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Newsletter-212-November 1988

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Newsletter-212-November 1988

Newsletter 212: November, 1988             Editor: Brigid Grafton Green

RECORD BREAKING, HADAS STYLE

There’s only one possible lead story for this month’s Newsletter – and it ought to be written in letters of gold, not dull old everyday ink: we had a Minimart last month and it made a profit of £1200. Yes, do savour that: twelve hundred pounds. That’s £300 more than last year; it’s well into four figures for the first time; and it’s a 25% advance in 12 months.

The Minimart is a co-operative effort: everyone in the Society who can puts their bit into it, so our corporate thanks are offered to all helpers, whether they heave heavy tables, make mouth-watering quiches or tot up the takings. But top credit for this year’s magnificent result must go to Dorothy Newbury (without whom there would be no Minimart on the scale to which HADAS has become accustomed). Her record of steadily rising profits year by year is one that blue-chip companies like ICI or Glaxo might well envy.

 

HADAS DIARY

Tues Nov 1 1988 Special General Meeting at 8 pm at Hendon Library, followed by lecture “Excavations at the Mint” by Peter Mills, who is known to many of us for his work with the North London Section of the Department of Greater London Archaeology. He has led excavations at Westminster Abbey as well as at the Mint, which is the subject of this lecture.

Tues Dec 6  Christmas supper at St Georges Shakespearian Theatre, Tufnell Park Road, N7. We have had an excellent response for this and have reached the maximum number that can be catered for, plus a short waiting list.

Departure times for this will be

Finchley Central 6.10 pm

Hendon Quadrant 6.15

Golders Gr. Refectory 6.25

Royal Oak Temple Fortune 6.30

Will members who have booked please let Dorothy Newbury know C203 0950) their required pick-up point.

OTHER DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

Nov 19/20 Pot and Potter: practical residential weekend at Rewley House, Oxford*

Sat Nov 26 11am-6pm, Museum of London. 23rd Local History Conference.

Theme: From the Armada to the Glorious Revolution – Change and Growth in London 1588-1688. Lectures and local society exhibits, including a HADAS display on the Hendon ice-house. Tickets £3.50 from Miss P A Ching, 40 Shaef Way, Teddington TW11 ODQ

Wed Dec 7 LAMAS lecture by Ralph Merrifield on the Archaeology of Ritual (subject similar to his book published last year, The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic). Lecture 6.30, Museum of London, preceded by coffee/sherry 6.00. Members of affiliated societies (HADAS is one) welcome.

Dec 9/11 What Can We Learn from Human Bones? Residential weekend at Rewley House, Oxford*

Fri Jan 20 One-day conference, 10am-5pm at Soc. Antiquaries, Burlington House, Piccadilly, on the Archaeology of Rural Wetlands. Speakers on the Somerset Levels, Fenland Project, estuarine environments and river valleys*

*Further details from Brigid Grafton Green 455-9040

 

WALK ROUND A MELTING POT  MICKY COHEN enjoys the last outing of 1988

For the last outing of the season Muriel Large took us on a fascinating walk round Stepney – once a village on the outskirts of the City of London, where people went to refresh themselves and follow country pursuits. Only later did the stews and opium dens replace the countryside, attracting Dickens who was looking for local colour and the toffs of the day who were looking for thrills. Over the centuries Stepney has received waves of immigrants – a racial melting pot.

We started at the Royal Foundation of St Katherine, a leafy oasis in a commercial area, now a retreat and conference centre. Originally founded in 1147 near the Tower, the Foundation moved in the 18c to Stepney to make way for St Katherine’s Dock. The chapel blends Gibbons carving, 14c choir stalls and a lamp which was the gift of Henry III with modern sculpture and painting.

On to Cable Street, scene of a famous battle between Mosleyites and locals in 1936, now somnolent with old cottages upgraded to Yuppy standards and modern Council blocks. The devastation of the war has made way for the new.

Passing an attractive row of early Victorian almshouses, we walked through the large graveyard of Stepney parish church, St Dunstans, the site of multiple burials during the great Plague in London. The largely 15c church is medieval in feeling and full of light (the glass was destroyed during the war). There is some modern glass – above the altar a controversial figure of Christ in a red cloak. The greatest treasure is a 10c Saxon cross set in beneath the window – a carving which was found weathered outside.

“Stepping Stones,” an urban farm, provided a delightful venue for tea and cake. We managed to fit into tables and chairs designed for 8-year-olds! After tea we passed Stepney Green and some beautiful Georgian buildings on our way to the Whitechapel Road. There the Trinity Almshouses, designed by Wren, surround a quiet courtyard garden – a gem hidden from the bustle behind a wall. Finally although we did not visit, Muriel told us about the house in a narrow street nearby where Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and Litvinov met to found the Comintern, watched over by Scotland Yard and the Tsar’s police.

Muriel pointed out so many historical associations in the area during her informative talk there is no space to list them all. Among the notables Captain Cook lived in the Whitechapel Road, Dr Barnardo left London Hospital to work with destitute children in the district and William Booth founded the Salvation Army – a statue commemorates him. A most enjoyable afternoon.

 

THE ANNALS OF THE POOR: Part 1  by NELL PENNY

Famous men have their monuments and their biographers: the poor “perish as if they had never been.” But by studying parish settlement examinations and removal orders it is possible to draw thumb-nail sketches of some of the humble folk of the l8c.

What was a settlement? The Settlement Act of 1662 limited parish help to those persons born in the parish or those who had owned or rented substantial property in it. “Foreigners” could be removed from a parish even if they had not sought poor relief. A removal could not be made unless the person had been ‘examined’ before two magistrates and then made the subject of a removal order. In Hendon folk were examined in the vestry room at the Greyhound Inn, and in Finchley at the Queen’s Head next the church. The conditions of settlement were later widened to include (a) anyone who had been a contracted ‘servant’ for at least a year; (b) or who had served as a parish officer, and (c) or had served an apprenticeship in the parish; and in 1795 Parliament ordered that folk could not be removed from a parish or even examined until they asked for relief.

Presumably part of the purpose of the 1662 Act was to restrict the movements of potential revolutionaries; the upheavals of the Civil War were a recent memory. Whatever the purpose the results seem to have been frustration and misery all round. Parishes spent time and money on investigating settlements, in removing the old, the sick and orphaned children and in fighting legal battles with other parishes trying to enforce removal orders on them.

Men too old to work were sent away to villages they had not seen since they were children. A widow with a young family was dumped fifty miles away because her husband had been a farm worker there before he married. In 1709 Hendon overseers of the poor spent 5s (25p) sending “Oul Richeson into Essex” to “find out about his settlement:” later they removed him for 10s7d (53p) “for horse hire for him and ourself and to bring his horse back.” In 1787 it cost Hendon ratepayers £2.12s.6d (£2.63p) to move a sick Irishman to Parkgate, then a small port on the river Dee in Cheshire, for repatriation to his native land; and they even paid £22.15s.3d (£22.76p) to transport four orphan children to the parish in Shropshire where their father had been born.

One Finchley record proves how far parish officers would go to dispute a settlement. Finchley officers had removed a pauper family to Horsley in Gloucestershire. At Quarter Sessions Horsley disputed the removal because they denied that the pauper had been legally married to the mother of his children and argued therefore that Horsley was not responsible for her and the children. Finchley sent the constable to Farnham in Surrey – presumably because that was where the marriage was said to have taken place – to inspect the parish registers.

There is, alas, no record of the outcome of the case. It is one of the frustrations of this kind of research that the documents don’t always finish the story off, and you are left in eternal suspense about what happened. But I would be long sorry to be without records like this, even though they have shortcomings. Examinations and removals may have been – indeed, they often undoubtedly were – tragic for the poor and bothersome for parish officials, but they are often pure gold for local historians trying to put flesh on the dry bones of names in local records. For four parishes of our Borough in the l8c – Hendon, Finchley, Edgware and Friern Barnet – the Local History Collection holds records of a number of settlements from which much can be gleaned.

How else would we know why two Eastbourne girls, Ann Lever and Abigail Earl, were marooned in Finchley with their newly-born babes in 1780? Ann had been a contracted servant, a dairymaid, at £3.10s.0d (£3.50p) a year. She had been “delivered of a child on Finchley Common;” the child’s father was John Reddle, a private soldier in the 2nd Queen’s Regiment of Foot. Abigail also had followed John Morris of the same regiment and had also been abandoned with her baby when the troops marched away.

In 1762 James Wilson turned up in Hendon. He had been born “in Flanders.” His father lived in Wearmouth, Sunderland, and worked “on the keels,” but Wilson didn’t know where his father had been born. He himself had been “a stroler” all his life. The connection between Jordan Bland and Friern Barnet parish is not clear. Jordan was examined in 1803: born in 1771, in Weddington, Essex, he had joined the Navy when he was 14 years old. He had served in HMS Invincible – 74 guns – for two years and then in the Fleet transports Polly and Isabella. In 1801 he began work at the New Rope Ground in Limehouse “till he was taken ill the other day.”

In 1781 Sarah Burton was removed from Witham in Essex to Finchley,

The removal was by stages: the first move was to Stratford le Bow “being the first town in the next precinct.” Sarah did not know where her husband, John Burton, was – “for he goes about the country mending chairs.” She had married John in Morpeth in Northumberland in 1779 and had a baby daughter. John’s uncle, a Finchley chimney sweep, said that John’s father had been a brick-layer in the parish, but the son had never served an apprenticeship nor been a contracted labourer.

Wholesale examinations before 1795 sometimes netted respectable parishioners. One can almost hear the indignation of Alexander Nelson, a gardener, when he was examined in 1763. He had been born in Musselburgh “in the Kingdom of Scotland.” He had been hired by Mr de Ponthieu of Mill Hill in 1753 as a living-in servant at £15 a year. In 1758, when he married Margaret Johnson, he had warned his employer “to get someone else” because as a married man “his wages would not do.” Mr de Ponthieu solved the problem by hiring Margaret as his cook at £10 a year.

Also surprisingly Isaac Messeder – whose name will be familiar to many HADAS researchers — was examined in 1767. Isaac said he was a 53-year-old carpenter and surveyor. Proofs of the latter occupation are the meticulous notes and plans of the Manor of Hendon which he had made in 1754. His field book survives in the archives of Barnet Library Services, where it is usually referred to in conjunction with James Crow’s huge plan (it is 106″ x 64”) of “the Mannor and Parish of Hendon,” made in the same year – the work of Messeder and Crow both being part of the survey of the Hendon estate of Henry Arthur, Earl of Powys, the then lord of the manor.

Isaac said he had been born in Aldenham but had been brought up by his uncle in Green Street, Ridge. Although he had never been apprenticed to his carpenter uncle nor been a contracted servant to him, he had lived there till he was twenty years old. When he lived in Hampstead in 1765 he had paid 14s (70p) a year poor rate on the house he had rented. All his five children, aged between 28 years and 20 years had been born in Hendon.

I called this article “The Annals of the Poor” but you will already have realised that the rest of that quotation does not apply. Settlement records are far from “short and simple.” I hope to talk about them in two instalments – this present one, to whet your appetite; and another next month, as a second helping.

 

ALL ABOUT PEOPLE

The Minimart certainly gathers HADAS members together from all points of the compass. It was a pleasure this year to welcome two former Committee members from far away. From the west came VINCENT FOSTER, who joined the Society back in 1974 when he was working for his banking exams from his home in Finchley. Now – long a fully-fledged banker – he is a paterfamilias (we saw a photo of his delightful daughter), living in Quebec and still valuing his HADAS connections. He was back for a brief holiday with his parents in Finchley.

From the north came DAPHNE LORIMER, also in London on a flying visit, to shop and to stock up with the latest computer know-how – she and Ian have installed one and are now ‘into’ computers in a big way. But she had time not only to visit the Minimart but to do some sterling work on the Food stall, which she used once to organise.

Also at the Minimart – though from Chipping Barnet, not far-distant parts – was another long-time member whom we see all too rarely nowadays – BRIAN WIBBERLEY, with two of his youngsters. He brought with him, as always, some of Rosemary’s delicious cooking for the Food stall. It included various honey confections as well as bottled honey. We noticed that the jars carried a printed label, “WIBBERLEY HONEY,” so we suspect that among their many other activities the family has set up a bee-keeping enclave, which raises the pleasant picture of bees buzzing round the Wibberley garden in the middle of bustling Barnet.

The September Newsletter mentioned that ALAN HILL, a longtime HADAS member, had become Hon. PRO to the Prehistoric Society. Now there’s more news about his activities. A few weeks ago his autobiography, In Pursuit of Publishing, was published. It tells the story of his work at Heinemann’s, building up that firm’s Educational Books department – an occupation which took Alan (and often his wife Enid, also a HADAS member) many times round the world and into some unexpected (for a sedate publisher) situations.

Usually we report with pride when a HADAS member has ceased to be “Mr” and become “Dr” – because it means that he has survived the gruelling process of producing a thesis on some esoteric subject and has earned a PhD. Today we report the reverse process – someone who is now proudly a Mr instead of a doctor. PAUL O’FLYNN has passed the arduous examinations for a Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons and can now – as all surgeons do – proudly claim the title of Mr O’Flynn FRCS. Our warmest congratulations to Paul and to his wife Michaela, who has helped him through his years of study.

Congratulations too to the Newbury family this month – not so much to Dorothy, who we so often congratulate, but to her son CHRISTOPHER who has recently become a proud father. Christopher has been a strong HADAS supporter since he was 14: he solves many of our more abstruse technical difficulties and on his expertise depends the safe arrival of your Newsletter every month: he is in charge of all its production problems. The latest Newbury, Alexander James, was born on Sept 11 in Hendon to Christopher and his wife Laura, weighing into life at 71/2 lbs. His proud grandma described him as “a perfect babe” and I was reminded that September 11 was a Sunday and that “the child that is born on the Sabbath day is bonny and blithe and good and gay.”

The saga of the canny sheep of Islay is a long running one in these pages. These preternaturally clever animals (a total reversal of the “silly sheep” of normal practice) first appeared in the Newsletter several years ago, when HADAS member MAIR LIVINGSTONE reported on their ability to negotiate a tricky stone stairway and so enter a Scots churchyard where no sheep was meant to enter, Dr Livingstone reports that they have now, however, had their come-uppance. She told Argyll county council about their goings-on, and how the finely carved recumbent stones in the 10c churchyard were being disfigured by small sharp hooves. This summer she was delighted to see that a device of fine wires now prevents ovine trespass while still permitting human entry. It is thought that the sheep have probably retired to lick their wounds (entirely metaphorical) and plan the next phase of their campaign.

Trains are much in the HADAS news. First Christine Arnott popped off to China on one and now PHYLLIS FLETCHER returns from Canada with her train story. It concerns a momentous 2-day journey from Seattle to Phoenix, Arizona, via Los Angeles by American Amtrak train. “Each compartment of an Amtrak train carried about 50 people,” she writes, “with an attendant who looked after our every need and kept the place as clean as a new pin – even using a carpet sweeper each day. There was a ‘trash bag’ for rubbish and you could get iced water from a little machine. Snack bars and a restaurant served excellent meals – British Rail please note both the food and the cleanliness! There was an observation area where you could sit watching the beautiful scenery through Washington State, then climbing through 21 tunnels in Oregon State, then California with huge areas of fresh fruit, vines, herbs and vegetables, and at last the Pacific Ocean. What a thrill to be beside the Pacific, especially as the train wound a long way round, passing such names as Burbank, Santa Monica and Beverly Hills. At Los Angeles I waited three hours, then boarded the Phoenix train. It was now dark so did not see much of the scenery. When I arrived at Phoenix at 7 am it was 100 degrees. What with the fine scenery and so many interesting people to meet on board I enjoyed the train journey much more than flying. Incidentally, we passed Mount Helen, which is said to be responsible for the bad summers we have had recently after it erupted a few years ago – so on your behalf I glared at it,”

 

VISIT TO NORTHOLT AERODROME IN APRIL 1989

The terminal buildings and apron on the south side of Northolt Aerodrome were built at the end of WW2 for use by RAF Transport Command, whose operations gradually gave way to the civil aircraft of the European Division of BOAC (as it then was). They remained in use as a terminal for BEA and other European operators until 1954 when the last BEA internal flights remaining at Northolt were transferred to Heathrow.

The buildings have continued to be London’s Military Air Terminal and include a Royal Waiting Room used when members of the Royal Family fly by the Royal Flight from London.

It is no longer economic to keep these buildings, which are standard RAF huts, in good repair and they are to be demolished in 1990 and replaced. Clearly this is a historic aviation site and a visit has been arranged for a Friday afternoon in April 1989, The actual date will not be known until nearer the time when the RAF know what movements are planned in April 1989. Photography will be allowed.

Anyone wishing to join this visit should apply, enclosing a stamped addressed envelope for return of visit instructions, to

Bill Firth 4-9 Woodstock Avenue London NW11 9RG

Applicants should give names of participants and car registration numbers. Numbers are strictly limited and will be dealt with on a “first come first served” basis. The actual date and joining instructions will not be available until quite near to the date of the visit.

 

MORE ABOUT ARCHAEOLOGY AND LANGUAGE

In the August Newsletter we carried a piece by Brian Wrigley on his reactions to Colin Renfrew’s important book, Archaeology and Language. In it Brian enquired why the Near Eastern homeland from which domesticated plant and animal species spread across Europe had to be “proto-Indo-European-speaking” rather than “proto-Semitic-speaking.” He did not feel that Professor Renfrew had made the point clear.

Dorothy Newbury has been sending Professor Renfrew copies of HADAS Newsletters containing comments by various members – and the August issue went off to Cambridge as usual. Professor Renfrew – who must have few spare moments in his day – has most courteously acknowledged all these comments, and his reply to Brian’s points will interest many members:

Thank you for your letter and for the new copy of your Newsletter.

Brian Wrigley’s comment seems to me a very relevant one. I too feel, that the need to review the whole subject emerges much more clearly from the present situation than my own specific proposed solution.

In response to his specific point, the matter can be explained if we imagine that before the development of farming a proto-Indo-European language was spoken in Anatolia with other very different (and perhaps Semitic) languages in Mesopotamia and surrounding areas.

There was great scope for expansion of the farming economy into the temperate lands of Europe, hence the Indo-European expansion. But further south the “fertile crescent” was geographically more circumscribed (mainly due to the arid environment).

In geographical terms there was simply not the same opportunity for the expansion of a farming economy.

I hope that gives at least the outline of an answer to his very reasonable point.

 

SITE WATCHING

The following sites, the subject of recent planning applications, could be of possible archaeological interest. Members living in the vicinity are asked to keep an eye on them and report anything unusual to John Enderby on 203 2630.

Northern Area

52/54 High Street, Chipping Barnet   extension to Listed building

96 Gallants Farm Road, East Barnet   erection of detached bungalow

51/53 Wood Street, Chipping Barnet   alterations/extension to Listed building in Conservation Area

30/34 Prospect Road, New Barnet   erection 28 new housing units

29 Union Street, Chipping Barnet   demolition of Listed building in Conservation Area

Central Area

2 Waverley Grove & 128/130 Hendon Lane, N3   erection 22 flats with parking

Western Area

Fiesta Cottage, Edgwarebury Lane, Edgware   side extension

West Acres, Tenterden Grove, NW4   4 detached houses

Land adj. 6 Neeld Cres, NW4   detached house

 

CRISIS COUNT-DOWN

There was nearly a crisis with last month’s Newsletter – we were within a whisker of there being no October number at all.

The members who saved the Newsletter’s bacon – together with its record of never missing a month – were Anne Lawson and Dawn Orr, the latter tapping away on her typewriter all night in order to produce a copy for reproduction. We seize this chance of thanking them both publicly for their noble effort.

That brings us to another point. We desperately need offers from members who, in an emergency, would be prepared to type the Newsletter. This is a long-standing need – we first voiced it about 12 years ago – but it is not so daunting today as it once was. Today we don’t need typists experienced in cutting stencils, because the Newsletter is no longer stencilled. Anyone who would be prepared to do a quick, reasonably accurate occasional job of straight copy-typing would be greatly welcomed. If you feel you could help, please ring Liz Holliday on 204 4616 (evenings/weekends) and put your name down on the list. Emergencies, by the way, don’t often crop up – you probably wouldn’t be asked to help more than once a year.

 

CELTIC COIN AT BROCKLEY HILL – UPDATE             Jennie Cobban

Following the report in last month’s Newsletter of the find of a Belgic coin at Brockley Hill, I can now confirm that the coin dates from the reign of Cunobelinus (c10-40AD). The British Museum has identified the reverse design as that of a sphinx (Type = Mack 237) and the coin is made of base silver (not bronze as first thought) under a brown surface patina.

The coin could have circulated until the Boudiccan revolt of AD61. Until this time, British Celtic coinage was allowed to circulate freely along with Roman coins, so the find of a Celtic coin at Brockley Hill need not imply pre-Roman settlement of the site, although this remains a possibility.

Another very worn coin found at Brockley Hill at the same time and in the same location (TQ175939) as the above has been identified by the British Museum as an as of the Emperor Domitian, AD81-96. Both coins have now been duly recorded by Helen Gordon, and the Museum of London has been notified of the finds.

 

HOW WELL DO YOU SLEEP?

is the pertinent question asked by Phyllis Fletcher, our Membership Secretary; and she goes on

Have you a guilty conscience? Or do you sleep easy o’nights?

I ask because more than 50 members have not yet paid their subscriptions, which were due last April 1.

If you are among the forgetful 50, you’ll find a separate reminder with this Newsletter. Please deal with it at once. I’d hate you to find your Newsletter cut off in its prime – and that’s what may happen if I don’t hear from you soon. What a threat to chill your blood!

 

THE OCTOBER LECTURE

This is an apology which the Post Office, not the Newsletter, should be making. The report on the October lecture (Peter Huggins on Waltham Abbey excavations) should have appeared in this Newsletter: but sadly it has missed the deadline, although posted (carrying above maximum first class postage) in time to meet it. On the Post Office’s behalf, apologies.

 

FROM BARNET TO DOCKLANDS JOHN ENDERBY adds another chapter to the tale of a 19c sack-lift

In the October Newsletter I reported the rescue, from certain destruction, of massive metal winding gear from the site behind 62 High Street, Chipping Barnet; and I added that this had been offered to the Docklands Museum.

They were happy to accept it, and now I can report that the transfer of the equipment has gone unusually smoothly. David Dewing, Senior Assistant Keeper of the Museum, and a team of helpers have collected all the machinery for restoration and future installation as an exhibit.

If all goes well the Museum will open sometime in 1992 (not 1990 as previously reported). It will provide visitors with a wealth of information on the story of the development of the Port of London from its Roman origins to the present day. The Museum would be glad to know of any further items of industrial archaeological interest that may come to light within the Greater London area.

Jennie Cobban, who appealed for help with a possible excavation at the rear of 62 High Street has asked me to say that, unhappily, protracted negotiations have broken down and that the development has now advanced to the stage when trial trenching would serve no useful purpose. However, she will be reporting on her research into this site and on discoveries recently made at 58 High Street – a known late medieval building of some importance – in the December Newsletter.

 

A HADAS LEGACY TO ORKNEY    DAPHE LORIMER discovers an unexpected result of our visit 10 years ago to Orkney

Those members of HADAS who went on the great Orkney trek may be interested to learn that their trip left its mark on the archaeology of the islands.

When HADAS visited the Round Church and Earl’s Bu in Orphir, the farmer, Mr Stevenson, on whose land those monuments lay, opened up the entrance to an underground passage for HADAS’s inspection. Via the then secretary of the Orkney Heritage Society, Sue Flint, this fact came to the ears of Chris Morris, who was excavating the approach road to the Brough of Birsay (he acted as our guide to the Brough). Chris and his fiancée (now wife), Colleen, who was doing her PhD on Viking coastal settlement, examined the entrance to the passage; and Colleen has been back every summer (grants permitting) to dig it ever since.

The tunnel was sealed beneath Norse midden deposits which subsequently yielded a rich harvest of seeds, as well as animal and fish bones. The tunnel proceeded in a north-west direction into a large chamber, probably a souterrain. Since all the soil from the midden was put through a soil flotation unit, it was only this year that the roof could be completely taken off the passage and its excavation completed!. An exit was discovered to the chamber which continued westwards and other walls were found – right at the end of the dig.

Bone artefacts (one with runes on it) and steatite which were found were probably Norse, but the dating of the chamber is not certain. Colleen considers that the whole mound (which is considerable) on which the present day farm buildings stand, is man-made – an Orkney Tell, in fact J

This year the dig was run as a training dig for first-year students from Durham University, but local volunteers came for training as well. Chris is Senior Reader in Archaeology at Durham; and Colleen, who did extra¬mural lecturing in Durham, has now taken up a 2-year post at University

College, London: she speaks warmly of the merits of the Amateur Archaeologist.

 

PATTERNS FROM THE PAST

This exhibition at Verulamium Museum is a welcome and unusual chance to see some 35 Romano-British mosaics in miniature.

They are presented in watercolour, and are executed in great detail. They are the work, over many years, of David Neal of the Central Excavation Unit of English Heritage. In their preparation much detailed study of each piece must have been undertaken. This is a great chance to compare mosaics from the north of England with those of the south and west. At the same time the rest of the museum is open to view and one can compare the detailed painted drawings with the mosaics in the museum.

The mosaics exhibit remains open until the end of December. Opening hours Mon-Sat 10 am-5.30pm (4pm from November); Suns from 2 pm. Entrance fee payable.        TED SAMMES

 

A Dawn’s Eye View of THE HADAS MINIMART or should that be An Orr’s Eye View? Anyway, this piece is by DAWN ORR

That happy HADAS habit, the annual Minimart, took off to a flying start with a fine day and excellent stock. The Newbury elastic-sided garage disgorged its treasures into elastic-sided cars, which moved in stately caravan along Sunningfields Road, led by John Enderby – at least I knew I was in the right road when I saw him.

At the hall, a noble company of carters and heavers had responded to Dorothy’s plea for “more men”, and all those wonderfully organised boxes and bags were speedily distributed and unpacked. Inevitably, a few bits and bobs arrive on the day …

“What on earth is this?” “What price …?” “Try 50p!” “Good heavens! What would anyone use that for?” …. and so on we pressed, more and more welcome friends arriving to help, until …

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” (just at the right moment!)

If we made a Video someday, the soundtrack would run something like this:

“Has this saucepan got a lid?” “Will this do for a kitty?” “Has anyone seen the other bit of the Bible?” “Who wants a pinny with a pocket?” “Try those briefcases with the shoes” (Leather goods? Yuppie wear?) “Has this lid got a saucepan?”

“May I take your lunch order?” (More kind thoughts)

And then at last the whistle blows, the merry hubbub of preparation ceases: “Stand by your stalls!”

And so the customers troop in – some at first diffident, others seasoned bargain-hunters diving straight at their goals. The decibels rise and it’s lip-reading time – have I just nodded prematurely to a query on half-price? Panic … relief … satisfaction … £2 in the kitty and an unhinged sandwich toaster has been lumbered off. More tempting wares find room, but nobody succumbs to the five demijohns which remain firmly dominant for the duration … Isn’t anyone recently retired enough to want to make wine?

Soon it’s collection call and HADAS’s own securicor service escorts Dorothy on her rounds. “Mind out for any pick-pockets!” she advises. “One of ‘them’ will distract you while his mate nicks the lot!” “Can’t tell me anything about ‘them’ Ma’am! I was a copper, y’know.”

