonton Hundred Historical Society. All Saints Church Hall, Church Street, Edmonton N9 9AT. (Please note different venue). Thirty Years at the Edmonton Charity Girls’ School. Talk by Irene Money. Free.

Thursday 20th April, 8p.m. Historical Association: Hampstead and NW London Branch. Ancient Sumeria and its Modern Legacy. Talk by Karin Doll. Will present hypotheses on where key developments in civilisation began including writing, the wheel, plough, bricks and irrigation, and mathematical and writing systems 5,000 years ago. Meet at Fellowship House, 136a, Willifield Way, London NW11 6YD (off Finchley Road, Temple Fortune). Hopefully also on Zoom. Please email Jeremy Berkoff (Chair) on jeremyberkoff@mac.com or tel. 07793 229521 for details of Zoom link and how to pay (there may be a voluntary charge of £5). Refreshments after.

Friday 21st April, 8p.m. Richmond Archaeological Society. Talk on Zoom. Surviving in Lower Palaeolithic Europe by Prof Rob Hosfield. For information on how to join, please visit www.richmondarchaeology.org.uk or email richmond.archaeology@gmail.com.

Saturday 22nd April, 11a.m. Willesden Local History Society. Meet at Dissenters’ Chapel, Kensal Green Cemetery (Entrance off the Flower Maiden, Ladbroke Grove, W10) John Passmore Edwards Festival. To mark the bi-centenary of the birth of the philanthropist on the 24th March, 1823 and the anniversary of his death on 22nd April, 1911, including a laying of a wreath on his grave, a tour of the philanthropists buried at the cemetery, presentations about him and his work, an exhibition in the chapel, and refreshments. To join please contact Irina Porter (Chair and Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery Trustee) on irinaporter@outlook.com or tel. 07510 933282 It is free, but donations are welcome. Please book in advance on www.willesden-local-history.co.uk or by email.

Wednesday 26th April, 6 p.m, Gresham College. Finding Lost Gods in Wales. Talk by Ronald Hutton. Ticket required. Register at www.gresham.ac.uk and view on line. Please see Finding Lost Gods in Wales | Gresham College. Free. From the poetry and stories of medieval Wales in such as the ‘Red Book of Hergest’ and the book of Taliesin about pagan gods and goddesses with characters such as Rhiannon, Arianrhod,, the flower maiden Blodeuwedd and Lieu Deunedd

Wednesday 26th April, 7.45p.m, Friern Barnet and District Local History Society. North Middlesex Golf Club, The Manor House, Friern Barnet Lane, N20 ONL. The Great Northern Railway. Talk by Dave Cockle (Enfield Society Chair) Please visit www.friernbarnethistory.org.uk and click on ‘Programme’, or phone 020 8368 8314 for up-to-date details. (David Berger, Chair). Non-members £2. Bar available.

Thursday, 27th April, 7.30p.m. Finchley Society. Drawing room, Avenue (Stephens’) House, 17, East End Road, N3 3QE. H.G. Pelissier: A Famous Son of Finchley. Talk by Anthony Binns and Jaudy Pelissier. For further details please visit www.finchleysociety.org.uk Non-members £2 at the door. Refreshments in interval.

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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
With many thanks to this month’s other contributors: Bill Bass, Don Cooper, Tim Curtis,
Eric Morgan, Janet Mortimer, Jim Nelhams and Andy Simpson
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Don Cooper, 59, Potters Road, Barnet EN5 5HS (020 8440 4350)
e-mail: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer, 34, Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121) e-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman, 50, Summerlee Ave, London N2 9QP
(07855 304488) e-mail: treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec Vacancy

While we have no Membership Secretary –
for the present, please address any correspondence such as change of member addresses or other miscellaneous correspondence to:

HADAS, c/o Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley, London N3 3QE

Website at: www.hadas.org.uk – join the HADAS email discussion group via the website.

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No. 623 February 2023 Edited by Andy Simpson

________________________________________________________

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming Lectures and Events

We are pleased that we are able to resume lectures face to face following Covid, though lectures in winter may be on Zoom.

Lectures are held in the Drawing Room, Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE. 7.45 for 8pm.

Buses 82, 143, 125, 326 and 460 pass close by, and it is a five-ten minute walk from Finchley Central Station on the Barnet Branch of the Northern Line. Bus 382 also passes close to Finchley Central Station.

Tea/Coffee/biscuits available for purchase after the talk.

Tuesday 14 February 2023 The Dorothy Newbury Memorial Lecture: Signe Hoffos: ‘Bombed Churches of the City (WWI and WWII air raids and the City of London churches)’

Signe has spoken to HADAS before on other aspects of City churches, and several of us know her through the City of London Archaeological Society – CoLAS.

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Robin Densem (HADAS): ‘A Career in Ruins’ – Robin will talk about his career in Archaeology

Tuesday 11th April 2023 Robert Stephenson (Also with CoLAS): ‘The Thames; It’s Myths and Mysteries’

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Bill Bass: ‘Hopscotch in High Barnet: A HADAS dig’

Several of us worked on this short but enjoyable ‘backyard’ dig last year, directed by Bill, and the report is being serialised in the newsletter.

Tuesday 13th June 2023 HADAS Annual General Meeting
Followed by a lecture

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FUNERAL OF STEPHEN BRUNNING

Steve’s funeral took place at Hendon Crematorium on Friday 6 January. The weather was kind with sunshine interrupting the rain and some 16 HADAS members attended. The humanist service included some of Steve’s favourite music, by Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, and Enya. Celebrant Debbie Coe read memories of Steve by long-time evening class leader Jacqui Pearce and Chairman Don Cooper (see below), and the nicely illustrated order of service included a photo of a clay pipe alongside pictures of Steve to mark a particular interest of his.
Thanks to Jacqui Pearce for this order of service picture of Steve who was a proud member of the CIfA.

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At Steve’s funeral, the celebrant read out these tributes to Steve from Evening class tutor Jacqui Pearce and HADAS chairman Don Cooper …

Jacqui Pearce

I first came to know Steve about 20 years ago, when he joined the Birkbeck evening classes in archaeological post-excavation work, which were being held at Avenue House in Finchley. He signed up for the very first course and for every single course since then, including all those run under the auspices of HADAS from 2009 onwards until 2020, when they finally came to an end. There were times when his health made it difficult for him to attend, but he was always fully involved with everything we were doing and was hugely helpful and supportive whenever he was with us. He loved looking at archaeological finds and had a particular interest in the study of clay tobacco pipes, which he made something of a specialism, writing up the pipes from Church End Farm and Church Terrace for the two publications that the Finds Class produced. This is why we’ve included a photo of a clay pipe in the Order of Service, in case you were wondering!

Steve had a genuine passion for archaeology and did all he could to promote, study and further the cause. I remember how delighted he was when he was accepted into the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists as an Associate, something which came about because he was proposed and supported by an existing Member who could vouch for his credentials. In fact, he became Editor of the Institute’s Newsletter, no mean achievement! He had a probing mind and was very thorough in everything he did for archaeology, always wanting to find out more and always asking questions. And he did this in a very unassuming way, never self-regarding, never promoting himself above others.

Steve was a very gentle and courteous man, and it was a real pleasure to spend time in his company. Over the years I knew him his health deteriorated noticeably, and he always bore this with courage and maintained a positive attitude as much as he possibly could, even through the incredibly difficult time when he lost his father. I never heard him get angry or impatient with anyone, even when he was finding life tough. As much as he could, he wanted to help other people and it was always a pleasure to spend time with him. And one more bond we had was a shared love of Star Trek! Although we never spoke about it, he did talk to my daughter about the music he loved and the choices we are listening to today are based on her recollections of conversations she had with him.

My recollections of Steve started with his love of archaeology, and he played a very important part in the Hendon and District Archaeological Society, which I haven’t covered in any depth. For this, I’d like to hand over to Don Cooper …

Don Cooper

Steve had a great interest in all things archaeological especially ceramic clay pipes and joined HADAS as a member in November 1998.

He was elected onto the Committee in June 2004 and served as a committee member continuously up to the present.

He took on the office of membership secretary in 2008. This involved maintaining the database of members, keeping their subscriptions up to date, producing address labels files for the newsletter and preparing Gift Aid returns for the Treasurer.

He also organised the annual lecture series – booking the speakers and venue.
He was an invaluable member of the committee.

Over and above all that he was a kind, helpful participant in HADAS’ activities and I well remember his successful contributions to many a Quiz night.

He will be greatly missed. Rest in Peace, Steve.

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Afterwards a number of HADAS members and fellow evening class students (Hello Jeremy!) who had attended the funeral raised a glass or two to Steve’s memory at the Three Hammers pub on Mill Hill Ridgeway…
(photo; Andy Simpson)

January Lecture Report – History Underfoot: Britain’s Industrial Heritage in Barnet Streets by David Willoughby.

Drawing on knowledge acquired through his membership of the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society (GLIAS), David very kindly stepped in when the previously advertised speaker was unavailable and gave twenty or so HADAS members this most informative lecture via zoom. He reminded us when walking around Barnet to look down as well as up for heritage artefacts hiding in plain view. He began by discussing coal plates (known as Opercula) – holes in the pavement or in front of houses for coalmen to deliver coal to cellars below. The covers were square and made of stone in Georgian times, later usually circular and of cast iron. Many were made in Birmingham and Wolverhampton as well as bearing the markings of London foundries and ironmongers, such as the St Pancras Ironworks. He also discussed Sir Henry Bessemer and his steel production process and Mariott Brothers of Barnet, who were builders and contractors 1881-2; some of their coal plates were produced at a foundry in Shoreditch.

Next discussed were utility covers for water mains, sewers, gas mains, fire hydrant point covers, Post Office Cables and stopcock coves for instance. Another example was those of ‘Northmet’ – the North Metropolitan Electricity Power Supply Co, with their power station at Brimsdown, Enfield and offices in Wood Green.

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Drain covers were discussed in some detail, especially those produced for local councils – including Potters Bar Urban District Council and Barnet London Borough Council, formed only in 1965. This also included detailed discussion of individual manufacturers and their history. Other ironwork discussed included gates and railings, post(pillar) boxes, and of course Stink Pipes as recently discussed in some detail by Dudley Miles in the HADAS newsletter. Miscellaneous items covered included stone and cast iron boundary markers including those for the War Department, and cattle troughs, boot scrapers and Ordnance Survey bench marks. A varied discussion at the end permitted certain members to bring in Barnet station cast iron platform canopies and trolleybus overhead junction boxes…Our thanks to David for this enjoyable and informative talk.

BOOK REVIEW Andy Simpson

Flying Up the Edgware Road The birth of North-West London’s Aviation Industry Mark Amies
Published by Amberley Publishing 2022. Softback, portrait format. 168x232mm, 100 colour and monochrome images and maps. ISBN 978 1 3981 0946 9.

This handily sized 96-page book covers exactly what it says on the tin/title, and in considerable detail. It records how this area of North-West London became a hub of the British aircraft industry in the early years of the twentieth century, from the Edwardian suburb of Cricklewood north towards the then semi-rural hamlets of Colindale and Kingsbury.

They played a vital role in aircraft production during the First World War, but companies such as The Aircraft Manufacturing Co. Ltd (Airco) and the Grahame White Aviation Company led by the charismatic Claude Grahame-White declined rapidly by the early 1920s as government orders for new aircraft were slashed overnight. Others such as Handley Page and de Havilland maintained a presence into the 1960s on reduced sites minus their former airfields at Clitterhouse and Stag Lane. Hendon aerodrome of course vanished beneath the Grahame Park Estate in the late 1960s but retains the Royal Air Force Museum which recently celebrated its 50th Anniversary on that site. The industrial buildings themselves often remained in other uses, and some survive today as shown in specially taken modern day colour photographs which record a few precious survivors amongst the ever-growing forest of huge residential tower blocks that nowadays line the Edgware Road.

Historical footnotes such as the very short lived Hendon Factory railway running around the edge of Hendon aerodrome are covered, and we are reminded that a hot air balloon landed in Mill Hill as early as 1862, and the Welsh Harp was an early aviation centre with unsuccessful aircraft trials nearby in 1908, barely five year after the Wright brothers first successful powered flight in 1903. By 1912 Hendon Aerodrome, then known as London Aerodrome, was a flourishing social centre and hub of flying training and demonstrations. Smaller component manufacturers are given due record too.

At Cricklewood Aerodrome, Handley Page Transport Ltd flew international flights to Paris from 1919 using converted bombers and versions developed from them until the airfield was mostly sold for housing in 1929-30. Even the much-reduced Metropolitan Police training facility on Aerodrome Road, Colindale and its successor tower blocks stands on the site of the short-lived London Flying Club, another Grahame-White venture.

Other photographs concerning the local aviation industry incidentally survive in the recently sorted and listed HADAS photographic archive at Avenue House, including a rare shot of the main Titanine Paints building in Sheaveshill Avenue, Colindale.

I would heartily recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the industrial history of our area.

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‘His Name Liveth For Ever in Hendon’ Andy Simpson

Whilst in Greece on the latest Salonika Campaign Society battlefield tour in September 2022, one of our regular Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemetery visits brought to my attention a native of Hendon who was laid to rest in Salonika (Lembet Road) Military Cemetery, Thessaloniki in Northern Greece, known as Salonika during WW1. He was a member of the British Salonika Force (BSF), engaged in fighting alongside Greek, French, Russian, Italian and Serbian troops against Bulgarian and German troops in Greece and what is now the Republic of North Macedonia in the Balkans.

At the invitation of the Greek Prime Minister, M. Eleftherios Venizelos, Salonika was occupied by three French Divisions and the 10th (Irish) Division fresh from the debacle at Gallipoli in October 1915. Other French and Commonwealth forces landed during the year and in the summer of 1916, they were joined by Russian and Italian troops. In August 1916, a Greek revolution broke out at Salonika, with the result that the Greek national army came into the war on the Allied side. The campaign continued until an armistice was signed in October 1918, some weeks before that on the Western Front.

For details of the campaign see www.salonikacampaignsociety.org.uk

The Hendon soldier was Gunner Ralph Henry Byatt, service number 35729.

Luckily a partial service record for him does survive, athough incomplete and fire damaged in places as are so many other WW1 personnel records since only some 40% of the First World War Army Service Records survived the Second World War bomb damage in September 1940, when during the London Blitz the War Office repository in Arnside Street was hit.

Whilst employed as a Plumber’s Mate, he had enlisted in peacetime London, having attested (swearing allegiance to King George V) on 27 July 1911 with the Royal Regiment of Artillery (Royal Garrison Artillery) Territorial Force, Special Reserve, height recorded as 5ft 6 inches, with fresh complexion, blue eyes and light brown hair.

The Special Reserve was established on 1 April 1908 as a semi-professional force to maintain a reservoir of manpower as reinforcement drafts for the regular British Army serving overseas in wartime and training these replacement drafts in times of war. Reservists enlisted for a six-year term of service and had to undergo six months of basic training on recruitment and three to four weeks training annually. This presumably explains why for the 1911 census Ralph is recorded as being resident in barracks on the night of the census, Sunday April 2nd 1911, his age recorded as 17. At this point he was part of the 6th Battalion Royal Fusiliers according to the census entry. The 6th (Reserve) Battalion Royal Fusiliers was part of the Special Reserve, based in Hounslow.
By 1917 Ralph was serving with the heavy howitzer-equipped 130 Siege Battery part of the 9th Brigade of the Royal Garrison Artillery, which had been in Salonika since August 1916, having four of the recently introduced 26cwt, six-inch calibre howitzers on strength.

Their role was mainly to provide plunging high explosive fire to soften up enemy defences prior to an infantry attack, and also to target opposing heavy artillery batteries in counter battery fire.
However, with supply of men and material always an issue, there were never more than a few dozen of these weapons available to the BSF.

The Siege Batteries of the Royal Garrison Artillery – The Long, Long Trail (longlongtrail.co.uk)

6-Inch 26 cwt (militaryfactory.com)

BL 6-inch 26 cwt howitzer – Wikipedia

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As a Gunner his rank was equivalent to a Private.

He died on Wednesday, 10 January 1917, aged 25. Confusingly however, his pension record card gives a date of 10 April 1918, killed in action.

The son of Sandon-born 44-year old Hendon Urban District Council carman (horse drawn cart driver) Arthur and his 42-year old wife, Henlow-born ‘charwoman’ Emma Byatt of 15, Heading Street (Off Church Road), Hendon, he was actually a native of the village of Sandon, Hertfordshire, where he was baptised on the 14 April 1895. Father Arthur Edward Cornelius Byatt. Ralph was one of three children, his parents having by then been married for 20 years.

His mother Emma was awarded a pension of 5/6d a week payable from 29 October 1918, along with £8 10s 1d unclaimed pay and a war gratuity of £14. A soldier’s pay that had been credited to his account but not issued to him, along with any gratuities, were eventually distributed in accordance with his will.

The war gratuity would be paid to every warrant officer, non-commissioned officer and man who served with the army or air force, either voluntarily or compulsorily, since 4 August 1914, and to the legatees or next of kin of those who had lost their lives with some exceptions. There was a minimum payment of £5, with various increments for length of service, and was issued in the form of a Post Office Savings Bank Book deposit.

War gratuity – The Long, Long Trail (longlongtrail.co.uk)

For his gravestone, his grieving parents chose (and had to pay for, as was standard practice) a personal epitaph for his standard CWGC headstone ‘ His Name Liveth For Ever In Hendon. Mum and Dad’ This is a variation on the phrase “Their name liveth for evermore” is a phrase from the King James Version of the Bible, forming the second half of a line in Ecclesiasticus or Sirach, chapter 44, verse 14, widely inscribed on war memorials since the First World War. See Their name liveth for evermore – Wikipedia. The message had to be composed from a maximum of 66 characters including spaces. Each character used cost the family 3½d. The 37 letters in this inscription cost his parents 10s 9d, equivalent to some £22 at 2022 prices.

The Cemetery is located at 192 Langada Street, on the Serres highway approximately 2 km north of Thessaloniki city centre on the west side of the street. The cemetery is inside a very large, mainly First World War Allied cemetery containing Serbian, French and Italian casualties and is known locally as ‘’Zeitenlik’’ and is to the rear of the Serbian, French and Italian sections.
The city of Salonika was the base of the British Salonika Force and it contained, from time to time, eighteen general and stationary hospitals.

The earliest Commonwealth burials took place in the local Protestant and Roman Catholic cemeteries. Salonika (Lembet Road) Military Cemetery (formerly known as the Anglo-French Military Cemetery) was begun in November 1915 and Commonwealth, French, Serbian, Italian and Russian sections were formed. The Commonwealth section remained in use until October 1918, although from the beginning of 1917, burials were also made in Mikra British Cemetery.