The pinny pockets grow heavy and the kitties are overflowing as the stalls begin to clear. The SOLD piles, held “just for a minute, dear!” shrink – they form an awkward corner, but what can you do when the customers have paid?

Suddenly a 2-foot high patron gives forth an enormous yell, which no amount of soothing from his pretty mother will assuage. Over the din I discover that he is an enthusiastic member of the Play Group and had rushed up the stairs, thinking that he was coming for an extra session … imagine his dismay at the unaccustomed invasion of surging adults and all their noise! He wailed all the way downstairs again, but finally quietened down in the lunch room.

At last it’s time for lunch for the workers – value and pleasure in generous measure. Query: if 200 meringues were laid end-to-end – how long would they last? Answer: Not long! And Brigid’s carefully packed boxes didn’t last long either – nobody mentioned diets! They simply melted in many mouths amongst the cheerful gossip, and after a wonderful boost it was back to the fray, picking up a scarcely worn skirt and as-new black shiny shoes on the way. (Wore them for the rest of the afternoon – instant fit!) Gasped at a beautiful statuesque Vogue-like lady gliding off in a long 50p skirt, and another with an armful of allsorts – she comes every year to buy for her relatives at home in the West Indies.

Whistle tells us “Half-price Now!” – real bidding for bargains. An anxious member comes seeking a mysterious plastic bag full of wrought iron, which he has decided he wants back again. Best persuasions had failed to sell it, so he was lucky, though 50p lighter. Another member bought the box of spotlights – maybe we shall see these items again in some HADAS guise – even if it’s the next Minimart?

Which reminds me – this “one day of the year” is certainly unique, both in fun and purpose – but now that we have the “Sales and Wanted” slip in the Newsletter, the fund-raising effort and the thrill of the purchase and the sale can continue all year round. In no time at all that very grand total of £1200 will be on the upward move …

Do I hear a tinkling call from Downing Street? A special AWARD FOR ENTERPRISE? Yes, ma’am … we’d be delighted!

 

News from the Borough Archives & Local Studies Department

MEDIEVAL EDGWARE: THE HOSPITALLERS ESTATE OF EDGWARE BOYS

The medieval, and later, history of Edgware is particularly complicated because the township was split between different manors and parishes. The primary evidence can therefore be hard to unravel, and this is reflected in the standard authorities, up to and including the Victoria County History of Middlesex.

The department has recently acquired photocopies of the pages from the Hospitallers’ cartulary in the British Library (MS Cotton Nero E VI vol 1 ff.80-83v) relating to their estates in Edgware. The cartulary was compiled: in the mid-15c but the ten items which it includes date back at least another hundred years. Although it is cited in the standard authorities, the full extent of the information which it provides has not been realised.

The first five items trace the descent of a house and acre of land from the time when the Hospitallers granted it away to Hugo de la Hegge in the late 13c or early 14c until it returned to them in the will of Sayer de Stevenage, chaplain of Edgware, in 1375. The deeds make it absolutely clear that although Sayer was chaplain of St Margaret’s, Edgware, the house was on the Little Stanmore side of the Edgware Road, in the parish of St. Lawrence. The VCH (vol iv, pl64) seems to suggest that it was the vicarage house next to St Margaret’s.

The will of Sayer is as follows:

In the name of God amen, on Thursday in the feast of St Matthew the apostle (21 September)1374 I Sayer de Stevenach chaplain make my testament in this form. First I bequeath my soul to God the omnipotent and to all the saints and my body to be buried in the parish church of Edgware. Item I leave to the light of the blessed Margaret there half a mark. Item to the fabric of the church of Whitchurch 3s4d. Item to the church of Hendon 2s. Item to the church of Elstree 2s. Item I give and bequeath my house with garden, dovehouse and meadow to the prior and convent of St John at Clerkenwell. Item I bequeath my black book or breviary with a sufficient portion of my other goods to a suitable priest to celebrate (masses) for my soul for a full year. Item I bequeath to Emmot the wife of Nicholas atte Wode the two best cows with the best pitcher and small pitcher and the best salt-pan (patella). Item I bequeath to the said Emmot 10s of gold or silver. Item I bequeath to Sayer Ounde six silver spoons. Item I leave the other spoons to the said Emmot. Item to Sayer Presgate 2s. Item I bequeath to each of my sons (filiorum) 6d. The residue of my unbequeathed goods I bequeath to Walter Baker and Nicholas atte Wode whom I appoint my executors that they may arrange and dispose for my soul as seems to them most expedient.

The will, which was proved in January 1375, seems to have led to an immediate dispute, and in July the Official of the Archdeacon of Middlesex summoned the two custodians (churchwardens) of Edgware and Sayer’s executors to attend a hearing. Unfortunately we are not told the grounds of the dispute or the verdict.

In 1395 the prior again granted out Sayer’s messuage, but this time instead of alienating it on a permanent basis he only granted it out to farm for 20 years, to the then farmer of the whole manor of Edgware Boys, “Two years later the whole manor, including the chapel of Edgware, was let out on a new farm for 10 years. The farmer had to find and maintain a suitable chaplain for St Margaret’s, and keep both the manor buildings and the chancel of the church in good repair.

It was presumably because of the impending farm that the manor was surveyed, and the resulting Extent is the next item, unfortunately rather too long to be reproduced here. It lists 12 fields of arable, totalling 235 acres, 4 meadows totalling 7 acres, and 14 acres of Boysgrove. Three tenants were holding houses with gardens, one tenant a cottage and another a toft, garden and croft. The manor also had all the tithes. Annual outgoings were a rent of 7s7d on 100 acres of land originally purchased from Roger Stronge; 33s4d to the chaplain of Edgware together with a suitable house and garden, and altarage; 6d at Easter for consecrated bread; 3s4d for bread, milk and cheese at Boys on rogation days (presumably for sustenance to those beating the manor bounds); and another 3s4d in bread, wine and wax for celebrating masses.

The cartulary does not tell us when or how the Hospitallers acquired their manor of Edgware Boys. No earlier reference to it as a manor has been found than in the farm of 1395 recorded above. The VCH (vol iv p157) states cautiously that it may have originated from a known grant of land made in 1231/8. An Extent of the main manor of Edgware which was made in 1277 records 7s7d rent due from the Hospitallers of the Wood (Public Record Office SC 11 296, published in LAMAS Transactions NS vol vii, 1933). The 1397 Extent of Boys (a corruption of bois or wood) makes it plain that this was the 100 acres added by purchase and not, as the editors of the 1277 Extent wrongly assumed, the full manor. This is not, however, proof either way since a completely separate manor would not have been mentioned.

The cartulary also fails to provide a firm early date for St Margaret’s. Again, though, it gives the earliest that we have, in the implication that Sayer de Stevenage was already its chaplain in 1362. It is interesting that the uncertain status of St Margaret’s, whether a chapel (of Kingsbury), or a full-scale parish church, which was long-continuing, is reflected here.

The photocopies have been given the reference number MS 13259, and a detailed list which includes translations of both the will and the Extent is also available at the department.

 

And a news flash from the Borough Archives: a map for Finchley and Holders Hill is now available in the Alan Godfrey edition (price £1.20 from libraries). As well as the whole of the sheet for 1895 it includes, on the back, the eastern half of the next edition, surveyed in 1912.

 

ANOTHER TREASURE IN THE BOROUGH ARCHIVES

Leafing through the current issue of The Local Historian (it’s for May, 1988, because the magazine has had an editorial upheaval and is running late) we came on three beautifully reproduced plates. The captions read:

Hendon Vicarage

Mr & Mrs Sneath, Mr Sneath’s brother and Miss Barber outside 24 Sunny Gardens, Hendon, Good Friday 5 April 1901

Edgware c1890

The pictures illustrated the first article in a new series which Local Historian is running on Local Photographers and Their Work. The photographer featured is James Barber; he was Ludlow-born, but did most of his work in Hendon from the 1880s to the 1920s. The originals (as was mentioned briefly in the June Newsletter) are in LBB Archives, housed in 7 albums or among a group of loose prints. Negatives have recently been made of the whole collection.

Pleasant that this new series should kick off with an LBB subject.

 

DGLA CHANGES IN OUR AREA

David Whipp and Peter Mills have left the Department of Greater London Archaeology in order to set up as independent consultants to developers. Roy and Leslie Adkins made a similar move last year to Somerset, it looks as if independent consultancy could become a growth area for professional archaeologists – but one doubts whether that process will be in the best interests of archaeology as a means of obtaining maximum information about the past.

Meantime their move has necessitated a change in the North London Section of DGLA. Laura Schaef has replaced David Whipp and she will be assisted by Robert Whytehead and Mike Hutchinson.

TED SAMMES

 

ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH

Whisky and archaeology don’t usually go together – unless it’s a wee dram at the end of a hard day’s digging. But it’s thanks to Glenfiddich whisky, which operates the “Living Scotland” awards, that the excavators of what has been described as “one of the most extensively excavated Roman forts in Britain” have been able to provide visitors to the site with a beautifully produced full colour guide. The fort is Elginhaugh, near Dalkeith, a first century fort on the crossing of the River Esk by Dere Street. The fort was built and occupied during Agricola’s campaigns in Scotland (77-84 AD) and not for much longer than that.

Discovered by air-photos during the 1979 dry spell, the excavators, from Glasgow university, have been able to wring a lot of information from the site, not only for the Roman occupation but also for Bronze Age, Neolithic and Mesolithic phases (nothing much in the Iron Age). The booklet they published with their whisky award can be obtained from Dr Henson, Dept. of Archaeology, University, Glasgow G12 8QQ, for £1 plus 30p postage.

It is interesting that the first three articles in the October History Today are on archaeological subjects. Ten years ago I don’t believe that would have happened. Historians are becoming much more archaeology conscious.

The first article discusses English Heritage’s excavation of formal gardens at Kirby Hall in Northamptonshire. Brian Dix, in charge of the dig, is pleased with the “sophisticated 17c flower pots” which have been found. They boast “an intricate drainage system consisting of a hole at the bottom with more holes punched into the side of the vessel just above the junction with the base.” Shades of the days when I started in archaeology – most of my finds were greeted with “oh, that’s only flower pot – you needn’t keep that.”

The second story seems even stranger, because it concerns a material which we would not expect to have much measurable impact on the archaeological record – blood. The article describes excavations on the site of an Augustinian monastic hospital at Soutra, 17 miles south of Edinburgh, in occupation from 12c-l6c. There the remains of an estimated 300000 pints of blood (among other infirmary waste) have been found. The dig aims to recover the “physical residues of medical practice and evaluate them against documentation.” The blood has survived because of poor drainage, which resulted in the soil being saturated. Exotic plant material – including pollen of cloves imported from Zanzibar and the Spice Islands – also survives, thought to be evidence of herbal remedies.

There is documentary evidence that blood-letting was practised among Augustinians between seven to 12 times a year. The process finished, according to medieval manuals, when the patient was on the point of unconsciousness – estimated at 3 to 4 pints in a normal healthy adult. Blood-letting, it was thought “strengthens the memory, dries up the brain, sharpens the hearing, curbs fears … produces a musical voice … and gives a long life.”

The third article deals with a subject mentioned by Ted Sammes in his “Miscellany” in the September Newsletter. History Today’s representative, like Ted, had been to one of the Ancient Monuments Laboratory Open Days and had been hooked by the huge range of articles that the Laboratory handles. He instanced some of them: from a single pollen grain found in the intestines of a Lindow Moss bog-body and now under microscopic examination; to “an awful corroded chunk of glob … a Saxon horse’s bit with part of the horse’s mouth still attached.”

Volumes published this year in the Shire Archaeology series include Life in the Ice Age by Anthony J Stuart and Brochs of Scotland by J N G Ritchie. Both are worth adding to your bookshelf. Stuart summarises present thought on climate, dating and vocabulary in periods where received opinion is constantly changing – the Middle and Upper Pleistocene. Ritchie’s volume includes a chapter on Orkney and Caithness and some fine photographs of Gurness and Bu Brochs on Orkney. Each costs £2.50 – from booksellers or direct from Shire.

If you watched Thames Television’s Living Memories programmes in September you may like to know there is a free booklet to go with them – write to PO Box 1322 London NW1 3H2. It is fact-packed – how to start on oral history, what equipment you need, what it costs, how to plan a session, how to interview. There is a booklist, addresses of groups operating in in London and facts about the London History Workshop sound and video Archive.
Jul 12
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Newsletter-185-July-1986

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Newsletter-185-July-1986

Newsletter 185: July 1986
PROGRAMME NEWS

Sat July 26 Trip to Sutton Hoo and Orford                                        by Sheila Woodward

Excavation is in progress again at this outstanding site of the Suffolk ship burial near Woodbridge. We were heavily overbooked for our visit last year and a rerun has been organised for those who missed it. If you would like to come again – hopefully in sunshine this year -slight variation has been planned for the afternoon to visit Orford on the Suffolk coast. Orford is famous for its 800-year-old castle keep. As this is a rerun it will probably not be easy to fill the coach, so friends of members will be welcome on this trip.

Sat August 16 Trip to Mary Rose and Portchester

This is additional to our published programme to take the large overflow from May 10. The coach is almost full – just a few seats left and no waiting list – so any latecomers please ring Dorothy Newbury (203 0950) and you might just get in.

Thur Sep 11 Evening visit to Old Bailey

Thur-Sun Sep 18-21 Exeter Weekend                                        with Ann and Alan Lawson

The coach is now full but no waiting list. If anyone is still keen to go please ring 458 3827 or 203 0950 and we will notify you in the event of a cancellation.

Throughout August ‘Historic Hampstead 1000’   986-1986 Exhibition at Burgh House, Hampstead

Sat Oct 4 Winchester ‘Domesday 900’ Exhibition
Sat .Oct 11 Minimart, St. Mary’s Church House

Sit Oct 18-Dec 7 HADAS Exhibition ‘One Man’s Archaeology’ Church Farmhouse Museum

 

AN APPEAL FROM  OUR MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY

There are still over 100 members who have still not paid their subs and I append below the different amounts due as at 1 April 1986

Full members                                                                      £5.00
Family members

First member                                                                      £5.00 plus £1 for other members

OAPS                                                                                         £3.00

OAPS First member                                                           £3.00 plus £1 for other members

Juniors                                                                                     £3.00

Schools, Corporations etc.                                                   £6.00

Please let me have your cheques as soon as possible. We don’t like to badger you, but we do need your money now.

Phyllis Fletcher, Membership Secretary
27 Decoy Avenue London NW11 OES

BROCKLEY HILL POTTERY EVENING

Thursday, July 10, 8.00-9.30 pm at Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute. Meet in the Community Room.This is an opportunity for anyone interested to look at the finds from previous field walks in the Brockley Hill area and familiarise themselves with what to look out for on future walks. We will also put on show some examples of typical Brockley Hill pottery excavated at the kiln sites, to be examined at first hand. . A special welcome to all new members!

BRITISH SCHOOL OF ATHENS 1886-1986

A Centenary Conference on ‘Ancient Mining and Metallurgy’
at University College of North Wales; Bangor, April 1986

This was a stimulating and happy occasion. Between 60 and 70 people attended – Classicists, Archeologists, Engineers and Metallurgists. We really did confer, not only in the two sessions given over to communica­tions and discussions, but as much as possible in our free time.

The first session was chaired by Mr. J.A. MacGillivray, Assistant Director; BSA, the subject being ‘Recent work carried out at the Athenian Silver Mines of Laurion’. This was a survey of the surface remains of the ancient mines (mining is still carried on nearby) in particular the water cisterns and ore washeries. Possible methods of operation were suggested and the Metallurgists present were invited to criticise, which indeed they did, much to both parties’ satisfaction.

At breakfast next morning I told Mr. MacGillivray that HADAS had recently heard Professor Tomlinson talking on his work at Perachora and asked whether the large circular tank found there could possibly have been connected with mining. He was quite sure: ‘No!’ The Perachora tank was much larger and had no central pillar to support a cover. I raised the point of evaporation as covers had been found necessary to prevent this at Laurion. He thought that as the Perachora tank was used only briefly at festival times this would not be a problem, but it seemed to me a very elaborate construction to hold water just for a few days each year. As a point of interest he also mentioned that the BSA’s latest work is at the Palaikastro site in Crete, excavating a hitherto unknown Minoan palace, second only to Knossos in size.

We passed on to other Greek sites, as well as Rio Tinto in Spain, Zawar in India and then to some of the ancient Welsh mines. Duncan James gave a fascinating account of how he had ‘pot-holed’ into the copper mine on the Great Orme at Llandudno to prove that the earliest workings were not in fact Roman but prehistoric. The Victorians had confused all the evidence with their back-filling of the ancient galleries,

Peter Crew from Plas Tan y Bwlch; who guided HADAS on our Snowdonia explorations in 1979, talked on ‘Prehistoric Iron Smelting and Smithing at Bryn y Castell Hill Fort, Gwynedd’  Dr. Peter Northover from Oxford and Dr. Paul Craddock who is well known to us all as member, lecturer and guide, joined with other experts from the British Museum Research Laboratory to talk of the development of copper alloys from Chalcolithic to Byzantine times. This led to a later session. on the conflict between weapon and armour, sword and helmet, an improvement in one ‘having, ‘of necessity, to lead to new technology for the other.

On Saturday we visited the vast moon-landscape of the Parys Mountain on Anglesey. Here Copper was certainly mined in antiquity, but all traces are now lost. The mine was reopened in 1767 and by 1780 it was the largest in the world, producing 4000 tons of copper a year. Nelson’s ships were sheathed in it and so was the French Navy. Tom Williams ‘the Copper King’ knew what he was about! Following recent drilling, there are now plans to open new workings down to 1500 feet-(750 feet below sea level) mainly for zinc and lead this time. These plans, of course, depend on favourable economic conditions.    

                                                                                                            ALEC GOULDSMITH

MORE NEWS OF THE GRAHAME-WHITE HANGAR, HENDON AERODROME

During the past month or so we have written, to a number of aviation magazines and societies with a generally favourable response (except from the Royal Aeronautical Society). It has been pleasing and interesting to discover that a lot of people have been making their own contribution to the call for preservation. ‘A co-ordinated campaign might achieve more but the volume and spontaneity of complaint is in itself Impressive. At least at the time of writing in mid-June the hangar is still standing.

At the AGM I mentioned that an expert on aircraft factories was coming to visit the Hendon/Stag Lane area with me and asked anyone interested in joining us to let me know. In the event the visit took place at very short notice in mid-June when my friend was unexpectedly despatched to London on college business, mixed business with pleasure. Apologies to anyone who would have liked to join us.                                                                                             BILL FIRTH

HAMPSTEAD’S MILLENIUM

Hampstead is celebrating its millennium this year. Anyone who lives in the south of the Borough of Barnet and who reads that pearl among local papers, the Ham and High is probably well aware of the fact: but HADAS members outside the Ham and High’s orbit may not have cottoned on yet.

There have already been all kinds of junketings in connection with the millennium, and more  are to come but one, which might specially interest HADAS member’s, is nearing its close. You might like to try and nip in to see it before it ends. It is an exhibition at Burgh House, New End Square, NW3, until July 6 on the Medieval Manor of Hampstead.

Starting point and highlight of the exhibition, which has been devised and arranged by QC David Sullivan and his daughter Tess, is – as one might expect – the one document which provides evidence for the date of the millennium, and shows that Hampsteadians of 1986 are right to celebrate this year. It is the record of a charter (not the charter itself, which is long since lost) but a document made later (probably before 1016), saying .that there had been a grant by Ethelred II (‘the Unready’) of 5 tracts of land in Hampstead in 986 to Westminster Abbey. The record gives the boundaries of the land in Anglo-Saxon. The excellent booklet (price £1.00) which accompanies the exhibition adds that ‘the Manor map, made more than 750 years later, in 1762, which defines the boundaries of the manor very clearly, agrees closely with the geography indicated by the Anglo-Saxon boundaries.’

It’s interesting how often Hendon crops up in the booklet; and how in medieval times Hendon seems to have been regarded as the big brother of Hampstead (in family rather than Orwellian terms). It is suggested that Hampstead may have begun life as a staging post on the trackway over the hill to Hendon, ‘a larger and probably earlier vill in the Middlesex weald to the north.’ Both places belonged to the Abbey of Westminster; both appear in Domesday, and the situation of the two is interestingly contrasted in displays on the free and unfree tenants of the manor.

A section of the exhibition deals with the monks’ farm accounts which survive at Hampstead from 1270-98 and from 1375-1412. It would be an interesting exercise to compare these with the farm accounts of the Abbey’s manor at Hendon, which exist from 1316-1416 (see Eleanor Lloyd’s paper in Trans LMAS, vol 21, pt 3, 1967, 157-163).

For one escape the Hendon manor must have been grateful: when the. Black Death reached Westminster in spring 1349 the Abbot of Westminster, Simon de Bircheston, and many of monks, fled to ‘safety’ in Hampstead ­not Hendon. The Abbey did not have a manor-house at Hampstead; but it had ‘a substantial Hall and dormitory with a farm grange attached,’ probably at the corner of Frognal and the present Frognal Lane.

The booklet describes what followed when the Abbot arrived in 1349. ‘It is likely that the village was then still free from the plague. But his arrival was disastrous. His group brought the plague with them, and on May 15 1349 the Abbot died here, together with 26 of his monks. Their bodies were buried in Hampstead; but the Abbot’s body was later taken and reburied in the East Cloister of the Abbey. The village, too, must have suffered disastrously …’

The exhibition will be open from July 2-6 inclusive, 12 noon – 5 pm.                BRIGID GRAFTON GREEN

A MESSAGE FOR THE CLERKENWELL WALKERS and those who missed the walk as well. Come and join in the Clerkenwell Festival from July 11th to 20th

Friday 11th Opening Ceremony at lunchtime on Clerkenwell Green. Morris dancing ‘all round the pubs’ in the evening.

Sunday 13th. Grand Dickensian Street Fair and Charity Market (Period costumes specially welcome.) A coach and horses will ferry visitors from Ludgate Circus to the Fair.

Sunday 20th Grand Finale. Italian procession from St. Peter’s Church, Clerkenwell Road.

The Sessions House, Marx Memorial Library, St. James’s Church and. St. John’s Priory Gate will all be open to the public with displays and exhibitions. Programmes can be obtained from the Sessions House and further information from Jim Lagden or Hilary Coleman on 226 1234.                                                             

                                                                                                                        MARY O’CONNELL

FAVERSHAM AND  ROCHESTER

The trip to Faversham and Rochester on June 14th started in superb sunshine at the recently restored Chart Gunpowder Mill. This water-powered incorporating (blending) mill is the only building left of the many gunpowder works spaced out (for safety) for 11/2 miles along Faversham’s West Brook through the town and down to the coastal marches. Possibly the earliest gunpowder works in the country, they were nationalised about 1760, only to be re-privatised some 60 years later when the Napoleonic Wars ended and demand dropped.

Faversham’s delightful medieval architecture and quays survive because its trade volume stayed relatively constant, handling gunpowder, local bricks for London and elsewhere, and (for unclear reasons!) Romney Marsh wool: Especially noteworthy: the King’s Warehouse – 15th Century, housing the King’s weights – the ‘raison Dieu and the parish church, St. Mary of Charity, with a Roman foundation, Georgian nave, Medieval wall-paintings and misericords, and arches of almost every type known.

Paul Craddock guided us to a site along Watling Street outside the town to show us the ground plan and lower walls of a rectangular 4th Century AD Roman building subsequently identified both to East and West to form a church that fell into disuse before the Reformation. Paul likened it to St. Martin’s, Canterbury, and some churches near Cologne, all now believed to have started as Roman mausolea, to have become Christian shrines in Roman times, and probably to have a continuous Christian history right through the Dark Ages.

In Rochester we visited the Dickens Centre and Rochester Castle (1120’s), dominating the Cathedral precinct and described by Paul as the most perfect example of a Norman castle tower on either side of the Channel. Only one wall had been rebuilt in the 14th Century, after an unsuccessful siege by King John.

The best was left until last an idyllic tea provided by Paul’s wife, Brenda, in the garden stretching behind their house to the edge of the steep hill looking out over the Medway. Facing into the afternoon sun we ate and drank surrounded by flowers and espaliered fruit trees along the walls, with the smell of herbs from between the flagstones.

Lament, all HADAS members who couldn’t go. The rest of us grate­fully thank all the organizers – and the unknown person who arranged the perfect weather after six months of winter.                                    MARY RAWITZER

SPRING MEETING OF LOCAL SOCIETIES AT THE MUSEUM OF LONDON

This meeting takes place about twice a year and on this occasion was attended by representatives from 21 Local Societies within the old Greater London area, together with six members of the Department of Greater London Archaeology.

Harvey Sheldon representing L.A.M.A.S as well as D.G.L. showed slides of the excavation at Winchester palace and also reported that excavation had been carried out beneath the undercroft of Westminster Abbey, an 11th Century building at Kingston-on-Thames another under-croft at the Horsefair, which was not scheduled, may be moved from its present position and re-sited nearer the Thames. It was explained that to schedule a building and prevent development after planning permission had been given could be a very expensive matter. This undercroft had been located in Victorian times but subsequently lost.

The West London Unit had been digging behind the Garden Centre in Uxbridge and found further evidence of Mediaeval Uxbridge and of earlier times. The excavation of the Roman Bath House and Villa at Beddington was yielding bones of Roman and prehistoric origin. The gravel site in Holloway Lane had produced part of a Late Bronze Age metal-working area. Concern was expressed that with the abolition of the G.L.C. local authorities might not give such firm support in dealing with gravel extraction projects as had recently been the case.

Enfield Society reported a Roman settlement in the Lincoln Road area alongside the route of Ermine Street. A burnt clay structure, possibly a corn drier, had been found and, in a rubbish pit, six pots which were almost complete The Putney Society is currently setting up a new Museum and Val Bot has left the Grange Museum to take up the challenging post of Curator. The next Local Societies Meeting will take place on Monday September 22nd and each Society is invited to send up to three representatives.                                                              TED SAMMES

COMMITTEE CORNER

The Committee met on Friday, June 6th. New members were welcomed and various matters discussed.

Plans for the 25th Year Exhibition this autumn are well under way. Ted Sammes is presenting One  Man’s Archaeology, a personal record of his twenty five years in the Society and the widening range of his interest in Archaeology. The Mayor and Mayoress of Barnet, Councillor and Mrs. Dennis Dippel, have kindly agreed to be present on October 18th and, after a brief opening ceremony at 11.30 am, followed by a brief official reception, the exhibition will open to the public in the afternoon. It will run for two months.

Victor Jones reported the possibility of a trial excavation at Whetstone, on the site where a shop was recently burned down. It was decided to proceed with this.

Brian Wrigley agreed to maintain contact with the R.A.F. Association, who, as a non-official body, may be best able to mount a publicity campaign in defence of the GrahameWhite Hangar at the  RAF Museum. It was stressed that this was still in danger, in spite of press reports suggesting otherwise.

Jill. Braithwaite, Co-ordinator of the Roman Group reported on the Pipeline Project. She and Tessa Smith had examined previous field-walking finds and would make enquiries about ploughing dates with a view to obtain­ing permission for further walks liaison with D.O.G.L.A. would be important and Jill Braithwaite agreed to represent us on the D.O.G.L.A. Liaison Committee. It was hoped that the recognition meeting (see page 2) would be well attended, especially by new members.

Jim Beard reported progress on the Watling Street  site (Burnt Oak  Station Carpark). The Committee thought that further documentary projects should include research into possible new sites and individual work on matters of local historical interest. Reports of this kind would be of value for the Newsletter.

Margaret Maher had been asked by a representative for some information on the West Heath Site for inclusion in the revised publication. She would confer with Daphne Lorimer about this.

The next meeting will take place on Wednesday July 16th.

COUNCIL OF BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGY POLL RESULT

Were you present when we voted on the issue of the World Archeological Congress? We were asked, you may remember, whether C.B.A. should withdraw support from the Congress, now weakened in its claim to be a World Forum by the absence of many visitors who objected strongly to the inclusion of archaeologists from South Africa. The national result is now available:

83 Societies voted in favour of withdrawal

46 Societies voted against

7 Societies abstained

So the HADAS Voting was reflected in the national returns.

SITE WATCHING

The following sites have been the subject of recent Planning Applications. If permission is granted, it is possible they might be of some archaeologi­cal interest.

36 Friern Park, N12                                                        

Barrymore, Bow Lane N12
Former L.T.E. Sports Ground Deansbrook Rd. Edgware     


Former Trafalgar House site,The Hyde, NW9                                   

2 Stanway Gardens, Edgware           

2 The Lincolns, Marsh Lane NW7     

West Hendon Hospital Site, Goldbeaters Grove NW9

land adjacent to 2 Wellhouse Lane, Barnet

Meadowbank Cottage, The Hollies, Barnet Road, Arkley

Hollybush House, Hadley Green

Land at Arkley Hall and Arkley Rise, Barnet

12 Barnet Gate Lane Arkley

“Stocks” Hadley Green West 

47 Old Fold View, Barnet     

The Barn, Totteridge Green, N20      

ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERIES: A REAPPRAISAL

This weekend conference is being held in the New Merseyside Maritime Museum 7-9 November 1986. Accommodation will be available at special rates in city centre Liverpool hotels. Delegates will have unique access to Merseyside museums.

The conference will start on Friday evening with a key lecture to set the scene for the weekend. Saturday morning will cover techniques such as palaeopathology, settlement modelling and establishing a research design. The afternoon session looks at artifact study and analysis. On Sunday the practical problems of older material will be considered with special attention to the Faussett collection.

This Conference is being held as part of the 1986 centenary of the death of Joseph Mayer, Liverpool’s antiquarian and philanthropist. Mayer saved for the nation material excavated in Kent and meticulously recorded by the Rev. Bryan Faussett in the late 18th Century.

Details of programme, cost and accommodation are available from The Director of Continuing Education Studies, University of Liverpool. PO Box 147, Liverpool L69 3BX (Telephone 051-709 6022 ext. 2797).

FOR YOUR BOOK LIST

Guide to the Silchester Excavations 1982-84
Michael Fulford University of Reading

This is the second guide to the present series of excavations at Silchester. The first one covered the Amphitheatre and Forum for the years 1979-81.

The black layers originally encountered by Joyce, the Victorian excavator in the Basilica, have been identified as the remains of a metal-working industry, carried out in the third and fourth centuries A.D. in what was once the town’s most imposing building.

Pre-Roman occupation has been found from the first century B.C. continuing until 55-60 A.D. at which time a substantial ditch and timber rampart was constructed. The subsequent Roman street grid runs at 450 to the ditch.

This dig is directed by Mike Fulford who has spoken to HADAS about the Amphitheatre excavation. This year’s excavation runs from June 30-August 2. Public viewing Sundays and weekends, 10 am to 5 pm. (See British Archaeological News, April 1986, pg 23).

An up-to-date guide to Silchester (Calleva) is needed, let’s hope it will soon materialise.

Beyond Stonehenge

This is the title of a new guide to Stonehenge written by Julian Richards and published by the Trust for Wessex Archaeology, price £1.50. It is designed to interest the visitor not merely in the monument itself but in its immediate surroundings. Many of the illustrations are in colour and set the scene.

Stonehenge is dealt with in its many phases and it suggests an aban­donment about 2500 B.C. shifting to other ritual sites, Conebury, Durrington Wall and Woodhenge are described. Bronze Age farming in the area is described ending at about 1000 B.C. At the end of the booklet is a map which will help the informed visitor walk the newly arranged paths in the National Trust Estate. Information boards have been placed at key points. Let’s hope the “vandals” can’t walk that far.

This new booklet is based on work carried out by the Trust for Wessex Archaeology between 1980 and 1984.
Jan 12
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Newsletter-179-January-1986

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Newsletter-179-January-1986

Newsletter No. 179 January 1986

 

HADAS PROGRAMME

Tuesday 7 Jan        “Archaeology of Hedges and Woodland” by Dr. Oliver Rackham

Rackham is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and a botanist by profession. As well as study in England, his work has taken him to Greece and America.

Several members have already heard him talk on this subject – a subject that has interested the Society for many years , particularly in relation to the hedge running across Lyttelton Playing Fields (which is probably a Saxon perimeter hedge) and that at Hadley Golf Course, behind which some of the troops, in the Battle of Barnet were deployed in 1471.

Tuesday 4 Feb.,; Neolithic Arran by Dr. Eric Grant

Tuesday 4 Mar. Alexander the Great & Art in the Greek East by Dr. I .Malcolm College

Tuesday 1 Apl. Recent Excavations at Perachora, near Corinth by Prof .R, A. Tomlinson

Lectures are, held at Hendon Library, The Burroughs,NW4. Coffee from 8pm. Lecture 8.30

 

CHRISTMAS PARTY on DECEMBER 3                                               report by Alan Lawson

 

The usual Christmas, party which took place at the Meritage Club was perhaps less.formal than of past years – nothing exotic by way of belly dancing took place. In a very relaxed atmosphere of nostalgic photo viewing, archeaograms, treasure hunts and identification quizzes some 49 members of HADAS had a most enjoyable evening with an excellent buffet, superb cheeses, good humour and friendliness. It almost goes without saying, thanks were given to the many hard working and devoted workers who made the evening the success .that it was.

 

PROPOSED WEEKEND STAYING IN EXETER UNIVERSITY

        DATES: September 18 – 21      (3 nights stay)

Dartmoor, Exmoor, Exeter. Anyone who is interested please contact Alan Lawson, 68 Oakwood Road, N, W.11 Telephone: 458 3827. Details later if response allows.

 

NEW MEMBERS

It’s some months since the Newsletter greeted the newcomers who steadily become HADAS members month by month. New Year seems a good time to welcome all those who have joined us since mid-1985:

Lawrence Barham of Lewisham, Derek Batten, Stanmore, Penelope Boon*, Barnet, Mr. Otto and Miss Thea* Caslaysky, Finchley, Eve Dent*, East Finchley,  Roy English, Clapham,

M. French, North Fincley, J. Gregory, N. 11: P. Herreman, SW4: Dr. Hunt, Stanmore:

Graham. Hutchings Colindale: Rosalie Ivens, Golders Green: Sinead McCartan, WC1. John

Morfey, Hampstead: Paula Newton, North Finchley: Basil Olympios, Finchley: R.O’Shea, W5: Joanna Rabiger*, Golders Green; Kim Russell, Highgate:  Akano Sato, NW1. Simeon Shoul, Hampstead: David Trinchero, NW6 Paul Wiggins, Ruislip.

The Newsletter wishes them all a happy membership of HADAS and “good digging” in

1986.   (* indicates a member under 18).

 

SITES TO WATCH

Some development applications which have been made to Barnet Council in the last few weeks are for sites which HADAS has already noted as of possible archaeological interest. These sites have re-appeared on the planning application lists (which have recently taken to including the date of the original application, which is helpful) because in the interim, the plans had been re-described, amended or added to. We include these sites in our list for this month as a reminder.

If any/all these applications are approved by LBB, HADAS members living near any of the sites may see signs of development activity – surveyors at work, bulldozers moving in, trenches being cut. Should you observe anything of this nature, please let John Enderby know immediately on 203 2630. Sites are only worth watching from an archaeological point of view, in the early stages when the ground surface is being disturbed, so immed­iate notification is VITAL.

Here are the sites on recent application lists which appear to have some possible archaeological potential: –

167 Friern Barnet Lane, N20             4 detached houses -(outline)   –

Rear of 206High Street, Barnet          2-storey, building to form 6 bedroom hotel

Former Methodist Church site,

Goodwyn Avenue NW7                     18 flats in. 2 blocks

land bounded by Dollis Road;

Christs college playing fields              Primary school & access.(amended outline) & properties in Dollis Park, N3

land adj. East Finchley station,           Offices carparking, residential development,

fronting High Rd & rear of East         new station fo,recourt, ‘access roads.

End Road, N2                                     (Amended outline, additions)

site adjoining 131Marsh Lane, NW7  detached house with basement .(amended plan)

site of former Blue Anchor public      retail warehouse (outline)..

house, High Road, N20

Bells public house, East End Rd        single storey side/rear extensions for bar/ restaurant, facilities

29 Ashley Lane,1\TW4                       pair of semi-detached houses

           

LOCAL HISTORY AT LAMAS

The 20th LAMA’S Local History Conference on November 30 was, as ever, a lively and

Interesting occasion.

The conference is always worth attending on two counts – first, for the Lectures which form the main dish on the menu; secondly and perhaps equally important – for the displays put on by local societies from every part of the. London area and the opportunity these provide for society members to mingle and catch up with news of’ each other’s research.

Originally the theme suggested for the conference had been Farms and Farming in Middlesex. In the event, lectures dealt mainly with the Anglo-Saxon and early medieval

countryside. Dr. John Blair took Chertsey Abbey from early Saxon times to the 10th century as his focal point, Dr. Peter Bigmore handled landscape evidence from open field systems and ridge and furrow, and documentary evidence from estate maps and manor court rolls while John Mills’ subject was “Archaeological Discoveries in the Greater London. Area c. 400-c.1100”.

HADAS, had its usual display and bookstall arranged and manned by Joyce Slatter, Victor Jones and Brigid Grafton Green to whom the Society is most grateful. The display contained material from the HADAS Farm.Survey. ‘Bookstall sales went particularly well this year.

 

BOG BURIALS                    .

We’re delighted to hear that the University Extra-mural Department; has had second

thoughts about its Thursday evening public lectures in archaeology. Back in the autumn there were no plans to run them this winter. Now we learn that, a series of ten public lectures on “Bog Bodies and Ancient Man Preserved’ will start at the Institute of Archaeology on Thursday, January 16, from 7-8.30pm. Here is the full programme, which sounds most interesting:-

Jan 16 The Preservation of Ancient Human Bodies                           Don Brothwell

Jan 23 Archaeology of British &’European Bog Bodies                    R. Turner

Jan 30 Lindow Man an Ancient Body from a Cheshire Bog             Ian Stead

Feb 6 The Manchester Museum Investigations                                  Dr. R. David

Feb 13 Diet & Food Remains in Ancient Man.                                  Gordon Hillman

Feb 20 Forensic Aspects of Ancient Bodies                                      Dr. I. E West

Feb 27 Histopathology & Health in Early Man                                  Dr. E. Tapp

Mar 6 Bogs & Burials; Aspects of Parasitism in Early Man               Dr. A. Jones

Mar 13 Investigation on New World Mummies                                 Don Brothwell

Mar 20- The Determination of Age & Sex in Early Man                   Dr. T. Mollison

A ticket for the series costs: £15, but you can pay £2 at the door to go to an individual lecture. Cheques for the series should be sent to Miss Edna Clancy, Extra Mural Department, 26 Russell Square, WC1B-5D0′.

The Institute of Archaeology announces a programme of some thirteen. 5-day courses for next July and August. The subjects are: protection of archaeological sites, identification of Plant remains, drawing of finds, field techniques, archaeological evidence for disease, civilisations of ancient America, surveying, Roman London, identification of Roman coins; geoarchaeology, stone tool technology, underwater Archaeology and the identification of animal bones.

In addition there will be a number of 5-day courses on conservation, ranging from conserving photographs to making high quality replicas of museum objects.

Anyone who would like information about either the archeological or the conservation courses should write to James Black, Summer Schools  coordinator, at the Institute of Archaeology, 31-34 Gordon Square, WC1H OPY

           

ENCORE FOR ONIONS

After all Ted Sammes contributions to last month’s Newsletter wasn’t as we thought

it might be – the last word on onions The tear-jerking saga continues…..

 

This month’s instalment comes from Anne Lowe, mother of one of our junior members Christopher Lowe. She sends us the following quotation from “Food in England”, that lovely book by Dorothy Hartley; who died last November in her-’93rd year:

“Scallions – now a name given to bolted onions, but a perennial plant that grows clusters, and can be used for all plain cooking purposes; they stay in the, ground all the year round. Holsters are the Welsh version of these, rather smaller, and with very marked spring growth these make the best tansy that I’ve ever had, made by a farmhand

Take holsters in spring, chop them finely, and fry in bacon fat. When they are soft,

drain off any fat and pour on enough beaten egg to cover, add pepper and salt and chase

them round till blended – and; then ‘leave ’em’be till set, ‘not let ‘em boil, mind, or the egg will be a-whey, just set it nicely.’ .Then turn on to a hot plate, and it is excellent”

The drawings on the opposite page include Welsh Holtzers (this time spelt with a ‘z’) with the comment ‘good for rough winter cutting’. Miss Hartley was an accomplished artist, as well as a writer – so much so that her obituary in The Times last November ended with the line ” she loved drawing her heaven must surely include a friendly life-class.”


 

ABOUT HADAS PEOPLE

A distinctly Chinese air hung over some of the conversations at the HADAS Christmas party. One member – schoolmaster AUBREY HODES – was just back from his stint teaching English at Hua Qiao University, Quanzhou (from where you may remember, he wrote some interesting reports for the Newsletter). ALEC JEAKINS, on the other hand, is about to go to Far Eastwards early next year, as the production manager for a film on science which will be shown in China and Hong: Kong. With one coming and one going, it’s not surprising that a lot of talk about China was whizzing around Hendon, NW4.

Next year’s visit will be a return performance for Alec, his mother BETTY JEAKINS says.. He’s recently made one film for the BBC out there, which caused him to understand just what royalty feels like – wherever he went his public went too – following, whispering and staring:.

Dorothy Newbury tells us of another HADAS member who has recently been in China ­COLIN EVANS. We don’t often see him nowadays because he is based in France; but not long ago his firm sent him to the `Far East on a combined business and pleasure trip.

And talking of HADAS members far afield, the new address the Society has for long­time member VINCENT FOSTER, who was a keen digger and member of the main Committee in the 1970s, is Quebec, Canada – a far cry from his former home at Finchley.

VALENTINE SHELDON, an enthusiastic HADAS supporter for the last six years, has another hobby besides archaeology. In her own quiet way she is a highly successful fund­raiser for her pet charities. This year she set herself the target of raising £100 for the proposed North London Hospice, and achieved it by November. Her method? It’s all done with a needle. Miss Sheldon is a demon seamstress: she sews for love, but asks her clients to contribute whatever they think her work is worth to the charity of her choice.

 

SALUTE TO THE WELSH HARP

The current exhibition at Church Farm House Museum on the Welsh Harp, is well worth a visit from anyone interested in the history of our area; or, for that matter, in its natural history. There are some good exhibits on Victorian naturalists, bird watching and angling, including the display of a magnificent, mean-looking stuffed pike, weighing 201bs 12oz, caught in the Harp over a century ago..

Angling tournaments, Ice-skating championships (“Where can you find 350 acres of ice? Why, at Warners Welsh Harp’), drowning fatalities – the Harp was famous or notorious for all of them in the last century.

Built in 1837 by the Regents Canal Company to provide extra Water for the capital’’s canals, and extended in 1851 , the Welsh Harp, named for the famous pub which stood at its eastern end beside the Edgware Road, was much more than a mere water-supply it, was a recreation ground and a focus for Victorian family enjoyment.

Another aspect of the Welsh Harp cropped up recently too. At the LAMAS conference of Local Historians on November 30 the Wembley History Society were selling their booklet The Welsh Harp Reservoir 1835-1985.

This covers the reasons – mainly chronic water shortages – for the decision to build the reservoir, its detailed construction, how the water was, and is now, controlled and a history of the Welsh Harp pub and the family who owned it, particularly William Perkins Warner. He was a veteran of the Crimean War, who owned and ran the Welsh Harp from- 1858 to 1889.       

He made it a sporting and social centre “one of the most cosy and comfortable places to be found in London”. There was a museum- containing both Military and natural history objects – a billiard room, a ballroom and in the grounds, a bowling green, a skittles saloon and a shooting enclosure. Kingsbury race course (described angrily by a local resident as ‘a carnival of vice’ and suppressed in 1879) was nearby and the pub was the headquarters of one of the best known angling societies in Victorian England the Old Welsh Harp Angling Society. A day-ticket for taking Jack or Perch cost 2s6d (12p); a day-ticket for bottom fishing is (5p). Adjoining the tavern was a large concert hall where many well-known music hall artists performed, including Albert Chevalier, who used to sing his coster ballads.

The booklet ends with a section on the ballads which helped to make the Welsh Harp famous. The words of five of them are given. Here is one –

A SONG FOR. THE WELSH HARP,

(sung to the tune of ‘The Cork Leg’)

Dedicated to W P Warner, written by Tom

Erica of ‘.The; Sportsman’

Published in the Hendon & Finchley Times of July 10,1880

A song I’ll sing you of a place

Where you’ll always meet a smiling face 

Where every comfort can be found, 

Whether inside or in the ground.

The waiters there are all so neat,

To be waited on it is a treat:

And where they give you the best meat,

And with cheery welcome always greet.

The prices, too, are quite as low
.As anywhere that you can go.
The host himself is always there
With jolly face and talent rare.

His popularity he does share

With Mrs Warner, who’s ‘all there’ . 

She always greets us with a smile 

After we’ve trudged the weary mile.

While something nice she gets us then
We find out John, that best of men
From cellar he brings out the best
To place before his welcome guest.

And when we’ve dined, why out we go
 And on the lake we take a row:

Then back we come to thank our host 

And find him there at his old post.

We’ve had our fun, so off we rush
In Woodruff’s Hendon Omnibus
To London City where we live.
Before we go our hand we give

To the best of landlords true,

By all respected, and one of few

Who never gets done and never does you

At the old Welsh Harp at Hendon.


 

The exhibition at Church Farm House Museum continues until February 9th. The Wembley History Society booklet – a good buy – costs 55p (plus 20p post and packing) from Stuart Johnson, Hon. Secretary, Wembley History Society, 117 Church Lane, Kingsbury, NW9 8JX.

HALLELUJAH

The Council for British Archaeology’s Nonconformist Working Party has recently published a 60-page, well-illustrated booklet called “Hallelujah” .on how to record chapels and meeting houses. This fills a gap in their how to record publications we have already had from them a booklet on how to record graveyards, an illustrated glossary on recording a church and a guide to recording old houses.

The booklet is aimed, according to its introduction, particularly at individuals and local societies, and the part they can play in what is described as ‘a much neglected part of our national heritage’. We know of at least two HADAS members who in the past have shown particular interest in recording local nonconformist buildings, but we haven’ t heard much from them recently – perhaps this new publication will inspire them to fresh efforts.

Further details about it are, available from the CBA, 112 Kennington Road, SEll 6RE.

News also from CBA of two forthcoming conferences in which they are involved.

In collaboration with the Society for Landscape Studies they are organising a weekend conference on Religious Sites in the Landscape at the Institute of Child Health, Guilford Street, WC1 on Feb. 21-23, 1986. Speakers will include Professor Martin Biddle, Dr TC Oarvill, Dr. CS Briggs, Leslie Grinsell and others. Subjects will range from the prehistoric to the middle ages, from menhirs and druids to 11th century Christian church builders.

Fee for the weekend is £20, which includes tea and coffee but not lunch. Apply to Lyn Greenwood at the CBA.

On March 21-23 next, CBA and the Museum of London are jointly holding their 4th conference, on the theme ‘the rebirth of towns in the west, A.D700-1050” This will be an important conference, and it is hoped that there will be papers by speakers from all over Europe. As the Newsletter goes to press, CBA promise that further inform­ation will be available by the end of 1985 – so give them a ring on 582 0494 if you want further details of this.

The final lecture of the winter Wednesday Lecture season arranged by the Libraries Department will be on Wednesday 26 February at Hendon Library. MICHAEL ESSEX-LOPRESTI will be speaking about The Regents Canal, A narrow boat enthusiast, he keeps his own vessel on the canal and also conducts walks along the canal-side on summer Sundays. His lecture will feature architecture as well as wild-life and will be illustrated by slides and archive film of horse-drawn narrow boats. The lecture begins at 8.15pm and will last about 1e hours.
Jun 12
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newsletter-160-June-1984

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newsletter-160-June-1984

 

Newsletter 160: June, 1984

 

CALLING ALL DIGGERS:

The digging season fast approaches! Excavation at WEST HEATH begins on Sat June 16 and continues till Tues July 31. The site will be open daily from 9am-6pm. Volunteer diggers, finds processors, etc 

will be welcome, including beginners. If you wish to help and have not yet notified Margaret Maher(907 0333) or Sheila Woodward (952-3897) please do so as soon as possible, indicating the days on which you are likely to attend. You will need a Mason’s pointing trowel with a 3” to 4” blade (not 5″, which is too large); blade & tang should be drop-forged, not rivetted or soldered. Also bring a kneeling pad & a tea/coffee mug. Please wear soft shoes, preferably with smooth soles. All intending diggers are invited to a pre-dig evening at 13 Greystone Gns, Kenton, on Thur June 14 at 3 pm. Background about the site (illustrated by slides) will be given and it will be a chance to meet fellow diggers and handle flint. A call to Margaret Maher if you are coming would be appreciated.           

 

REPORT ON THE STATE OF HADAS

The 23rd HADAS AGM took place at Hendon Library on May 15. The Chair was taken by Vice-President. Brigid Grafton Green; and some 50 members were present. That is rather fewer than usual – a pity, because our after-business speakers provided enjoyable and varied fare. It was great to have our most senior member, Eric Wookey, in the audience. All power to him, and thanks to his helpful chauffeur, Tessa Smith, for making what must have been quite a considerable effort to join us.

Councillor Jarman confined his Chairman’s report this year to record­ing his own and the Society’s gratitude for work done by various officers and members during 1983-4. The Hon Treasurer-presented his accounts which thanks to an excellent Minimart result – showed a small surplus for the year, much to his relief and somewhat, we gathered, to his surprise!

He paid tribute to Membership Secretary Phyllis Fletcher who has been able to take much work off his shoulders. Membership at March 31 this year was 390; the 1983 comparable figure was 407.

The Hon Secretary, Brian Wrigley, presented a report on the work of our four groups – Prehistoric, Ronan, Industrial and Documentary – and on other research activities.

The Meeting confirmed our Vice-Presidents, whose number remains as last year:

The Bishop of Edmonton; Mrs Rosa Freedman, MBE; Mrs Grafton Green; Miss D P Hill; Sir Maurice Laing; Andrew Saunders, MA, FSA, Edward Sammes; E E Wookey.

The officers for the coming year, who were declared elected, are:

Chairman:        Councillor Brian Jarman

Vice-Chairman:           Brigid Grafton Green

Hon Secretary:            Brian .Wrigley

Hon Treasurer: Victor Jones

Committee members declared elected for 1984-5 are:

Christine Arnott,

John Enderby,

 Phyllis Fletcher  

Peter Griffiths  

Daphne Lorimer

Isobel McPherson

Dorothy Newbury

Nell Penny

 June Porges

 Michael Purton  

Ted Sammes

Tessa Smith

 Sheila Woodward

  

 

Under Any Other Business Mrs Mary Court, after commenting with pleasure on the excellent lectures she had heard in the past winter, suggested that HADAS should consider putting all lectures on tape, to make them available for members who could not be present, A lively discussion followed this interesting idea; it was agreed that the Commit­tee be asked to consider it from all angles so that, if feasible it could be put into operation.

After the business meeting five members entertained us, each intro­ducing a selection of a dozen or so slides on a topic which particularly interested him. The topics proved equally interesting to everyone else.

MIKE PURTON spoke on his visit to, Swaziland last year to take

part in one of David Price Williams’ digs

 

RAYMOND LOWE showed slides of the HADAS long week-end in the

Brecon Beacons in 1981

 

TED SAMMES described a Prehistoric Society week among the cyclopean

stone structures of Majorca and Minorca

 

PERCY REBOUL brought us back to Whetstone with a bump – to see just

how hard life was for many in the ‘good old days’ of the turn of the century

 

Finally, JOHN ENDERBY re-enacted the zany afternoon when Spike Milligan unveiled Grimaldi for us; part of the tape which Christopher Newbury recorded during the unveiling was played over.

 

RESEARCH and GROUP ACTIVITIES    

These were collated into an annual report by Brian Wrigley, and the AGM decided it should be published in the Newsletter. This is the first part; the second follows next month:

 

In 1983-4 PREHISTORIC GROUP activities continued to focus on the West. Heath Mesolithic Site. They included final preparation of material for the report on the 1976-81 excavations; and preliminary arrangements for the 1984 dig.

The stream-walking project with its eventual aim of investigating all the rivers of the Borough, was pursued during the winter months, when the lower reaches of the Dollis Brook were ‘walked.’

 

SHEILA WOODWARD

The ROMAN GROUP continued last summer with study, at regular meetings at Bigwood House, of Roman pottery from the early Brockley Hill digs, culminating with a pottery weekend at the Teahouse in November. Work included drawing, indexing and mending.

Recently the Group explored areas between Brockley Hill and St Albans, searching for sites of three known Roman kilns. This provided valuable background information. For example, a kiln of the potter CASTVS at Loom Lane, Radlett, is now known to lie within a deep wooded bank in a private garden. When the owner of the garden was laying a lawn he unearthed several sherds, including the name-stamp CASTVS, now in Verulanium Museum.

A memorable outing to North Essex was put on by a part-time member of the Group, Isobel McPherson, who discovered a treasure-house of Roman material excavated by a farmer at Guestingthorpe. Boxes and boxes of small finds – coins, keys, window glass – were set outside the farmhouse for members to handle freely, while the entrance hall of the farm made a unique museum. Another memorable outing was to Littlecote Manor, to see the spectacular Orpheus mosaic and current excavations. Colchester

Museum was the venue for a special outing. Members were able to handle exhibits and to see the magnificent reserve collection which is not normally on show. It includes, for instance, the moulds in which Colchester ‘samian’ was produced.

An exhibition of Brockley Hill pottery was arranged by two group members at Church Farm House Museum in a downstairs room hitherto not used for this type of display. It was on show for six months. There were two cases; one with items from the Roman kitchen, such as mortaria, cheese presses, amphorae; the other with a miniature kiln, pots and potters’ stamps. The Moxom Collection – which belongs to LBB is now on permanent show in the same room, in a new and elegant showcase, where it can be seen to great advantage; and the cremation urn from Sunny Gardens Road, which HADAS arranged some years ago to have put on permanent loan to the Museum, is also there. HADAS feels it can take some credit for this extension of show space at Church Farm House, because we have

pressed for it for a long time; but we would also like to take this chance of thanking David Ruddom, the Borough Librarian, for approving the idea, with enthusiasm; and Gerard Roots, the Curator, for his great cooperation in arranging to display the Brockley Hill material.