After the Armistice, some graves were brought in from other cemeteries in Macedonia, Albania and from Scala Cemetery, near Cassivita, on the island of Thasos.

There are now 1,648 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. The Commonwealth plot also contains 45 Bulgarian and one Serbian war graves.

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The Church End area of central Hendon once featured a densely-packed area of Victorian terraced houses and workshops running down to Sunny Gardens and up to Church Walk, centred around the now lost or re-routed Prince of Wales Road, Heading Street, and Fuller Street. They were cleared in the years around 1970 and replaced mostly by low-rise council flats.

Ralph is one of 362 First World War casualties from Hendon commemorated on the still extant Grade-2 listed Hendon War Memorial now sitting rather isolated on an island on the A41 Watford Way by the junction with The Burroughs and Station Road. Costing £185, paid for by private contributions and Hendon Urban District Council, and with a military presence and large crowd attending, this was dedicated by the Bishop of Willesden on 23 April 1922 – appropriately enough, St Georges’ Day, and was resited in 1962 as part of a Watford Way improvement scheme.

On the front and left faces of the memorial, on bronze plaques, are listed the 224 names of those of the Central Ward of Hendon who died in WW1, and on the right face, a similar bronze plaque lists the 138 names of the West Ward of Hendon. All the names are listed alphabetically by surname, followed by first names and any further initials, without any ranks of units.

(All recent photos by Andy Simpson)

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From the names listed on the memorial it would seem that at least three other former residents of Hendon lie at rest in Greece having served in the Salonika Campaign, two of them in the same cemetery; See Roll of Honour – Middlesex – Hendon (roll-of-honour.com)

All four men came from solid working-class backgrounds (two of them with fathers employed by Hendon Council) and only one of them attained even junior NCO rank during their service; they were truly the lost rank and file generation. They are further discussed individually below.

Gunner Robert Franklin, service number 58207
Royal Horse Artillery/Royal Field Artillery 11th Battery, 1st Brigade;

Died of wounds Friday 4 May 1917 aged 21; buried in Struma Military Cemetery.
I Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery – The Long, Long Trail (longlongtrail.co.uk)

Son of Robert and Emma Franklin, of 3, Salisbury Plain, off Brent St, Hendon.

Headstone inscription; GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN MOTHER

Only his Medal record card, soldier’s effects record, Grave Record, and Dependent’s Pension card seem to survive.

Christened at St Mary’s Church Hendon on 11 December 1895, in the 1911 census his father Robert was a 52-year-old general labourer at the Hendon District Council sewage farm, which had opened at Clitterhouse as a sewage outfall works in 1886, extended in 1913 and closed in 1935; (interesting that he was another Hendon UDC employee, like Ralph Byatt’s father) his mother Emma being the same age; they had been married 33 years and were both born in the village of Yelling, Huntingdonshire, which in 1911 had just 246 inhabitants. They had nine children, the first three born in Gelling, of whom seven survived.

In 1911, 15-year-old Hendon-born Robert was living at home as a printer’s apprentice.

He had served initially in France from 6 September 1915, and therefore qualified for the 1915 Star and War and Victory Medals. His soldier’s effects record indicates that he died in the field and that pay of £19 4s and war gratuity of 10 guineas was credited to his mother.

From 6 November 1918, his mother Emma was granted a pension of 5s a week.

1 Brigade was a unit of Britain’s pre-war regular Army; it went to France in December 1914 and on to Salonika in late 1915, presumably taking Robert Franklin with it as part of 27th Division.
A word here perhaps about the structure of the British Army during the Great War;
The smallest unit in an army is the squad, which contains 7 to 14 soldiers and is led by a sergeant (A slightly larger unit is a section, which consists of 10 to 40 soldiers) Three or four squads make up a platoon, which has 20 to 50 soldiers and is commanded by a lieutenant. Two or more platoons make up a company, which has 100 to 250 soldiers and is commanded by a captain or a major.

Two or more companies make up a battalion, which has 400 to 1,200 troops and is commanded by a lieutenant colonel. The battalion is the smallest unit to have a staff of officers (in charge of personnel, operations, intelligence, and logistics) to assist the commander. Several battalions form a brigade, which has 2,000 to 8,000 troops and is commanded by a brigadier general or a colonel.

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A brigade is the smallest unit to integrate different types of combat and support units into a functional organization. A modern combat brigade, for example, usually has infantry, armoured vehicles such as tanks, artillery, and reconnaissance units. Two or more brigades, along with various specialized battalions, make up a division, which has 7,000 to 22,000 troops and is commanded by a major general A division contains all the arms and services needed for the independent conduct of military operations. Two to seven divisions and various support units make up an army corps, or a corps, which has 50,000 to 300,000 troops and is commanded by a lieutenant general. The army corps is the largest regular army formation, though in wartime two or more corps may be combined to form a field army (commanded by a general), and field armies in turn may be combined to form an army group.

The original Struma cemetery plot, Plot I, was set too close to a ravine and the graves in it were moved after the Armistice to the present plots VIII and IX.

The remainder of the cemetery consists almost entirely of graves brought in from the battlefields, from the churchyards at Homondos, Haznatar and Kalendra, and from little front-line cemeteries (established by Field Ambulances or Battalions), of which the chief were those at Ormanli (24 burials), Dolab Wood (17 burials) and Big Tree Well (on the right bank of the Struma, opposite Ormanli; 17 Burials)

The Struma River flows through Bulgaria southward to the Greek frontier, then south-east into the Aegean Sea. From the Allied base at Salonika, a road ran north-east across the river to Seres, and it was this road that the right (eastern) wing of the British sector used for the movements of troops and supplies to the Struma front during the Salonika Campaign. For two years or more until the final allied advance in September 1918, fighting in the Struma featured outposts, raids and patrols, with the main British and Bulgarian positions either side of the malaria-ridden valley.

In the autumn of 1916, the 40th Casualty Clearing Station was established not far from the road near the 71 Kilometer stone and the cemetery made for it was originally called Kilo 71 Military Cemetery.
Struma Military Cemetery contains 933 British casualties of the First World War, 51 of them unidentified. There are also Indian, West Indian, Maltese, Greek, Bulgarian and Turkish war graves located there.

Australian gun crew with standard British 18-pdr field gun as used by some of the Hendon soldiers discussed, Ypres sector, 1917.

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6-Inch calibre 26 Pdr. Howitzer – a type the Hendon men were also familiar with.

Struma Military Cemetery

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Gunner Stafford Lawrence Lindsell, service number 163587;
Royal Field Artillery, ‘B’ Battery, 116th (CXVI) Brigade;

Died of wounds Saturday 17 November 1917, aged 20; buried in Karasouli Military Cemetery.

Personal Inscription LOVING SON, BROTHER KIND
Baptised in Hendon 18 April 1897, enlisted in Hendon; Eldest son of Stafford and Harriet Lindsell, of 18 Stratford Road, Hendon, London. The Stratford Road houses dated to around 1879. In the1911 census his Essex-born 41-year-old father Stafford was a house decorator. He and 38-year-old Finchley born wife Harriet had been married for 15 years and had nine children, all born in Hendon and all then still living. 14-year-old Stafford Lawrence was then a ‘Dairy Boy’.

CXVI Brigade RFA, sometimes recorded as here as 116 Brigade was formed as part of the raising of Lord Kitchener’s new Third Army in 1914, with each battery equipped with four of the standard 18-pdr field guns (six from December 1916), under the command of the 26th Division. In service since 1904, the quick-firing and reliable18-pounder was the British Commonwealth’s most widely used field gun during the First World War, using high explosive and shrapnel shells to cut barbed wire and impact front line defences and troop concentrations. Its 84mm calibre and shell weight were greater than its French and German equivalents.

The Brigade had moved to Salonika in November 1915, and in April/May1917 fought in the first Battle of Doiran.

Batteries and Brigades of the Royal Field Artillery – The Long, Long Trail (longlongtrail.co.uk)

116 Brigade, Royal Field Artillery in the Great War – The Wartime Memories Project –

Only his soldier’s effects and pension claimant details survive.

His mother Harriet was granted a pension of seven shillings a week from 4 June 1918.She also received £8 10s 1d in unclaimed pay and a war gratuity of £3 10s.

Acting Bombardier Percival (Percy) Frederick John Lemon, service number 49331;
Royal Field Artillery ‘D’ (Howitzer) Battery XCIX (99th) Brigade;

Died of wounds (killed in Action) Friday 26 April 1918 aged 23; also buried in Karasouli Military Cemetery.

Personal Inscription
FATHER IN THY GRACIOUS KEEPING LEAVE WE NOW THY SERVANT SLEEPING

Son of Frederick James and Minnie Lemon of 8 Ramsey Road, West Hendon, London. Houses built around 1900.

99th Brigade RFA was under the command of 22nd Division, which had been formed in 1914 as part of Lord Kitchener’s New Third Army, moving to Salonika in October 1915.
At the time of death, Percy’s rank of Acting Bombardier was equivalent to Acting Corporal, in charge of a section of 7 – 12 men. 99 Brigade, Royal Field Artillery in the Great War – The Wartime Memories Project –

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Only his dependent’s pension and personal effects records survive.

At the time of the 1911 census, 16-year-old Percy was a domestic gardener living with his 40 year old father Frederick James a labourer, who had been married to 41 year old Minnie (employment recorded as ‘Charing – cleaning) for 18 years, having two children, of whom both then survived.
His mother Minnie received £18 13s 11d in owed pay, a war gratuity of £16 10s and a pension of 5s a week from 6 November 1918.

Percy is the highest ranking of the four men from Hendon.

Karasouli cemetery was begun in September 1916 for the use of casualty clearing stations on the Doiran front. At the Armistice, it contained about 500 burials but was greatly increased when graves were brought in from a number of cemeteries.

All photos by the author.

With thanks to my sister Alison for compiling the available online personnel records.
In time I may also look to trace Salonika casualties from Finchley and Barnet also, so I would be interested to hear of any details readers may know of. I hope to be able to visit and pay my respects at local graves on my future visits to the battlefields, hopefully during the 2024 visit which will study the Salonika Air Campaign in particular.

Karasouli Military Cemetery

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HADAS members will remember the hugely enjoyable September 2019 trip to South Wales, so ably organized by Jim and Jo Nelhams. One place we visited was the ‘out of town’ conservation and restoration facility for the remaining hull portions of the medieval Newport ship.
It has recently been in the news again…see link below for an excellent summary and CGI of the ship at sea.

Newport Ship: Medieval vessel is ‘world’s largest 3D puzzle’ – BBC News

Sunday Mornings at Avenue House Andy Simpson

These continue, with much good work being done in sorting and repacking HADAS archive material including many historic local photographs and much ‘History of HADAS’ material featuring past HADAS personalities and trips. There is even a poster for the renowned HADAS Minimart in Hendon, as organized for so many years by the late Dorothy Newbury. Most recently we have just started sorting archives and finds (mostly flint flakes, especially ‘debitage’ waste flakes) from the 1976-85 HADAS excavations on West Heath, Hampstead.

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Other Societies’ Events Eric Morgan

Not all Societies or Organisations have yet returned to pre-covid conditions. Please check with them before planning to attend.

Saturday 4th February, 10 a.m.-4pm. Elstree and Borehamwood Transport Collectors Fair. Allum Manor House and Hall, 2, Allum Lane, Elstree and Borehamwood, WD6 3RJ. Bus and Railway Memorabilia incl. Models, Books, Photographs, Tickets, Timetables, Ephemera. Admission £3. Refreshments available.

Monday 13th February, 3p.m. Barnet Museum and Local History Society. St. John the Baptist Church, Chipping Barnet, corner High St./ Wood St., Barnet EN5 4BW. Reporting Barnet; Why it is so difficult to find out about Local News. Talk by Nick Jones. Please visit www.barnetmuseum.co.uk.

Wednesday 8th March, 2.30 p.m. Mill Hill Historical Society, Trinity Church, 100, The Broadway, NW7 3TB. Sir John Laing and his Mill Hill legacy. Talk by Alex Finkenrath. Preceded by AGM. Please visit www.millhill-hs.org.uk.

Wednesday 8th March, 6p.m. Gresham College. Viking Pagan Gods in Britain. Talk by Ronald Hutton. Ticket required. Register at What’s On | Gresham College and view on-line. please see Viking Pagan Gods in Britain | Gresham College. Free. In the c9th and c10th the Vikings brought with them their own gods; Odin, Thor, Tyr, Lok and Freya, and left their trace on the British landscape in the form of scenes carved on stone slabs and material evidence in richly furnished graves, esp. on the Isle of Man.

Wednesday 8th March, 8p.m. Hornsey Historical Society. Talk on zoom. Highgate Cemetery – A Historic Cemetery for the c21st. By Ian Dungavell. Please e-mail hornseyhistoricalchairman@gmail.com for link Also visit www.hornseyhistorical.org.uk.

Monday 13th March, 3p.m. Barnet Museum and Local Historical Society. For address. please see 13th Feb. The Woodvilles; Witchcraft and Politics during the Wars of the Roses. Talk by Gemma Holden.

Wednesday 15th March, 6p.m. Gresham College Landscapes of Roman Britain. Talk by Martin Millett. Ticket required. Register at What’s On | Gresham College. and view on-line. Please see Stonehenge: A History | Gresham College . Free. Will explore our current knowledge of the nature of Roman hardware shop Imperialism and the History of Britain.

Wednesday 15th March, 7.30p.m. Willesden Local History Society. St. Mary’s Church Hall, bottom of Neasden Lane, NW10 (round corner from Magistrates’ court). Harlesden Green.in the1870’s. Talk by Margaret Pratt (Gen. Sec.) on the life and times of the Beeson family and their famous hardware shop in Harlesden High St. and recollecting on a childhood in Harlesden Green when it was a small village. The family ran a shoeing forge, ironmongers and wheelwrights in the High St. during the early years of the 20th century. May also be on zoom. If not a member, buy a ticket (£3). For details, please visit www.willesden-local-history.co.uk.

Thursday 16th March, 8p.m. Historical Association; Hampstead and N.W, London Branch. The Historical Arthur. Talk by Prof. Andrew Breeze on the controversial thesis that this classic of Middle Welsh Literature was written by a woman. and argues that he was a historical figure who fought other Celts in battles in Scotland and Northern England in the 6th century. Meet at Fellowship House, 136a, Willifield Way, NW11 6YD. (off Finchley Rd., Temple Fortune). Hopefully also on zoom. Please e-mail Jeremy Berkoff (chair) at jeremyberkoff@mac.com or tel. 07793 229521 for details of zoom link and how to pay (there may be a voluntary charge of £5). Refreshments afterwards.

Tuesday 14th March, 6.30p.m. LAMAS Talk on zoom. A Work in Progress; A new display for The Cheapside Hoard. By Hazel Forsyth (MOL). To be housed in a permanent gallery at the new London Museum in West Smithfield alongside the Worshipful Co. of Goldsmiths’ collection. Please book via www.lamas.org.uk/lectures.html.

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Saturday 18th March, 10.30a.m.-6p.m. LAMAS Archaeological Conference. Morning session; Recent work in and around the Capital. Afternoon session; Recent work on Roman Towns incl. London. To book please visit www.lamas.org.uk/conferences. This will be on zoom again. Tickets will be available to purchase via the lamas eventbrite website. Early bird before 28th Feb. (£15). Standard tickets (after 1st Mar.) £17.50.

Tuesday 21st March, 8p,m. Ruislip, Northwood and Eastcote Local History Society. Talk should be on zoom. When Horses ran London. By Charlie Forman. For details, please see www.RNELHS.org.uk.

Wednesday 22nd March, 7.45p.m. Friern Barnet and District Local History Society. North Middx. Golf Club, The Manor House, Friern Barnet Lane, N20 0NL. Picture Shows before Cinema. Talk by Ian Christie, Please visit www.friernbarnethistory.org.uk and click on programme or phone 020 83688314 for up-to-date details. (David Berguer, Chair) Non-members £2. Bar available.

Thursday 23rd March, 6p.m. Gresham College. The Medieval Agricultural Revolution.; New Evidence. Talk by Helena Hamerow. Tickets required. Register at What’s On | Gresham College and view on-line. Please see The Medieval Agricultural Revolution: New evidence | Gresham College. Free. Using new evidence from plant and animal remains from archaeological excavations in England linking new forms of cereal farming and the use of the mouldboard plough and systematic crop rotation leading to open-field farming.

Thursday 30th March ,7.30p.m. Finchley Society. Drawing Room, Avenue House, 17, East End Road, N3 3QE. A presentation from the Finchley Society Planning Committee. For further details, please visit www.finchleysociety.org.uk Non-members £2 at the door. Refreshments in interval.

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With many thanks to this month’s other contributors: Don Cooper: Eric Morgan; Jacqui Pearce. Andy Simpson
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Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Don Cooper, 59, Potters Road, Barnet EN5 5HS (020 8440 4350)
e-mail: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer, 34, Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121) e-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman, 50, Summerlee Ave, London N2 9QP (07855 304488)
e-mail: treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec SITUATION VACANT
For the present, please address any correspondence such as subscriptions, change of member addresses or other miscellaneous correspondence to ;
HADAS, c/o Avenue House 17 East End Road Finchley London N3 3QE

Website at: www.hadas.org.uk – join the HADAS email discussion group via the website.

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No. 622 January 2023 Edited by Jim Nelhams

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We regret the delay in producing and despatching this newsletter, which is not helped by the disruption to the postal service. Apologies particularly to those who receive their copy through the post.

HADAS Diary -Forthcoming Lectures and Events

Tuesday 10th January 2023. Unfortunately, Tim Williams has needed to withdraw at short notice from our January lecture for medical reasons. Details of the replacement lecture are not yet known but will be circulated as soon as available and will appear on our website.

Tuesday 14th February 2023. The Dorothy Newbury Memorial Lecture: Signe Hoffos
Subject to be confirmed

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Stephen Brunning

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We regret to report the sudden death on 7th December of Stephen Brunning on a visit to a garden centre. In addition to filling the role of Membership Secretary for a number of years, Steve also arranged lectures and lecturers for our meetings at Avenue House (and on Zoom) and looked after our mailing lists. A fuller appreciation will follow in a later edition. Steve was also a member of our Finds Group, The picture above shows him studying some finds.