 

TESSA SMITH

(To be continued in July with reports from the Industrial Archaeology & Documentary Groups and the Excavation Working Party)

Both Prehistoric and Roman Groups will be happy to have more members. To join – or just to find out further details – ring Sheila Woodward (952 3897) for Prehistoric or Tessa Smith (958 5159) for Roman.

 

STEPHENS OF ‘BLUE-BLACK’ INK FAME                     by PADDY MUSGROVE

In 1884 Henry C (‘Inky’) Stephens built himself a private laboratory in Avenue House, East End Road, in Church End Finchley. To mark the centenary, the Finchley Society is organising an exhibition there from Sat June 30 to Sun July 8, open daily 10.30 am-8 pm.

The Stephens business and family archives only recently came to light and are now lodged in the Wiltshire Public Record Office which is lending many unique documents for display.

During the past year the laboratory – once in a sorry state – has been substantially restored and will be furnished with laboratory equipment of the period. Other exhibits will include Stephens’s original notebooks and records of experiments, family portraits and other paintings, early promotional material (who remembers the famous ‘blot’ logo and the large ­outdoor thermometer?), farm records from his 5000-acre Cholderton estate, and the results of recent research into the affairs of the famous firm, including unexpected evidence that the famous ‘blue-black writing fluid’ was actually manufactured in Ballards Lane, Finchley.

A plaque commemorating Stephens’s bequest of Avenue House, its gardens and rare trees to the people of Finchley is being unveiled by the Mayor of Barnet, Cllr. L Sussman, on June 1; on June 30, the opening of the exhibition will be marked by a garden party in the grounds.

Quite a few HADAS people – for this event wearing their Finchley Society hats – have been involved in preparations for the exhibition and it is hoped that many HADAS members will visit it.

Note; Paddy Musgrove (346 0128) says that if anyone wishes to organise a small group, maximum about a dozen, he will be pleased to meet them and perhaps escort them around other parts of Avenue House not normally on show.

Barnet Libraries Department has recently published a booklet on the grounds of Avenue House, which are as remarkable as the house itself. They cover 16 acres and were laid out, more or less as we see them today, in the 1880s by Inky Stephens. They have been open to the public since 1928.

The booklet deals particularly with the trees, of which it says ‘there are over a hundred different species of woody plants.’ The main booklet is in the form of a gazetteer of over 80 trees, many of them illustrated by line drawings. As well as a brief description, the place of origin, date of introduction to Britain and ultimate height in this climate are given for each entry. At the back of the booklet a map of the Avenue House grounds suggests a good tree viewing route and pinpoints the trees on it. There is also a useful glossary of tree terms. Price 50p, obtainable from libraries in the Borough..

HADAS member GERARD ROOTS, Curator of Church Farm House Museum, sends this note on his latest exhibition

“….THINK THAT WE BUILD FOR EVER: Buildings in the Borough of Barnet

In 1984 the Royal Institute of British Architects celebrates its 150th anniversary. As a contribution to the year’s celebrations, Church  Farm house Museum, Hendon, is holding an exhibition which traces the development of building in the area now bounded by Barnet Borough.

Based largely on material held by the Borough Archives, the exhibition aims to illustrate the diversity of building types and styles which have been used in this part of Middlesex, and will show both terraced cottage and great house – many, of course, now regrettably demolished, thus giving an ironic twist to the exhibition’s title, taken from Ruskin.

Barnet is, obviously, a large area, but the exhibition endeavours to include examples from all its-component parts, from 1660s farmhouse in Hendon to 1930s cinema in Edgware.

In addition to our own Archive material, a travelling exhibition


from the Grange Museum, Neasden, on the eccentric early 20c architect, Ernest Trowbridge, will be on display.

The exhibition dates are May 26-July 29. Please telephone 01 203 0130 for further details. I look forward to seeing HADAS members at the exhibition.

 

In last month’s Newsletter we mentioned a son-et-lumiere presentation of Lutyens architecture and Elgars music being planned for May by the North-west Branch of the RIBA in the London area, to be given at St Judes Church, Hampstead Garden Suburb.

The organisers unfortunately ran into difficulties, and have had to postpone the event. They now hope to hold it in September. If we get further details, we will let you have them in a later Newsletter.

 

SUBS, PLEASE!

Please let our Membership Secretary have your subscriptions soon for the year 1984/5. They became due two months ago, and over half are still outstanding. The rates are as follows:

Full member    £5.00

Over-60s;        £3.00

Family membership:.

First member   £5.00
(or, for over-60 first member, £3)

Subsequent members  £1.00 each

Junior members (under 18)     3.00

Schools/Corporate members   £6.00

Send your subscription to

Miss P J Fletcher,

27 Decoy Avenue,

London NW11 OES

 

FOR YOUR  DIARY

Sat June 16. A miller with a museum, an Anglo-Saxon village (re-made), a stately home: this intriguing collection of irreconcilables is offered by Ted Sammes for his June visit to Suffolk. First stop will be at the private museum of the late Sam Marston at Icklington. It is proudly owned by the Marston family, local flour millers, and houses a wide range of artefacts from Palaeolithic to Industrial Archaeology. Richard Darrah, who lectured to us in January, will join us there and afterwards take our party on to West Stow, where we will have a conducted tour of the reconstructed Saxon village. Then on to Ickworth, recently in the news, as wedding bells are in the offing for Earl Jermyn, the owner of this stately home near Bury St Edmunds. Here you can visit the house, or explore the park, canal and church, or just have tea in the restaurant.

If you wish to go on this outing, please complete the enclosed form and return it to Dorothy Newbury as soon as possible..

Sat July 14. Regrettably, this outing is cancelled, as the proposed leader will be abroad. Please cross it out on your programme card.

Sat Aug. 18. Trip to Repton, Derbyshire.

Sept 15/16.’ The long weekend to Cornwall has been postponed, as Peter Griffiths, the organiser, has heavy commitments overseas this summer,

However, June Porges has suggested a mini-weekend in the ancient city of Lincoln (Lindum Colonia) on the above dates. The Lincoln Archaeological Trust is staging a ‘Lincoln Comes of Age’ exhibition there this

summer (see Rescue News, Spring ’84, and Popular Archaeology, April ’84).Will any members who might be interested in this week-end please phone Dorothy Newbury (203 0950) soon, so that we can assess the sort of

transport required, in order to work out costings? Please also indicate if Friday afternoon to Sunday night would be most desirable, or an early start on Saturday morning, returning Sunday night. If this, trip

can be organised, details and application form will be in the July Newsletter.

 

Tues Oct 2. Just another reminder to correct the misprint in the pro­grmme card which gives Oct 22 for our first lecture, on Orkney.

 

Sat Oct 6 (repeat, 6!) Another change our Minimart has been brought forward one week – to Sat Oct 6. Please alter your programme card NOW. Christine Arnott’s daughter is getting married on the day originally planned (Which was Oct 13) and we couldn’t have a minimart without Christine! We have some storage space this year, so if there is anything you wish to dispose of in the next 3 or 4 months and that you can’t hang onto, please ring 203 0950 or 455 2751 (not large items, please).

 

Two forthcoming events at which HADAS will be represented are:

June 2-Sept 2, Burgh House, Hampstead: exhibition on Hampstead Heath, including its archaeology, natural history, general history, funfairs, etc. Being mounted by the Local History Library of Camden, which has borrowed from HADAS for inclusion in the display photographs of the West Heath dig (1976-81).

July 2-7, Institute Week, Hampstead Garden Suburb. We shall, as usual, be mounting a general display in the Institute Hall on the evening of Wed July 4 (7.30-9.30 pm); and at kind invitation of John Enderby, we shall have a bookstall at the Teahouse, Northway, NW11, on the evenings of July 2, 3 and 4. Offers of help in manning the bookstall will be warmly welcomed (ring Victor Jones 458 6180).

 

SITES TO WATCH

Tho following applications have been made recently for planning permission. They might, if permission is granted, be of some archaeological interest:

Convent of St Mary, Hale Lane,        Amended plan, large development of

Edgware                                              houses, flats. Original application

was in earlier Newsletter: this is just a reminder

Elizabeth Allen School,                      almshouses (outline)

Wood St, Barnet

Land rear of 36,38 Kings Rd & r/o    3 bungalows
17 Grimsdyke Cres Barnet

           

Land r/o 28, 30 Kings Rd, Barnet      bungalow

67 Hadley Highstone                          block of flats

51 High St, Barnet                              2-storey rear extension, storage

building at rear

Grounds of Norwegian Barn,             30m high radio mast
Edgwarebury Lane, Elstree

 

Would members who notice building activity on any of these sites, please alert Brian Wrigley (959 5982)-?

The planning application lists, which HADAS gets every week, also give details of plans to alter or extend buildings in the Borough which are on the Statutory List. These, of course, are often of considerable historical interest. Three such applications made recently are:

Trinders Lodge, Rowley Green Rd, Arkley. Application for a side extension, a new chimney and an extension to a former stable. This building is described on the Statutory List as a 2-storey yellow brick house of probable Regency date, slate-roofed.

An application for Cloud Cottage, to the rear of another Listed building, No 9 Elstree High St, seeks permission to re-tile the roof. Cloud Cottage and 9 Elstree High Street are, in fact, one building, which was divided into two in 1982. The description in the Statutory List is particularly interesting. The frontage is 18c, on an earlier partly medieval house. The main range is a 2-bay medieval open hall house, dated c.1500, with smoke-blackened roof timbers, inserted floor fire­places and a chimney of c.1600. There is a 17c wing at the rear, at right angles, and that is Cloud Cottage.

20/20A Wood St, Barnet (Wood St is a whole nest of Listed buildings): an application to build a rear extension and rebuild a fire-damaged wall. This 2-storey, red brick house is described as of early to mid-18c date. It was restored after severe bomb damage.

 

READERS WRITE ..

Dear Editor,

I was glad to see from the brief note in the May Newsletter about the Prehistoric Society Conference that someone, at least, was able to hear something of what the speakers said. My own reaction can best be summarised by quoting from a letter I wrote to the President afterwards:

“When one is trying to follow a fairly intricate and polysylla­bically technical argument, to be put in a stuffy, warm, sleep-inducing atmosphere, put in the dark so that note-taking is impossible, shown illegible slides projected through smudged glass while the lecturer reads, through a badly adjusted amplifying system, what is really a written paper at top speed to keep to a pressed time limit, does not aid concentration.”

The President, in reply, accepted that the slide projection was not good, but he put the difficulty mainly down to a ‘distressing tendency for some speakers to read texts at high speed with lowered heads and poor diction.’ He says he will give the problem some thought so I hope we can feel the question has at least been brought to attention.

Yours sincerely, BRIAN WRIGLEY

 

The Newsletter welcomes correspondence – either arising from earlier Newsletters, like the above, or opening up a new subject of your own. Please don’t hang back if you feel like bursting into print: The Editor’s address is on the Newsletter head, and press-day is usually the 20th of each month.

Why not tell us what you think – that is, the 350 or so of you who were not at the AGM – of Mary Court’s idea of taping HADAS lectures?

Your views would be of interest to other members- and probably useful to the Committee into the bargain.

 

HENDON AERODROME

The proposed visit to the historic buildings at RAF, Hendon, has been arranged for the afternoon of Sat. July 28. Those who have already expressed a desire to come will be sent details in due course. If there are others, please let me know (455 7164) as there may be a limitation on places. BUT there will always be a place open for a photographer who will come and take SLIDES for HADAS.

BILL FIRTH

 

THE JORVIK EXPERIENCE          Here DIANA MANSELL reports on the May outing to York

Between May 1976 and September 1981 a large hole dug at Coppergate in the centre of York attracted world-wide attention – it was ‘The Viking Dig’ excavated by the York Archaeological Trust. The Trust was set up in 1972 in response to the potential threat to the increasing redevelopment schemes for the ancient city centre, destroying much buried evidence of York’s earlier history, spanning 2000 years of a series of continental invaders – Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans. .

The media had whetted our appetites and so, some 50 intrepid HADAS members travelled to York and back to see what has been described as ‘The most exciting tourism project yet seen in this country and ‘a permanent cultural asset to its region, and indeed the world. Our grateful thanks to Dorothy Newbury for engineering our visit, just one month after the doors opened.

Our four hours or so of travelling gave us plenty of time to admire the English countryside at its best – the patchwork of greens and browns spangled with citrus-colored rape, to provide our polyunsaturates, all dazzling under a sun that grew warmer as we sped north. Cutting ‘pit-stops’ to a minimum, we arrived almost on our deadline of 12.45 for our ‘en bloc’. Queue crashing entry into the centre. Entry is at ground level in the new Coppergate shopping centre (Coppergate, derived from the street of coopers or cup makers, the suffix ‘-gate’ being Scandinavian). Steps lead down to the Viking level where Jorvik had lain undisturbed for ten centuries.

One enters a pre-exhibition orientation area, with electronic sounds and flashing lights supposed to represent the marauding invaders. beaching their ships and raping the inhabitants; as we creep along a darkened passage other strange sounds are emitted; entering the chamber of horrors comes to mind: Out of the gloom a little 4-seater ‘Time Car’ is man­handled into position, we are battened down with a metal bar to grip – was it really going to be like the Big Dipper? No! Electrically guided along a metal strip on a 15-minute journey at 10m per minute (mathematic­ians, what was our MPH)?

We set off backwards; for the first 2½-minutes passing ghostly figures through the ages, all very authentic, by the creator of Dr Who characters; and accompanied by the homely voice of Magnus Magnusson. We emerge amidst the bustle of 10c Jorvik’s Coppergate; after reversing up a blind alley, scattering chickens, geese and wild looking cats, we find ourselves moving forwards through the traders’ wattle and daub thatched stalls, selling poultry, fish, bread and all manner of craft goods. No detail is spared, from the grunting pig-in-a-poke, the dog cocking its leg, the housewife sweeping the sherds out the door (for us, some 1000 years hence, to retrieve on a field walk) to the Norse-yelling children. Complete even with smells – you feel you want to go round again, and take in the other half.

 

On leaving the Viking York ‘replica,’ you enter a different phase – a mock-up of archaeologists at work, showing their painstaking methods from site to lab. Here, we disembark, and enter the exhibits ‘proper’ hall, where there is ample room to browse amongst the fascinating objects unearthed from under our feet.

At 2.30 some of us joined Mr John Robson and his wife at All Saints Pavement for a tour of some of York’s interesting sights.  He would dearly have loved to show us the entire city; as it was, he didn’t do badly in two hours, gathering speed as we went, losing members as we made tight U-turns, disappearing up alley ways or under arches -poor Dorothy had to abandon counting and re-counting her dwindling flock, perhaps we should all wear cow-bells in future.

As we traversed the Roman and Medieval delights of the city one thing that hit me time and again was the people themselves, sprawled on the grass in the beautiful grounds of St Mary’s Abbey, once the most important Benedictine monastery in the north of England. They were surely direct descendants of the effigies in the Jorvik museum – or had the effigies been modelled on the people in the street?

Our city trot even cut out imbibing the traditional cuppa before departing at 5 pm, hot and exhausted, only to find ourselves, after travelling due west for an hour, in the centre of Leeds: Eventually we got onto the Ml. As we headed south on its disorientating ribbon, we at least  had the advantage from our lofty seats of being able to see over the hedges, even if we didn’t know where we were. In the Nottingham area the soft evening sunlight ideally portrayed numerous, tantalizing glimpses of perfectly preserved examples of medieval ridge and furrow and the hollow ways and humps of lost villages. Last stop Golders Green at 9.40 pm – weary, but enlightened.

 

COMMITTEE CORNER

The 1983-4 Committee had its final meeting on April 27 and discussed such matters as:

Abolition of the GLC. This has been a continuing saga for the last few months. The Committee is deeply worried about what will happen, if the GLC goes, to various useful GLC functions which affect history and archaeology in the London area.    Both HADAS as a society and several
individual committee members have written to various interested bodies, including the DoE and our local MPs.

Most helpful response so far has been elicited by Nell Penny, who wrote to Hendon South MP Peter Thomas. He sent her a copy of a letter that he had had from the Parliamentary Under Secretary at the DoE, Neil Macfarland, which says, apropos two of our particular worries, that the government fully appreciates the need to keep together the existing records of the Greater London Record Office (i.e. not to disperse them throughout individual boroughs); the Minister for the Environment is in sympathy with the need to keep the Historic Buildings Division of GLC together and we are looking to see whether, there is any way in which a centre of expertise on historic buildings can be retained in our proposed structure.”

You could argue that these comments don’t go very far; and that they still sound pretty hazy. They are, however, a definite advance on the total lack of interest which has hitherto appeared to inform government thinking on such vital subjects as records and historic buildings.

 

 

An ancient footpath.

HADAS has been informed by keen metal detector user John Bowman that he has been operating his detector along either side of the footpath which runs from Burtonhole Farm to Totteridge. Although not a HADAS member Mr Bowman has been careful during the past 8 or so years to let us know from time to time about his activities. His discovery of a number of coins – the earliest a Henry III silver penny – suggests that this is an ancient footpath. His finds also include coins of Tudor, Stuart and Georgian periods. One find is positively prehistoric – a fossilised sea-urchin,

 

HADAS representation. .Ann Kahn has kindly agreed to represent HADAS on the Finchley Conservation Area Advisory Committee for the next year; and Brigid Grafton Green will do the same on the Hampstead Garden Suburb CAAC. June Porges will speak for us on the Avenue House Advisory Committee – most appropriately, as she is our Hon. Librarian and our books are kept at Avenue House. John Enderby has kindly offered to represent us on the group of members of ex-Barnet Borough Arts Council (now disbanded) who are investigating the future of the arts in the Borough.

Junior Members. The Committee learnt with regret that it must say goodbye to KATE BALEEN, who has excellently represented Junior interests since March 1983. Kate made a definite contribution to discussions and kept in touch with – and arranged some activities for – under-18 members, we shall miss her, but this, alas, is a natural hazard for all Junior Committee members: inevitably exams and. distant prospects of university loom, and HADAS duties must give way. Kate’s departure means that we now have no Junior representative on the Committee. Any under-18 member who feels a yen to fill that gap is warmly invited to give our Hon. Secretary, Brian Wrigley, a ring (959 5982).

 

WEATHERPROOF YOURSELF – AT COLLEGE FARM, FINCHLEY

With the digging season starting and the weather its usual unpredictable self, members may like to be reminded of the excellent shop run by our good friend Chris Ower at College Farm. Basically it’s a shop for riding gear: but it so happens that riders need the same kind of all-weather protection that diggers: do.

Are you looking for a new windcheater, a quilted and waxed coat or a really strong pair of Wellies? You could do much worse than take a look at what College Farm offers in these lines. Our Hon Treasurer says the thing that strikes him – he’s been searching for a quilted jacket – is the really good, robust quality of what’s on offer, as compared, with an ordinary shop. Prices are reasonable too and talking of price,
Mr Ower offers a 10% discount to HADAS members.

The shop is open (it’s in the big barn on the right as you go up from the Finchley Road entrance, before you get to the main farm buildings; or round to the left, just past our own room, if you approach via Fitzalan Road) 10-6 from Mon-Sat; 9-1 on Sundays. A call on 349 0690 will provide information as to whether your particular need is in stock,

Owing to lack of space we have not been able to include this month Frances Radford’s account of the HADAS walk through Hampstead on May 9. It’s  a pleasure deferred, however – we shall publish it in the next Newsletter.

 
May 12
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Newsletter-159-May-1984

By | Past Newsletters, Volume 3 : 1980 - 1984 | No Comments

Newsletter-159-May-1984

 

 

Newsletter 159 May 1984

 

BLUE PLAQUES – AND BLUE HANDS

by

PERCY REBOUL

On Sunday April 1 at 3.30 pm, in weather cold enough to freeze the bells off a Court Jester, over 100 HADAS members, friends and guests, young and old alike, attended the unveiling of a Blue Plaque to the great clown Joseph Grimaldi.

The plaque is fixed to a north-facing wall of Finchley Memorial. Hospital, Granville Road, N12, and it was an inspired thought to get another great clown, Spike Milligan, to do the unveiling honours on All Fools Day; In the event; the curtain was drawn by three clowns simul­taneously, Spike himself, plus Mr Woo and Barney – the two latter in traditional clowns’ costume.

It was a truly hilarious afternoon, described by Spike Milligan himself as ‘the craziest opening ceremony of my life.’ Wit, repartee and fun abounded throughout the ceremony to the delight of the audience. Grimaldi himself would surely have enjoyed and approved of the occasion. Incidentally, his great-great-grandson, Daniel Grimaldi, who is the spitting image of a portrait of great-great-grandad by J Cawse in the National Portrait Gallery, was also present. So was Father Michael Shrews­bury, of Holy Trinity Church, Dalston, and of annual ‘Clowns Service’ fame.

Our Chairman, Brian Jarman, introduced the guests, thanked the organ­isers and actually managed to keep going amid a chorus of good-natured repartee and off-stage noises by the clowns present (e.g. SM to BJ ‘My abiding memory of this event will be the rheumatism I’ve developed stand­ing round in this cold.’

Spike Milligan himself was in top form, with nothing and no one spared, in a witty and entertaining speech. In a memorable phrase he described clowns as ‘people who see the harsher side of life … the working class on stage.’ A bouquet of flowers was presented to Mrs Sheila Milligan (with the best bow and curtsey seen for a long time) by Rachel Davis, our Hon. Treasurer’s grand-daughter.

The formalities were recorded by what must surely be one of the largest contingent of the media ever to’ cover a HADAS event. The full complement of local papers were present, as were BBC TV and Radio London. Pre-publicity was excellent too.

The last part of the event was a HADAS home-made tea (as ever, up to the highest standards) with a special celebration cake baked by Barbara Pincherli who, as well as being a queen-bee cake-decorator in her spare time, works in the hospital physiotherapy department. The centre of the 12 in. diameter cake carried a representation in coloured icing of a contemporary painting of Grimaldi by a Sadlers Wells musician; while perched round the rim of the cake, their heads poking above it, were six highly coloured icing clowns. The cake was ceremonially cut by Spike and

Sheila, Mr Woo and Barney, with only two thumbs and three fingers lost between them.

Here are the credit titles for the big cast responsible for this top-class theatrical event:

Catering by: nine members of the HADAS Catering Corps

Planning by: Isobel McPherson, Victor Jones, Brigid Grafton Green Guests (looked after) by: Dorothy Newbury

Recording/sound by: Christopher Newbury

Curtains (for plaque) & installation thereof: Joan Brian Wrigley Photographs (special assignment for HADAS) by: Eric Ward

As a final thought, it occurs to me that we should perhaps be think­ing about another Blue Plaque to put next to Grimaldi’s to commemorate yet another HADAS achievement, recording ‘a lot of hard work by a lot of people.’

A superb event and congratulations to all concerned.

POSTSCRIPT (DELAYED ALAS!) TO GRIMALDI

There’s one story of a missed opportunity in connection with the Grimaldi celebration.

 

The arrangements for the unveiling had to be made pretty quickly ­within about 2i weeks. We knew that Prince Rainier, the Prince of Monaco, was the head of the Grimaldi family, and we decided to write and tell him what we were doing and ask if he would care to send a message to be read at this ceremony to one of the greatest Grimaldis.

Nothing had been heard from Monte Carlo by the day of the ceremony, so we decided regretfully that the Prince was not interested.

But we were wrong. Two days after the unveiling we had a letter, dated March 29, from the Prince’s Private Secretary, which said:

“I wish to acknowledge receipt of your letter to His Serene Highness The Prince of Monaco, dated March 17, which reached this office this very morning.

Since the plaque in the honour of Joseph Grimaldi will be unveiled at your April 1 ceremony, the message you requested from His Serene Highness will arrive too late for the event, and there would be no purpose in sending it today.

This unfortunate delay is indeed regrettable.

With all best wishes for the full success of this event,

Sincerely,”

We feel very frustrated that some gremlin, either in the British or the Monagasque postal service, managed to put a spanner in the works. Anyway, we are planning to send Prince Rainier, with HADAS’s compliments, a photograph of the new plaque for his family records.

 

ABOUT HADAS PEOPLE

 

The Prehistoric Society Spring Conference on March 24/25 was – as indeed it usually is – full of HADAS members. One of them reported counting at least 15.

The Conference was on Prehistoric Settlement and Society, with speak­ers from the States, Israel, Canada and France, as well as Britain. The ‘new archaeology’ was much in evidence, so the programme was spattered with phrases like alternative models,’ ‘spatial analyses’ & ‘research strategies.’

four members are known to be joining its Spanish trip next October . CLODAGH PRITCHARD, ENID HILL, SHEILA WOODWARD and CHRISTINE ARNOTT; and a couple more disappointed hopefuls didn’t apply quickly enough and found, the trip was full up.

 

At the end of March SHEILA WOODWARD retired from her civil service job, in what sounds like a blaze of family and office parties. She’s hoping to have more time now for private pursuits, like HADAS: the co-directorship, with MARGARET MAHER, of the West Heath dig this summer will be one of them.

A birthday offering which greatly pleased her was a card bearing a series of thumbnail sketches by one of her cousins. It depicts her future activities. It includes Sheila in wellies marching down the middle of a Barnet river bearing, like the boy in ‘Excelsior,’ a banner with a strange device – as well as Sheila wielding a nifty trowel and engaging in other archaeological activities. The strange device? Why, H A D A S, of course!

 

Also retiring this year at the end of August, is one of HADAS’s founder members, JOHN ENDERBY, who has been Principal of the Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute for 30 years.

We are delighted to report that he is not immediately leaving Hendon, and we hope that he, too, will have time for more archaeology. Indeed, he has already announced publicly that he hopes he may now have time to attend archaeological lectures at his own Institute!

 

 Finally, news from another member of long standing: school teacher ANN TREWICK. She has recently acquired a weekend flat not far from Sutton Hoo, and that fact inspired her to apply to take part in this summer’s Sutton Hoo excavations, already billed in various archaeological journals and on ‘Chronicle’ (which will be reporting them extensively for the next five years) as ‘the dig of the decade.’

Ann tells us with great pleasure that she has been accepted and hopes to put in as much time as possible between mid-May and September. Digging hours – just in case anybody thinks this will be a rest-cure – are 7.30 am to 4.30 pm, ‘with occasional night shifts!

Members who want to follow events at Sutton Hoo can do so through a series of ‘6 monthly Bulletins being published by the Sutton Hoo Research Committee, which will give regular reports of how things are going on this famous site. If you want to go on the mailing list, send £2 to the Research Director, Martin Carver, Sutton Hoo Project Centre, Birmingham University Field Archaeology Unit, PO Box 363, Birmingham B15 2TT.

‘

UNDERWATER EXCAVATION    A report on the HADAS April lecture by STEPHEN CONRAD

           

What a splendid lecture to end our winter season! There had been some speculation whether this would be a popular subject, but the 110 or so mem­bers present were captivated by the revelations of architect archaeologist Alexander Flinder, who was personally involved in all the discoveries he described.

The first area, he dealt with was the harbour of Caesarea in Israel. Caesarea, in King Herod’s time 2000 years ago, was a busy, thriving town of more than 20,000 people, a seat of learning and, according to the writer Josephus, possessed of a magnificent harbour, greater in size than that of  Piraeus. However, for centuries, through Crusader times to the present day, the harbour has been small and quaint, and of nothing approaching the magnitude that Josephus boasted.

In the sixties Edward Link (of Link trainer fame) took some aerial pictures which began to explain the discrepancy. They showed a massive harbour beneath the waters, reaching out into the sea. The dark outline of the stone walls was clearly visible 30 ft below the modern surface. Detailed underwater inspection showed the walls to be made from stones sometimes as large as 10 x 10 x 30ft: superb masonry.

This poses a lot of questions, what happened to this magnificent harbour? Did an earthquake (Caesarea is in an earthquake zone) shake it to pieces? Did the water level rise? (The answer to that is no – the level is now more or less as it was 2000 years ago). Did the land sink? There is, after all, a geological fault in the nearby seabed.

The experts have now decided that the answer is a commercial one. Caesarea harbour came to a ‘help yourself’ ending. There was enough stone ‘in Caesarea to build at least three other cities, and when the town ceased to be important the stone was carted off elsewhere in the Mediterranean to Greece and Italy. The town of Acre, it is known, was built with stone from this area.

Caesarea provided another problem. Three hundred metres south of the town, on the water’s edge, there was a large rectangular pool about 4 ft deep known locally as Cleopatra’s pool, which had been presumed to be for bathing. On closer examination, however, and after observation of the sluices and cuts in tree rock surrounding the pool, it seemed more probable that this was in fact, a fish tank. No self-respecting Roman of status, said Mr Flinder, would have been without one.

The water washed in from the sea, over a low wall and filtered out at the side through cuts in the rock and over sluice boards, being sucked down into a bore hole which is still working today. It might have been Herod’s own fish pool, but no palace for Herod has yet been found. A similar pool and mosaic surround has been found in Cyprus, where it is called ‘the pool of the queen.’

The next site under examination was in the Red Sea at Sham el Sheik. Clear brilliant water made diving excellent. On the sea bed a wreck, probably Turkish, its wooden hull having burst open over the centuries like an overblown flower, was now lying flat on the sea bed. The cargo ‘was small Turkish pots made of porous clay, with a filter at the neck and a lid to go on top. A water jar, possibly? More to Mr Flinder’s taste is the suggestion that this is a type of refrigeration jar. A sweetmeat – say Turkish delight ­could have been put into the top of the jar with the lid on. The water evaporating through the porous clay would have had a cooling effect.

Final subject of the evening was the coral island of Jezirat Faraun, situated in the Red Sea about 10 miles south of Elat and lying just off the shore of the Sinai desert. This is a picturesque island, noted on British naval charts as having a safe anchorage between island and coast. Remains of a fort made an ideal subject for further investigation.

A survey of the origins of the island and of the straits was made. The fort was easily identified as a Saracen fort of the Crusader period. The foundations of a more ancient wall circled the whole island, keeping out the sea as well as enemies. A small gap in this outside wall together with an aerial photograph, showed that there had once been an internal harbour for the island, the break in the wall being its entrance.

A detailed survey of the waters of the straits was made, and produced Byzantine urns covered with coral. On the mainland, immediately opposite the harbour entrance, a landing stage was discovered, indicating the method by which communications were maintained across the straits.

A few miles south a subsonic instrumental survey – using the same equip­ment that found the Mary Rose – showed up an anomaly some 30 ft below the seabed, which in turn was 80′ ft below the surface. There is every indication that this represents a wrecks but the possibility of reaching what may be a Solomonic relic at such depth and in so difficult a position will mean that it will probably remain a mystery for many years to come.

Michael Purton, in his vote of thanks, expressed all ours wishes that he hoped Mr Flinder would return again and tell us more

 

It was interesting a few days after Alexander Flinder’s talk, to see a letter from him in The Times, in his capacity as Chairman of the Nautical Archaeology Society, on the Dept. of Transport’s proposal to introduce new legislation on wrecks and the material from them.

This proposed new legislation cannot, in Mr Flinder’s views be made to work unless the advisory committee which administers historic wrecks on behalf of the Government – the Runciman Committee – is placed under the aegis of the new Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission, and thereby has some access to that Commission’s funds for archaeology.

The Government has so far refused to consider this; and is leaving the Runciman committee to operate with voluntary members and only enough funds to pay for a part-time secretary.

‘Is it not a cruel irony,’ Mr Flinder ends his letter, ‘that in 1984, which the Government has designated “Heritage Year,” it might very well, by its own actions kill the discipline that sprouted the Mary Rose?’

 

FLYING A KITE FOR AUTUMN

For many years we have been lucky enough in the Borough of Barnet to have been able to study locally for the two part-time Qualifications which appeal most to amateur archaeologists – the Diploma in Archaeology and the Certificate in Field Archaeology, both awarded by the University of London. HGS Institute has always encouraged Diploma courses and. Barnet College has run Certificate .classes,

Last year, however, Barnet College brought its Certificate classes (from which many ‘HADAS members have emerged triumphant) to an end. This year we hear that there are likely to be no Certificate classes available anywhere in North London.

The HGS Institute, however, is prepared to try to fill the gap – pro­vided enough students want it filled. It will organise a Certificate class if a minimum of 15 people can be found who want to take it. This could be a day-time, not an evening, class if that would be more popular.

Perhaps some details about the Certificate would be helpful. It is considered to be a practical, dirt archaeology qualification while the Diploma tends to be more academic: though generalisations like that are always too slick. The Certificate normally takes 3 years, the Diploma 4. Certificate classes are divided chronologically, and are concerned only with British archaeology: Year 1 Prehistory, Year. 2 Roman, Year 3 post-Roman up to 1056. On the practical side, Year 1 deals with the planning of excavations, Year 2 studies digging methods and techniques; Year 3 concentrates on analysis of data and publication.

John Enderby, Principal of the HGS Institute, has asked the Newsletter to find out how many HADAS members might be interested, if he were to initiate a two-term Year I. Certificate course next September. He is trying to test the water, as it were – and not asking you to commit yourself finally at this stage.     Should you be interested, will you either ring Brigid Grafton Green (455-9040) and let her know; or talk to Mr Enderby at the AGM on May 15, when he will be happy to provide anyone interested with literature. Don’t forget to mention whether day-time or evening course would suit you best.

 

THERMOLUMINESCENCE DATING

The European Science Foundation, an international organisation with HQ ­at Strasbourg, has begun publishing a series of handbooks for archaeologists, starting with an excellent 50-pager on Thermoluminescence Dating.

After an outline of the history and present position of TL dating, followed by an exposition of the principles of the method, the booklet goes on to detail the techniques for various types of material ceramic, burnt stone, burnt flint and chart, calcite and Aeolian sediment (including loess).

There is a useful section on Samples and Sampling, taking each type of material in turn. Since HADAS has been able (see Newsletter 147, Nay 1933) to submit flint samples from West Heath for investigation under the programme of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology at Oxford, this quote from the section on flint sampling may be of interest:

“Flint may have been burnt in antiquity to 400°C or more which is sufficient to reset the TL clock; with TL dating it is the age of the burning event that is determined. The ideal number of samples for each level is 6 to 12 well-burnt flints. The outer 2 mm of sample must be removed in the TL laboratory to leave a disc measuring at least 1cm by 3cm. This is the very minimum size, and it is no good submitting shapes which will not yield such a disc even when the sample form is irregular. Bigger pieces are better. For burial depth and uniformity of the surrounding soil the requirements are as for ceramics.

Avoid prolonged exposure to light; indeed, try to avoid any exposure at all. Particularly avoid sunlight or fluorescent light. Put the sample an opaque bag. As with all other sample materials, avoid excessive heating and exposure to ultra-violet, infra-red, X-rays, beta-rays or gamma rays.

About kg of soil, typical of that in which the samples were buried, is required. For packing, moisture conditions, etc follow the recommendations for ceramics.”

*Note: the requirements and recommendations for ceramics are:

“Only samples that have been buried to a depth of 30 cm or more for at least two-thirds of the burial time are acceptable. Ideally the sample should be at least 30 cm from any boundary (e.g. edge of pit, change of soil-type, wall, floor, rock surface …

.”the soil should be tightly double-bagged … also a sample of each  type of material occurring in large proportions within 30cm of the  7 sample is required. In the case of a scatter of small stones in the soil these should be included in the soil sample in representative proportion. Information about burial conditions should include a section sketch and photographs of the context showing roughly the points from which the samples were taken and the deposits for at least 30cm around.”

Under a heading ‘Possibilities and Limitations’ results of TL dating’ from a number of different sites are analysed: a medieval kiln’ in Lubeck, Germany (average TL date AD 1244); Viking Age layers from Ribe, Denmark (AD 700); average. TL dates from 7 Romano-British sites of known. age (the deviation from 6 out of 7 was less than 5% between known age and TL date); a Bronze Age site at Skamlebak Denmark; an Early Bronze Ago settlement at Demirchihuyuk Turkey; pottery from a Japanese Jomon culture site (TL, age of pottery 13,970 +/-1850 years, making it the oldest pottery in the world); Viking Age houses at Lejre, Denmark (AD1040); and flint samples froth the paIaeoIithic cave- at Combo Grenal, .Perigord (TL  age from 44,000- 113,000 year).-

There it a list of ‘TL dating laboratories in Europe, and it is interesting that most countries have only one (with 4 in France and 3 in Germany) but the UK has 9.      A section on literature, followed by one suggesting selected reading is also helpful. Free copies ‘of the booklet are obtainable from the CBA, 112 Kennington Rd, SE11 6RE (enclose an A5 size sae, stamped 20½p.)

 

SITES TO WATCH

The following sites, which might be of some archaeological interest have been mentioned in recent planning applications:


Land at Glengall RD, opposite Crammer Rd,

Edgware          _

Land bounded by Springwood Cres, Burrell: Cl

2‹:Knightswood Cl, NW7

142-E Gt North Way NW4

Former W. Hendon multi-storey carpark betw.

W.Hendon, Broadway/Marsh Drive,NW7

Land fronting The Causeway, betw. East End

Rd/4 The Causeway, N2

Land adj. “Parklands”, Hendon Wood Lane NW7


primary school, care­taker/,s cottage

61 houses, 165 flats, access roads

3-storey flats

houses, estate reads (oUtline)

flats, houses

12 houses, access roads.


Members who notice building activity on any of these sites are asked to alert Brian Wrigley (959.5982; 21 Woodcroft Ave NW7).

 

HADAS DIARY

Sat May 5. Meet Burgh House, 2 pm. Hampstead Walk with Christopher Wade (see April.-Newsletter): Please ring Dorothy Newbury (203 0950) if you are thinking of coming, as Mr Wade would like some idea of numbers.

Sun May12. Day trip to York. With all the press and TV publicity the timing for our visit, is now crucial. WILL ALL MEMBERS BOOKED please be punctual. Departure Quadrant, NW4 8.25 am; Refectory, Golders Green 8.30. In fact, be a little earlier if you possibly can – we are booked at the Jorvik Centre at 1 pm. The coach is full, but there is no waiting list, so if you still want to join ring Dorothy Newbury up to the last minute in case there are cancellations.

Tues. May 12. AGM, 8 for 8.30 pm, at Hendon Library, The Burroughs, NW4. Several members have offered to show slides on subjects ranging from Wales to Swaziland. We will include as many as time permits.

Sat June 16. Outing to Icklingham/West Stow, Suffolk, with Ted Sammes. Application form will be in June Newsletter.

 

PAID YOUR SUB YET? If not, please do: it became due on April 1. Details of the new rates are in the April Newsletter. Payment should be made to our Membership Secretary, Phyllis Fletcher, 27 Decoy Ave TA91 NW11 OES:(455 2558).

NEWS.FROM THE GROUPS.

The Prehistoric Group is in a ‘Waiting for Godo situation – only it is ‘waiting for West Heath. Dig reopens on June 16 for 6 weeks. Further information from either Margaret Maher (907777) or Sheila Woodward (952 3897). The Group’s river walks have ceased for the summer; it is hoped to start again in the autumn:


The Roman Group will warmly welcome all members who wish to take part in a pottery processing weekend at The Teahouse, Northway, NW11 on May 19/ 20 between 10-4 pm. If you like to just Come to view and handle the pottery: but should you want to be more involved, there will be plenty of work to do, including study of Brockley Hill jars, flagons and amphorae, Samian ware and mortaria, and drawing and indexing. Tea and biscuits-will be available, or bring a picnic lunch if you want to come for the day,

 

ROUND AND ABOUT

.           Guildford Museum and the Surrey Archaeological. Society are running a joint medieval pottery workshop at Dorking Christian Centre on Sat. June 2 from10am – 4pm.’ In the morning 5 Surrey kilns will be discussed: Farnborough Hill, Kingston, Cheam, Vicars Haw, Limpsfield and Earlswood Reigate. The afternoon will be given over to pottery identification. Ticket £l.50, from Julia Arthur, -Guildford Museum, Quarry St, Guildford. GU1 3SX.

Northwest London Family History Society intends to begin recording inscriptions in Holy Trinity churchyard, East Finchley, on May 19. Any HADAS member who cares to help will be most welcome, 10 am-6 pm.

One day conference on Aspects of Romano–British Villas takes place on Sat. May 26, 9.15 am-6 pm, at the University Centre, Barrack Road, North­ampton, to celebrate the Upper Nene Archaeological society’s 21st birthday. Speakers will include Graham Webster, Keith Braniganl David Neal, Tom Blagg, Alan McWhirr. Tickets £6- (plus £2.50 if you would like a buffet lunch) from Diana Friendship Taylor, 86 Main Road, Hackleton, -Northampton NN7 2AD.

A London Wall Walk, masterminded by the Museum of London, opens on May 21. Information panels of blue and cream tiles have been erected along the City defences at 21 points between the Museum and the Tower. They show explanations of the surviving remains and reconstructions to show what the wall was originally like. The walk is 1¾ miles, takes one-two hours.

The Museum of London is helping the Royal Institute of British Architects to celebrate its 150th anniversary by offering a series of lectures on :-.London buildings from the 1830s on Weds/Fri at-1.10 in the Museum theatre. Full programme obtainable from the Museum.

 

LUTYENS AND ELGAR

The RIBA is, in fact, planning a London wide Festival of Architecture this summer.  In our area events are being organised by the Northwest London branch,-which covers 8 boroughs. A travelling roadshow will be at Brent Cross shopping centre from May 24/26.

In what is perhaps the Borough’s most architecturally famous Conserva­tion Area Hampstead Garden Suburb – the Northwest RIBA, with the co-opera­tion of the Church of St Jude-on-the-Hill, is to mount a son-et-lumiere presentation on the evening of May 24. This will jointly, commemorate one of the Suburb foremost architects, Sir Edwin Lutyens  (who designed St. Judes) and Sir Edward Elgar, the 50th anniversary of whose death occurs this year. Elgar’s music, played on the great Willis organ of St Judes (which came originally from Samuel Barnett’s church of St Judes, Whitechapel), together• with a spoken commentary on Lutyens’ architecture, should make it a memorable evening,
Apr 12
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Newsletter-158-April-1984

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Newsletter-158-April-1984

 

 

Newsletter 158         April 1984 SALUTE TO CLOWNS:

Doing anything on All Fools Day? If not, and this Newsletter reaches you in time (we’re posting it a day or two early specially) why not celebrate April 1st this year by coming along to an unusual ceremony which is to take place at 3 o’clock that afternoon,

It is the unveiling of a Blue Plaque to Joseph Grimaldi, the great clown and ‘comic actor, by a great ‘clown’ of our own day, Spike Milligan. The plaque is on the wall of Finchley Memorial hospital, which overlooks Granville Road, N12, and is the building nearest to the spot on which stood the cottage leased by Grimaldi for 21 years.

As regular Newsletter readers will know HADAS – backed by three other local societies, the Mill Hill Historical, the Barnet & District

Local History and the Finchley Society – was instrumental some years ago in persuading the Borough of Barnet to start erecting more commemorative plaques to notables who have lived in the Borough in the past. Grimaldi is one in this series and the Borough Librarian has invited us to arrange this particular ceremony. Our Chairman, Councillor Brian Jarman, will preside and we shall have, in addition to great Goon, Spike, a number of other guests with particular Grimaldi connections.

These will include Father Michael Shrewsbury, Vicar of Holy Trinity, Dalston, ‘the Clowns’ Church,’ where the annual clowns’ service, in memory of Grimaldi, is held each February, and where a clown’s face is embroidered on the vicar’s hassock; Daniel Grimaldi, great, great-grandson of the Great Grimaldi; and three local clowns, Jojo, Bobo and Barey, who have agreed to come along, with obvious pleasure, in full clowns rig.

We should perhaps mention that April 1st will also be Mothering Sunday, so we hope that any children who have a connection with HADAS will seize this unique chance to bring their Mums to see the clowns, as a special treat! Even if you can’t come yourself, will you do something for us? Please keep your fingers crossed for a fine day on April 1st.

 

THE FUNNIEST MAN IN ENGLAND

To put you in the picture, here’s some biographical detail about Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837), known in his day as ‘the funniest man in England.’ His songs, which were broadsheet sell-outs, were still being sung a century after he first sang them; his make-up – white face, red triangles on the cheeks, sometimes a red nose – is still the basis of conventional clown’s wear 200 years later. You sometimes see one of his pet hair-dos on punks today – that Mohican roll from nape to nose-bridge over the top of an otherwise shaven pate. His name – Joey – is nowadays a synonym for a clown, and slapstick in the theatre is ‘Joey-joey‘ business.

Grimaldi was born on December 18, 1778, son of an immigrant Italian actor who came in late middle age to work in London. There he fell for a Drury Lane chorus girl 40 years his junior; Joseph was the illegit­imate offspring of the union. His father’s temper was chancy and he is said to have beaten his son frequently and to have made him work like a navvy. Joey made his first appearance on the stage on Easter Monday, 1781, when he was three years old, as a dancer and tumbler.

Although the apprenticeship was tough, he emerged from it as the

greatest clown that England has known. At 11 he was earning £1 a week
at Drury Lane; in 1802, when an agricultural labourer earned £8 a year, Grimaldi was making £4 a week at Drury Lane and £6 a week at Sadlers Wells. By 1806 his career had soared to heights at which it would remain until his premature retirement in 1823. At Christmas, 1806, he performed Mother Goose (to be repeated many times)and ‘thereafter he was in a class of his own.’ indeed Charles Dickens, writing more than 30 years later, said: ‘There are no standards to compare him with, or models to judge him by; all his excellences were his own and there are none resembling them among the pantomime actors of the present day.’

He danced beautifully; his body seemed to be boneless and he was

the only man in England who could fill the old Covent Garden – a vast
theatre – for 92 performances on the trot. When he started in the theatre he worked at Drury Lane and Sadlers Wells – then a building standing in a quiet rural landscape; after a disagreement with the Drury Lane management in 1806 he worked for the Wells and Covent Garden.

Turn-up For Harlequin,

 Although his memorable Mother Goose was, as it happened, a Christmas show, pantomime wasn’t then at all what it is today. It was staged at any season of the year, not only Christmas;  it was for all ages and all classes; and its second half, by tradition, was always a Harlequinade. That was the story of Columbine and Harlequin’s elopement, pursued by Pantaloon, who was supported by his servant: Clown. Harlequin was the main character. Grimaldi changed all that, and pantomime was never quite the same again.

Under his genius Clown blossomed into the principal part: he became the character who brought the house down. Grimaldi had a way with sausages, babies and policemen … that his audiences found irresistible. His nose alone was capable of conveying disdain, fear, anger and joy. It wasn’t so much what he did: it was the way he did it. He had the gift of turning life into a joke, but his brand of wit and humour was difficult to analyse.

Richard Findlater, in his book published for the 200th anniversary of Grimaldi’s birth, tries to pin his magic down: The Times, Findlater says, once described Grimaldi as ‘Hogarth in action’ – for there on the stage he held up a satirical mirror to the excesses of the day. One 180 frailty that was unmercifully lampooned was what Arthur Bryant has called ‘the national vice of stuffing.’ Grimaldi guzzled inimitably, parodying Georgian greed in all its crudity.

Another speciality was his portrayal of stealing – another national pastime. Clown, with smirk and wink, showed off light-fingeredness at a time when petty pilfering could be punishable by death. ‘The greater the danger, the better the joke,’ observes Findlater. Grimaldi. was an incomparable mimic and he had a bag of what he called ‘tricks of con­struction’ – in which he manufactured, while dancing, the figure of a man – with whom, later, he would do ridiculous battle – out of, say,vegetables from Covent Garden market, with cabbage body, pumpkin and leek head, carrot fingers and turnip feet.

1806 must have been a high-watermark for Grimaldi: not only for his Mother Goose triumph and his move to Covent Garden, but also because it was then that he first leased his country retreat in Finchley. He had married, in 1798, Maria Hughes, the daughter of a theatre manager, but she lived for only a year and Joe was nearly inconsolable. His second wife, Mary Bristow, whom he married 3 years later, was an actress, and they had one son, a weakly boy. That was the reason for the move to Finchley: it was thought the country air might be good for him.

The main source of information about Grimaldi – apart from prints, broadsheets and journals of the time – is his own Memoirs (published 1838), ramblingly written in the last year of his life. They were

doubly edited, first by Egerton Wilks and then by Charles Dickens, who is said to have sub-edited them severely and added flourishes of his own. Dickens never met Grimaldi, but as a boy of 9 or 10 he saw the great clown perform towards the end of his career. Of Grimaldi’s soujourn in Finchley Dickens wrote: ‘he had a cottage at Finchley, to which he used to drive down in his gig after the performances. If there were no rehearsals he remained there until the following afternoon: if there were, he returned to town immediately after breakfast.’

The Pightle at Fallow Corner

The 1866 edition of the Memoirs notes that the cottage was ‘on the edge of the common between the seventh and eighth milestone, on the left handside of the road from town. Frank Marcham, in a paper in LAMAS tranasactions, 1938, adds that Grimaldi lived at Fallow Corner, Finchley, from 1806-1827, in a house ‘on the land in Granville Road, next the home for children,’ and explains that his landlord was William Drummond, who had bought the house in 1801, as ‘all that messuage cottage or tenement erected and built with the pightle of land at the backside of the said house containing one rood … at Fallow Corner.’

Grimaldi called the house’ at Finchley Tippity Cottage, after his best-loved song ‘Tippitywitchet, in which he made great play with a snuff-box and a sneeze. The Prince Regent is said ‘to have burst his stays with laughing.’

Life at Finchley was not without incident: he was held up by high­waymen on Highgate Hill on his way home from the theatre; his 17-year old manservant was arrested at ‘Tippity Cottage for sheep-stealing (the spoils, skins, flesh and bones, were concealed in a hayloft above Grimaldi’s Chaise-house’) and later tried at the Old Bailey, found guilty and sentenced to death, with a recommendation to mercy on account of his youth (there is a full report of the trial in Frank Marsham’s LAMAS Trans paper).

One continuing struggle for the Grimaldis was to make ends meet, because their spending was imprudent, their investments unlucky and Mrs Grimaldi extravagant. Although Joey earned good money, it dripped through his and his wife’s fingers. At one point they had to sub-let. Tippity Cottage until their fortunes improved.

Regency theatres were not, as theatres are now, open the year round. Sometimes they opened for only a few months of the year. It was often necessary ‘to sign on with two theatres to keep in employment. Sometimes the seasons of the two overlapped. This seems to have happened quite often with Grimaldi; and when it did and he had two performances at different theatres in the same evening he had to run, at full speed, from one to the other. His fastest time, he reckoned, from Sadlers Wells to Drury Lane was 8 minutes.

With that kind of exertion, plus a hard childhood and the sheer physical battering taken by a slapstick comic, it is not surprising that in his forties Grimaldi began to suffer from a crippling disease. He struggled against it, but by the time he was 45 his legs were so seized up and twisted that he could no longer work; for his final appearance he was carried onto the stage in a chair.

Tears often lie close to the heart of a clown, and Grimaldi was no exception. His temperament inclined to melancholy. One sad story told of him is of his anonymous visit, when he was feeling ill and depressed, to a doctor to whom he confided his woes. The doctor’s advice was ‘Go and see Grimaldi: he’s as good as a tonic. You’ll feel better at once.’ The classic case of- ‘Physician, heal thyself?’

After his retirement, life could only decline. He died, in poverty

 and alone (his wife and son predeceased him) on May 31 in the year Victoria came to the throne. He was buried at the Georgian church of St James, Pentonville, recently demolished. His tombstone has been lovingly preserved in the small churchyard, which remains. Perhaps ­Thomas Hood’s lines, written on Joe’s retirement, are as good an epitaph as any:

 

“Oh who like thee could ever drink

Or eat – swill, swallow, bolt and choke?

Nod, weep and hiccup – sneeze and wink?

Thy very yawn was quite a joke.”

 

 

Bibliography:

Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, edit. Charles Dickens, reprinted 1963, MacGibbon & Kee

 

Joe Grimaldi: His Life & Theatre, Richard Findlater, 1978, C.U.P. 

 

Incidents in the Life of Joseph Grimaldi, Giles and Patricia Neville, 1980, Jonathan Cape

 

Joseph Grimaldi & Finchley, Frank Marcham, in Trans. LAMAS, vol VIII

part 1 (1938), 48-56

 

PROGRAMME NEWS

Tues. Apr 3. Alexander Flinder will speak to us about Underwater Archaeology in the Holy Land. Mr Flinder chairs the Nautical Archaeology Society and is a member of the Government Advisory Committee on Historic Wrecks. His talk will cover a 20-year involvement in under­water exploration in the seas of the Bible lands in which he has led and participated in many archaeological projects. Some of the discov­eries are of particular biblical significance, while others illuminate the later historical period of the Holyland. 8 pm for 8.30 at the Library, the Burroughs, NW4.

Sat. May 5 2 pm. Hampstead Walk with Christopher Wade, Curator at Burgh House and vice-Chairman of Camden History Society. The walk will start and finish at Burgh House, where members can have tea in the Buttery if they wish. Lunches are also available beforehand, but it is advisable to ring 431 2516 first. Mr Wade has asked no fee, but would be grateful for donations towards the Burgh House Trust. A collecting box will be available. He would like a rough idea of numbers so that he can organise the walk – please ring Dorothy Newbury (203 0950) if you intend to come.

An exhibition about the du Maurier family will be on in the Hampstead  museum, on the first floor of Burgh House, and can also be visited.

 

Sun. May 13th day-trip to Jorvik Viking Centre. THE TRIP IS ON,
as we have had a good response. Anyone else who wants to join, but hasn’t .yet applied, please let Dorothy Newbury known – in case there are cancellations.

      Tues. May 15 Annual General meeting, 8 for 8.30 pm, the Library, the Burroughs, NW4. Dorothy Newbury would like to hear from any member who has a few slides to                         show (12 maximum) or who would give a 10-minute talk on any interesting subject. This is a chance for us all to share your activities over the last few years. If there’s a             rush of volun­teers, it will be first come, first served.

Sat. June 16. Outing to Icklingham/West Stow, Suffolk, with Ted Sammes.

For the first time this year HADAS will have a display and bookstall at the Conservation Fayre organised by the Edgware branch of the National Trust. This will be on Sat. Apr 14, from 10 am-3 pm, at Harwood Hall, Mill Hill. Any members who would care to help with this are asked to ring Tessa Smith on 958 9159.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

… become due on April 1 – so with this Newsletter I am enclosing reminders which tell you the new rates. I shall be happy to receive your remittance, and hope that you will send it as soon as possible – reminders which have to be sent later in the year cost postage and time.