Jackie Brooks

We also note the death of Jackie Brookes, Beverley Perkins has sent the following note: –

Many of you will remember Jackie, who sadly died on 1st December after a short illness. She and I were good friends and close neighbours for over 40 years and it was Jackie who introduced me to HADAS after she joined in 1990. We rarely failed to attend the talks, coach trips and annual visits together. After Dorothy decided that it was time she retired, Jackie took on the organisation of the annual outings for several years which, as Jim and Jo will attest, is no easy task. We kept in touch after Dave and I moved to Devon and looked forward to her visits, when we would enjoy taking her out to explore local National Trust, English Heritage and other places of interest. Sadly, Covid put an end to that. We will miss her very much.

Beverley Perkins and David Bromley

HADAS festive afternoon tea. Don Cooper

HADAS festive afternoon tea took place on Sunday, 4th December 2022 at Avenue House in the Saloon, the first HADAS social event since lockdown. Present were 26 members and their guests. Avenue House catering laid four festively decorated tables with crackers etc. There were soft drinks to start followed by tea and coffee (for those that do!). There were four types of finger sandwiches, followed by scones, cream and jam, after which we had Christmassy pastries. A cash bar was open for those who wanted something more alcoholic.

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The entertainment was provided by three challenging table quizzes, two provided by Sue Willetts and one from Jim Nelhams. Our thanks to them both. There was also a successful raffle which raised £126 for the HADAS funds. Thanks to all who provided prizes.

As has become a custom Liz provided two lovely Christmas cakes, of which people took away slices as they were already replete. Everybody had a great time, and our thanks go to the organisers and the staff at Avenue House and Andy Simpson for the photos.

The Rhondda Tunnel Jim Nelhams

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From the mid 1930s and through the war, my maternal Grandmother lived with her family in a small mining village named Blaengwynfi at the head of the Avon (Afan) valley in West Glamorgan. Two of my uncles were born there and Grandfather worked on the railways as a signalman. Grandfather signed up for WW2 and was posted to one of the Railway Regiments in the Royal Engineers. He was in France before Dunkirk involved in keeping the railways running in Northern France.

Blaengwynfi station, closed in 1968, was originally on the Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway, which later became part of the Great Western Railway. The line was built to move coal and minerals to the Swansea Docks. To maximise the traffic, a tunnel was built from the Rhondda Valley to Blaengwynfi. This tunnel was 3,443 yards long, just short of two miles. With no rail traffic, the tunnel was also closed in 1968 and the western entrance was filled in.

In 2014, 17 people founded the Rhondda Tunnel Society with the aim of siting a stone portal as near as possible to the end of the tunnel which had been buried. With social media, enthusiasm grew rapidly and the Society developed a plan to re-open the tunnel in its entirety as a walkway and cycle way, a project costed at over 7 million pounds. Work has been going on for some time.

A report on a safety inspection noted that 95% of the tunnel was still in its original condition of 1890. Further that the built-in drainage system was still working and protecting the tunnel.
Work is ongoing, including building a new extension where the tunnel entrance had been filled, making the new tunnel over two miles long. There is one pedestrian tunnel in the World (in North America) which is longer than the planned tunnel but it is only open for six months each year. While that one is closed, the Rhondda Tunnel will be the longest in the World.

Although major contributions of funds have been received, and more are still sought, members of the public can join the Society for an annual payment of £10 giving them access to information before it is made public. The Society’s website also has merchandise available for sale. See www.rhonddatunnelsociety.co.uk for more information about the group and their work.

Changes for our new King Jim Nelhams

Currency

Bank notes will be replaced as the old ones wear out. This will take longer than before because the plastic notes last longer than their paper predecessors. Bank governor Andrew Bailey said: “I am very proud that the Bank is releasing the design of our new banknotes which will carry a portrait of King Charles III.

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“This is a significant moment, as the King is only the second monarch to feature on our banknotes.

“People will be able to use these new notes as they start to enter circulation in 2024.”

Fifty pence coins featuring the image of King Charles III have come into circulation from December, with 4.9 million coins being distributed across 9,452 Post Office branches nationwide. Following tradition, King Charles will face from Right to Left, the opposite way to his mother.

Stamps

No date is available for the issue of new stamps. Existing stamps and currency remain valid.

Postboxes

In line with past practice, following the death of a monarch all existing post boxes will remain unchanged. Post boxes already in production or being prepared for installation, will also retain the insignia of Queen Elizabeth II. Once these have been installed, new post-boxes will feature the cypher of King Charles III.

Other Societies’ Events Eric Morgan

Not all societies have yet returned to pre-Covid status. Please do check with them before planning to attend any of the events listed.

Wednesday 11th January, 8p.m. Hornsey Historical Society. Talk on zoom. How to read the English Country Church: Normans to Tudors. by Nicholas Henderson. Please e-mail hornseyhistoricalchairman@gmail.com. For link also visit www.hornseyhistorical.org.uk.

Friday 13th January, 7p.m. Enfield Archaeological Society.Talk on zoom, Romano-British Torcs in Southern Britain by Michael Marshall (MOLA). For link please visit www.enfarchsoc.org.uk.

Tuesday 17th January, 8p.m. Ruislip, Northwood and Eastcote Local History Society.Talk should be on zoom by Fabian Hiscock . Industrial Transport before the Railway-the effects of the Turnpike Road. For details please see www.RNELHS.org.uk.

Friday 20th January, 7.30p.m. Wembley History Society.English Martyrs’ Hall, Chalkhill Road (top of Blackbird Hill) HA9 9EW (adjacent to Church) Shackleton’s Antarctic Expedition, 1914-17.Talk by Geoff Shelley (FRGS) With words and pictures of the expedition’s photographer, Dr. Frank Hurley, re-creating the original lantern slide lecture that he gave following the safe return of the crew of the Endurance from the South Atlantic. Visitors £3. Refreshments in interval.

Wednesday 1st February, 6p.m. Gresham College. Anglo-Saxon Pagan Gods. Talk by Ronald Hutton. Ticket required. Register at www.gresham.ac.uk view on-line Please see Anglo-Saxon Pagan Gods | Gresham College. Free.With a pantheon of deities that include Woden, Thunor, Tiw and Frig. Its temples were wooden structures that leave scant traces in the landscape, but evidence can be found for their beliefs in cemeteries like Sutton Hoo, looking at evidence and literature such as Beowulf and history written by Christian scholar Bede.

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Wednesday 8th February, 2.30p.m. Mill Hill Historical Society, Trinity Church, 100, The Broadway, NW7 3TB. The Changing Face of Social Disadvantage of Young People in London. Talk by Tim Sledge. Please check www.millhill-hs.org.uk.

Wednesday 8th February, 8p.m. Hornsey Historical Society. Talk on zoom by Kirsten Forrest. Dolly Shepherd: The First Female Balloonist from Alexandra Palace. Please see Wed. 11th Jan. for details of link.

Wednesday 15th February, 7.30p.m. Willesden Local History Society, St. Mary’s Church Hall, bottom of Neasden Lane, NW10 (round corner from Magistrates’ Court) The Willesden Trunk Murders. Talk by Dick Weindling (Camden Hist. Soc.). About two murders where the bodies were disposed of in Harlesden. May also be on zoom. If not a member , buy a ticket(£3). For details please check www.willesden-local-history.co.uk.

Thursday 16th February, 8p.m. Historical Association: Hampstead and N.W. London Branch. Saladin: The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade.Talk by Prof. Jonathan Philips. Meet at Fellowship House, 136A, Willifiield Way, NW11 6YD( off Finchley Road, Temple Fortune. Hopefully also on zoom. Please e-mail Jeremy Berkoff (Chair) on jeremyberkoff@mac.com or tel. 07793 229521 for details of zoom link and how to pay (there may be a voluntary charge of £5). Refreshments afterwards.

Friday 17th February, 7.30p.m. Wembley History Society.For address please see Fri. 20th Jan. Woolwich Arsenal. Talk by Jeremy Foster.

Tuesday 21st February, 8p.m. Ruislip, Northwood and Eastcote Loc. Hist. Soc.Talk should be on zoom Brentham Garden Suburb by Sue Elliott and Alan Henderson. For details. please see Tues.17th Jan.

Wednesday 22nd February, 7.45p.m. Friern Barnet and District Local History Society, North Middx. Golf Club, The Manor House, Friern Barnet Lane, N20 ONL. The Mercenary River: The History of London’s Water. Talk by Nick Higham. Please visit www.friernbarnethistory.org.uk and click on programme or phone 020 8368 8314 for up-to-date details (David Berguer, Chair). Non-members £2. Bar available.

Thursday 23rd February, 6p.m. Gresham College. Stonehenge: A History. Talk by Mike Pitts.Ticket required. Register at www.gresham.ac.uk and view on-line. Please see Stonehenge: A History | Gresham College, Free. Describing an alternative narrative of ancient communities and presenting a Stonehenge re-imagined for modern Britain.

Thursday 23rd February, 7.30p.m. Finchley Society.Drawing Room, Avenue (Stephens’) House, 17, East End Road, N3 3QE. Barnet Green Spaces. Talk by Roger Chapman (HADAS Treasurer) For further details please visit www.finchleysociety.org.uk. Non-members £2 at the door. Refreshments in interval.

Saturday 25th February, 9.15a,m.-5p.m. Current Archaeology Live 2023. U.C.L. Institute of Education, Bedford Way, WC1.Joint with UCL Institute of Archaeology.Wide range of expert speakers sharing latest Archaeological finds and research. Annual C.A. Awards and Current World Archaeology photographic competition. Tickets on sale for £50. To book call 020 8819 5580 or visit www.currentpublishing.com/shop. Also Archaeology Fair with lots of stalls including booksellers, institutions and other Archaeological organisations and travel companies for archaeological travel incl. expert-led tours and heritage-themed holidays.

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Acknowledgements

With thanks to this month’s contributors: Don Cooper, Eric Morgan, Jim Nelhams, Beverley Perkins

————————————————————————————————————————————–

Hendon and District Archaeological Society
Registered Charity No 269949

Chairman Don Cooper, 59, Potters Road, Barnet, EN5 5HS
(020 8440 4350) e-mail: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer, 34, Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121) e-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman, 50 Summerlee Ave, London N2 9QP
(07855 304488) e-mail: treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec. Vacancy, e-mail: membership@hadas.org.uk

Web site: www.hadas.org.uk

8

No. 621 December 2022 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

Now that the Covid-19 pandemic has subsided, it is time to return to having our lectures at Avenue House, so as from January 2023, lectures will start at 7.45 for 8.00pm in the Drawing Room, Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE. Buses 82, 143, 326 & 460 pass close by, and it is five to ten minutes’ walk from Finchley Central Station (Northern Line). Tea/coffee and biscuits follow the talk.

Tuesday 10th January 2023 at 8pm: Tim Williams Archaeology of the Silk Roads
Tuesday 14th February 2023. The Dorothy Newbury Memorial Lecture: Signe Hoffos
Lost City Churches

Notes on a lecture by Ian Jones, Chairman of Enfield Archaeological Society given on the 8th of November 2022.
The November lecture was supposed to be on the Ness of Brodgar, but due to a bereavement in the lecturer’s family was cancelled at short notice. Fortunately, Ian Jones, Chairman of Enfield Archaeological Society stepped in and gave an excellent talk on Enfield Palace. We owe our grateful thanks to Ian.

Ian has been researching Enfield Palace for many years and has amassed a large amount of evidence of its history from the earliest documentary evidence in 1439 to its destruction in the early nineteen hundreds. The remains of the palace lie under Pearson’s department in the centre of Enfield town. Ian gave us a fascinating account of the people who lived there from royals to trades people. The building became a school from 1841 to 1899. Ian was continuing to research the pupils who attended it, many of whom went on to have interesting and notable careers. He also discussed the architectural layout of the building over its long history. When the building was demolished in 1927 a number of rooms were dismantled and reassembled at the Grade ll listed Little Park in Enfield where they can be occasionally seen on Open Days.

Ian hopes to publish the Palaces history in due course.

Notes on the London Archaeological Forum Peter Pickering

In person archaeological conferences have started again. I have been to three recently. One was the London Archaeological Forum, which was held as a hybrid event – there were some forty of us in the lecture room of the Institute of Archaeology, and fifty participated by Zoom. It was organised impeccably. The London Archaeological Prize for the best publication of 2020-2021 was won by the article in the LAMAS Transactions “Syon Abbey: archaeological investigations in Syon Park, Brentford, 1997–2018” by Bob Cowie. The talks included one by Antonietta Lerz of MOLA about the remarkably productive excavation at Landmark Court, Southwark.

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That site, with two well-preserved, though not complete, mosaics with attractive pattern, was also the subject of Antonietta’s talk at a conference “Reconnecting Roman Britain” in the London University Senate House. Several other important papers were given at the conference. One was about a Romano-Celtic temple at Caistor-by Norwich (Venta Icenorum). – one of the few major Roman towns which have not been built over (HADAS, incidentally, visited it in 2010).

Most intriguing was a talk entitled “A Zoo at the edge of the Empire”, by Naomi Sykes, the Lawrence Professor of Archaeology at the University of Exeter; she had analysed the animal bones from round the Fishbourne Roman palace; many of them were of subspecies or varieties that were not those usually found in England (fallow deer, hare, chicken, cats). Her conclusion was that exotic animals had been deliberately imported from distant parts of the Roman world, whether for hunting or simply to demonstrate prestige; was this within the means of a client king like Togidubnus, (who had of course spent much time in Rome) or could it indeed have been intended for the emperor Nero?

We learnt much about torcs (neckrings with many local variants), which may have become adopted by Romans from Iron Age people. There were also contributions on Roman glass; the Winchester aqueduct; turf buildings; the wider context and post-Roman use of the building in Rutland with the Iliadic mosaic. Nor was the social context forgotten – there were talks on the lives of those ordinary men who worked on the excavation of Corbridge before the First World War, and on the representation of female archaeologists at the Limes congresses since 1949. It was a very impressive conference, but it was hard to take all of it in; it lacked the hand-outs that can aid comprehension.’

Finally, the last LAMAS Local History conference to be held in the Museum of London was, appropriately, devoted to that Museum. We learnt about the foundation of the Museum in 1976 (by the amalgamation of the Kensington Palace Museum of London with the Guildhall Museum); its redesign more than once over the forty-six years since then, with changing ideas about the proper focus of it and of museums generally; and the many special exhibitions it has held. Our President, Harvey Sheldon, ran through the most significant of the archaeological excavations in London over the period. The culmination was a breathtakingly enthusiastic talk by the Director of the Museum, Sharon Ament, about the new London Museum that is to be opened by the King in 2026.

HADAS Excavation at ‘Hopscotch’ 88 High St, Barnet EN5 5SN (Part 2 the excavation)
Bill Bass & Fieldwork Team Site code OPS22

As mentioned in ‘The Introduction’ (Newsletter 620 Nov 2022) the proprietors of Hopscotch wanted to re-landscape their small garden area in the backyard and offered us the chance to dig there. A HADAS Fieldwork Team was assembled fairly quickly to carry-out the task.

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The site was in the small space in the rear yard of the shop, it was mainly laid with paving stone but with a small gardening plot that measured approx. 1.70m north-south x 2.00m east-west. A Temporary Benchmark (TBM) of 130.06m OD was established just outside of the gate to the site. See map above.

Context 001
This was 20-40cm mixed/disturbed sandy humic-clay topsoil with a series of dump layers containing plastics, concrete lumps, pottery, bone, Ceramic Building Material (CBM) and glass. Intriguingly a number of ‘Tudor’ style bricks had been found by Alice Kentish in previous digging of their garden.

In the north baulk of the trench the footings of a red-brick wall at 129.91 OD, context 004, were uncovered running east-west with a corner turning north, it was fairly insubstantial being one or two courses high in possible ‘English Bond’. The bricks had little or no ‘frog’ (indentations in the top of the brick). The type of brick may date to the 18th century but perhaps reused in this context. This may have been the remains of an outbuilding associated with an adjoining property to the north.

Just to the south of the footings the outline of what at first was thought to be an irregular pit started to appear, the ‘fill’ was similar to context 001 – bands of clay, burnt material and sand, all at least 40cm thick. Doubts on the pit theory were cast as the ground became unstable with voids heading off here and there, also a 1946 photo taken from the church tower showed a large tree in the same spot as the ‘pit’ so we were dealing with a ‘tree-bowl’ and root damage.

Fairly modern finds including large amounts of pottery, glass, building materials together with smaller amounts of clay-pipe, metals, and bone etc were recovered.

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Context 002
This had implications as we did not have the time to properly excavate and sort out this disturbance at the northern end of the trench, so we tended to concentrate on the southern half. A section of the southern half of the trench was measured at 1.00m (north-south) from the southern baulk and 1.70m wide.

At approx. 0.50m below surface level (129.56 OD) we came across a substantial pebbly layer, context 002, this was around 20-25cm thick consisting of pebbles up to 10cm across in a brown-grey sandy-humic matrix, with occasional flint nodules. Finds in the context included large lumps of butchered bone, dumps of roof tile, glass, metal and Post-medieval Redware (PMR) and other pottery, generally 17th century in date. A number of clay tobacco bowls and stems were recorded. The evenness and make-up of the context led us to believe this may have been a pebbly floor surface.

Context 003
Under context 002 we revealed a dark-brown sandy/humic/clay layer with occasional pebbles and charcoal flecking. This was interpreted as a buried garden soil approx. 40cm thick which contained some flint nodules, brick and tile fragments including peg and pan type roof tiles, a worked piece of limestone was also recovered.

The pottery assemblage included PMR some with glazing and probably bowls. Further down in the context we started to uncover small amounts of medieval dated pottery – 1080 to 1500AD (see report elsewhere). A flagon neck was possibly identified in an as yet unknown pottery fragment. Several animal bones and oyster-shell were identified.

Context 005
The last layer we excavated was a grey-brown clayey sand with small regular pebbles and charcoal fragments. The top of this context was at 1.20m below ground level, approx. 128.86OD, we excavated this context down to approx. 1.50m below ground level (including a small sondage trial-pit) but this was our safety limit and time limit as it happens, so this layer was not fully dug but it felt substantial, the ‘natural’ was not reached.

The finds consisted of an amount of roof tile with small amounts of oyster-shell and bone fragments. Three sherds of medieval dated pottery – 1080 to 1450AD were recovered.

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So was this a medieval occupational layer? Perhaps a bit difficult to say from such a small area, but the finds didn’t appear intrusive, and we have context from the surrounding excavations in the district.

Conclusions
We appear to have a fairly good sequence from the modern topsoil 001 with its dumping of glass/pottery etc, to the pebbly 002 context with post-medieval pottery and clay-pipe, to 003 with its post-medieval phasing.

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into medieval pottery and finally context 005 including medieval pottery and roof tile. This seems to reflect the working nature of the area with nearby shops, pubs and commercial premises.

Acknowledgements
Michael and Alice Kentish

HADAS Fieldwork Team
Bill Bass, Roger Chapman, Melvyn Dresner, Janet Mortimer, Andy Simpson and Susan Trackman.

In the next article we will have a closer look at the finds.

Arbeia Roman Fort David Willoughby

HADAS visited Arbeia Roman fort during the long weekend summer trips to the north in both 1995 and 2005. A report of the 1995 visit is to be found in the October 1995 edition of the Newsletter.
Sue and I visited during the 2005 trip and since my move to Northumberland I have used public transport to visit on two more occasions, the second of which was to see a re-enactment of Roman cavalry in action.

Arbeia is located on a low headland, close to the mouth of the Tyne, in South Shields, South Tyneside. It originally likely fulfilled two purposes, the first of which was to protect the (yet to be located) Roman port below through which goods and Roman troops flowed on their way to both the south and west. The second function was to protect against incursions from the north across the

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Tyne beyond the eastern extent of Hadrian’s Wall which meets the Tyne on the north bank at Wallsend, some four miles upriver from Arbeia on the south bank.

The earliest occupation of the site dates from 3000-4000 BC, and an Iron Age farmstead dating to the third century BC has been recently excavated. By the end of the first century AD the Roman army was well established in the north-east. The earliest known Roman buildings on the site are from about AD 125 but are civilian in nature. These are thought to represent a vicus serving a yet to be discovered early Roman fort located near the current site.

The building of Hadrian’s Wall commenced in AD 122 but the wall was abandoned after a few years following the building of the Antonine Wall between the Forth and Clyde some 100 miles to the north.

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This reduced the strategic importance of the Arbeia site, whose garrison was either depleted or completely removed. In about AD 158, Hadrian’s Wall was reoccupied, and a new fort built on the current site of Arbeia. It covered an area of 4.1 acres and had a garrison consisting of 480 infantrymen and 120 cavalry. Two cavalry barracks from this period have been excavated but are now not visible on the site. Towards the end of the second century the garrison was greatly reduced but in AD 205-7 most of the buildings were demolished and replaced by thirteen stone granaries. The south wall of the fort was demolished and replaced by a new one situated further to the south thus increasing the area of the fort to 5.2 acres. The southern part of the fort was separated from the grain stores by a wall which was interrupted by the headquarters building. The southern area housed the Fifth Cohort of Gauls along with two additional granaries to supply them with food. The fort was now functioning as a supply base for the campaigns of the emperor Septimus Severus in Scotland in AD 208-10. There is archaeological evidence from lead seals that the emperor may have actually stayed at the fort.

During the Severan campaign the internal dividing wall of the fort was demolished to allow room for seven more granaries and a little later a new headquarters building was built. Following the death of Septimus Severus in York in AD 211 and the Roman withdrawal from Scotland the fort continued as a supply base, but now for the Hadrian’s Wall garrison. The supplies themselves were mostly shipped in by sea to the nearby port.

In the late third century the fort was attacked and destroyed. The fort was rebuilt with the southern granaries being converted into barracks buildings and two new granaries built to the south. There was a large courtyard house in the southern corner which probably housed the commanding officer. This house had private quarters, a dining room and baths. A new headquarters building was built on the site of the original which had been converted into a granary during the previous rebuilding period.

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The fort retained its division into two areas with the supply base to the north and the garrison housed to the south. The southern area was arranged around two streets crossing at right angles. This is a typical plan for the late Roman period. The headquarters building was situated on the side of the fort opposite the main gate and stood at the end of a street lined with columns. This period was the last period of major rebuilding of the fort and probably marked the arrival of a new garrison formed of Tigris Bargemen (numerous barcariorum Tigrisiensium) and it is from them that the name Arbeia (meaning ‘the place of the Arabs’) was probably derived, replacing the likely earlier name of Lugudunum.

Throughout the fourth century the fort appears to have declined. Only minor alterations were made to buildings and the heating system and at least one dining room in the courtyard house fell into disuse. During this period a small building containing a table altar was built in the courtyard of the headquarters building which may have been an early Christian church.

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The fort appears to have remained occupied following the departure of the Roman Army in the fifth century. It was probably a stronghold controlling the local area and it appears to have subsequently become an Anglo-Saxon royal house associated with King Oswin of Deira. Archaeology indicates it was finally abandoned sometime in the ninth century.

On the site today can be seen the remains of several of the later Roman buildings as well as imaginative reconstructions of barrack blocks, the commanding officer’s house and the western gateway. On site is an excellent small museum which houses amongst other things the tombstone of Regina, a freed slave girl of the British Catevellauni tribe who married her master, Barates, who was originally from Palmyra, now in Syria. It bears an extremely rare example of a bilingual inscription which, is both in Latin and Aramaic.

Entry to the site is free!

Interesting object in the Olympia Museum, Greece Don Cooper

We recently (October 2022) visited Olympia, the ancient site on Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula that hosted the original Olympic Games, held every four years from the 8th century BC to 4th century AD. It is an enormous site with excavated remains of athletic training areas, a stadium, temples and many other monuments from ancient Greek and Roman times. Excavations have recently started again to expose more of the site. The Archaeological Museum of Olympia exhibits finds from the site. Among the wonderful statues (including the “star” of the museum, the statue of Hermes by the sculptor Praxiteles from 4th century BC), friezes, and everyday artefacts, one object caught my attention.

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This ceramic early Bronze Age vessel would have contained smoke-making embers that were used to calm the bees. The explanation of why beekeepers use smokers is apparently not fully understood. The common explanation seems to be that the bees smell fire and swiftly start eating as much honey as they can in preparation for possibly having to abandon the hive and that this leaves them calm and docile. Another part explanation seems to be that the guard bees and bees injured in the beekeeper inspecting the hive give off a pheromone which agitates the bees, however using smoke masks this signal.

Whatever the scientific reasons the ancient Greeks had worked out that smoke works to calm the bees and reduces the chances of a beekeeper being stung while inspection his/her beehives.

Other Societies’ Events Eric Morgan

Tuesday 10th January,6.30p.m. L.A.M.A.S. Talk on Zoom. London in the Roman World. by Prof. Dominic Perring. (I.O.A,U.C.L.) Please book via www.lamas.org.uk/lectures.html.

Wednesday 11th January 2.30p.m. Mill Hill Historical Society. Trinity Church, 100, Broadway, NW7 3TB. The history of hat making in Luton. Talk by Elise Naishe. Please check www.millhill-hs.org.uk.

Monday 16th January, 8p.m. Enfield Society joint with Edmonton Hundred Historical Society. Talk on zoom. Dickens’ Magic Lantern. By Julie Chandler. On a with the c19th novelist and hear his life story, whilst discovering the London that sparked his imagination. Please visit www.enfieldsociety.org.uk.

Wednesday 18th January 7.30p.m. Willesden Local History Society. St. Mary’s Church Hall, bottom of Neasden Lane, NW10 (round corner from magistrates’ court). The History of Chess in Brent. Talk by Anthony Fulton. From the late c19TH to the present day. May also be on zoom. If not a member buy a ticket (£3). For details please check www.willesden-local-history.co.uk.

Thursday 19th January 7.30p.m. Camden History Society. May also be on zoom. The Mercenary River; A History of London’s Water. Talk by Nick Higham. On the New River flowing through North London. Please visit www.camdenhistorysociety.org.

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Thursday 19th January, 8p.m. Historical Association; Hampstead and N.W. London branch. The Hugenots, with emphasis on those of Soho and Westminster. Talk by Paul Baker, Barnet L.H.S. (and Guide) on their cultural and historical importance, and their contribution to British life, to illustrate their skills and artistic contribution in silks, gold, silverware, furniture, etc. Meet at Fellowship House, 136A, Willifield Way NW11 6YD (off Finchley Road, Temple Fortune). Hopefully also on zoom. Please e-mail Jeremy Berkoff (chair) on jeremyberkoff@mac.com or tel. 07793 229521 for details of zoom link and how to pay (there may be a voluntary charge of £5) Refreshments afterwards.

Wednesday 25th January 7.45p.m. Friern Barnet and District Local History Society. North Middlesex. Golf Club, The Manor House, Friern Barnet Lane, N20 0NL.How Trams Changed London. Talk by David Berguer(chair) Please visit www.friernbarnethistory.org.uk and click on programme or phone 020 8368 8314 for up-to-date details (David Berguer) Non-members £2. Bar available.

Thursday 26th January 7.30p.m. Finchley Society. Drawing Room, Avenue (Stephens’ House, 17, East End Road, N3 3QE. Petrie’s People- Famous People in Barnet. Talk by Hugh Petrie (Barnet Heritage Development Officer) including inventors, sports people, artists, musicians, etc. For further details please visit www.finchleysociety.org.uk. Non-members £2 at the door. Refreshments in interval.

Acknowledgements

With thanks to this month’s contributors: Bill Bass, Eric Morgan, David Willoughby, Peter Pickering

Hendon and District Archaeological Society
Registered Charity No 269949

Chairman Don Cooper, 59, Potters Road, Barnet, EN5 5HS
(020 8440 4350) e-mail: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer, 34, Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London, NW2 2NP
(07449 978121) e-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman, 50 Summerlee Ave, London, N2 9QP
(07855 304488) e-mail: treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec. Stephen Brunning, Flat 2 Goodwin Court, 52 Church Hill Road
East Barnet, EN4 8FH (020 8440 8421 e-mail: membership@hadas.org.uk

Web site: www.hadas.org.uk

No. 620 November 2022 Edited by Sue Willetts

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming lectures and events

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, until further notice lectures will be held online via ZOOM, all starting at 8 pm, although we do hope to get back to face to face lectures soon. As ever, our apologies to those who are unable to see online lectures. We will be sending out an invitation email with instructions about how to join on the day of each talk, so please keep an eye on your inbox.

• Tuesday 8th November – Nick Card. Building the Ness of Brodgar.

Since 2004 Nick has directed the Ness of Brodgar excavations in the very heart of the World Heritage Site. This project has evolved from several seasons of small-scale test trenches and evaluations to large scale excavation that has become internationally recognised and reported widely in both the popular and academic press including the cover article in National Geographic August 2014. Nick has worked widely throughout Britain since graduating from Glasgow University with an MA Honours Archaeology. Over the last decade he has directed and managed a wide range of both research and commercial projects for the Orkney Archaeological Trust and latterly for the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology of the University of Highlands and Islands (ORCA). He also contributes to various teaching modules within the Archaeology Department of the University of the Highlands and Islands and has assisted with the establishment of an Archaeology Institute within the University of the Highlands and Islands.

• December 4th 2.30 – 5.00 pm – HADAS Festive afternoon tea – see separate sheet for details

Hieroglyphs: unlocking ancient Egypt | British Museum: 13th October 2022 – 28th February 2023. In Room 30. The Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery. £18.00 with members / under 16’s free. This new exhibition has received good reviews. It charts the race to decipherment, from initial efforts by medieval Arab travellers and Renaissance scholars to more focussed progress by French scholar Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832) and England’s Thomas Young (1773–1829). The Rosetta Stone, discovered in 1799, with its decree written in hieroglyphs, demotic and the known language of ancient Greek, provided the key to decoding the ancient signs. The results of the 1822 breakthrough proved staggering.

Alexander the Great The Making of a Myth – The British Library (bl.uk). Fri 21 Oct 2022 – Sun 19 Feb 2023. Full price £17.00. Concessions available. Astrological clay tablets, ancient papyri, and medieval manuscripts, to Hollywood and Bollywood movies and cutting-edge videogames, this major exhibition crosses continents to explore the fantastical stories that turned legacy into legend. Pharaoh, prophet, philosopher. European, Middle Eastern and Asian cultures have all moulded Alexander into the fictional hero they want him to be. And today artists and storytellers alike are still trying to reimagine the man and his myth.

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ΗADAS Excavation at ‘Hopscotch’ 88 High St, Barnet EN5 5SN (Part 1 Introduction, Bill Bass)

As mentioned in an overview in the April 2022 Newsletter the dig took place over the weekend of the 25-27th February 2022, the site code is OPS22 with the NGR TQ 24555 19645.

Previous excavations by HADAS and other agencies in the High St, Barnet environs have shown the survival of medieval and post-medieval occupation (1). More recently (Nov 2020) has been the discovery of 54a High St, Barnet a timber-framed building (Chudy’s) 100m or so south-east of Hopscotch, which has been dated to AD1330-1362 and in Oct 2020 a series of medieval pits, possible ditches and pottery was found behind the east side of 164 High St approx. 75.00m north of Hopscotch. At 70 High St excavations found extensive post-medieval floors, walls and pits. A couple of sites on Moxon Street in 2019 excavated by AOC found in one area the remains of cellar and a large pit with pottery dating to 15th-16th centuries, whilst in an adjacent area it was mostly disturbed with a large amount of modern made ground. However, several sites in the area have returned ‘negative’ evidence through disturbance etc so it’s not guaranteed to find anything!

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Michael and Alice Kentish are the proprietors of ‘Hopscotch’ they are interested in the local history, they invited HADAS to dig in the rear yard and have produced a leaflet – ’88 High Street & The Barnet Squeeze’ from which much of the info below comes from.

The site of Hopscotch lies on the bend in the High St, once known as ‘The Squeeze’, directly opposite the north side of Barnet Parish Church originally built c13th century, but a church has been on the site since the 11th century. To the east of the church in the middle of the High Street was a complex known as Middle Row, the original site of Barnet Market which received its charter from King John in 1199. Middle Row was damaged after a fire in 1889 and subsequently demolished.

“Hopscotch is in a designated Area of Archaeological Significance on the site of an old timber building thought to be a fine example of a mid- 17th century structure which survived until 1933. Notable for its gabled facade and an oriel window which appears in many old illustrations, the site included a yard to the left and stables at the back with rear extending at least to what is now Moxon Street. This was part of a medieval burgage plot that comprised a market shop, dwelling and a tiny smallholding for vegetables and little animals such as pigs. There are no parallel lines in the layout of the property, is testament to the shop’s medieval heritage, where there has been give and take during repeated construction over the last 900 years”.

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Tudor bricks: When gardening in the past, Alice has found a number of what look to be ‘Tudor’ style bricks in the topsoil of their small plot. It is not known if there was a brick building on the site (?) or nearby. However, there is the ‘Tudor Hall’ due south on the other side of the church on Wood Street, it was built c1577 (although stamped 1573) and is a Grade II listed building. Possibly the bricks may have been sourced from there.

Bibliography:

• (1) HADAS Newsletters 599, Feb 2021 and 613 April 2022.
• London Fieldwork and Publication Round-up 2019 and 2020, London Archaeologist.
• 88 High Street & The Barnet Squeeze, Michael Kentish 2019.

Part 2 will deal with the excavation.

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Industrial Heritage in Barnet Streets David Willoughby

I share one thing (and probably one thing only) with the former leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn and that is a fascination with the industrial history of Britain as evidenced by street furniture. I am particularly fascinated by coal plates, used to cover the openings to coal cellars through which coal was once poured from hessian sacks by coal merchants (I am currently working on a book on the subject). However, although usually less aesthetically pleasing to the eye, utility covers which allow access to utility infrastructure such as water mains, sewers, gas mains and electricity and telecommunications cables, can also tell a compelling story about our industrial heritage and there are two interesting examples to be found in and around High Barnet.

One example is the cover of British Insulated and Helsby Cables Ltd (BIHC) to be seen in outside the Black Horse public house, Wood Street at the Junction of Stapylton Road. This company was based at Prescot, near Liverpool. The cover was supplied to allow access to power cables of the former North Metropolitan Electricity Power Supply Company.

BIHC had its origins in 1890 in the British Insulated Wire Company which merged with the Telegraph Manufacturing Company in 1902 to form BIHC. BIHC changed its name to the British Insulated Cables Ltd in 1925 implying that the Barnet cover predates this. Their Prescot works produced the largest diameter cables in the world in 1900 for the Port Dundas electricity works in Glasgow.

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The North Metropolitan Electricity Power Supply Company (“Northmet”) brought Brimsdown Power Station (Enfield) into operation in 1904, primarily to power the local tramways. It was then extended from 1924 to 1955 to provide power more widely. Brimsdown power station had the only known British example of the Loeffler boiler system which overcame metallurgical and feedwater quality problems. Brimsdown power station was decommissioned in 1974.

Northmet had offices in Wood Green and was incorporated into the Eastern Electricity Board following nationalisation in 1947.

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In Chipping Close, adjacent to the former Barnet Market are to be found two examples of R. Masefield & Co drain covers. The company was based at the Manor Ironworks in Manor Street, Chelsea.

Robert Masefield was born in Ledbury, Herefordshire and was baptized on 4th August 1845. His father, George was a local solicitor. After studying at a grammar school in Hereford he came to London as an apprentice of Messrs Ordish & Lefevre, civil engineers of 18 Great George Street, off Parliament Square. He was subsequently employed in their drawing office for four years before joining Holbrook and Co, iron founders, of Chelsea as a sub-manager at the Manor Iron Works. By 1870 he was in partnership with Thomas Hodson Holbrook at Holbrook and Co. The partnership was dissolved that year and Robert Masefield became managing partner and the company renamed to R. Masefield & Co from 1872, trading at the same location. The iron works itself had been in existence since about 1851 when M’Colley & Hocking traded there as iron founders. It was briefly in the ownership of John Green before Thomas Hodson Holbrook & Co took over in 1857.

Holbrook & Co were responsible for casting bronze statues such as Thomas Woolner’s Lord
Palmerston, 1869 (Old Palace Yard) and Marshall Wood’s Queen Victoria, 1869 (Montreal).

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R. Masefield & Co described themselves as iron founders and art bronze founders. The company continued Holbrooks & Co’s tradition of casting bronze statues and cast amongst others, John Henry Foley’s General Stonewall Jackson, 1874 (Charleston, South Carolina), Thomas Woolner’s Lord Palmerston, 1876 (Parliament Square), replacing the earlier statue cast by Holbrook & Co and Amelia Hill’s David Livingstone, 1876, (Edinburgh, Princes St. Gardens).

The company was also responsible for a bridge over the Regents Canal and dolphin lamp standards in iron for the Albert Embankment and the Victoria Embankment.

R. Masefield & Co ceased trading in 1886 and the Manor Ironworks at 93-97 Manor Street in Chelsea closed. The R. Masefield & Co drain covers in Barnet must therefore date to no later than that year.