PHYLLIS FLETCHER, Membership Secretary 2? Decoy Avenue, NW1I OES. 455 2558

 

ARCHAEOLOGY IN WILTSHIRE                                        A report from SHEILA WOODWARD on the

HADAS March lecture

Readers of Current Archaeology are familiar with John Musty’s lively and informative Science Diary which records, in language intelligible to the layman, recent research and. achievements in archaeological science. A similar lively style characterised this lecture, in which Mr Musty reviewed with pleasure and enthusiasm his many years of experience as an excavator in Wiltshire.

The young John Musty’s interest in archaeology was sparked off in the 1930s by a visit to a Roman settlement near Marlborough; and was subsequently developed and deepened under the guidance of Dr J F S Stone when they worked as fellow civil servants in the Ministry of Defence research station at Porton Down. Wiltshire was an ideal county in which to practice archaeology, providing an amplitude of sites which ranged from Neolithic chambered tombs and Bronze Age barrows to Saxon cemeteries and deserted medieval villages. During the 1950s some of the most important sites in the area were being re-excavated: the great Bronze Age barrow Cemetery on Snail Down, Stonehenge itself, and the West Kennet long barrow. Mr Musty participated in them all. He recalled that the lunch-break at Stonehenge was always known as ‘ditching’ because the repast was invariably eaten in the bottom of the henge’s ditch!

In the 1960s he began to organise and direct his own excavations and again they covered a wide spectrum. He investigated the Roman road which connected Old Sarum with the lead mines in the Mendips; the Old Sarum tunnel which was probably its sally-port; a fascinating group of Saxon graves at Winterbourne Gunner and Winterbourne Earls; the medieval pottery kilns at Laverstock; and the deserted medieval village at Gomeldon with its changing settlement pattern over a period of three centuries. Some unusual hazards were encountered, such as excavating in the magazine area of a Wessex fireworks factory and investigating a Neolithic causewayed camp situated in the middle of an artillery range. Mr Musty took them all in his stride:

When he retired last, year Mr Musty had been head of the DoE Ancient Monuments Laboratory for over 15 years; but it was as an amateur that he entered archaeology and undertook so many excavations. Perhaps that gave his lecture special appeal,

 

HADAS PEOPLE TN THE NEWS

ANN SAUNDERS – a HADAS member of long standing, who many will remember for her delightful lectures to the society on Marylebone – has a book in the offing. It will come out this May, and is called The Art and Architecture. of London. – so keep an eye out for it on the bookstalls

and in the library.. It is published by Phaidon and the Duke of Edinburgh has done the foreword.

Many members will rejoice to hear that COLIN EVANS – still a member, though he is now rarely in this country, being based in France – married again last January. His wife is Josyan ‘Testa. HADAS has much pleasure in sending Mr. and Mrs. Evans its warmest congratulations and best wishes for the future.

 

A COMMISION TO WATCH

We shouldn’t let April 1st pass without noting that on this day there comes into being a new Government organisation which could have a profound effect, perhaps good, perhaps bad, on archaeology in Britain. This is the Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments Commission for England, established under the National heritage Act,

Its Chairman is Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, its Deputy Chairman HRH the Duke of Gloucester; the Chief Executive is Peter Rumble, who was Director of the old Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings board; and it can have up to 17 Commissioners. Those so far appointed include Sir Arthur Drew, Mrs. Jennifer Jenkins, Professor .Rosemary Cramp, Professor Colin Renfrew, the Earl of Shelburne and Mr. Donald Insall,

The full range of Commissioners between them are expected to have knowledge and experience of tourism, commerce and finance, as well as more obvious subjects such as archaeology architecture, the history of architecture and the preservation or conservation of monuments and buildings.

Professor Renfrew, writing in Antiquity (no. 220, July 1983) expressed the hope that the Commission would not be too preoccupied with the historic buildings in its care to be ‘insufficiently aware of its wider responsibilities It has only 400 guardianship monuments and buildings, but there are 12,500 scheduled monuments, 275,000 listed buildings and an estimated half million further archaeological sites without official protection of any kind. Will the new Commission concern itself sufficiently about these, which in reality constitute the greater part of our national heritage?’ he asks.

It is comforting to know that since he wrote those words Professor Renfrew has–become a member of the Commission and will therefore have a ringside seat from which to put his views. Every archaeologist, pro­fessional and amateur, will be watching the new Commission with a deeply involved interest.

A CONFERENCE COMES OF AGE                                       Report by JENNY GRIFFITHS

Fewer HADAS members than usual this year attended the 21st annual conference of London archaeologists, held at the Museum of London on March 17.

The morning session was, as usual, taken up by short reports on current excavations; at Merton Priory, St Clair Street, Aldgate, Uxbridge, Kingston Bridge and Winchester Palace, Southwark. The small Roman burial site at St Clair Street provided an intriguing example of a ritual deposit – a pit containing pottery and a collection of animal bones, including a complete heron, several voles, mice and other small mammals and 32 frogs.

The afternoon session concentrated on Roman London and Londoners. Mark Hassell introduced us to several soldiers, citizens and civil servants through inscriptions, while Ralph Merrifield considered the religious significance of skulls, dog burials and hunter gods and goddesses.

Harvey Sheldon, in the final talk on ‘early and late Roman London: archaeological evidence for the contrast?’ urged a cautious approach to easy generalisations based on insufficient data. He produced a con­siderable body of evidence for the decline in both population and prosperity of later Roman London. His statistical analysis revealed amongst other things that 80% of all pottery types found in London are 1st and 2nd c, only 20% dating from the 3rd and 4th c; four out of five datable Roman contexts are lst/2nd c. However, he emphasised that later Roman levels are more likely to have been destroyed by sub­sequent occupation activity. Indeed, the presence of dark earth which sometimes seems all pervading on city sites, may itself have caused the loss of later levels.’ Harvey considers that ‘dark earth’ is the result of earthworm activity, disrupting the natural stratigraphy instead of overlying it like a blanket.

Harvey ended his talk with hopes of maintained, if not increased, resources for archaeology in the immediate future to clarify present problems. His audience clearly agreed.

 

Despite HADAS being thin on the ground at the Conference, we mounted a display and bookstall as usual. We thank most warmly the three members who so faithfully manned the stand: SHEILA WOODWARD and PETE and JENNY GRIFFITHS.

 

CORRECTION.

Tod Semmes asks us to print a correction to the report of his Church Terrace lecture which appeared in the last Newsletter.

In the penultimate paragraph on p3 it is suggested that a whole pot from a kiln at Arkley was found in one of the Church Terrace ditches. Ted says that although he showed a slide of a whole pot from the Arkley kiln, this was merely for comparative purposes. No whole pot was found at Church Terrace – he wishes one had been but Church Terrace produced sherds similar to the one from Arkley.

 

SITES TO WATCH: Applications made recently for planning permission include developments on the following sites:

27 Brockley Avenue, Stanmore                                    2 storey extension

 

Land adjoining Pymlicoe House, Hadley Green

1140-1148 High Rd, between Three Horseshoes & 304 Friern Barnet Lane

Oakhill College, East Barnet, rear of 1-33 (odd) Cedar Rise,’N14

 amended plans for detached house/access road

3-storey office block (amended plans)

16 houses, estate road

 

Should approval be given, it is possible these sites might have some archaeological interest. Members who notice building activity of any hind en them are therefore asked to let Brian Wrigley know (959 5982).

Borough of Barnet planning lists give details of developments in other boroughs which immediately adjoin our own. The Roman Group, in particular, will be interested in one such which is under discussion in Harrow. This is for the erection of a store building and the formation of an access road thereto in the grounds of the Royal National Ortho­paedic Hospital at Brockley Hill.

 

THE MONEY WORRIES OF LOCAL HISTORY

The British Association for Local History held its second AGM on March 10, 1984, at the Westminster Cathedral Conference Centre. Biggest worry for the fledgling society is money, and the greater part of the discussion centred on that.

BALH’s financial situation is precarious. As reported last year (Newsletter 143, June, 1983) there have been DoE grants of £25,000 and £20,000 for its first two years, and there will be £15,000 to get it on its feet. After that it has to stand alone.

Its present premises in Central London are too expensive, so BALH is in negotiation for an office in Matlock, though some doubts were expressed of the wisdom of its distancing itself from a central position and of the inaccessibility of Matlock. There appeared, however, to be no alternative that was viable. The decision to leave London is expected to be taken in the next few weeks.

The meeting agreed that the Association’s financial year should change from Apr 1-March 31 to Jan 1-Dec 31, as from next year. This means that this year’s subscription of £4 will be for 9 months only.

Individual subscriptions are to remain at £4 next year; but corporate members (and that means HADAS) may expect a subscription rise. What that rise will be has not yet been decided: the Council was asked to investigate the institution of a sliding scale for corporate members (such as CBA operates) thus avoiding the injustice of a well-heeled county council paying the same fee as a small local society.

 

STRIPPED HISTORY

An intriguing find has just been made at College Farm (built by George Barham in Finchley in 1883). This is in the old dairy, a curious­ly shaped building whose roof rises in twin peaks, each peak crowned with a sort of hip-roofed doll’s house: these were originally devices for introducing additional ventilation and light. The dairy stands alone opposite the    buildings of the farm, with a cobbled access road running between.

Some weeks ago Sue Russell began giving the dairy a facelift. It had long been looking the worse for wear. Sue, who has helped at the farm for some time, particularly with the sheep and lambs, has become increasingly involved and interested both in the farm’s future and its history. She decided it was time the dairy was brought back to life.

As the interior has been slowly stripped of layers of paint and old paper, something very different has begun to emerge – the original cobalt blue and white tiles with which this show dairy was once decorated,

The colour scheme was no doubt chosen for cleanliness and coolness. A dairying manual of 1893, which we were lucky enough to find, provides a description of what the interior was like then:

‘There is a perfect little dairy across the road from the buildings, a dairy with a thatched roof and overhanging eaves. Probably a thatched roof is about as good as any­thing can be for a dairy: it keeps out the heat of the sun and helps to regulate the temperature inside the room. The dairy at College Farm is tastefully finished with Minton’s tiles, slate benches, and porcelain milk-pans that are white; and smooth, and clean, and very attractive to look upon, as well as to use.’

It is those ‘tasteful Minton’s tiles’ which are now beginning to see the light of day again. There were several different kinds. One attractive series consists of 6′ sq. tiles showing ten different and rather idyllic rural scenes.  Each course of tiles has three plain white ones separating two of the rural scenes, and this goes on repeating.

There are women with wide-brimmed hats reaping in the fields; a girl with tame rabbits; a milkmaid carrying pails and stepping daintily from stone to stone across a stream; a girl whose feet must have begun to hurt, as she has pushed off her shoes and is sitting barefoot beside a sheep and lamb; two children (the boy barefoot) have with them an indeterminate animal which might be a dog, or again a lamb. Another river scene shows a man with rolled up trousers standing in the water with something like a fish in his hand – has he been tickling trout? There is a shepherd under a tree; and a girl and woman carrying corn in their aprons.

Another part of the wall carries more stylised tiles, each divided into 9 or 12 compartments, with a flower-head or leaf centred in each compartment; and then there are friezes of narrower blue and white tiles running continuously near the top and bottom of the walls, featuring pomegranates ripely bursting. The only colour, apart from blue, is a fine line of narrow terracotta-coloured tiles near the bottom frieze.

When I saw the dairy Sue Russell had nearly worked her way around half the wall: when the whole thing has been done it will provide a fine show of late 19c decorative tiles, in situ. She is hoping to follow up their history in a forthcoming visit to the Potteries.

The dairy manual hints, as far back as 1893, at the dairy’s dicey future. Speaking of the porcelain equipment for ‘raising’ cream, it says that the big open pans ‘are not much wanted nowadays, for almost all the milk is sold (as milk); and indeed, even if it were not, cream

is obtained to greater advantage by separator. College Farm dairy had been built just as techniques for making butter and cream were changing and – quoting the manual again – ‘the dairy exists at Finchley as a part of the original plan of the premises yet it is now but little more than an ornament’

We also know that as early as 1902 the dairy was being used not for dairying but for cream teas. Sue Russell hopes the time is not too far distant when cream teas will be served there again.

NEWS FROM THE GROUPS

From the Prehistoric Group comes a reminder about West HeathL 1984: HADAS’s Mesolithic dig On Hampstead Heath will re-open on June 16 for a 6-week period. Diggers, finds-processors and PR persons required, please telephone Margaret Maher (907 0333) or Sheila Woodward. (952 3897) if you are interested. It would be helpful if volunteers could let us know their availability i.e., which days of the week they are likely to attend and between which dates. We are not asking for a firm commit­ment, but merely for general information, which will assist our planning.

Beginners are welcome. If you wish to dig, you will need your own trowel (a mason’s pointing trowel with a 3″ or 4″ blade, the blade and tang drop-forged and not rivetted or soldered) and your own kneeling-pad. All other equipment will be provided.

The Roman Group:

One Sunday in March the Group set out to identify the sites of three Roman kilns on the west side of Watling Street, at Elstree, Radlett and Bricket Wood. These have all been excavated, and the finds deposited at the Museums of London or Verulamium. Reports, however, on two of them are minimal; and it was upon these reports that our search was initially based.

The Elstree tile-kiln was-excavated in 1947 when large quantities of tegulae, imbrices and some coarse tesserae were found. A brief report locates the dig as ‘in an Elstree garden (Ivy Bush Inn) Opposite the Church. We searched the area directly opposite the Church, where new housing is now being built, and found one broken clay-pipe stem, much mud and little else’. Further north along the road an inn called the ‘Holly Bush” was noted. Could this be the ‘Ivy Bush’ of the report?

Our inability to locate the kiln site precisely, due to lack of a fuller report and to present rapid demolition of the area, highlights the need for accurate and detailed excavation reports.

The Radlett kilns in Loom Lane, discovered in 1898, contained mortaria, amphorae and. Jars. We located these kilns in accordance with the OS map and found the exact location of one by luck and kindly local help. We were introduced to the owner of the garden where the site of a kiln of the potter CASTVS is located on a steep earth bank. The owner told us that when re-laying his lawn he found sherds of pottery, some stamped CASTVS. The finds have been deposited at Verulamium Museum.

Our last visit was to Little Munden, Brickett Wood, where plough­ing had revealed a kiln in 1974. Products included collared and ring-necked flagons, honeypots and mortaria stamped by the patter OASTRIVS with LVGVD counterstamps. This potter is thought to be one of the earliest master potters from Gaul, and this kiln is estimated to have been in operation between AD 55-75. The setting was rural, on the edge of farmland, beside the river Colne and very stoney. This site is thought to be the most likely one for Lugudunum, the mysterious kiln area where a group of early potters settled, stamping their wares LVGVD and variations. One sharp-eyed member found a rim sherd, possibly of a shallow bowl. A full report of this excavation has been written by Chris Saunders and Adrian Havercroft, entitled ‘A Kiln of the Potter 0ASTRIVS1 and published in Hertfordshire Archaeology, vol 5, 109.

Time did not permit the full investigation we would all have liked, and follow-up work and further kiln walks are to be planned for the future.

Roman enthusiasts will find much to interest them at the annual Hertfordshire Archaeological Conference to be held on Sat. April l4 at Campus West, Welwyn Garden City, starting at 10 am. The morning session is on ‘Current Archaeology in Hertfordshire.’ The afternoon, on ‘Art and Archaeology’ will include such well-known speakers as Martin Henig (an expert on Roman gemstones) and Catherine Johns (author of the British Museum handbook on Samian pottery). Admission is £2, payable at the doors

DOCUMENTARY GROUP. In last month’s Newsletter we mentioned that Gavin Morgan, a new member, was undertaking research into our end of the Welsh droving trade. We also referred to an article by Tom Elias on the subject which we had hoped to publish last month. However, there wasn’t space in March, so here it is in April instead:

THE WELSH DROVERS AND BARNET FAIR

by Tom Elias of the Snowdonia National Park Study Centre

AS Jeremy Clynes noted in the November Newsletter (No 153), the Welsh drovers must have played an extremely important part In the economic and social life of Barnet as well as other market venues surrounding the Metropolis. As yet, however, little research has been conducted into the development of ‘Barnet fair from this point of view.’ Surely this is potentially a tremendously rewarding field of investigation, especially if coupled with some background knowledge as to the identity of those hard-bitten characters who practiced the ‘art and mysterye of droving’ an the dangers they occasionally faced.

An adventure it surely was. Let’s imagine a drover from north-west.Wales about 200 years ago. He would have to be over 30 years of age and be a man of means – usually the owner of his own farm or possibly be a tavern keeper. This was a necessary precondition before he could obtain a drover’s licence because the Welsh drovers, differently from their English or Scottish counterparts, took animals from various farmers ‘on credit’ and paid for them when they got back. So in case a drover ‘did a bunk’ with the money, there would at least be something for the creditors to get their hands on

Having got the drove together the cattle would be shod with pairs of half-moon shaped iron clips to protect their feet on the long and arduous journey. They would cover about 15 miles a day and take about 2-3 weeks to reach their destination. Whenever possible the drover and his hired hands (or ‘drivers’) would avoid the toll roads – no sensible fellow wished to subsidise gate keepers! Each night they would stop at an inn with convenient pasturage where the drover himself would sleep in a bed (hence frequent references in some drovers’ accounts to ‘chambermaid – 6d?!) while the poor drivers slept outside with the cattle.

Their destination was a ring of market venues surrounding London -would Billericay, Brentwood, Harlow, Epping, Barnet, Pinner; Uxbridge, Reigate, Maidstone, Canterbury. Here, having sold the animals, the drivers would be paid off – a shilling a day for the journey and three shillings bonus at the end. These fellows would then plaster the town red–.

Then of course would come the journey home, and with gold in their pockets it could often be more hazardous than the outward leg. Indeed one of the secondary industries arising from the trade was highway robbery.

To avoid that drovers would travel home in armed bands; but a more sensible answer eventually was for them to initiate their own banking system. Probably the best known of these early drovers’ banks were the Black Ox Bank of Llanymddyfri, the Black Cock of Caerfyrddin and the Black Sheep of Aberystwyth. Even today’s Lloyd’s Black Horse logo may be traced back to the same Welsh droving pedigree. Incidentally, the notes of the Black Sheep Bank had 1 black sheep representing £l, 2 sheep for £2, a black lamb for 10s and a black ram for £5 – many of the drovers and their customers were illiterate, but they knew something about sheep:

Before the walking of animals to market came to an end with the coming of the railways, Barnet fair was perhaps the most important sale centre in the Home Counties for the Welsh drovers. Not only was it a large fair but it entered also for goods other than livestock, giving the drovers an opportunity to collect pin money for their wives by selling Welsh lace, and other household goods. An amusing if slightly exaggerated account of the fair appeared in the Farmer’s Magazine of 1865:

“Imagine some hundreds of bullocks like an immense forest of horns, propelled hurriedly towards you amid the hideous and uproarious shouting of semi-barbarous drovers who value a restive bullock far beyond the life of a human being, driving their mad and noisy herds over every person they meet if not fortunate enough to get out of their way; closely followed by a drove of unbroken wild Welsh ponies, fresh from their native hills all loose and unrestrained as the oxen that precede them; kicking, rearing and biting …”

Another account comes from The Daily News,. September 1850:

“… the Welsh Horse Fair (Barnet); and a wilder or more noisy scene it is difficult to conceive. Always full, it was fuller than usual this year, and a brisk trade was driven by.the Welsh horse drovers. ..These horses of all sizes, are from one to four years old and are not led but driven, after the fashion of cattle. Few are more than imperfectly broken in. Among them many useful horses, both for harness and saddle, are to be met with, and occasionally a very clever hackney. The way in which the Welsh jockeys throw themselves on the drove, single out a particular colt., drag him out and mount him for exhibition to a customer, is most amusing, the whole being accompanied by shouts and cracking of whips

“Beyond the Welsh horse fair and nearer to Barnett is–the Welsh cattle fair. Here are all kinds of Welsh cattle generally black, and though small (they) are kindly well-shaped animals, which prove profitable where there’s rough land attached to a farm on which they can run through the winter, and maintain, nay, improve their condition on a moderate quantity of food. They are much bought by the farmers of Hertfordshire, Essex, Sussex, Surrey, Kent and Middlesex.”

(Note: these English farmers would fatten the Welsh cattle for subsequent sale at Smithfield for slaughter).
Mar 12
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Newsletter-157-March-1984

By | Past Newsletters, Volume 3 : 1980 - 1984 | No Comments

Newsletter-157-March-1984

NEWSLETTER  NO, 157:     March, 1984.  

PROGRAMME  NEWS.

On Tuesday March 6th  John Musty, ISO, MA, C.Chem, FRICS, FSA, recently retired as Head of the Ancient  Monument Laboratory, will tell us about ‘Twenty-five Years of Excavation in Wiltshire: an Archaeological Autobiography.’ His talk will cover how he first got ‘hooked’ on Archaeology and then go on to describe some of the digs, from 1955-on, that he did for the Salisbury Museum Research Committee. They include, among other things, medieval pottery kilns, a tile kiln, a Saxon cemetery and a deserted medieval village. Many members will no doubt also know of Mr. Musty’s work wearing anther hat – as the regular contributor of the Science Diary in Current Archaeology.

Mr. Musty has warned us that he may have to leave about 9:50 – so please note that this lecture will start very promptly.

Tuesday, April 3rd Underwater Archaeology in the. Holy Land                                Alexander Flinder.

Saturday May 5th. Hampstead Walk. 2.p.m.                                               led by Christopher Wade.

Sunday May 13th.     Possible trip to the new Jorvik Viking Centre at York (see enclosed

slip and also note the February Newsletter, p11

Tuesday May 15th. Annual General Meeting.

Lecture and the AGM take place at Central Library, The Burroughs, N.W.4. Coffee 8.p.m., lecture 8:30.p.m.

A few Members have reported not receiving a programme card with their January Newsletter. If you happen to have been similarly unlucky, please give Phyllis Fletcher a ring (455 2558) and she will send you a card.

NEWS FROM THE GROUPS.

ROMAN GROUP.

On Sunday March llth a kiln-walk has been arranged to explore some of the sites of Roman kilns between Brockley Hill and St. Albans. We will meet at 10.a.m, at the top of Brockley Hill and use cars between sites.

Anyone interested please contact Tessa Smith (958 9159) for further details.     

Ted Sammes sends us this information about a one-day, workshop, which he highly recommends, on finds from the current Silchester excavations. It will be on Saturday, March, 24th at the School of Education, London Road, Reading University from 9:30 a.m., to 5:45.p.m. Fees £3.60, or £1.80 for Pensioners. Enrolment through the School for Extramural and Continuing Education, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 2AA (cheques payable to University of Reading). Coins, wall-plaster, animal bones, ironwork, pollen, seed and plant remains, glass and pottery will all be discussed.

 Prehistoric Group

Stream Walking

As announced in the last Newsletter, the stream walkers have now turned their attention to the Dollis Brook and the first three walks took place during December and January. The weather was kind, the going was easy, and the wildlife, both plant and animal, was varied and interesting. Archaeological friends were rather less in evidence!

We are walking upstream and we began at the junction of Brent Street and the North Circular Road, near the site of the former Brent Bridge Hotel. At this point the Dollis Brook has already become, strictly speaking, the Upper Brent River, having changed its name a little further up at its confluence with the Mutton Brook. Walking Northwards beyond that confluence, our way has lain mainly through the linear parks which are such a feature of the Dollis Brook Valley. Some parts of the brook are now heavily constrained by concrete banks but for the most part it meanders in a natural earth channel. There is, however, ample evidence that the course of the brook has been considerably re-channelled during recent years. We have followed it Northward under the Great North Way and up through Windsor Open Space and we greatly admired the magnificent soaring arcade of the railway viaduct which spans the brook at Dollis Road. It was completed in 1867 and is a handsome monument of the industrial age. Beyond it the brook becomes even more convoluted with oxbow lakes in the process of formation. Here it forms the eastern boundary of Finchley Golf Course and affords a picturesque view of Nether Court, the 19th Century Mansion now used as a Club House.

The usual pebbly beaches in the meanders of the stream were carefully examined and were noted for future watching. A few pieces of flint and bone were collected for more detailed inspection. The bed of the stream yielded one intriguing artefact: a wooden comb, vertical (i.e. teeth along one of the shorter edges), and measuring 8 inches by 2½ inches. There were originally 8 teeth, each about 3½ inches long; one of the end teeth is now missing. The comb handle is decorated with an incised face: eyes, nose and mouth, fairly crudely carved. Any ideas about (1) its use, if any and (2) its possible date? A modern African comb, perhaps?

The next walk is due to take place on Sunday March 4th, Sheila Woodward (952 3897) would be glad to hear from potential recruits and to give them further details. Wellington boots– recommended.

DOCUMENTARY CROUP.

Volunteers have come forward recently for two documentary projects mentioned in earlier Newsletters.

A new Member, GAVIN MORGAN, who is reading History at University, has offered to do further research on the Barnet end of the 18/19e cattle and horse droving trade (there is an article in this Newsletter by Tom Elias, of the Snowdonia National Park Study Centre, who is working at the Welsh end). We shall hope in due course to publish Gavin’s discoveries.

The second volunteer is CHRISTINE ARNOTT, who is going to start making a new index of Listed Buildings in the Borough. This will be a long job, and more helpers would be welcome – please ring Brigid Grafton. Green if you, too, would like to take part in it (455-9040).

Meantime the Group’s long-term projects continue. NELL PENNY is revelling( and we really mean revelling) in the Poor Law records – you can see some further results of her work elsewhere in this Newsletter.

This year is, in fact, the 150th Anniversary of the New Poor Law Act of 1834 which, with the Parliamentary Report which preceded it, has been described as ‘one of the classic documents of western social History.’ Of all 19c legislation, the New Poor Law probably had the greatest effect on the lives of ordinary people. The only place we have

been able to discover where the Anniversary is being celebrated – and assessed – is, unfortunately, a long way off – in Middlesborough, where Leeds University is organising a day-school in April. Perhaps this would be a good subject for the LAMAS Local History Conference next Autumn:

THE FEBRUARY LECTURE.

EXCAVATION AT CHURCH TERRACE, HENDON 1973-4, LED BY TED SAMMES. Report by Enid Hill.

Who could be a better choice than Ted Sammes, one of our Vice-Presidents, to give the first Constantinides Memorial Lecture and what better subject could be found than the HADAS dig at Church Terrace which he masterminded for two seasons? For

Mr. Constantinides was convinced of the Saxon origin of Hendon and Ted Semmes proved it. He went even further back and found earlier traces of activity in the area with the discovery of 14 flints (possibly worked) and some Roman pottery. For those of us who took part in the dig the lecture was a nostalgic occasion, looking at Ted’s admirable slides and his exhibition of some of the finds.