In 1871 Robert Masefield was living in Chelsea and his profession is given as iron founder. By 1881 he had moved to Manor Street, presumably to be closer to the iron works and he is then described as a civil and mechanical engineer, employing ninety-nine men. R. Masefield & Co was obviously a substantial enterprise at this time. After the dissolution of the company Robert Masefield continued to live in Chelsea. He remained unmarried and in the 1891, 1901 and 1911 censuses he is to be found lodging in Markham Square and is described as a civil engineer.

Robert Masefield died on the 1st of December 1926, aged 81, in his native Ledbury. His estate valued at £4,905 8s. 3d. (equivalent to about £333,000 today) was left to Charles Briscoe Masefield, the son of Robert’s eldest brother William. Charles, like his father and grandfather before him, was a solicitor.

New Barnet landmark disappears Jim Nelhams

To the east of the railway through New Barnet and to the north of New Barnet Station there used to be a gas works which made coal gas, with coal being delivered by train on a short branch line. Barnet District Gas & Water Company was formed by Act of Parliament in 1904 from earlier companies and supplied gas to areas including Barnet, Enfield, Finchley and Friern Barnet. The site had several gasholders the last coming into use in 1934. With the introduction of natural gas from the North Sea, most of the machinery was no longer required. The 1934 gasholder was used until 2009 to store small amounts of gas when demand was lower, to smooth supplies for peak periods. It had a maximum capacity of 2 million cubic feet.

This gasholder still exists and opinion varies whether it should be listed or demolished. After gas making onsite ceased, administrative offices were built. Later, the land was sold for housing development and the offices demolished.

The land needed decontaminating and it would seem that the developers underestimated the work required. Several planning applications have been submitted to Barnet Council, with increasing numbers of dwellings, and these have all been rejected even following appeals. Access to the site is not good and the plans included the demolition of buildings at the south end at the junctions of Albert Road, Victoria Road and East Barnet Road, This demolition has gone ahead. One prominent building in Albert Road has already suffered. This was the Salvation Army Barracks built in 1886, in an area with several public houses, the Builders Arms (directly opposite), the Railway Bell and the Railway Tavern. The Barracks were opened by the daughter of General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army. General Booth lived for a time in Hadley Wood and there is a blue plaque marking his residence.

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One of the last functions at the building was as the storage for the Chipping Barnet Foodbank, which has now moved to the Catholic Church of Mary Immaculate and St Peter in nearby Somerset Road.

• 

• 

Other Societies’ Events Eric Morgan

Please check with the Society or Organisation before setting out in case of any changes or cancellations.

Thursday 3rd November, 7p.m. Avenue House (Stephens’ House and Gardens) 17 East End Road,
N3 3QE. Guided tour. A rare opportunity to view the house from top to bottom and learn more of its 138-year history and the life of Henry Stephens. Tickets £8. To book visit www.stephenshouseandgardens.com.

Wednesday 9th November 2.30p.m. Mill Hill Historical Society, Trinity Church, 100, The Broadway, NW7 3TB.West House and Heath Robinson: A partnership made in Pinner. Talk by Cliff Litchfield. Please check www.millhill-hs.org.uk/

Wednesday 9th November, 8.00 p.m. Hornsey Historical Society. Talk on zoom. Hornsey Wood House. By John Hinshelwood. (H.H.S.) Please email hornseyhistoricalchairman@gmail.com. for link. Also visit www.hornseyhistorical.org.uk.

Friday 11th November, 7.00 p.m. Enfield Archaeological Society. Talk on zoom’ Tools in Roman London. By Owen Humphreys. (M.O.L.A.) For link please visit www.enfarchsoc.org/

Wednesday 16th November, 7.30 p.m. Willesden Local History Society. St. Mary’s Church Hall, bottom of Neasden Lane, NW10 (around corner from Magistrates’ Court) The Black Madonna.Talk by Signe Hoffos (W.L.H.S. and C.O.L.A.S.) Its origin is variously ascribed in the Song of Solomon, the Goddess Isis and centuries of incense and candle smoke. In the hinterlands of Medieval London,

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the Black Virgin of Willesden was a popular pilgrimage site until the iconoclasm of the English Reformation. But the memory lived on, and Modern Willesden has 2 Black Madonnas, as will be explained. Should also be on Zoom. If not a member, buy a ticket (£3) For details please visit www.willesden-local-history.co.uk.

Thursday 17th November, 7.30p.m. Camden History Society. Talk on zoom. Streets and Characters of Kilburn and South Hampstead. By Marianne Colloms and Dick Weindling.(C.H.S.) For link please visit www.camdenhistorysociety.org.

Thursday 17th November, 8.00 p.m. Historical Association: Hampstead and N.W. London Branch. Spies in the Skies: Aerial Photography in WW2. Talk by Taylor Downing (F.R.Hist.Soc.) on the innovative ways in which the Allies obtained and used aerial photography to obtain intelligence that was as important as that gleaned from code-breaking. Meet at Fellowship House, 136A Willifield Way, NW11 6YD. (off Finchley Road, Temple Fortune). Hopefully also on Zoom. Please email Jeremy Berkoff (Chair) at jeremyberkoff@mac.com or tel. 07793 229521 for details of Zoom link and how to pay (there may be a voluntary charge of £5). Refreshments after meeting.

Saturday 19th November, 10.30 a.m.- 6.00 p.m. L.A.M.A.S. Local History Conference. Weston Theatre, Museum of London, 150, London Wall, EC2Y 5HN.The Museum of London: A Celebration. To book visit www.lamas.drg.uk/conferences/local-history.html. Tickets £17.50

Wednesday 23rd November, 7.45 p.m. Friern Barnet and District Local History Society. North Middx. Golf Club, The Manor House, Friern Barnet Lane, N20 ONL. A History of Xmas. Talk by Nick Dobson. Visit www.friern-barnethistory.org.uk/ and click on programme, or phone 020 8368 8314 for up-to-date details. (David Berguer, Chair). Non-members £2. Bar available.

Thursday 24th November, 7.15 p.m. Finchley Society. Drawing Room, Avenue (Stephens House) 17 East End Rd., N3 3QE. Quiz Supper with Fish and Chips – quizmaster Andy Savage. £12. For further details. please visit www.finchleysociety.org.uk. Booking required by Friday 11th November.

Saturday 26th November, 10a.m.- 4.00 p.m. Amateur Geological Society. North London Mineral, Gem and Fossil Show. Trinity Church, 15, Nether Street, N12 7NN. (opp. North Finchley Arts Depot, nr. Tally Ho pub). Large hall with jewellery, gems, fossils, rocks, minerals, Books, maps and refreshments. Admission £2. For details: https://amgeosoc.wordpress.com

Sunday 4th December, 10.30 a.m. Heath and Hampstead Society. The Hidden Heath: Signs of the Heath’s Past. Meet at Kenwood Walled Garden, off Hampstead Lane, NW3 7JR. Walk led by Michael Hammerson (Highgate Society Archaeologist). Lasts approx. 2 hours. Donation £5. Please contact Thomas Radice on 07941 528034 or email hhs.walks@gmail.com or visit www.HeathandHampstead.org.uk.

Wednesday 7th December, 6.00 p.m. Gresham College. Paganism in Roman Britain. Talk by Ronald Hutton. Free but ticket required. Register to attend or watch online. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/paganism-roman. Looking at the evidence: inscriptions, statues and figurines, carvings and all the impedimenta of ritual, as well as the testimony of hundreds of burials.

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Friday 9th December, 7.00 p.m. Enfield Archaeological Society. Talk on Zoom. How weird is that? Iron Age to Early Roman Burial Practices in Hertfordshire and beyond by Isobel Thompson (Herts. Archaeologist). For link visit https://www.enfarchsoc.org/

Tuesday 13th December, 6.30p.m. LAMAS. Talk on Zoom. The Roman Pottery Manufacturing Site in Highgate Wood by Harvey Sheldon. (HADAS President). Book https://www.lamas.org.uk/lectures.html.

Wednesday 14th December, 2.30 p.m. Mill Hill Historical Society. Trinity Church, 100 The Broadway, NW7 3TB. A Seasonal Cockney ‘Ding Dong’. Talk by Stanley Bass. Check https://millhill-hs.org.uk/

Wednesday 14th December, 8p.m. Hornsey Historical Society. Talk on Zoom. The Archives of Highgate School. By Nicole Gross. Please email hornseyhistoricalchairman@gmail.com. for link. Also visit www.hornseyhistorical.org,uk.

STOP PRESS: Welcome news. Sue Willetts

It has recently been reported that Hendon Library in The Burroughs will remain in its Grade 2-listed building after the council reviewed its controversial Hendon Hub plans. Chair of the Community Leadership & Libraries Committee, Cllr Sara Conway said: “Hendon Library is a public space cherished by so many people and is an important part of our shared heritage as a Borough. We have listened to hundreds of residents who urged the council not to go ahead with plans to move it from its historic home and are delighted to announce that we will now be retaining Hendon library within the listed building.” Chair of the Housing & Growth Committee, Cllr Ross Houston said: “Our plans will mean a newly refurbished and revitalised Library, with access to the archives through a Local Studies Service which will open-up a new window into Barnet’s history and heritage for Library users and visitors.

https://www.barnet.gov.uk/news/historic-hendon-library-remain-and-be-refurbished-after-council-listens-local-residents

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
With thanks to this month’s contributors:
Bill Bass, Eric Morgan, Jim Nelhams, Sue Willetts, David Willoughby
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Don Cooper 59, Potters Road, Barnet, EN5 5HS
(020 8440 4350) e-mail: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer
(07449 978121) e-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman 50 Summerlee Ave, London N2 9QP
(07855 304488) e-mail: treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec. Stephen Brunning, Flat 2 Goodwin Court, 52 Church Hill Road,
East Barnet EN4 8FH (020 8440 8421)
e-mail: membership@hadas.org.uk

Web site: www.hadas.org.uk

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______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

No. 619 OCTOBER 2022 Edited by Robin Densem

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HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming lectures and events

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, until further notice lectures will be held online via ZOOM, all starting at 8 pm, although we do hope to get back to face-to-face lectures soon. As ever, our apologies to those who are unable to see online lectures. We will be sending out an invitation email with instructions about how to join on the day of each talk, so please keep an eye on your inbox.

Tuesday 11 October: Dr Martin Bridge (UCL): Tree-ring dating and what it tells us about the old Barnet Shop.

Tuesday 8th November : Nick Card: Building the Ness of Brodgar
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Some forthcoming lectures from other societies by Eric Morgan

Wednesday 12th October 2022, 2.30pm. Mill Hill Historical Society at Trinity Church, 100 The Broadway NW7 3TB. Sir Stanford Raffles in Mill Hill, by Dr Richard Bingle (The President of the Society). Please check at www.millhill-hs.org.uk

Friday 14th October, 7.00, Enfield Archaeological Society. A talk on Zoom 10,000 Years of Brentford – the Early History of a Riverside Town, by Jon Cotton (The Vice-President of the Society). The lectures page of the society’s website  www.enfarchsoc.org says The link to access the lectures will be sent the day before to all members on our e-mail list and will also be published below (RD: I assume this would be on the lectures webpage)

Wednesday 26th October 2022, 7.45pm. Friern Barnet and District Local History Society at North Middlesex Golf Club, The Manor House, Friern Barnet Lane, London N20 0NL. London Underground by Barry Le Jeune. Please visit www.friern-barnethistory.org.uk & click on ‘programme’. Non-members £2 at the door.

Thursday 27th October, 7.30pm. Finchley Society at Avenue (Stephens) House), 17 East End Road, London N3 3QE. From Cinema to Film Star, a talk on the Story of The Phoenix in East Finchley by Rachel Kolsky (a London Guide). Non members £2 at the door. Also on Zoom, visit www.finchleysociety.org.uk to register for the link.

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The House in the Woods and the Church at Hertingfordbury Robin Densem.

The site of the demolished 19th century Panshanger House and the Church of St Mary Hertingfordbury are near where I live in Hertford. My interest stems from living near both sites and by my family having had Stanley and Tilly
Cowper as long-term tenants, for perhaps 50 years, in the ground floor maisonette of our house in Balham, South
London. Stanley was always said to be a distant relative of a very rich family. Sadly I failed to ask him about his
family history before he passed away in 1983, a year or two after Tilly. I wish I had asked him. I think he was related
to the Cowper family that had built Panshanger House in Hertfordshire in the early nineteenth century. The Cowper
family worshipped in the nearby church of St Mary Hertingfordbury. The sixth Earl Cowper restored the church in
1845 and the seventh and last Earl Cowper carried out extensive works to the church in 1888-91 when it was also
richly furnished. The seven earls were buried at the church.

The Cowper family originated from London and Kent. Sir William Cower and his wife Sarah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Cowper were the parents of the first Earl Cowper who was raised to the newly
created earldom in 1718 by George I, as the first Earl Cowper. His mother Sarah wrote a diary and her history and
writing are described in a modern source thus: “In 1664, Sarah, the daughter of a London merchant, married Sir
William Cowper, a man above her social rank, whose landed estate was inadequate for his high status. Sir William
was one of many men who used government office, professional training, and mercantile marriage to obtain an estate and a seat in Parliament. “Never met two more Averse than we in Humour, Passions, and Affections; our Reason
and Sense, Religion or Morals agree not” quipped Sarah. Nor did she receive the respect due to her from her two
barrister sons, William and Spencer, who achieved spectacular success in the Whig political world. William
eventually became Lord Chancellor and an earl, while Spencer held high legal office. After producing her sons,
however, Sarah spent the rest of her life without leverage, financial security, or a compatible mate. She turned to her
diary to express her most intimate thoughts, and the political and religious views that developed from her reading.
An appendix of a hundred thirty-three books that she owned in 1701 is, in fact, a lengthy, but otherwise typical
reading list of a moderate Anglican woman.” (https://networks.h-net.org/node/16749/reviews/17765/whymankugler-errant-plagiary-life-and-writing-lady-sarah-cowper-1644 accessed 10/04/2022). Lady Sarah Cowper died in
1720, and her tomb stands outside St Mary’s Church, in the churchyard to the east of the chancel.

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William Cowper (c. 1665 – 10 October 1723) pictured below in an 18th century portrait (Figure 2) was the first Earl Cowper from 1718 until his death in 1723. “Around 1704 the mansion house called Fitzjohns was pulled down and replaced by Cole Green House, a seven-bay mansion built for William Cowper, first Earl Cowper (first Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, 1707-10, again 1714-18; d(ied) at Cole Green 1723). He occupied the house in 1711 and settled there upon his retirement in 1718. Fruit and formal flower gardens lay close to the house, closely attended by the Countess. In 1719 the Earl bought the adjacent Panshanger estate. ”(https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000916?section=official-list-entry accessed 29.05.2022). His wife Mary kept a diary that has survived (https://www.hertsmemories.org.uk/content/category/herts-history/diaries-and-letters/hertfordshire-voices/the-diaries-of-lady-cowper accessed 3rd June 2022).

Fitzjohns and Cole Green House stood at Cole Green, near Panshanger in Hertfordshire, but on the opposite, south, side of the River Mimram. The Cowper family were well established in Hertfordshire and Kent, and William Cowper who was to become the first Earl Cowper was an English lawyer who threw his lot in with William of Orange when he landed in England in 1688. He became a Member of Parliament for Hertford and as a politician he moved in the highest circles at court and became the first Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain in 1707. George I created him first Earl Cowper in 1718.

Figure 3 above, shows an Image of Cole Green House in the 1790s, (HALS: DE/Of/3/496) (reproduced by kind permission of Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, Hertfordshire County Council (HALS)).. Cole Green is about a mile west of the village of Hertingfordbury and the church of St Mary and the first Earl died at his Cole Green House in 1723 after catching a severe cold while travelling home from London. He was buried in the church where all seven Earls Cowper (1718-1905) were laid to rest. The second Earl, another William, left Cole Green House largely untouched but he commissioned Capability Brown to landscape its park In 1755. The second Earl died in 1764.

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Figure 4: (above) The extract from Dury and Andrews Map of Hertfordshire of 1766 shows Cole Green House at the upper middle left, labelled ‘Earl Cowper’, just above the words ‘Cole Green Park’. The house stands at the north end of an avenue of trees within Cole Green Park. . The house lay at Cole Green, on the south-west side of the River Mimram, labelled ‘Maran River’. Panshanger House would be built on the north side of the river in the early nineteenth century in the Panshanger estate that the first Earl had purchased in 1719. In 1766, a set of buildings labelled ‘Panshanger Earl Cowper’ on the map stood there. The seven Earls Cowper were buried at St Mary’s Church, Hertingfordbury. The earldom was created for the first Earl in 1718, and the last earl died in 1905. The tower and nave of the church within its rectangular walled churchyard are shown, diagrammatically, in the Hertingfordbury village on the 1766 map extract. The church is shown, immediately to the left of the letter I of the word ‘HERTINGFORDBURY’ that runs in an arc left to right across the lower part of the map extract (Figure 4). The church is at the bottom right hand edge of the village. The town of Hertford, labelled Hartford is also shown to the east of the village on the Dury and Andrews map extract.

The second Earl’s son George Nassau Clavering-Cowper left England in January 1757 to undertake his Grand Tour of Europe. Styled Viscount Fordwich, he was 18 years old and heir to the earldom. All went well until the summer of 1759 when he arrived in Florence and fell passionately in love with a beautiful young Florentine lady. Hannah Gore.

Figure 5: The image above shows the Gore family in Florence, painted by Johann Zoffany in c. 1775 Charles Gore’s daughter, Hannah, is top left, Gore is centre and the aspiring groom, George Clavering-Cowper, Lord Fordwich, is the standing figure on the right. He married the sixteen-year-old Hannah Anne Gore on 2 June 1775. Their betrothal was commemorated with this painting that was commissioned by Fordwich’s new father-in-law. Fordwich declined to return home at the end of his tour, but instead headed back to Florence and was still living there when he succeeded his father to the earldom as the third Earl Cowper in 1764. By then he was thoroughly embedded in the cultural and social life of Florence and, apart from one short visit to England in 1786, he remained in Italy until his death in 1789 . Despite being Member of Parliament for Hertford from 1759-81, George lived in Italy, collecting fine art, and founded the famous Cowper art collection, that was later housed in Panshanger House. The image is from Wikipedia (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zoffany_Gore_Family.jpg accessed 20.05.2022).

On the death of George, the third Earl Cowper, in 1789, his eldest son, also named George (1776-1799), became the fourth Earl Cowper. The fourth Earl died unmarried in 1799. His brother, Peter (1778-1837), the second son of the fourth Earl, succeeded to the earldom as the fifth Earl in that year, (1799). Figure 6, above shows Earl Peter and is attributed to John Hoppner who died in 1810 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Cowper , accessed 29th May 2022). Little happened with Cole Green Park until 1801-2 when Peter had Cole Green House demolished but he had set about landscaping the land at Panshanger, in line with Humphrey Repton’s proposals, doubtless with a view to providing a setting for the new house he intended to have built there, close to and probably incorporating the earlier house Panshanger House (C on Figure 7).

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Figure 7 (HALS: DE/P/P21) is Humphrey Repton’s c. 1799 ‘Shape of Ground’ (Panshanger) from his ‘Red Book’ for Panshanger, showing landscaping proposals for Peter, the fifth Earl. The plan shows the location of Cole Green House at A and the site for the replacement house at Panshanger, at C. Repton seems to have taken little part in the implementation of his suggestions, which were instead and immediately supervised by Peter, the Fifth Earl. Planting began in 1799 and continued over several years. The plan is reproduced by kind permission of HALS. Deliberate landscaping works in the early 19th century were to widen the River Mimram to the south of the new Panshanger House, to form the ‘Broadwater’ to enhance the view and provide amenity.

The image above (Figure8 (HALS: DE/Of/3/496)) shows the old house at Panshanger as it was in the1790s and is reproduced by kind permission of HALS). Anne Rowe in her 2006 ‘History of the pleasure gardens at Panshanger’ researched for the Hertfordshire Gardens Trust explains that the image shows a house with at least two main building phases: the Elizabethan house on the right and the newer and grander extension on the left, perhaps dating from the first half of the 18th century .The buildings should be amongst the Panshanger buildings shown in the upper central part of the Dury and Andrews map extract (Figure 4) where they are labelled ‘Panshanger Earl Cowper’.

The early form of the new Panshanger House was built on the site of and perhaps around the old house in 1806-9 and the Fifth Earl occupied it in 1811 (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000916?section=official-listing . accessed 1st January 2022).

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The design of the house was modified from Repton’s suggestions, first under the architect Samuel Wyatt and then, following his death in 1807, under another architect, William Atkinson who continued the work, building further additions and Gothicising the house . The site was carefully chosen to take advantage of the beautiful landscaped view south from the house .across the River Mimram, as shown in the recent below photograph .

Figure 9 above, is a recent photo by Paul Gallimore of Bedfordshire Walks https://bedfordshirewalks.co.uk/panshanger-park/ and included by his kind permission. The view is looking south-west and was taken from just south-west of the site of the early 19th century and now demolished Panshanger House. The site was carefully chosen to take advantage of the beautiful landscaped view south-west from the house .across the River Mimram, as shown in this recent photograph . The River Mimran can be seen in the centre of the photograph.

Figure 10 above, shows: An engraving of a drawing by J P Neale that was published in 1818. The view is looking north-east across the north bank of the ‘Broadwater’ (the widened River Mimran) and includes grazing cattle. The view shows an early extent of Panshanger House (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Neale%281818%29_p2.142_Panshanger%2C_Hertfordshire.jpg accessed 2nd January 2022).

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Figure 11 above, show s an Extract from Andrew Bryant’s map of Hertfordshire of 1822. The maps shows the park around the house in dark tone. The River Mimram is labelled ‘Maram or Memoram’ and the widened portion, the Broadwater, can be seen south-west of Panshanger House which is labelled simply as Panshanger. I have added a red circle to identify the Church of St Mary in Hertingfordbury (in the south-east corner of the map extract). The extract from the map(HALS reference CM140) is reproduced by kind permission of HALS.

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After the death of Peter, the fifth Earl Cowper, in 1837 his wife Emily (nee Lamb) pictured above in Figure 14,
painted in 1803 when she was 16 years old in a Wikimedia Commons image (portrait of emily lamb – Google Search accessed 13th June 2022) continued to manage Panshanger until her death in 1867, having
remarried, to Lord Palmerston in 1839.

Earl Peter’s son George became the sixth Earl Cowper in in 1837 and he restored the Church of St Mary Hertingfordbury in 1845. On his death in 1856 his son Francis became the Seventh (and last) Earl Cowper. Important Cowper papers are held by HALS including material related to the Seventh Earl Cowper (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/22b66921-37fb-4e6d-beb7-5eb3235dd3a5) and may be
consulted at HALS by appointment.

Panshanger House was richly furnished, and had a picture gallery displaying paintings including those collected by the third Earl in Italy in the later 18th century.

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The Stables and the Orangery were added in c.1856 by Francis, the seventh Earl Cowper. The large and impressive south-facing Orangery of white brick with terracotta dressings in Classical style has lost its roof and windows but the main structure still stands. The brick-built stables (c 1856, now converted to office accommodation) stand north of the site of the house, surrounding a square stable yard on three sides. (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000916?section=official-list-entry, accessed 31.05.2022). Panshanger House was demolished in 1953-4 but its site can be visited and the adjacent Orangery still stands, though the impressive remains that survive have to be viewed through a protective by a wire mesh fence.

Francis was very wealthy and came to own more than one million pounds worth of assets which Sir Leo Chiozza Money, an analyst of the rich of the era, estimated was true of only eight British people who died “in an average year”. His probate was re-sworn in 1905 at £1.3 million, equivalent to about £145.6 million in 2020 (figures from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Cowper,_7th_Earl_Cowper accessed 31.05.2022).

Francis died in 1905 and his impressive tomb effigy is in the Cowper Chapel in the Church of St Mary Hertingfordbury beneath which he was buried, under the fine mortuary chapel he had built. He had funded the rebuilding of the church in 1888-91 including the construction of the integral chapel.

Despite a happy marriage Francis, the seventh Earl and his wife, Countess Katrine Cowper, had no children and his niece, Ettie Fane inherited Panshanger, together with other Cowper family estates in Hertfordshire, Kent and London, under the terms of the will of her uncle the seventh Earl Cowper who died at Panshanger in 1905. Katrine died in 1913 and her angelic-styled tomb memorial stands in the churchyard to the east of the church.

Ettie Fane Ethel (Ettie) Fane had been born in 1867 into an aristocratic family but she had no title. By the age of three she was an orphan when her father, Julian Fane died at the age of 42. She married William Grenfell in 1887.
She was a well-known hostess; Winston Churchill and H. G. Wells were amongst her guests, and she was said to be the confidante of six prime ministers (Rosebery, Balfour, Asquith, Baldwin, Chamberlain and Churchill). She and her husband were members of the social group known as “The Souls” which had been founded in 1885 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Souls, accessed 31 May 2022). Lord and Lady Desborough (he had been raised to the peerage in 1905) had three sons. Their eldest, Julian Grenfell, a war poet, was killed in the First World War in 1915 as was his brother William Grenfell later in the same year. Their third son, Ivo Grenfell, who became a farmer, died in a car accident in Kent in 1926. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ettie_Grenfell,_Baroness_Desborough, accessed 31.05.2022).

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Panshanger house was richly furnished, as can be seen in the below image:

Figure 24: I took this photograph in December 2021 of an undated image mounted on a railed fence in
Panshanger Park. The fence encloses the site of the demolished house and the image illustrates the richness of a
reception room in Panshanger House.

Figure 25: (HALS HBY 75(LSL) shows a view from a post-card of c.1910-15 looking east along the south-western face of Panshanger House.

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Lord Desborough died at Panshanger in 1945 followed by Ettie, Lady Desborough in 1952. She had added more
bathrooms to the house and by time she died the house had some 90 rooms. https://www.ourhertfordandware.org.uk/content/places/hertingfordbury/panshanger-park/the-panshangerestate-
sale-1953/panshanger-house-sale-document accessed 9th January 2022

Ettie left Panshanger to her two daughters but as they didn’t wish to live in the house it was put up for sale in
1953 (https://www.ourhertfordandware.org.uk/content/places/hertingfordbury/panshanger-park/thepanshanger-
estate-sale-1953/panshanger-house-sale-document accessed 9th January 2022). Although attempts
were made to sell the house as an institution or school, there were no buyers after World War Two and the house
and 89 acres of land were sold to a demolition contractor and scrap dealer for £17,750 and the house was
demolished in 1953-4, and the building materials were sold in 1956.

Figure 28 (above): Author photo looking north-west in December 2021 across part of the site of the demolished Panshanger House, with standing remains of the conservatory in the background. The Orangery lies beyond and out of view.

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Some parts of the former aristocratic park around the site of the former Panshanger House have been quarried for sand and gravel by Tarmac. Following restoration large areas of the park have been opened up as a country park and nature reserve. The Orangery and the site of Panshanger House can be walked to from a car park on Thieves Lane on the east side of the park. The walk is over a mile and is on gravel paths, or across grass. The Orangery and the site of the demolished Panshanger House are marked to the right of the symbol for a large tree in the upper central part of the below map (Figure 29) and can be visited, while the car park is shown by a red car symbol in the middle right of the image. The park is popular with visitors and dog-walkers, and has beautiful scenery and many interesting features including the River Mimram, lakes, wildlife and informative display panels.

Figure 29 above, shows a visitor’s plan of Panshanger Park (Your Visit | Panshanger Park (tarmac.com) accessed 4th January 2022) and included by kind permission of Tarmac and Maydencroft Limited.

In addition to walking through Panshanger Park to visit the site of Panshanger House and to admire the Orangery
and taking in the beauty of the location and the view of the Broadwater, one can visit the nearby and beautiful
Church of St Mary Hertingfordbury to which I will now turn.

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A church is mentioned at Hertingfordbury in the Domesday Book of 1086. The existing church was probably first built in the 13th century, perhaps on the orders of John of Gaunt and the first recorded rector was Richard de Wakering, 1329. The north aisle and west tower being added in the 15th century. (https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/herts/vol3/pp462-468 accessed 01.06.2022). The church was restored in 1845 by the sixth Earl Cowper and was partially rebuilt in 1888-91 by the seventh Earl Cowper who added the Cowper Chapel.

Figure 32 above, shows the location of the church, circled red, in relation to the village of Hertingfordbury on an extract from an Ordnance Survey map of. The Watercress Beds mark the course of the River Mimram.

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Acknowledgements

I am very grateful for the patient help kindly provided by Chris Bennett, County Archivist and for similar help also kindly provided by the staff at HALS. Others who helped a lot include the East Herts Church Recording Society; Paul Gallimore, Bedfordshire Walks; David Gorton, St Mary’s Church; staff of Hertfordshire Libraries Information; Jonathan Makepiece, British Architectural Library, RIBA; James Meek, HCUK Group; Ahad Noor, Information Services Office, Historic England; Jez Perkins, Estate Manager, Maydencroft Limited; Andrew Macnair; Professor Tom Spencer, University of Cambridge; and Tarmac.

What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us? Stewart Wild

Like most people I was aware that the Roman occupation of our part of Europe was generally ‘a good thing’.
The Romans left us with Mediterranean foodstuffs, new styles of clothing, an idea of architecture, Londinium and many other fine cities, a bridge or two, a wall or two, a degree of local government, theatres, markets and public baths, villas with lovely mosaics, amphitheatres, columns and triumphal arches, aqueducts, cisterns and reservoirs and, of course, straight roads. Not bad for beginners.

Canals in the Empire
What I hadn’t realised, however, is that their water technology also included canals. A canal of course is just a much larger form of aqueduct, but intended to carry boats and freight, and in some cases – drainage of marshland for instance – just to move large quantities of water elsewhere.

They go back a long way. The Romans learned a lot from the Egyptians; as early as 280BC the Canal of the Pharoahs connected the Mediterranean to the Red Sea via the Nile and the Great Bitter Lake, an overall distance of some sixty miles. In the first decade of the second century AD, under Emperor Trajan, this canal was restored and extended.

About the same time, a bridge and a canal (to circumvent rapids) were being constructed to facilitate trade routes and troop movements against local boss Decebalus in the Iron Gates region of the Danube in Dacia (present-day southwest Romania).

Some sixty years earlier, in Greece, Emperor Nero had supervised a particularly ambitious scheme to cut a canal across the isthmus on the route of the present-day Corinth Canal, but the plan was probably a bit too ambitious and abandoned after his death in 68AD.

Canals in England
After 120AD as the Romans began to consolidate their hold on this country under Emperor Hadrian, and while his famous Wall was being constructed up north, various water management schemes were initiated to try to drain the wetlands and fens of what we now call Cambridgeshire. This mainly consisted of cutting channels to join up existing river systems of the Cam, the Nene and the Ouse to assist drainage and land reclamation.

In south Lincolnshire, west of Spalding, there’s an unusual archaeological feature, only visible in cropmarks, known as the Bourne-Morton Canal. This runs straight for about four miles and some locals believe it dates from Roman times. It could have linked the area to a navigable river like the Welland providing a link to the North Sea at The Wash. There are a lot of dykes and drains in this part of Lincolnshire.

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One particular Roman achievement hereabouts was the Foss Dyke, an eleven-mile navigational link now under the control of the Canal and River Trust. It connects the River Trent at Torksey to Brayford Pool on the River Witham in the county town of Lincoln and dates from about 120AD. It was restored a century later and ever since, at least until the 1970s, has been used to move all sorts of cargoes, including building stone, grain, coal and wood, to market. Nowadays it’s a valuable leisure route, popular with boaters and with a footpath and cycleway alongside.

Something else the Romans did for us.

A Little Dig Jim Nelhams

Entertaining our grand-daughters for a short time during their summer school holidays, we came across a little dig, complete with hypocaust.

Quite a surprise because we were at the time looking around Bekonscot Model Village in Beaconsfield (well worth a visit if you have not been there).

The village started in the late 1920s when Roland Callingham’s model railway outgrew his home and following an edict from his wife was moved to their back garden.

Many 1930s buildings were added, together with a tramway, a funicular railway, an airport and a harbour, but the extensive railway remains one of the highlights.

The cover of the guidebook contains the sentence “A little piece of history that is forever England”.
It’s good to know that archaeology has reached model villages.

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❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖
With many thanks to this month’s contributors:
Robin Densem, Eric Morgan, Jim Nelhams and Stewart Wild
❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖

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Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Don Cooper 59, Potters Road, Barnet EN5 5HS (020 8440 4350),
e-mail: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer 34 Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121), e-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapmanr 50 Summerlee Ave, London N2 9QP (07855 304488),
e-mail: treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec. Stephen Brunning 2 Goodwin Court, 52 Church Hill Road, East Barnet
EN4 8FH (0208 440 8421), e-mail: membership@hadas.org.uk

Website: www.hadas.org.uk

No. 618 September 2022 Edited by Stephen Brunning

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HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming lectures and events

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, until further notice lectures will be held online via ZOOM, all starting at 8 pm, although we do hope to get back to face-to-face lectures soon. As ever, our apologies to those who are unable to see online lectures. We will be sending out an invitation email with instructions about how to join on the day of each talk, so please keep an eye on your inbox.

Tuesday 11 October
Dr Martin Bridge (UCL) Tree-ring dating and what it tells us about the old Barnet Shop.

Tuesday 8th November
Nick Card. Building the Ness of Brodgar

Update on Elstree and Borehamwood Museum shown in the August newsletter. This exhibition has now been extended till Saturday 22nd October due to popular demand. Also see article from Andy Simpson later in this newsletter.
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Membership Renewals – a reminder Stephen Brunning

Many thanks to everyone those who have already paid their subscription. If you intend to renew this year and have not yet done so, I would be grateful to receive payment by 30th September 2022 at the following rates: £15 (Full), £5 (each additional member at the same address), and £6 (student). My address is on the last page of this newsletter. Our bank details are: Account Number 00083254 or 00007253, sort code for both is 40-52-40.

I should like to remind people that Rule 3(b) of the HADAS constitution states that: “any member whose subscription shall be six months in arrear shall be deemed to have ceased to be a member”.
It is not necessary to return the renewal form enclosed with the March newsletter. A piece of paper with your name, postal address, telephone number and email address (if applicable) will suffice. I will then be able check the details we hold are still correct. If you have not already done so, it would also be helpful if you could indicate your willingness to receive the newsletter by email. This helps to keep our costs to a minimum.

Thank you.

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Market Place, East Finchley MTP21 excavation Bill Bass
– illustrated notes on the pottery finds

Please see HADAS Newsletter (612) March 2022 for the main report. This is a selected and small example of what was found.

The earliest dated pottery found was a sherd of Tin-glazed Ware late 17th to early 18th century found in context 105 (trench 1) and may indicate evidence of the earlier occupation of the site (right). Also seen is a sherd of Westerwald Stoneware 1590-1900.

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Acknowledgments: www.thepotteries.org (accessed 21/6/22)

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A New Barrow Jim Nelhams

No – not more equipment for our digging team.

In Victorian times, space for burials in London churchyards was running out. Some boroughs set up large burial grounds in the suburbs – we have them in Finchley and New Southgate. Local churches including St Andrew’s Totteridge and St Mary’s Hendon were able to acquire more land and extend their existing churchyards but the problem did not go away.

With rising populations, cremations became more normal and space was made in some churchyards to bury ashes or install plaques although some people want to keep their loved one’s ashes (including their pets) in an urn and need to store the urn.

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This is the service offered by the Mid-England Barrow Ltd, in the heart of English Countryside, on the borders of Warwickshire, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire. Work started in February 2019 to create the first barrow to be built in Mid-England for thousands of years. This amazing structure was created entirely from natural resources by skilled craftsmen.

Niches, nestled into the walls, offer spaces for up to 5 urns (sets of ashes) which are then secured by completely personalised covers, made from stone, glass or other material, sourced from local craftsmen and craftswomen.

Pictures courtesy of Mid-England Barrow Ltd

One wonders what archaeologists of the future will make of this. For more information, see www.mid-englandbarrow.co.uk/

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Are We Finally Going To Return the Elgin Marbles? Stewart Wild

The saga of the Elgin Marbles, rescued from the ruined Acropolis in Athens by Lord Elgin’ s men from 1801 to 1811, has been on and off the front pages ever since . The Greeks maintain that w e stole them (“British imperialist plundering”); we argue that the marble frieze was legitimately obtained from the Ottoman authorities that ruled Athens at the time. (The original fourth century BC owners were no longer around and modern Greece did not become an independent country until the 1820s).

Lord Elgin planned to incorporate the marble treasures into his own home in Scotland, but ran out of money (often happens after a divorce) and was obliged to sell the lot in 1816. He received back only about half of what he had paid to acquire them, and the lucky buyer was the British government, higher offers from people like Napoleon having rightly been refused.