The site is at the top of Greyhound Hill at a height of 287 feet above 0.D, on a capping of pebble gravels and looking towards a line of hills – Crow’s map of 1754 shows the Church of St. Mary and three other buildings, but by 1970 Church Terrace had a row of shops ending with the Clerk’s Cottage near the Church and a row of terrraced houses running back at right angles towards the Church School. It was this site that Barnet Council decided to demolish and rebuild and HADAS was fortunate enough to be allowed to dig before rebuilding began. Ted Sammes decided to concentrate on the area nearest to the Church since this was likely to be an area of early development. Indeed the Church with its fine 12th Century font stands on the site of an earlier Church which might have been Saxon. A Priest is mentioned in the Domesday entry for Hendon and a charter of A.D.959 (though possibly a forgery) mentions Hendon as being in the possession of Westminster Abbey.

A four metre grid was laid across the site prior to the start of the dig and during the two seasons some 58 HADAS Members took part. Apart from the 14 flints found, a cache of Roman pottery and broken tegulae was found late in the dig on the West side near the road. This was dated late 3rd or early 4th Century and included, apart from colour coated and grey sherds and imitation Samian ware, fragments from the mouth of a multiple vase and, most important, a flagon neck with a stylised face. These last two are often associated with a religious site which if it existed must lie under the road or near the Church.

For tracing the development of the site the discovery of a Saxon ditch running East to West adjacent to the Church wall and containing chaff/grass tempered sherds of pottery dated to the 6th-9th Centuries is of great importance. And one of the best finds of the dig was a double headed in turned spiral pin of the same period found in the centre trench under a wall of possible Tudor origin.

Later mediaeval ditches of the 13th and 14th Centuries were found running across the site, containing grey pottery probably of Hertfordshire origin, including a whole pot made at a kiln at Arkley. From the footings of an outhouse came two pieces of Purbeck Marble, part of a 13th Century grave slab, presumably from the grave of an important man. This brings us to the three or four graves found on the site (outside the present Churchyard) and dated after the 14th Century as one cuts into the ditch system. The most southerly of the graves dug had the carpal bones of a hand placed separately in a small pit. Was this a malefactor who did not survive the punishment of the loss of a hand? Ted’s slides showed many finds from the site through various centuries showing its continuous history – coins dating from Edward II to Charles II, clay pipes dating from 1620 to 19th Century, various pits full of bottles some from the 17th and others from the 18th Centuries, and a third rubbish pit in use from 1750 ­1800 (a mine of goods).

Finds came from several countries – pieces of quern stones from Germany, a Nuremberg Jetton of the 16th Century, a Galley halfpenny from Venice dated about 1450, a Delft floor tile( which might have been made in England), some yellow bricks scattered over the site which Ted feels are Dutch early 17th Century and the tops of two’ bottles, one of which carries the seal of Pouham Spa in Belgium. We all look forward now to reading Ted’s full account of the dig when it is finished, but for the moment we have enjoyed a summary of what is to come, and admire the vast amount of research done by Ted in connection with the finds.

COMMITTEE CORNER.

The Committee met on February 3rd, after a rather longer interval than usual as Christmas had intervened. Among the matters raised were

 The Borough Planning Department has had a heavy demand – from schools, branch. libraries and other organisations – for the ‘Archaeology in Barnet’ leaflet which HADAS helped to produce. They are therefore planning to reprint it.

The Committee discussed ways of encouraging more under-18 Membership. It was pointed out that the years between 14-18 are some of the busiest anyone has to cope with, what with mock O and A-levels, real O and A-levels, University entrance etc. Active junior Membership is therefore most likely to occur under 14, before the exam bandwagon starts rolling, although once youngsters acquire a pre-14 taste for Archaeology they will probably stick with HADAS, though less actively, during the exam years. Any Member who has ideas for encouraging junior Membership or who would be prepared to help in that department is asked to get in touch with our Membership Secretary, Phyllis Fletcher.  She will be delighted to hear from them. One way of building a stronger junior representation. in. the Society may be by encouraging schools to take out corporate Membership and it was cheering therefore to learn that another School – The Mount – has just joined us.

The Committee learnt that the Blue Plaque which has until now recorded our Borough’s first appearance on the stage of history – that’s the plaque marking the site of the Roman pottery manufactury of Sulloniacae at Brockley Hill, Edgware – has been vandalised. This is he second time in 8 years. that it has happened. The original plaque installed by. Hendon urban District Council in the late 1950’s, was vandalised in 1976. At that time the Borough Planning Department was very speedy  about providing and installing a replacement We have written to the Borough Planning Officer to ask if he could kindly do the same again.

**STOP PRESS *Plaque found being re-erected. There was news of another Blue Plaque – the one which commemorated “The Abbots Bower”, the country seat of the Abbots of Westminster, who held Hendon from time immemorial until Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries. That plaque hung between two posts on a grass verge at the junction of Cedars Close and Parson Street, Hendon. It, too, was vandalised some little time ago. (It is possibly significant that both vandalised plaques are of the ‘swinging’ type, not the sort clamped to a wall). It was reported that the Borough Librarian has now had the Abbot Bower plaque. re-cut and is arranging for its re-erection. –

The February Newsletter mentioned that a display on HADAS’s work had been prepared for a reception for Conservation Area Advisory Committees in January. The Committee was informed that the same display along with those of other local Societies, has been set up at Central Library in The Burroughs for a few weeks.

The Committee decided to follow a suggestion from the Council for British Archaeology and write to the four MP’s whose constituencies are in the Borough of Barnet    Sydney Chapman, John Gorst, Margaret. Thatcher and Peter Thomas.  The letter will point out some implications for Archaeology and local History of the demolition of the Greater London Council, and will mention particularly the need to safeguard the futures of the Historic Buildings Division, the GLC Record Office, the GLC Members Library .and the newly formed, GLC- funded Greater London Archaeological Service.

ALEC GOULDSMITH  WRITES!

Further to Camilla Raah’s note on ‘Early Metallurgy’ in the February Newsletter ­I ran into Paul Craddock yesterday outside the British Museum and he told me that he has just returned from 2 months excavation work in Zawar.

They have been able to confirm the findings of the preliminary survey. A whole bank of undisturbed zinc retorts had been uncovered. There was enough residual material in the retorts for detailed analysis. This he hoped would give a clear picture of how this early distillation process was carried out. He is now certain that zinc distillation was in use at Zawar several centuries before it was known in Western Europe. He hopes to get a report on this excavation published later this year, possibly in Scientific American.

SITES FOR WATCHING.

The Following sites, which might be of some archaeological interest, have been the subject of planning applications in the last month or so:

Land adjoining 11 Ranelagh Close, Edgware                           Chalet bungalow.

Manaton House, High. Street, Edgware                                   Change of use which may result

in some trenching near the  line of Watling Street.

53, Ashley Lane, N.W.4.                                                           3 detached houses.

We are sorry to report that ELIZABETH SANDERSON, who has been in charge of the Society’s site-watching operations for the last 18 months, has asked to be relieved of that responsibility, as she is taking up a new job which will occupy all her time. Until fresh arrangements are made, will Members who notice signs of building– activity on the above sites (or on any of the others listed in earlier Newsletters) please notify our Hon. Secretary, Brian Wrigley (959 5982).

The Newsletter would like to take this chance of thanking Elizabeth very much

for all the hard work she has put in on HADAS’s account and wishing her very well in her new work. We hope she will still manage to find an occasional moment for HADAS:

CHARITY CHILDREN – A LONG TIME AGO.                                          by Nell Penny.

In the early eighteenth century average life expectancy was less than thirty years, so it’s not surprising that Hendon overseers of the poor had to provide for a –fair number of orphans and children whose fathers – the wage-earners- had died or were ill.

Sometimes a child was not a continuous burden on the rates. In 1711 the overseers recorded their payments about Sarah Cleving’s child.

“Sarah Cleving 2 weeks 3/‑

Gave her relief when .in labour several times 15/‑

Paid for fetching and carrying the Midwife 3/9

Two Midwives 10/-

Paid John Martin for wood for her. 8/- blanketts 2/-

Coffin and shroud for her child 2/3

Goody Turner for carrying the Corpse to Church and making an affidavit.”

But infant mortality in Hendon parish does not seem to have reached the horrific

numbers of those in the parish of St. Martins in the Fields or any London parish.

In 1715 a committee of the House of Commons reported that — “parish Infants and

Exposed Bastards are inhumanly suffered to die by the Barbarity of Nurses, especially Parish Nurses who are a sort of people void of Commiseration or Religion hired by the officers to take off a Burden from the Parish at the cheapest and easiest Rates they can*. When disaster hit a local family as it did the Chalkhills in 1708 the parish had to step in. It burried Chalkhill and his wife and paid to have their children kept, clothed and apprenticed. Here are some of the items dealing with the children. “Thomas Newman kept Ed Chalkhill for 6 weeks 6/-: William Chalkhill (a relative?) took Stephen and Martha apprentices for premiums totaling £17. Thomas Gillman took Ed Chalkhill apprentice for £3. 5. 0; Widow Lane kept Stephen 4 weeks for 8/- and Anne for 39 weeks for £3.18 O. All these children plus John needed clothes. £3.12. 3, was spent during the year buying shirts, britches, shifts, 4 petticoats, a suit for £1. 6. 0, stockings, shoes and a hat for 2/6.

I. don’t think there was a workhouse in Hendon before 1735 and we have no evidence that children were housed there after 1735. It was more likely that they were boarded out with ‘Dames’. In 1709 “Richinson’s girl” was kept by Widow Lane for 2/- a week and was provided with 2 shifts, 2 aprons, stockings and shoes and 4 caps. A widow nursed James Barber’s four children for a whole year at 8/- week. In 1715 the youngest Chalkhill orphan John was still being kept by Widow Lane at 2/- a week.

If children were apprenticed to a master in another parish they ceased to be chargeable to the parish and if they served their time would acquire a settlement elsewhere.

So the premiums and the expenses of indentures were looked upon as economical by the parish. Between 1703 and 1743 at least ‘forty children were apprenticed. Five actual indentures survive. In 1719 William Bunyan was apprenticed to Henry Pritchard of St. Martin’s in the Fields until he should be 24 to learn “the art and craft and mystery of a joyner”. For a premium of £5 Sarah Sutton aged 13 was apprenticed to a Manty (Mantua?) maker of St. Botolph’s Bishopsgate until she was 21 or married. A blacksmith in Stepney had £4 to take a 10 year old lad. Mary Winterbury whose parents were “both lately dead” went to Frances Framblay of St. -Giles in the Fields for 6 years. Framblay was a gold and silver button maker. Probably most of the girl apprentices went as domestic servants.

Two very tantalizing entries in the accounts also appear in the vestry minutes. These entries suggest that the officers thought that parish children should have some education. In 1708 “all the School Dames shall bring in their bills of schooling and Teaching of Charity Children with the numbers of their scholars”. In 1709 the accounts were more explicit:- “School Dames shall have 3d. a week for teaching everyone of the Charity Children in the Testament and Bible and 2d a week for teaching them in their horn books and Primers provided. Such children must go to be taught at School 4 dayes in the week at least”. Moreover ” all school dames shall bring or send their children to Church every Lord’s Day forenoon and afternoon and every Fryday in the forenoon”.

If the dames neglected these last instructions they were to lose 1/- a week off their next pay. But nowhere is their “next pay” named as such. We have to presume it is lost in some of the monthly pensions to many widows. Just as frustrating are two other casual entries: a schoolmaster was to continue to teach the Charity Children “until he is dismissed:” and “the writings belonging to the Charity Schoolhouse are in the possession of John Nicoll Senior and will be produced at the request of the vestry”.

Would that the overseers had realised that enlightening future research students was just as important as convincing the vestrymen and a magistrate that they had been honest stewards of parish money!

* The English Poor in the Eighteenth Century: Dorothy Marshall. PUBLICATIONS.

Mr. C. S. Smeeton, a native of Finchley has produced the first volume of his book “The Metropolitan Tramways” (£12.00 from LRTA publications, 13A, The Precinct, .Broxbourne, Herts. EN 10. 7 HY). This includes details of the huge car works on the corner of Annesley Avenue, Colindale, where the first British-built trolleybus ran in 1909. Its intended route between Golders Green and the Edgware Road at Hendon would have taken it along Brampton Grove. Objections prevailed and the scheme was dropped.

 

EXHIBITIONS.

 

Rosalind Berwald’s delightful collection of 19th & 20th Century childrens’ books is on view at Church Farm, Hendon until March 25th. Admission free Open 10.a.m. – 1.p.m. and 2.p.m. – 5:30.p.m. except for Tuesday p.m. and Sunday a.m.

·       Gunnersbury Park Museum is mounting an exhibition of early local Archaeology from April. 6th to June 3rd. “Antiquary to Archaeologist, Recording West London’s Past” records the growth of true Archaeology from the antiquarian (basically treasure-seeking) interest of the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries. Stukeley’s “Roman” camp on Hounslow Heath. Pitt Rivers’ work on the Acton gravel terraces and the dedicated work of local enthusiasts such as John Allen Brown of Ealing, all receive their due..

For further details contact Phil Philo 992-1612.

HADLEY WOOD DIG 1983.        By  Brian Wrigley.

The site is described in the report of the survey in Newsletter 148, June 1983. Our minimum objective in the dig, which took place at weekends during July‑September, was to cut a section through the bank and external ditch of this large ring earthwork in a part where it was clearly defined, to establish its form, which could be used for reference in any future investigation, e.g., of a possible entrance where there might be more expectation of datable finds. If we found anything else of interest, so much the better. The location is shown in the diagrams attached.

A section 0.5m wide on a bearing 1740 Grid, was dug across the bank and ditch; a wider area had been cleared of the top humus layer (which accounts for the absence of the main humus layer in the section drawing of the west side). We immediately came across stiff clay, very difficult to dig either wet (sticky) or dry (like concrete). Trowelling and sieving were impossible, and we concentrated on careful recording of the section exposed by mattock and shovel.

We made no significant finds which could help in dating.

We were surprised at the shallowness of the remaining traces of the earthwork; it was almost more obvious on the surface than in the strata below (see section drawings) and the height from ditch bottom to bank crest is substantially less than the 5 feet given by Derek Renn reporting his 1953 section. Our site is one of the most steeply sloping areas; it therefore may have been more eroded, or the ditch may originally not have had to be cut so deep as elsewhere. A substantial amount of erosion was noted all over the woods; in many places can be seen trees, from their size not more than decades old, whose roots are exposed for some 15 – 30 cm above the present ground surface.


Section Drawings.

 

 

 

Ditch.

 

 

The two ‘bowls’ of darker grey soil (F) on the east side only, it was concluded, were due to root activity of trees now gone, and can be ignored. What is then left as the possible remaining signs of the ditch in layers C and D; which appear on both sides. D must surely be a fall into, or silting up of; the ditch; C, which is darker grey and appears to be more organic material than the neighbouring layers, may be similarly a fall into the ditch, or it may be, a soil formed by plant activity on the slope of the ditch when it was open, and later buried.

Layer B, below the humus has been labeled simply “disturbed clay” it was not found possible, as had been hoped; to distinguish between disturbance to the clay caused by human activity, and that caused merely by plant activity. One thing can be said for certain, that the outline of the ditch cannot have gone lower than the surface which we found of the undisturbed clay “Bedrock” (G) which is a quite shallow depthbelow the present surface. It seems most likely the original outline of the ditch must have been the lower edge of Layer C.

BANK

Although the position of the bank is obvious on the surface, there is little evidence below for its building up. Directly below what now appears as the crest of the bank, was found a layer (E) of distrurbed clay different in texture, but not colour from the overlying layer B;It was harder, drier and more crumbly and without present root activity. This may be either (1) a remnant of the original soil buried by the building of the bank or (ii) the lowest layer of the bank and in either case put below the level of further root activity by the raising of the surface above it.

A curious feature was the thin spread of clay overlying, on the south slope of the bank, a tapering wedge of the humus; this was interpreted as a fall of clay caused by the fall in the past of a tree, its roots leaving the humus-filled hole seen just south of the crest of the bank; this appears on both baulks. On this interpretation, of the fall of a single tree, this feature should be peculiar to a particular spot we happened to choose for our section; if on any future investigation, it should appear to be present along the length of the bank some other interpretation would have to be sought which might be that it represents some wooden structure atop the bank which has collapsed after the .rotting of its supports. It is clearly a feature to be  looked for in any future investigation – which, to seek this this feature near the surface only, need not be a full excavation of a section.          

Further investigation.

A few soil samples were taken which have been passed to Richard Hubbard who has very kindly agreed to arrange for his NE London poly students to examine them.

Time, weather and availability did not permit .the cutting of a further section in a more level part, for which permission had been given by the Management Committee of the Common; it may be hoped we will be able to do this some time in the future.

 General interpretation.

Since Derek Renn’s 1953 report, this earthwork has been generally regarded, on grounds of morphology and location, as on Iron hillfort; we found no evidence to confirm or deny this. On the other hand, the suggestion (put forward by Paddy Musgrove) that its appearance is consistent with a post-medieval woodland boundary cannot be cast aside; there is historical evidence of a re-stocking with deer at the same time as re­planting of trees, which would give ample cause for such a barrier.

*   *

We are particularly indebted to Bernard Johnson for his interest and advice on his several attendances on the site; also to Dr. John Kent, Richard Hubbard and to Geoffrey Gillam and Brian Warren (Enfield Arch. Soc.) for their help.


 
Feb 12
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Newsletter-156-February-1984

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Newsletter-156-February-1984

 

Newsletter No. 156: February, 1984

FIRST LINKS WITH AVIATION    by BILL Firth

At the end of September 1983 the Borough Planning Department

produced its sixth topic study, as part of the preparation of a Borough Development Plan. This study was entitled Public Utilities and Protective Services, and a copy of it was sent to HADAS for comment (as had been done with several earlier topic studies).

After careful perusal it was evident that the only section requiring comment from us was that which concerned the Army and the RAF. this gave the news that the RAF is likely to move out of Hendon completely in 1987; and the Ministry of Defence is then expected to dispose of RAF Hendon with the exception of the RAF Museum and the married quarters.

We are pleased to report that, as a result of representations from HADAS, the Borough Planning Officer is applying for the listing of the office building and control tower built by Claude Grahame White in 1916. These are adjacent to the contemporary hangar which is already listed (see Newsletter 112, June 1880).

The offices are the main prestige building built during World War by Grahame White, and the control tower is believed to be the earliest example extant. In the offices, on the first floor, is the room used by Grahame White; the CGW monogram over the fireplace still remains. We hope that efforts to list this historic building are successful.

Following demand from another (and aviation-minded) society it is hoped to be able to arrange a further visit to RAF Hendon this summer. It would help the planning if any HADAS members who would like to come would let me know on 455 7164.

 

ASPECTS OF CONSERVATION

As this Newsletter goes to press, the Borough of Barnet is about to host a reception at the Town Hall for representatives of conservation groups in the Borough, to which HADAS has been invited.

The proceedings are to be enlivened by displays of the work of some of the groups, and HADAS was asked to plan a small display. Our panel will show photographs and drawings illustrating some of our activities, under four main headings – field-walking, surveying, digging and recording.

We thank the Council for its initiative, hope the party will go well and look forward to seeing a cross-section of conservation in Barnet.

 

FOLLOW-UP TO HADLEY

Some soil samples from the 1983 dig at Hadley Wood have been taken by Richard Hubbard for examination by his North-east London Polytechnic students.


If any HADAS members are interested in taking part in this exercise, Mr Hubbard would be happy to make arrangements for them to do so. Please give Brian Wrigley a ring on 959 5982 if you would like to help.

 

MORE ABOUT PEOPLE

First, a bulletin on our most notable invalid – DOROTHY NEWBURY. Dorothy became ill – as a report in the last Newsletter indicated – soon after she had organised our Christmas outing to Whitbreads. It turned out to be a severe attack of shingles always a most painful complaint and one which ‘hangs on’ wretchedly.

Dorothy has been out of circulation now for over a month, but she reports that she is at last able to get on with a little reading and other work (the main force of the attack was in her head and eyes) pro­vided she doesn’t keep at it for too long. The HADAS January meeting sent her a special ‘get well soon’ wish, and we know that every Newsletter reader will want to join in that.

 

Now pleasant piece of news. PHILIP VENNING, a keen HADAS digger and researcher (you’ll recall he directed the dig behind the Old Bull in the spring of 1982) tells us that in early March he takes up the post of Secretary to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. Hopefully this may mean that we shall see more of him, too – because he will be centred in London again (he lives in Highgate and also has a cottage near Bath, which has been his Main home recently).

The SPAB, he says was founded by William Morris, who “was horrified by much of the restoration undertaken by the Victorians;” the Society is planning to extend its activities in the near future. We hope to hear more of that later from Phillip and meantime send him HADAS’s congratulations and best wishes for success in his new job.

 

JAN MARSH, author of the article which follows, on local links with the Pre-Raphaelites, is not a HADAS member but she is the daughter of one. Knowing how much research her mother, NELL PENNY, does for our Documentary Group, Jan was kind enough, when she came across these Hendon and Finchley references while researching her next book, to take note of them and to write this article for the Newsletter – which we much welcome and appreciate. (Her first book, incidentally, was published last year – Back to the Land, a study of ‘the pastoral impulse in Victorian England.’

 

PRE-RAPHAELITE PAINTING IN FINCHLEY AND HENDON

by JAN MARSH.

In the autumn of 1854 Dante Gabriel Rossetti began work on a new oil painting, entitled Found. It depicted a young countryman who, bringing a calf to market- in a cart, finds his former sweetheart on the city streets, now a fallen woman.

He had immense trouble with the picture, working at it on and off for many years and leaving it still unfinished at his death in 1882. The part of the story that took place in Finchley, however, came at the beginning. After he, had completed the brick wall against which the woman cowers, he sought out a suitable calf, turning for help to his friend and fellow painter, Ford Madox Brown.

 

Brown was then living in Church End, Finchley, at No 1 Grove Villas, on what is now Regents Park Road, between Gravel Hill and Hendon Lane. The building has gone but stood in a row of villas – Albion Villas, Grove Cottages, Grove Villas – similar to the present Nos 289 and 291, near the larger Grove Lodge. At the back was a yard and garden, and beyond that a field where Christs College was soon to be built.

The house had a parlour, a kitchen and two bedrooms and contained, at this date, Brown, his pregnant wife Emma and their 5-year-old daughter Catherine or Katty. They were extremely hard up and frequently in debt. Brown was painting a small oval view of The Brent at Hendon, with the figure of a woman reading on the far, tree-shaded bank. This was begun on Sept. 1, when Brown recorded in his Diary (with characteristic spelling):

 

“…… out by ¼ to 8 to examine the river Brent at Hendon, a

mere brooklet running in most dainty sinuosity under over­shadowing oaks and all manner of leafgrass. Many beauties and hard to chuse amongst ..”

The following day he selected his spot and worked from 9.30 to 1.30, returning home for dinner. In the afternoon he worked at another local landscape, Carrying Corn, which was a harvest picture containing ‘corn shocks in long perspective, farm, hayricks and steeple seen between them.’ This picture, like The Brent at Hendon, is now in the Tate Gallery; it doesn’t have much topographical detail, but it may be possible to identify the weatherboarded farm, which must have been within a few minutes’ walk of Church End.

Apart from a brief brush with that summer’s cholera epidemic, which attacked the new servant girl, Brown worked hard at these two -paintings, generally visiting the Brent in the mornings and the cornfield in the afternoons. Typical entries in his Diary read as follows:

(11 September) “… to work at the Brent by 11 am. Emma and the child brought me my dinner there at 2 – in a little basket. Hot hashed mutton and potatoes in a basin, cold rice pudding & a little bottle of rum & water, beer being bad for cholera. Very delightful & very

great appetite. ‘Set to work again by ½ past 2 till ½      past 6.”

(12 September) “… to the Brent by ½         past ten worked till        ¼ to

2. After dinner from 3 to 6 at the cornfield picture.”

In the evenings he worked at a third picture, a charcoal drawing of ‘Beauty before she became acquainted with the Beast,’ for which a kitten was required. ‘Emma & I went out after dark & stole one yesterday,’ Brown recorded, but a few days later he changed his mind: ‘Scraped out puss & put in one with a more satisfactory miaow.’

On September 26 he wrote in his Diary:

“To the Brent by 10 worked till 1 – finished the landscape part as much as I can do to it from nature – went to see the river as far as Decoy farm, found none of it so beautiful as I had painted ­- home to lunch after a splendid walk in a broiling sun. Afternoon to the cornfield – dinner at 6.”

He carried on working in the cornfield during October, painting in the background and foreground, and commenting:

“It would seem that very small trees in the distance are very difficult objects to paint or else I am not suited to this sort of work for I can make nothing of the small screen of trees though I  have pottered over sufficient time to have painted a large landscape…”

On October 4 he began the field of root vegetables – sometimes called

turnips and sometimes swedes – in the foreground, the fine weather broke, and money troubles became pressing. Two days later he ‘wasted about an hour and a half under an umbrella at the swedes – rain drove me off …’ at home he prepared all his valuables, including six teaspoons, for a visit to the pawnbroker in town the following day, where he raised £11 and then called on Rossetti, who asked him to try to find a white calf and cart.

Brown knew the Finchley farmers and their work force. Carrying Corn was nearing completion, and on October 13 he wrote:

“to the field for the last time thank goodness. I am sick of it, I have now only to work at home at it to put it a little in harmony. A labourer came and looked and stuttering fearfully expressed ad­miration which ended in his supposing he could not beg half a pint of beer, one whom I used to look upon as a respectable man …”

Brown gave him twopence ‘and scorn;’ he felt close to beggary himself.

Within a few days he had arranged with Bruce Johnson of the Manor Farm in East End Road for the use of a calf and a cart. Rossetti came to stay at Grove Villas on October 31 and the first night kept his host up to 2 an talking about poetry. The next day they went to approve the calf and the following afternoon Rossetti started work. It was, he reported to a friend, ‘fine clear weather, though cold;’ He obliged to paint even when it rained, even though “the calf would be like a hearth-rug after half an hour,” because the farmer refused to accept payment for the use of his property, ‘as he insists on being goodnatured.’ As for the calf,

“he kicks and fights all the time he remains tied up, which is five or six hours daily, and the view of life induced at his early age by experience in art appears to be so melancholy that he punctually attempts suicide by hanging himself at 3½ daily pm. At these times I have to cut him down and then shake him up and lick him like blazes …”

Brown remarked that Gabriel was getting on very slowly, painting the calf ‘hair by hair.’ At the beginning of December he reported no percept­ible progress and complained of the cost of accommodating his friend: ‘all the time he wearing my great coat which I want & a pair of my breeches, besides food & an unlimited supply of turpentine.’ By December 17 the strain had become acute, with Emma Brown eight and a half months pregnant and the arrival of Lucy, Brown’s elder daughter by his first marriage and her cousin Elizabeth for the winter holiday. Brown confessed his exasperation to his Diary:

“This morning, Gabriel not yet having done his cart & talking quite freely about several days yet, having been here since the first Novr, & not seeming to notice any hints, moreover the two children being here & one stupid girl insufficient for so much work Emma being within a week or two of her confinement & he having had his bed made on the floor in the parlour one week now & not getting up till eleven & moreover making himself infernally disagreeable moreover my finances being reduced to £2.12 which must last till January 20, I told him delicately he must go …”

One marvels at the forbearance implied in that ‘delicately’; Brown suggested Rossetti might travel out each day to the farm from his rooms near Blackfriars Bridge, but Rossetti rejected this as too expensive. Brown commented ‘He thinks nothing of putting us to trouble or expense so he is gone for the present.’ And Manor Farm’s calf and cart were as finished as they would ever be.