Lord Liverpool’s government then passed the 2,500 year old artworks to the British Museum, where they have gathered dust ever since. The stumbling block to their repatriation, as Greece demands, is the British Museum Act of 1963 which prevents museum trustees from disposing of any of the museum’s items except in very limited circumstances.

For years this has meant a stalemate; the British Museum says it’s a matter for the trustees, and the trustees say the y cannot do any thing without action by the government to change the law.

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This unhappy state of affairs has been a cause of friction between London and Athens for years. In 1986 actress and film star Melina Mercouri (also Greek Minister for Culture) argued passionately for the Marbles to be returned to Greece.

In 2009 one of our local MPs, Andrew Dismore (Labour, Hendon), brought a Private Member’s Bill to Parliament with the same aim, but without success. In 2014 UNESCO got involved but the stalemate prevailed. In 2021 the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis stepped up the pressure.

But is the future of the Marbles set in stone? Former Chancellor George Osborne, now the British Museum chairman, is reported to have said there is “a deal to b e done.” But h is idea of a deal is a loan, and for a loan to go ahead the Greeks would have to accept that Britain legally acquired and owns the priceless collection of sculptures and friezes. Which they won’t.

So, it all seems to depend on another Private Member’s Bill to push through enabling legislation. The difference now is that public opinion seems to have moved in favour of the Greeks. A recent survey found that over half (54 percent) of the British public would support the marbles’ permanent return to Athens, compared with only 23 percent against the idea.

But Westminster has enough problems as it is, and a Department of Culture, Media and Sport spokesman said, “The government has no plans to change museum legislation any time soon.”

We shall see.

SOURCE:
Wikipedia and the Daily Telegraph

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Peter Pickering Birthday Celebration Andy Simpson

On Saturday 13 August many members of HADAS, the Finchley Society, other societies, friends and family – and of course Ted – were all able to gather at Avenue House to help HADAS vice chairman Peter Pickering celebrate a Covid-delayed significant birthday party. As ever, Avenue House provided a splendid buffet and there was a cake! It was still the height of the recent hot spell so the shady terrace was an added attraction.

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Congratulations Peter.

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Northern Line to Edgware – via Mill Hill…. Andy Simpson

Some newsletter readers may have visited the excellent recent uncompleted New Works Programme Northern Heights extension from Edgware to Brockley Hill and Bushey Heath and the exhibition at Borehamwood Museum.

This is a slightly tweaked version of a note I recently sent to ‘Mixed Traffic’, the magazine of the Epping Ongar Heritage Railway where I can usually be found once a week washing down coaches as part of the Carriage and Wagon Team at North Weald Station.

The short (barely a mile) electrified extension from Finchley Central to Mill Hill East opened in May 1941. If it had not been for the war the rest of that line via Copthall and Mill Hill (Bunn’s Lane) would have also been electrified up to Edgware where the Great Northern Railway had its station from August 1867, and would have connected via a flyover to the existing Northern Line surface tracks from Golders Green, Brent (later Brent Cross), Hendon, Burnt Oak and Colindale. When electrification was finally suspended beyond Mill Hill in 1940, much preparatory work had been completed including the electrical substation at Mill Hill Page Street, positioning of conductor rails and lineside cabling supports for much of the way through to Edgware (many of the latter can still be found in situ in the trackbed undergrowth today), along with construction of a new platform at Mill Hill (The Hale) at Bunns Lane, adjacent to, but below, Mill Hill Broadway main line LMS station.

For the next 20 years or so steam hauled main line freights continued to work from Finsbury Park via Stroud Green, Crouch End, Highgate and East Finchley through Mill Hill East to Edgware (and up the later branch to High Barnet, opened in April 1872) usually hauled by Gresley N2 0-6-2 tanks such as 69523 which has visited the Epping Ongar Railway in 2013 and 2016 painted in its original guise as Great Northern Railway 1744 – and in December 1961 this same loco hauled the last steam-hauled freight to Edgware. After a transitional period, these were replaced completely by the ubiquitous Eastern Region D82xx series B.T.H. Type 1 (later class 15) 800hp Bo-Bo diesel locomotives until freight services to the yards at High Barnet ceased on 29 September 1962. The coal traffic to Mill Hill East gas works, and return empty coal wagons, was particularly heavy until gas production ceased at the site in November 1961. Even in 1960 it received some 68,000 tons of goods, mostly coking coal

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for coal gas manufacture at the gasworks, in 5,640 wagons – a significant loss of traffic.

The following photo from my collection, original photographer unknown, shows Edgware (GN) station being visited by a LCGB railtour headed by Gresley N2 69506 on 5 May 1956, five years before demolition of the main station building and eight years before the yard closed to BR goods traffic.

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On Monday 1 October 1962 came the official closure on economy grounds of British Railways Eastern Region goods yards at High Barnet, Totteridge and Whetstone, Woodside Park, Finchley Central, East Finchley, Highgate Wellington goods yard sidings, and Mill Hill East North goods yards and the cessation of all BR workings other than those to Mill Hill (The Hale) and Edgware. The closed yards were replaced by a new coal concentration yard at Enfield Chase, opened September 1962. The regular morning freight worked to Edgware via Finchley Central and Mill Hill East throughout 1963, becoming an ‘as required’ service in 1964, by which time it was in London Midland Region territory.

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The coal sidings at Mill Hill (The Hale) closed 29 February 1964 and the last regular BR freight train to Edgware (GN) ran on 4 May 1964. With the new M1 motorway extension underway, the tracks from Edgware back to Mill Hill East were rapidly lifted between 24 August and 23 September 1964, leaving just the short non-electrified overrun visible today, with the trackbed beyond blocked by flats. The last BR train from Finsbury Park to Highgate was in connection with an LT Northern City Line stock transfer on 4 October 1964, after which the tracks were used weekly by London Transport battery locos hauling sets of 1938 tube stock to and from Highgate Depot Sidings until October 1970, the tracks beyond Highgate Sidings back to Finsbury Park being lifted in January 1972.

The planned extensions beyond Edgware have been well covered in print over the years, as shown in the attached images.…most of these books can be found in a good rummage amongst stallholder’s stock at the Transport Collector’s Fairs patronised by several HADAS members, your scribe included…

The HADAS slide and photograph collection kept in our room at Avenue House includes a number of local railway views dating back to the 1930s and is currently being sorted and catalogued.

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Other Societies’ Events Eric Morgan

Please check with the Organisation before setting out in case of any changes or cancellations.

Sunday 4th September, 11am-3pm. COLAS at Fulham Palace. End of Bishops’ Avenue (off Fulham Palace Road) SW6 6EA. Part of Totally Thames Festival. There will be a small handling collection and a display of Roman cookery. At 12 and 2pm Alexis Haslam (Community Archaeologist) will lead foreshore walks. Please book on www.fulhampalace.org/whats-on/events.

Friday 9th September, 7pm. Enfield Archaeological Society. Talk on zoom, “Elsyng Palace; 19 years under the trowel” by Dr. Martin Dearne (E.A,S,) on his upcoming book. For link, please visit www.enfarchsoc.org

Tuesday 13th September, 7.45pm. Amateur Geological Society – Finchley Baptist Church Hall,6, East End Road/ corner Stanhope Avenue, N3 3LX.The Lost Rivers of London and their relationship to the Geology. Talk by Diana Clements (A.G.S., Geologists’ Association and Natural History Museum). Refreshments afterwards.

Friday 16th September, 7.00pm. COLAS. St. Olave’s Church, Hart Street, EC3R 7LQ – “Wood Green; a spectrum of life from the medieval period to C19th”. Talk by Rosita Greco. (AOC Archaeology) Exploring the remains of a historic house. Also by zoom. Please book via Eventbrite. Visit www.colas.org.uk. HADAS may send out the details to its members.to book.

Saturday 17th September. Barnet Physic Well. Corner Well Approach/ Pepys Crescent, Barnet.,EN5 3DY. Open day.

Saturday17th and Sunday 18th September. Open House weekend. Free entry to London’s best buildings not always open to the public. For full details please visit www.openhouselondon.org.uk.

Wednesday 21st September, 7.30pm. Willesden Local History Society. St. Mary’s Church Hall, Neasden Lane, NW10 2TS. (Near Magistrates Court) Willesden Junction Station. Talk by Michael Woods (professional railwayman and amateur historian on his illustrated history of Willesden Junction and its web of local lines and stations. Should also be on zoom. If not a member buy a ticket (£3). For details please check www.willesden-local-history.co.uk.

Wednesday 28th September, 7.45pm. Friern Barnet and District Local History Society. North Middx. Golf Club, The Manor House, Friern Barnet Lane, N20 ONL…Art Deco London. Talk by Diane Burstein (London Guide). Please visit www.friern-barnethistory.org,uk and click on programme, or phone 020 8368 8314 for up-to-date details (David Berguer, chair) Non-members £2. Bar available.

Thursday 29th September, 7.30pm. Finchley Society. Drawing room, Avenue (Stephens’) House, 17, East End Road, N3 3QE. “Gardening the World”. Talk by Tim Bell (on behalf of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) on those who maintain the cemeteries and how they determine what plants should be used in different countries throughout the world. Non-members £2.at the door. Also on zoom. Please visit www.finchleysociety.org.uk. Also to register for link. Refreshments in interval.

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Tuesday 4th October, 1-2pm. Society of Antiquaries. “The Rediscovery of Tutankhamun”. Talk by Prof. Aidan Dodson (FSA) Currently also on zoom. Please visit www.sal.org.uk/events for details and bookings. Free, but donations accepted. Also Thursday 6th October, 5-6pm. “From Gin craze to Gin Palace”. Talk by Prof. Judith Hawley.(FSA). Also Thursday 20th October 5-6pm. “Landscapes of Defence in Early Medieval England”. Talk by Dr. Stuart Brooke. And Thursday 27th, October, 5-6pm. Louis XIV;Patron, Collector, Creator”. Talk by Dr. Philip Mansel.

Wednesday 5th October-Thursday 17th November. London Luminaries Online lectures. Please visit www.londonluminaries.com/talks/food-and-drink . £5 donation requested. Historic West London properties share and celebrate their history including Kew Palace, Pitzhanger Manor, Ham House, Boston Manor, Orleans House, Pope’s Grotto, Chiswick House, Marble Hill , Hogarth’s House, Strawberry Hill, Turner’s House and Gunnersbury House. Exploring food and drink and its relation to the historic houses, former owners and the society of their times.

Monday 10th October, 3pm. Barnet Museum and Local History Society. St. John the Baptist Church, Chipping Barnet, corner High Street/ Wood Street, Barnet, EN5 4BW. “How Barnet got its Station”. Talk by Dennis Bird. (Barnet Mus. and L.H.S.) Please visit www.barnetmuseum.co.uk

With many thanks to this month’s contributors – Bill Bass, Stephen Brunning, Eric Morgan,
Jim Nelhams, Andy Simpson, Stewart Wild

Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Don Cooper, 59, Potters Road, Barnet, EN5 5HS
(020 8440 4350) e-mail: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer, 34, Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
(07449 978121) e-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman 50 Summerlee Ave, London N2 9QP
(07855 304488) e-mail: treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec. Stephen Brunning, Flat 2 Goodwin Court, 52 Church Hill Road,
East Barnet EN4 8FH1 (020 8440 8421) e-mail: membership@hadas.org.uk

Web site: www.hadas.org.uk

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No. 617 August 2022 Edited by Paul Jackson

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HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming lectures and events

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, until further notice lectures will be held online via ZOOM, all starting at 8pm, although we do hope to get back to face-to-face lectures soon. As ever, our apologies to those who are unable to see online lectures. We will be sending out an invitation email with instructions about how to join on the day of each talk, so please keep an eye on your inbox.

Tuesday 11 October
Dr Martin Bridge (UCL) Tree-ring dating and what it tells us about the old Barnet Shop.

Tuesday 8th November
Nick Card. Building the Ness of Brodgar

Mary Rawitzer Sue Willetts

At the recent AGM our Chairman announced the sad news that Mary Rawitzer had died in May. Mary joined HADAS in 1980 and had been Membership Secretary from Oct 2002 to June 2008 and was a Newsletter Editor for many years. Many of us will have fond memories but this short note is all that we are able to write as we have been informed by her executors that it was Mary’s express wish that no obituary should appear.

British Museum Exhibition: Feminine power: the divine to the demonic

19 May – 25 September 2022. Room 35 The Joseph Hotung Great Court Gallery

This exhibition takes a cross-cultural look at the profound influence of female spiritual beings within global religion and faith. Enhanced by engagement with contemporary worshippers, faith communities and insights from high-profile collaborators Bonnie Greer, Mary Beard, Elizabeth Day, Rabia Siddique and Deborah Frances-White, the exhibition considers the influence of female spiritual power and what femininity means today. Bringing together sculptures, sacred objects and artworks from the ancient world to today, and from six continents, the exhibition highlights the many faces of feminine power – ferocious, beautiful, creative or hell-bent – and its seismic influence throughout time.

Opening hours Daily: 10.00–17.00 (Fridays 20.30). Admission charges apply.

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Lordenshaws Archaeological Landscape David Willoughby

Five miles from where I now live in Northumberland is Lordenshaws (or Lordenshaw) archaeological landscape. Situated on the Simonside Hills above the Coquet valley, with the village of Rothbury below, it is one of the richest archaeological landscapes in Northumberland and boasts one of the greatest concentrations of prehistoric ‘rock art’ in the whole of the country.

The landscape consists of a multivallate hillfort surrounded by several examples of cup or cup-and- ring worked rocks and several Bronze Age cairn burials. In total there are 127 recorded cup, cup-and-ring and grooved ‘rock art’ panels in the Lordenshaws area and one exhibits the longest and largest enhanced groove in Northumberland rock art.

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The hill fort itself most probably dates to the Iron Age. It is a circular structure with an outermost defensive ditch about 140m in diameter. When the fort was in use the ditch was up to 2.5m deep and 9m wide. There is also an inner ditch which may be from an earlier period in the lifespan of the fort and there is some evidence of ramparts between the two. There are two entrance ways, one to the east side and another to the west. An amateur excavation here in the early 20th century uncovered the remains of a stone-built roundhouse. There are other sunken stone-built features within the ramparts one of which appears to be the remains of a cist burial, although it is not marked as such on the map.

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I discovered the largest of the cup-and-ring marked rocks, which has been broken by quarrying and not in its original position. The rock may have been quarried to provide material for the hill fort or perhaps for the nearby mediaeval deer park wall. It shows typical cup and cup-and-ring marks with some grooves. It dates from the Neolithic and a similarly marked rock at nearby Hunterheugh has been stratigraphically dated to c 4000 BC. Certainly it is believed that such carvings on outcrops and boulders in the landscape were carved between 4000 and 2400 BC, after which, in the Early Bronze Age the tradition of rock carving gradually moved from the outcrops to burial monuments, mainly cairns.

The meaning of the carvings on the rocks is now lost to us. Some archaeologists think that the ‘rock art’ panels might mark clearings in the woodland or perhaps the boundaries between the first farming settlements.

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The area is ripe for more investigative work and excavation. Questions to be answered include: does the ‘rock art’ all date from the same period or were later enhancements and additions made? What exactly lies in the hill fort and does the hill fort itself have a pre-Iron Age antecedent? Is there any connection between the hill fort and the Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeology in which it sits?

Stories of Archaeology and the Supernatural, 1895-1954 Book Review

Amara Thornton FSA and Katy Soar have edited a new book, entitled Stories of Archaeology and the Supernatural, 1895-1954, a new classic short story anthology, combining the supernatural and archaeology. Never have so many relics from the past caused such delicious and intriguing shivers down the spine. The editors have curated a selection of twelve outstanding short stories encompassing horror, ghosts, hauntings, and possession, all from archaeological excavation. From a Neolithic rite to Egyptian religion to Roman remains to medieval masonry to some uncanny ceramic tiles in a perfectly ordinary American sun lounge, the relics in these stories are, frankly, horrible.

The stories in Strange Relics are:

• The Ape’,by E F Benson (at his command)
• Roman Remains’, by Algernon Blackwood (bestial rites in Wales)
• ‘Ho! The Merry Masons’, by John Buchan (a haunted medieval house)
• Through the Veil’, by Arthur Conan Doyle (Roman ghosts)
• ‘View From A Hill’, M R James (beastly binoculars)
• ‘Curse of the Stillborn’, by Margery Lawrence (Egyptian death rites)
• ‘Whitewash’, by Rose Macaulay (the death caves of the Emperor)
• ‘The Shining Pyramid’, by Arthur Machen (prehistoric survival)
• Cracks of Time’, by Dorothy Quick (the tiles are possessed)
• The Cure’, by Eleanor Scott (Viking rituals) ▪ ‘The Next Heir’ by H D Everett (inherit at peril)
• ‘The Golden Ring’ by Alan J B Wace (Mycenaean treasure)

The book will be published on 22nd September by Handheld Press at £12.99 and will be launched in-person on Friday 16 September, 5.30-7.30pm, at Senate House, University of London. On Wednesday 21st September, Amara and Katy will be giving an online talk for Westminster Libraries about the book and the supernatural in archaeology. Further details and booking via the Handheld Press website: https://www.handheldpress.co.uk

50 years ago

A glance at the newsletter of July 1972 shows it must have been a good month. A total of 17 new members are recorded including Dorothy Newbury and her children Christopher and Marion and Percy Reboul. Congratulations to Percy on 50 years of membership.

Percy was a prolific author and with John Heathfield contributed articles to local newspapers on historical subjects. He produced the Hadas booklet “Those were the Days” – A collection of tales from and about the Borough of Barnet between the two World Wars.

Percy now lives in York.

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BLANK SPACE

Why is there so much blank space in this newsletter? Sadly, we have not received many contributions. Because of Covid, we have had fewer activities, so fewer reports to publish.

Please remember that it is YOUR newsletter. We hope you enjoy reading it each month and find something of interest. Probably other things that interest you may be appreciated by other members. So why not send us something to be included? For example,

• A visit to a historic site or museum.
• Some local history.
• Your local street furniture.

It would be a shame if we reduced the number of newsletters we produce, though it would save us money.

So please take up your pen or go to your keyboard and let your creative juices provide a contribution.

It may be only a few lines, but everything will help. Photos are helpful, but not necessary.

Other Societies’ Events Eric Morgan

Please check with the Society or Organisation before setting out in case of any changes or cancellations.

Sunday 7th August, 2.30 pm. Heath and Hampstead Society. Guided walk: The Heath Extension.
Meet at Spaniards End, by the cattle trough and flower stall near the Spaniards Inn, Spaniards Road, NW3.Walk lasts approx. 2 hours. led by Lynda Cook. Donation £5. Please contact Thomas Radice on 07941 528034 or e-mail hhs.walks@gmail.com or visit www.HeathandHampstead.org.uk.

Tuesday 9 August, 2-3 pm at the Guildhall Library, free online talk via Eventbrite and in person at the Library. Cutting Back the Layers at the Royal London Hospital in the 19th century.
Excavations in 2006 as part of a development programme at the Royal London Hospital by Museum of London Archaeology (MoLA) revealed fascinating insights into the workings of a 19th century hospital. With the unexpected discovery of a burial ground, used between 1825 to 1840, the findings from the burials provided an enlightening opportunity for better understanding of the complexities of medical interventions and use of the body in medicine at this time. This talk will look at the discoveries from the site, bringing together the sources that provided a unique opportunity to revisit a hospital at this significant point in time and an exhibition at the Museum of London in 2012.
Link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/onsite-cutting-back-the-layers-at-the-royal-london-hospital-in-the-19thc-tickets-306556016297

Tuesday 9th August, 7.45 pm. Amateur Geological Society. Finchley Baptist Church hall, 6, East End Road, corner Stanhope Avenue, N3 3LX. Members’ Evening. Presentations given by members of the A.G.S. including a quiz, my favourite specimen tables, identification sessions and sales table with rocks, minerals and fossils. Also drinks and nibbles.

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Monday 15th August, 8 pm. Enfield Society. Jubilee Hall, 2, Parsonage Lane, junction Chase Side, Enfield, EN2 OAJ. The Wonderful World of Almshouses.
Talk by Simon Saints, whose presentation will include pictures set to music and will cover 1,000 years of fascinating alms history, showcasing the many almshouses locally, in the U.K. and worldwide. Visitors £1.

Until Saturday 20th August. Elstree and Borehamwood Museum. 2nd floor, 96, Shenley Road, Borehamwood, Herts. WD6 1EB. Off The Rails: the line that never was. Exhibition on the story of the Elstree extension to the Northern Heights, complete with moving models. The Edgware branch of the Northern Line was planned to end at Bushey Heath and although some work was started, building stopped in 1939 at the outbreak of WW2 and never restarted. Now you can see what it would have looked like and read the story of the line and what became of it after the war. The museum is at the Borehamwood library. Please see more at www.elstree-museum.org.uk. Admission free. Opening hours: Tuesday-Thursday 12-6 pm, Saturday 10 am-3 pm. Telephone no. 01442 454888.

Saturday 27th August. Thames 21 Mini Festival. Silkstream Park, Silkstream Road, Montrose Avenue, Burnt Oak. Lots of stalls.

Sunday 4th September, 11 am-5 pm. Angel Canal Festival. Regents Canal, City Road Basin, Islington, N1 8GJ. Lots of stalls. Also boat trips, craft stalls, food and live music. For more info., please visit www.canalrivertrust.org.uk/events

Wednesday 7th September, 5 pm. Docklands History Group. Museum of London Docklands, West India Quay (off Hertsmere Road) E14 4AL. The History of the Railway Line to North Woolwich. Talk by Malcolm Batten.

Friday 9th September, 8 pm. Richmond Archaeological Society. Talk on Zoom. Fulham Palace: The Significance of the Bishops and the Development of the Palace as a Residence from 1150 onwards. By Alexis Haslam. To attend please send your e-mail address to richmondarchaeology@virginmedia.com

Saturday 10th September. Thames 21 Mini Festival. Bentley Priory, Priory Drive (off The Common), Stanmore, HA7. Lots of stalls.

Sunday 11th September, 12-5 pm. Queens Park Festival. Off Chevening Road or Harvist Road, NW6. Lots of stalls including Willesden Local History Society. Also craft stalls, food and live music.

Monday12th September, 3 pm. Barnet Museum and Local History Society. St. John The Baptist Church, Chipping Barnet, corner of High St./Wood St., Barnet, EN5 4BW.
East Barnet; Rural and Regal. Speaker TBA. Please visit www.barnetmuseum.co.uk.

Wednesday 14th September, 8 pm. Hornsey Historical Society. Talk on Zoom. Jack Warner and Muswell Hill. By Gerald Glover. Please e-mail hornseyhistoricalchairman@gmail.com for link.

Thursday 15th September, 7.15 pm. Camden History Society. Hampstead Parish Church, Church Row, NW3 6UU. Joan Fullylove: stained-glass designer. Talk 8 pm by Caroline Barron. Preceded by AGM then wine and soft drinks. Doors open 7 pm. Please visit www.camdenhistorysociety.org
Some of her stained-glass windows can be seen in the church.

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With many thanks to this month’s contributors: Eric Morgan, Sue Willetts, David Willoughby.

Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Don Cooper, 59, Potters Road, Barnet, EN5 5HS
(020 8440 4350) e-mail: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer, 34, Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW9 2NP
(07449 978121) e-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman 50 Summerlee Ave, London N2 9QP
(07855 304488) e-mail: treasurer@hadas.org.uk

Membership Sec. Stephen Brunning, Flat 2 Goodwin Court, 52 Church Hill Road,
East Barnet EN4 8FH1 (020 8440 8421)
e-mail: membership@hadas.org.uk

Web site: www.hadas.org.uk

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Number 616 July 2022 Edited by Melvyn Dresner

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming lectures and events

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, until further notice lectures will be held online via Zoom
(apart from the AGM lecture), all starting at 8 pm, although we do hope to get back to face to
face lectures soon. We are exploring an option that could allow face to face meetings with an
option to view lectures on Zoom. This partly depends upon the broadband quality at Avenue
House. As ever, our apologies to those who are unable to see online lectures. We will be
sending out an invitation email with instructions about how to join on the day of each talk, so
please keep an eye on your inbox.

Tuesday 11 October
Dr Martin Bridge (UCL) Tree-ring dating and what it tells us about the old Barnet Shop.

Tuesday 8th November
Nick Card. Building the Ness of Brodgar
In anticipation of Nick Card’s talk in November, you can explore the Neolithic at British
Museum’s World of Stonehenge and Neolithic Orkney in particular, online and in person:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/world-stonehenge Exhibition closes on 17th July.
The photos taken by the editor at exhibition shows decorated stone including the ‘butterfly’
motif. (see March 2022 newsletter for Deirdre Barrie’s preview article)

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This year’s dig at the Ness of Brodgar begins in July more details here: https://www.nessofbrodgar.co.uk/

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AGM and HADAS Digs Clitterhouse)

We held the HADAS Annual General Meeting on the 14th June 2022. President, Harvey Sheldon, was absent due to illness, so his role was taken by the Chairman, Don Cooper. All agreed to wish Harvey to get well soon. This was the first in-person meeting of members of HADAS since the lockdown started in March 2020. Attendees were pleased to be meeting in person and enjoyed the refreshments provided. We will continue to have Zoom based meetings while we working out how best to combine online and in-person meetings.

After the lecture, we had a summary of HADAS digging activity at Clitterhouse Farm over the period 2015 to 2019 and related community engagement. We mentioned that Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) were undertaking investigations on the wider Clitterhouse Playing Fields on behalf of the developer, Argent Related.

Their report can be found on the Council website under planning reference: 21/0774/CON https://publicaccess.barnet.gov.uk/online-applications/

The MOLA dig found post medieval and World War Two finds during their investigation though nothing conclusively medieval. They cross reference HADAS digs. They did identify evidence of a Roman enclosure dated to early Roman occupation of Britain in the first or second century AD. They said this was of local importance.

As well as Roman building material, a total of 106 Roman pottery sherds were recovered by MOLA archaeologists. This included Verulamium/London region coarse white-slipped ware and Highgate Wood ware, plus limited imported wares from Gaul and Cologne area.

Much of this pottery was highly abraded, but presence of Roman roof tiles indicates potential Roman buildings in the immediate area. The pottery dating indicates an early Roman presence in this area. This site is about 500 metres from the putative Roman Road known as Watling Street or to us as Edgware Road or the A5. We look forward to hearing more from MOLA on their findings.

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HADAS at Barnet Medieval Festival

HADAS had a stall at this years’ medieval festival on the Old Elizabethans rugby field off Byng Road in Barnet as we have done over recent years. This is an opportunity to meet old friends, engage with the wider public and recruit new members.

Barnet Medieval Festival aims to engage people in the history of the Battle of Barnet and its significance within the Wars of the Roses. The battle was fought on 14th April 1471, and saw Edward IV lead his Yorkist army to victory against the Lancastrian forces led by the Earl of Warwick.

HADAS stall includes information about our recent dig at Hopscotch on Barnet High Street, and we were visited by the Hopscotch crew. The April 2022 newsletter includes an article by Bill Bass on the dig (see future newsletter for more information on our finds).

Site photos from Hopscotch dig February 2022 (site code: OPS 22) features, sections and finds.

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Photos show the HADAS stall with some of our visitors over the two days of the festival on the 11th and 12th June 2022, including Michael and Alice Kentish of Hopscotch https://www.hopscotchessentials.co.uk/

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As well as the human re-enactors, for the first time we saw horses in action recreating some sense of the medieval battle or tournament. One of the reasons Barnet is where it is because of the need to rest and feed horses after climbing Barnet Hill, hence the area’s later association with coaching inns and Barnet Fair where horses and cattle were traded.

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Medieval music, lighting and fire – many of the medieval re-enactors base their interpretation on archaeological and historical research bringing to life fragmentary remains. Also, the medieval festival reminds the archaeologists of the intangible that we can only infer such as sound and lighting. Though of course we may find musical instruments and we learn how to polish up tarnished metal and how to create artificial light to enhance its quality through the vessels fragments we find. This is brought to life at the festival.

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Look forward to next year’s festival, and don’t miss the banners on Barnet High Street from the station to Hadley Green. Some are also displayed by Barnet Museum in a shop in the Spires.

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East Finchley Festival

You can learn more about the festival here: https://www.eastfinchleyfestival.org/

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The East Finchley Community Festival is held in Cherry Tree Wood. The festival has been held for there for nearly 50 years.

HADAS didn’t have a stall at this year’s festival, but we were able to visit colleagues with related interests including the Friends of Cherry Tree Wood and the Finchley Society. You can learn about the history of the community festival and more from a booklet produced by the friends that they were selling on the day.

In the booklet, Roger Chapman traces the various names by which the wood was known before its current name, such as Dirthouse Wood, Rail Fall Wood, Colefall or Finchley Colefall or Common and more. Some of these suggest how the wood was managed in the past. He suggests the woods had a prehistoric origin, with evidence for Roman and Saxon connections.

If you want to learn more of the history of Cherry Tree Wood, you can obtain a copy of a booklet written by Roger Chapman and illustrated by Nadia Savvapoulo, by contacting the Friends of Cherry Tree Wood via: friendsofcherrytreewood@gmail.com or by reading it here: https://bit.ly/3w6PjRs

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Elsyng Revealed Enfield Archaeological Society

You may have seen the HADAS lecture by Dr Martin Dearne in March 2022 and learnt what
they have found since digging started in 2004.

Another season of digging is commencing in the grounds of Forty Hall in Enfield during July,
to discover more about Elsyng Palace you can visit during the open days or contact Enfield
Archaeological Society for more info: www.enfarchsoc.org and order the publication.

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Forty Hall and estate, a rare example of an intact 18th century landscape, is home to one of
the oldest Cedar of Lebanon trees in England. The parkland contains the archaeological
remains of Elsyng Palace, developed from a Tudor hunting lodge and medieval manor,
frequented by King Henry VIII, King Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth I. The site and
surrounding land is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and is the subject of annual
archaeological digs, which culminates in a public event in July.

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Eric’s Birthday photos Andy Simpson

HADAS long serving member, Committee member and editor of the other society events, Eric Morgan, celebrated his 80th birthday at Avenue House, with special thanks to Liz for the cake, and Don for the toast, and to everyone who attended, and of course Eric for organising the food, drinks and venue, and for the staff of Avenue House for looking after us.

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Photo Update (Another Stink Pipe?) Hugh Petrie and Dudley Miles

Cast you mind back to January 2022 newsletter, we were unsure where this photo was taken, we now believe it was the south west of Coppetts Wood, between the wood and Coppetts Close. Now you know, but still a stink pipe! Phew….

EPW006757 ENGLAND (1921). Finchley Urban District Council Sewage Farm near Coppetts Wood, Colney Hatch, 1921. https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW006757

Other societies’ events Eric Morgan

Please check with the Society or Organisation before setting out, in case of any changes or cancellations.

Proms at St. Judes Music and Literary Festival Heritage Walks. Each walk must be booked in advance via the Proms website www.promsatstjudes.org.uk/2022 walks. …….

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Saturday 2nd July, 10.30 am. The Wyldes of Hampstead. Marilyn Greene (guide) and former curator of Hampstead Museum (Burgh House) explores Hampstead’s once rural northern edge, including the hamlet of North End, with its famous residents, hostelry, (Old Bull and Bush) and C17th Wyldes Farmhouse. We’ll learn how farmland augmented the Heath and provided the site for Hampstead Garden Suburb, returning to Golders Hill Park café via the enchanting Hill Garden. (Lord Leverhulme) and pergola.

Sunday 3rd July,10.30 am. Punks, Priests and Poseurs- The Hampstead Set. Julia Male (guide) takes us in the footsteps of Hampstead’s famous (and infamous) residents, many of whom have been commemorated on English Heritage or Heath and Hampstead Society plaques. N.B. – part of the route involves steep steps.

Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd July, 12-6pm East Barnet Festival Oak Hill Park, Church Hill Road, East Barnet, EN4. Lots of stalls including craft and food stalls, bar, and music stage. and Classic Cars on Sunday.

Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd July, 11am-6pm.East Finchley Open Artists Open House Weekend in and around East Finchley. Great art to view and buy. For details please visit www.eastfinchleyopen.org,uk/openhouse Paintings, prints, sculpture, ceramics, glass, photography, jewellery, basketry and textiles. Free entry.15 houses.

Sunday 3rd July, 2-5pm.Hampstead Summer Festival. Keats Community Library and Keats House, Keats Grove, NW3 2RR. Art Fair. Open exhibition of paintings and sculptures, craft stalls, food and wine bar. Free admission. In the gardens. Heath and Hampstead Society will have a stall there. Please check www.hampsteadsummerfestival.com for latest info.

Also Wednesday 6th July, 7.30pm. Shelley; A Poet for our times on the bicentenary of Shelley’s death. With readings of his poems and discussion of his life and works and his belief in poetry as an agent for political change. With Judith Chermaik (writer), George Szirtes, (poet) Shelley editor Kelvin Everest and other guests. tickets £10 from the library or online at www.wegottickets.com

Tuesday 5th July, 1-2pm. Society of Antiquaries. Hans Eworth, a Netherlander in London and Antwerp. Talk by Hope Walker. Currently also on zoom. Please visit www.sal.org.uk/events for details and bookings. Free, but donations accepted.

Saturday 9th July, 12-6pm.Kilburn Festival. Grange Park, Grange Way/ Messina Ave. (off Kilburn High Rd.) NW6. Lots of stalls.

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Sunday10th July-Sunday24th July. Enfield Archaeological Society. Excavating Elsyng, 2022 season on the site of Elsyng Tudor Palace, Forty Hall, Forty Hill, Enfield, EN2. On the identification of the inner gatehouse. To join the dig please contact Martin Dearne. Email martin.dearne@talktalk.net and visit www.enfarchsoc.org.

Also Saturday16th and Sunday 17th July 11am-4pm. Open Days. including. finds identification.

Tuesday 12th July, 7.45pm. Amateur Geological Society. Finchley Baptist Church Hall, 6, East End Road/(corner Stanhope Avenue), N3 3LX. Building Stones of London. Talk by Mike Howgate (Chair).

Friday 15th July, 7pm. COLAS. A City Graveyard Guided Walk. Meet 6.50pm., Exit 2, St. Paul’s Tube Stn. Led by Bob Stephenson (Vice chair).

Saturday16th-Sunday31st July. 2022 Festival of Archaeology. Theme is Journeys. For more info. please visit www.archaeologyuk.org/festival.html.

Saturday 16th July. Barnet Physic Well. Corner Well Approach/Pepys Cres., Barnet. Open Jubilee Hall, Day.

Sunday17th July, 12-6pm. Neasden Festival. Neasden Circle/ Cainfield Ave., NW2. Lots of stalls.

Sunday17th July, 12-4pm.Stephens’ House and Gardens (Avenue House) 17, East End Rd., Finchley, N3 3QE. “There and Back Sunday”. Trains are steaming into the gardens on the “There and Back” miniature railway. Visit the Bothy Gardens to view model railways and dioramas. Tickets £5. For more info. and booking please visit www.stephenshouseandgardens.com.

Monday18th July, 8pm. Enfield Society. Jubilee Hall,2, Parsonage Lane/(junction Chase Side), Enfield, EN2 OAJ. Running Rings around London. Talk by Joe Studman. Looking at the Roman Wall, C13th Chains, C17th Earthworks and Roads, Railways and Footpaths, and some that never happened. Visitors £1.

Wednesday 20th July, 6pm. Willesden Local History Society. Roundwood Park to Willesden Bus Garage. Guided walk led by Irina Porter (Chair). After a short exploration of this first municipal park in Willesden, will stroll down Robson Avenue and Pound Lane, revealing the secrets behind the street names and places of historic interest-past and present. Meet at entrance to the Round Park café in the park off Robson Ave./Harlesden Rd. NW10. For more info. please visit www.willesden-local-history.co.uk.

Sunday 24th July, London Canal Museum. New Wharf Road, Kings Cross N1. “Ice Sunday”. Part of Festival of Archaeology. Descents into Victorian Ice Wells. Additional Ice related activities above ground. Normal Museum entrance charges and opening hours. Please visit www.lcm.me.uk/ihw.

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With thanks for newsletter contributions this month to: Andy Simpson, Roger Chapman, Janet Mortimer, Dudley Miles, Hugh Petrie, and of course, Eric Morgan

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Hendon and District Archaeological Society

Chairman Don Cooper 59, Potters Road, Barnet, Herts. EN5 5HS
Tel: 020 8440 4350. E-mail: chairman@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Secretary Janet Mortimer 34 Cloister Road, Childs Hill, London NW2 2NP
Tel: 07449 978121. E-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Hon. Treasurer Roger Chapman 50 Summerlee Ave, London N2 9QP
Tel: 07855 304488. E-mail: secretary@hadas.org.uk

Membership Secretary Stephen Brunning, Flat 2 Goodwin Court, 52
Church Hill Road, East Barnet EN4 8FH1
Tel: 020 8440 8421. E-mail: membership@hadas.org.uk

Web site www.hadas.org.uk

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