 

Brown’s own paintings were not sold until June 1855, when The Brent

at Hendon brought in £10 and Carrying Corn £12. The following month he
began another landscape. On July 21 he recorded:



“although all around one is lovely how little of it will work up into a picture …. How despairing it is to view the loveliness of nature towards sunset & know the impossibility of imitating it, at least in a satisfactory manner as one could do would it only remain still long enough         …What wonderful effects I have seen
this eveng in the hayfields, the warmth of the uncut grass, greeny greyness of the unmade hay in furrows or tufts, with lovely violet shadows and long shades of the trees thrown athwart all & melting away one tint into another imperceptibly & one moment more & cloud passes & all the magic is gone. Begin tomorrow morning all is changed, the hay & the reapers are gone most likely, the sun too or if not it is in quite the opposite quarter & all that was  loveliest is all that is tamest now, alas!”

On July 27 he and Emma went for an evening. walk and ‘saw in twilight what appeared a very lovely bit of scenery with the full moon behind it just risen, and this he determined to paint. It was on land belonging to Lord Tenterden of Hendon Place, and the finished painting, The hayfield, shows a field sloping away towards a line of trees marking a stream, with other meadows rising to the skyline, just below which is a white building that may be a gentleman’s residence. In the field hay- making is in progress, with a farm cart and smocked figures and an artist sitting with his paintbox, palette and sunshade observing the scene. Because it is a late summer evening with sunset and full moon, giving the scene a particular light, Brown referred to this painting as his ‘Moon Piece.’ It is also now in the Tate Gallery.

 

In August he had another annoying visit from Rossetti, this time in company with Lizzie Siddall, whom Rossetti later married and who was friendly with Emma. They came to stay for two days and on August 14 Brown went with them ‘in a phaeton to see Totteridge & with Rossetti’s assist­ance got through much money.’ The next day Emma and Lizzie went into town early, before Rossetti came in from the Queen’s Head, the inn just south of Grove Villas, where he was staying, Lizzie having one bedroom in the house and the four Browns the other. Rossetti was angry at their departure and Brown sent him off with the servant girl and baby Oliver to meet the women in town.

He was peacefully working when the girl came back with a message to join the others at Blackfriars and then go on to the theatre. When Brown arrived they had already left and, finding that they had gone to Astleys, which was more of a circus than a theatre, Brown spent the evening in a coffee shop. At the end of the performance, however, they were nowhere to be seen and Brown returned to Blackfriars to find Lizzie in bed there, Gabriel sleeping elsewhere and Emma having gone to stay with her mother in St Pancras. In a poor temper, Brown found a cheap lodging for the night and rose at 7.30 next morning ‘not having closed my eyes.’ Such were the tribulations of Rossetti’s friendship.

The house at Grove Villas was proving too small to accommodate the growing Brown family and the servant required to help Emma with the housework and childcare, and at quarter day in September 1855 they left Finchley for No 13 (now 56) Fortess Terrace in Kentish Town, a good deal loss rural despite the dairy farm on Primrose Hill and Lord Mansfield’s estate at Kenwood. The Hayfield was not finished at the time of the move and in October Brown spent two days at the Queen’s Head in order to com­plete the background. On-December 1 he was at Cumberland Market near Euston, selecting a haycart and during the rest of the month he painted in the figures, the horses, the artist’s equipment, the moon and various other details. He then went ‘carefully over all the part I painted in at Hendon from nature,’ darkened the hayfield and finally completed it early in January. At the end of the month his dealer White rejected the picture: ‘he said the hay was pink’ and it was not until August that the painting bound a buyer.

This was the young William Morris, who was introduced by Rossetti and induced to pay £40 for the little hayfield. So Rossetti rep id some of his debt to the Browns.

SOURCES

The Diary of Ford Madox Brown, ed. Virginia Surtees, Yale University Press, London, 1981

Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti,.ed. 0 Doughty and J R Wahl, Oxford, 1965, vol 1

The three paintings by Ford Madox Brown (The Brent at Hendon, Carrying Corn-and The Hayfield.) are in the Tate Gallery, from whose Publications Dept. black and white photographs are available at £1.05 each. The Tate is holding a Pre-Raphaelite exhibition from March-May this year, and the three pictures will be on,show.

Rossetti’s unfinished picture Found is in the Delaware Art Museum, but an early version with only the wall, woman’s head and calf – which may well be the actual panel which was carried to the farmyard in East End Road – is in Carlisle Museum and Art Gallery.*

APPENDIX

Two other interesting excerpts from Brown’s Diary:

 

l October 1854: “a long walk over the fields from ‘Five Bells’ by the Spaniards to Hampstead, bought flannel for babycloathes, paid bills, then to Hendon, where ditto …”

19 October 1855 (after meeting H C Shenton, engraver). “Find that he lives at Hendon & is great friends with the old rascally vicar there whom we nicknamed Judas from his iiniquitus looks and conduct especially towards cats** … walked home from Camden Station …”

*shortly before Christmas 1854 Rossetti wrote to Brown asking him to arrange for the carrier to collect his painting equipment – case, paint­box and easel – from Johnson’s farm and look after them until Rossetti was able to return to Finchley to finish painting the wheel of the cart and the pony’s legs and ears,’ which he estimated would take him a day. These items remain unpainted in the Carlisle panel and Rossetti never went back to Finchley to paint.

** this was the notorious, litigious and long-lived Rev. Theodore Williams.

 

AS OTHERS SEE US?

HADAS has been at the receiving end of several unexpected bouquets

recently, and we thought members might like to know about them. .

First, issue No 4 of the Newsletter of the British Association for Local History picked up the news of our successful October Minimart, offered its congratulations on the outcome and suggested this was an encouraging example for other BALH groups to follow.

Then in November’ there was a letter in The Times from the editor of Current Archaeology, Andrew Selkirk (who also-happens to be a member of HADAS) arising out of the plan to abolish the GLC. He didn’t mention our Society by name, but he did refer in course of his letter to the fact that ‘in Tory-controlled Barnet … there is an exceptionally strong and active archaeological society, which carries out all the necessary rescue archaeology at no expense to the ratepayers. Indeed, they recent­ly even carried out a major excavation on Hampstead Heath …’

Finally, in the January issue of the Camden History Society news­letter, Cherry Lavell (who is on the staff of the Council for British Archaeology, although on this occasion she was not writing as such) had this to say: ‘Barnet is indeed very lucky in having one of the best archaeological societies in the whole country – HADAS, the Hendon & District Archaeological Society. They do indeed carry out excavations and other work to professional standards, and put on better exhibitions than many professionals manage.’

It’s bad form, we know, to blow one’s own trumpet – but isn’t it lovely when. someone else, blows it for you?

 

HOUSING  ANGLO-SAXON STYLE       JEAN SNELLING reports on

the HADAS January lecture

‘Richard Darrah, warden of the site of West Stow, in West Suffolk, recognised that HADAS plans its third visit to his Anglo-Saxon village this summer. His lecture therefore concentrated on experience in recon­struction and on building methods of the mid-Saxon period.

The settlement flourished from about 400-650 AD, being dated by its Lackford and Ipswich pottery. Beginning small, it grew to three or four homesteads for extended families and their farm stock; then it shrank and was abandoned. The cemetery contains about 100 inhabitants in total. Excavations from 1965-73 revealed traces of about 80 buildings over 5 acres, and since then the reconstruction of several specimen buildings by original methods has been in progress.

Two types of structure are found: sunken-floored buildings (SFBs) in the majority, and ‘halls’ (up to six). The halls were grouped with 5 or 6 SFBs each, to make the farmsteads of the site’s heyday.

West Stow has yielded many potsherds, loomweights, animal bones and small metal objects; but its building remains consist only of the stains of postholes in the sandy soil, the floorpits, clay hearths and charcoal and daub from SFBs which burnt down. Analysis of charcoal has shown residues of split oak planks (floorboards and wall cladding), ash poles and hazel rods (rafters and roofing support for thatch). The stains give the size and depth of postholes. These meagre signs are the basis for reconstruction.

One SFB reconstruction shows the older Sutton Courtney “wigwam” model, with low eaves and floor limited to the sunken area. But experiment at West Stow indicates that occupied floor-pits, unlined, would have eroded, while the originals did not erode; it is therefore believed that floors were boarded over and that buildings were often larger than their sunken area. Some deeper pits were wood lined; the unlined shallow pits probably kept floorboards and wall planks drier than solid earth would do, and received mud, dust and small objects falling between the floorboards. The frame of the SFB rested on end-posts, and simple wall plates and pro­bably floor plates are assumed. Pegged rafters would stretch from ridge pole to wall plates. Simple lap and tenon joints were known. Wall plank cladding may have had tongue and groove fitting or daub sealing. A clay hearth could overlap the solid ground inside the building, alongside the pit. With much variety of shape and function, the SFBs could have made very serviceable houses, workshops, stores and stocksheds.

The halls were modest, not above 30ft long with 6-in square posts. One now reconstructed has 40 posts at 2ft intervals, sunk 1-2ft deep. Medieval ploughing removed all floors and surface debris, so the (level)

flooring is unknown (wood, sand, clay?), but burnt central areas suggest hearths. In reconstruction, it is assumed that tie beams must have supported roofs to prevent walls from spreading. Now the tie beams and wall plates are first fitted together on the ground, almost as high medieval timber framing would have been. Wall cladding and roofing present the same questions as with SFBs, and there is no telling if halls were gabled or hipped. Nor is there any indication of how the families used the halls, or what kind of gatherings or activities took place there.

Mr Darrah referred throughout to Saxon tools and to the wood supply. Reconstruction indicates that the axe, spoon-drill and wedge would mainly

be used. The efficient Saxon axe of 3-4 lbs was iron-bladed and steel‑
edged. Axe–felled oaks while green will split easily for beams and planks, through wedges driven in with a wooden beetle. The Saxon builders needed quantities of tall oak trees, long ash poles, straight hazel rods, and straight reeds for thatching. The old West Stow sources are not known. How much were they consciously managed? Grazing animals must be excluded for timber and poles to grow long and straight; regular cropping is the most efficient method. Did the Saxons really know about coppicing, or did they chance on certain features of it?

This fascinating lecture stood well on its own, and also made the prospect of a visit to West Stow next summer irresistible.

 

EARLY METALURGY                 CAMILLA RAAB has kindly abstracted the following from World Archaeology, 15.(2), October 1983, pp, 211-17:

Craddock, P T, Curjar, L K and Hegde, K T M, Zinc Production  in  Medieval

India. Zinc was made and used at a much earlier date in the East than in Europe. A preliminary survey has been made of the extensive remains of the ancient zinc mines and smelting remains at Zawar, Rajasthan. From the survey and the preliminary investigation some attempt is made to reconstruct the original process.

Zawar is one of the sites mentioned last April in Paul Craddock’s lecture to the Society on early metallurgy,

 

TRIPE – A LA HADAS                                        by Brigid Grafton Green

Some unexpected questions occasionally land on my desk. A surprising one a few weeks ago came from a local historian in Bolton, Lancashire. She wanted to know if I could offer any help on the history of tripe. Anyone who asks that sort of question of such an inveterate newspaper reader as myself might expect a fairly ripe answer – but luckily my correspondent went on to explain that it was the tripe-trade she was interested in; and particularly why ‘the buying and selling of tripe was such a part of the Northern way of life.’

I couldn’t help much about Northern tripe unfortunately – but these facts about tripe in general did turn up.

In the Vision of Piers Plowman (William Langland, mid-14th c) the ‘doctour’ is said to have eaten tripe, which he called ‘wombe-cloutes:’

‘He eet many sondry metes,

Mortrews and puddynges,       (‘mortrews’ = soups)
Wombe-cloutes and wilde brawen,

And eggs, y-fryed with grece.’

in 1662, on October 24, Samuel Pepys recorded that he ‘dined upon a most excellent dish of tripes of my own directing, covered with mustard, as I have heretofore seen them done at.my Lord Crewe’s, of which I made a great meal.  Two years later, on April 9, 1664, Pepys again mentions ‘at noon home to dinner of tripes.’

Hannah Glasse, in her Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy (first published 1747), has rocipes for fried tripe, tripe a la Kilkenny (which is tripe and onions: described as ‘a favourite Irish dish’) and a receipt for -preserving tripe to go to the East Indies. This last is done in a pickle of spring water, fine clear salt (‘common salt will spoil it’), white wine vinegar, rosemary and allspice. The tripe and the pickle are put into a 4-gallon cask, which should be fastened down by a cooper and not opened in the Indies until you are ready to dress it.

Dorothy Hartley (whose book Food in England, published 1954, is a most glorious rag-bag, into which it’s impossible to put a thumb without  pulling ‘out a plum) says ‘Tripe Normandy seems to have come over with the Conqueror; usually medievally made in autumn, we now make it when we can obtain the necessary ham trimmings:’

Those snippets suggest that, in addition to having a long history, in earlier times tripe was eaten as much in the south – not to mention Ireland – as the north. Pepys, after all, was a Londoner and Hannah Glasse, although her family came from Hexham, was London-born and married a London lawyer.

 

SITES F0R WATCHING

Applications for planning permission are being considered by the Borough of Barnet for the following sites which,- if the applications are approved, may be of some archaeological interest:

Land rear of Campbell Croft, Edgware      detached house

Glebe Court, Parson St, NW4                    detached bungalow

15 Elm Gardens, N2                                   2 semi-detached houses

“Ridge Cottage, Arkley Drive, Barnet Rd   detached bungalow

land adj. Arkley House, Barnet Road                   5 detached houscs

Should you notice possible building activity on any of those sites, please let Elizabeth Sanderson know on 950 3106.

 

HADAS DIARY

Tues Feb 7. Church End Hendon Excavations, 1973-k.

 We are pretty sure this is an evening no one will want to      miss and

that most of you will have already red-lettered it in your diaries – because it will be one of’ our own Vice-Presidents, TED SAMMES talking about one of our own digs, which he directed, just south of Hendon parish Church. It’s the dig which finally proved, beyond all doubt, that Hendon was, and is, a Saxon foundation.

This lecture will be the first of the occasional Constantinides Memorial lectures in honour of our founder, Themistocles Constantinides. It was suggested at the 1983 AGM that such an event should be initiated, and we reported in last July’s Newsletter that the Committee had decided to ro ahead with the idea. It is highly appropriate that Ted – one of our founder members, who knew ‘Mr Constans,’ should be the first Constan­tinides lecturer, and that the first subject should be the one dearest to ‘Mr. Constans’ heart, which prompted him to found an archaeological society for what he hoped for most of all was to prove that Tendon was Saxon.

Ted, in fact, went one better – he took the Church End site, on the corner of Greyhound Hill and Church End, where the Meritage Old


People’s Club now stands, back to a Roman presence by unearthing a small cache of Roman pottery; and we haven’t told you the half of it – there was fine medieval and Tudor material and a gorgeous 18th c rubbish pit which was-George Ingram’s pride and joy…. You’d better come along and hear all about it: it’s too good a story to miss.

 

The remainder of the winter programme is:

Tues. March 6 25 Years Excavation in Wiltshire John Musty

Tues.  April 3, Underwater Archaeology in the Holy Land     Alexander Flinder
Tues. May 15 Annual General Meeting

Meetings are at Hendon Library, The Burroughs, NW4, coffee 8 pm, lecture starts 8.30.

CORRECTION TO THE HADAS PROGRAMME CARD. We regret that an extra ‘2′ has crept into one of the dates in the Programme Card which accompanied your January,Newsletter. The first lecture of next winter should be:

Tuesday, October 2nd – Orkney – Isbister

“The Tomb’ of the Eagles”      John Hedges

Would members please alter October 22 to October 2.

DO YOU ENJOY THE NEWSLETTER? IF SO, PLEASE HELP!

One of HADAS’s largest financial headaches is the Newsletter. Not the editorial side, of course, that’s done for love; but the nuts-and­ bolts bit – the reproduction (text and illustrations) and the distribution.

Paper costs keep rising, and postage is unbelievable today when you look back to what it was even a few years ago. Our faithful duplicator, so lovingly tended by Rene Frauchiger, is getting long in the tooth and needs periodic (sometimes expensive) maintenance: and we know it can’t last forever.

That’s why we reported, in the December Newsletter, the Committee’s decision to set up a small working party to consider, so far as the Newsletter is concerned, ways and means.

Now we would like to call on any help that members can offer. We know many of you have experience in the Communications field -whether it be in schools, advertising, newspapers, publishing or whatever. If you have any ideas for ways we could improve and/or cheapen the production/distribution side of the Newsletter, be they old or new, experimental or well-tried, please get onto me on 346-5078 and tell me. I’ll be delighted to hear from you. JUNE PORGES

 

HAPPENINGS VARIOUS

The Museum of London has its usual full programme of lectures, films, displays and workshops between now and Easter. Three archaeological lectures in February are;

Feb 3 Recent excavations in Southwark: Calvert’s Buildings

David Beard & George Dennis

Feb 10 Recent excavations in Southwark: Winchester Palace

Derek Seeley & Brian Yule

Feb 17 Recent excavations in West London         Jon Cotton

 

Three talks under the general heading ‘London’s Burning,’ on great


fires which have devastated the City, also sound interesting:


 

Wed  Feb 22 Boudicca’s Revolt                                     Hugh Chapman

Thur  Feb 23 The ‘London Blitz                                     Geoff Toms

Fri Feb 24 The fire of London 1666                     Rosemary Weinstein

Another-event at the Museum will be the annual LAMAS Archaeological Conference on Sat. March 17. As yet we have no further details about times, speakers, etc, but you may like to note the date in your diary.

Tony Rook, who spoke to HADAS last November about prehistory and Roman Hertfordshire, sends these details of two linked Greek study tours which he is organising from Apr 10-23 next. The full fortnight (both

tours) costs £560, plus £10.50 insurance; or you can take the Cretan tour only (Apr, 10-17) for £378; or the Peloponnese tour only (Apr-for 16-23) (both plus insurance).’ Further details and itineraries from Tony Rook, 23 Mill Lane, Welwyn, Herts AL6 9EU.

 

The Jorvik Viking Centre at York opens on April 14 next. It has called ‘the most exciting tourism project ever seen in Britain’ and also ‘a permanent cultural asset to the region and the world.’

It ‘will be in two parts. Below ground the 9th. c Viking town, with streets, workshops and houses, has been reconstructed on the Coppergate site on which it was dug in the 1970s. There will also be ‘the whole sequence of archaeological discovery and interpretation as it was on the

site during excavation.’  At ground level, in the artefacts hall, will
be the finds from the site – leather goods, amber, cloth, pottery and wooden cups and bowls, made by coopers who gave their name to ‘Coppergate.’

HADAS members who were on our York weekend in 1976, when we had a private view of the Coppergate dig, will find the new museum particularly interesting.  It will be open, year round seven days a week, from 9 am-7 between April and the end of October; and 9 am – 5.30 the rest of the year.

 

MARY ALLAWAY reports on her research into

CHURCH FARM, EAST BARNET

Looking around the trim Council buildings at Church Farm today it is difficult to imagine that somewhere a farmyard once existed here.

In 1817 a house and barn are shown on this site, owned by John Bacon, who may well have lived elsewhere as he owned many parcels of land in­cluding a sizeable farm in East Barnet.*

By 1841 Church Farm was owned by Sir Simon Houghton-Clarke and was occupied by Joshua and Martha East, both aged 25 with 3 Small children and 4 servants. By this time farm buildings had been built on three sides of a yard south of the barn and the farm house appears to have been enlarged or re-built (see maps at end of this Newsletter).

In 1859 ‘a committee of gentlemen bought 48 acres of the estate (of the former Church Hill House) and converted it into a farm for the train­ing of destitute boy.’** A Crimean War veteran, Lt Col W J Gillum, was the first Superintendant. He built a house on adjoining land, Trevor Park, for his own occupation.

The Boys Home Farm continued from 1860-1938, when the buildings were taken over by East Barnet Council and the Home moved to another county, taking with it its records which regrettably have not been traced. The Council ran a primary school in part of the premises.

On two sides of a forecourt stands a neo-Georgian building of 1926 with a clock-tower at the angle. It has a fine panelled assembly hall, rooms like large classrooms and concrete stairways. The east wing once adjoined, at an oblique angle, the old farmhouse which had undergone two further extensions by 1898,, It was destroyed by fire in.1938, some of the slate floor being visible until recently.

‘On the opposite side of the courtyard is a range of buildings identi­fied, from an old drawing reproduced in the Barnet Press, as the Playroom (1881). This was originally a separate barnlike building connected at a later date by a gabled extension to the schoolhouse of 1868, which way damaged by fire (but later repaired) soon after the burning of the farm­house wing. Each building probably reflects a rise in the numbers at the farm. Certainly in 1868 the adjacent Parish church of St Mary the Virgin had a south aisle added, equal in width to the nave, to accommodate the boys; and the chancel was extended.

The Schoolroom (not to be confused with the Schoolhouse), with its bell tower, was built in 1876 on the site of an earlier farm building. A grim reminder of the ’39 war is the heavy double entrance doors, forming an air-lock for gas decontamination for the ARP who occupied the building at that time.

To the NW is another asphalt court in front of the Water Tower, built just before the turn of the century. Beside it is the entrance to the pool which lies behind. The ground floor and wings of the Water Tower contained workshops for the Boys Farm Home, and in war time the Fire Service hung their hoses on the first floor and slid through a hatchway to the ground. It is said that water was pumped from a well under the tower to the tank on top. Another possible well is the place marked ‘W’ on the 1870 map.

Between the Water Tower and Schoolroom stand two buildings, the larger said to have been the milking shed and the smaller (next to the Schoolroom) the bottling plant. To the north of this forecourt is a curious building, now converted into two houses, which was an isolation hospital. The attic is still continuous across both houses.

We discovered photographs in Barnet Museum which really gave a

picture of the farmyard, haybarn, pigsties, cowsheds and stables – as
they were in 1936.. Perhaps most interesting was the roof of the large tithe barn, demolished In 1938, and the roof of a one storey building, now gone, which adjoined the south wing of the Water Tower; The line of its gable can still be seen on the wall. It made way for two lines of changing-rooms, shown on the 1950 map; the modern roofed-in pool, with all amenities, explains their disappearance.

Another picture in the Barnet Press shows a field with cows and horses grazing where the 1926 building-now stands. The site of the farm­yard now lies partly under Burlington Rise and partly under the rear yard – now a patchwork of set-ts gravel, strips of concrete and weeds. The field from which the farmyard photos were taken is now completely built over, although most of the south field where cows and horses grazed still remains..

The history of Church Farm is being researched by Gillian Gear of Barnet Museum and we look forward to a future publication.

 


*Can this John Bacon be a connection of the John Bacon who leased the ancient manor house and the remains of the friary of Friern Barnet from

St Pauls from the 1780s to his death in 1816? His son was John (William)

**Victoria County History.     (See HADAS Newsletter 34, Dec 1973)


 
Sep 12
0

Newsletter-151-September-1983

By | Past Newsletters, Volume 3 : 1980 - 1984 | No Comments

Newsletter-151-September-1983

NEWSLETTER N0. 151                                                                                                                                           September 1983

AUTUMN PROGRAMME

The new season of lectures begins next month at Hendon Library, The Burroughs,  NW4. Coffee at 8 .00 p.m.; lectures begin at 8.30 p.m.

Tuesday, October 4th:  Bronze Age Rock Carving in South Scandinavia             Dr.John Coles

Tuesday November 1st: ‘Britons and Romans in Hertfordshire   Tony Rook

For new members, buses 183 and 143 pass the door. The Library is 10 minutes walk from Hendon Central Underground Station and only a few minutes’ walk from the 113 (Edgware) bus and 240 and 125 (Quadrant, Hendon) bus. There are two free car parks opposite the Library. Members may bring a guest to one lecture, but guests who wish to attend further lectures should be invited to join the Society. Will old members please welcome new ones and make them feel at home. New members PLEASE make themselves known.

MINIMART

Saturday, October 15th 11.30 a.m. – 3.00 p.m. at St. Mary’s Church House (top of Greyhound Hill, Hendon, and opposite Church Farm House Museum)

Tessa Smith and her team will once again be serving excellent Ploughman’s Lunches, coffees and–.teas. We hope all our members will come and make it a social as well as a money-making event. There will be a Secretary’s corner and a Society Publications stand. Come and chat about the Society’s activities and find out if you can help the various groups Roman, Documentary, Research, Site-watching Industrial Archaeology in the Borough etc.

There will be a Home-Made Stall – cakes, jams, pickles and sweets. Will anyone who can supply anything for the ‘eats’ stall, including fruit, vegetables or groceries, please contact Brigid Grafton Green on Te1.455 9040.

For the other stalls –

Small Bric-a-Brac – unwanted gifts

Toiletries, stationery – jewellery – toys

Household linens

Good as new men’s, women’s and children’s clothing

Please ring Christine Arnott (455 2751) or Dorothy Newbury (203 0950). You have six weeks to turn out anything saleable. If you like, bring it to the October lecture and we will collect from there.

-2,

LOCAL HISTORY CONFERENCE

The London and Middlesex Archaeological Society’s Local History Conference this autumn – always a very lively occasion – will take place on Saturday, November 19 at the Museum of London.

For the first time the conference will be all day instead of just in the afternoon. It will start at 11.30 and end about 5.30. The theme is London and Military Conflict – running in time from the Civil War of the 17 century up to London in the Blitz of 1940-41.

Tickets (which include afternoon tea) cost £2 and can be obtained from Mr. H. E. Robins, 3 Cameron House, Highland Road, Bromley, Kent, Please include a SAE.

 

ALL ABOUT PEOPLE…

…the HADAS coachload which enjoyed the August outing (see Mary O’Connell’s report below)  all delighted to welcome again two HADAS stalwarts who have been a bit under the weather lately – Mrs. Banham and Mrs. Mason, now both recovered and back to joining in the Society’s activities.

Good news too that GEORGE INGRAM continues his recovery. He reports that, aided by magnifiers, he can read printed pages„ but he still has to solve the problem of writing, and of reading handwritten notes.

George tells us that another HADAS member of long standing, FREDA WILKINSON, hopes to have her eye operation (like George, she has for some time been wrestling with the difficulities of deteriorating sight) towards the end of August. We all wish her very well.

Sympathy and good wishes are also in order for one of our younger members, MARION NEWBURY, who succumbed, early last month, to chicken pox – which, if you don’t get rid of it in childhood, can be a most painful and unpleasant illness. By the time you read this we hope Marion will be well on the road to recovery.

Finally, news from quite a different front. Congratulations to two HADAS members, JEAN SNELLING and LYNN HARVEY, who this summer successfully completed the three years of the London University external Certificate in Field Archaeology at, Barnet College, both passing their final year exams with Merit.

 

AUGUST OUTING                                                   Report by Mary O’Connell

Perfect weather, Dorothy’s varied and well-planned programme and Colin’s calm and efficient driving combined to produce a day of sheer enjoyment for the coach load of HADAS voyagers on Saturday August 13th.

Sweets and leaflets had just had time to circulate when we pulled into the 815 acre site of Rothampstead Experimental Farm. Founded in 1843 by agricultural reformer, John Lawes, it is famous world-wide and its scientific experiments into soil and grain improvements draw 3000 visitors a year.

Flints turned up on a previously wooded corner of Broadbalk field in 1937 caused the Director, Sir John Russell, to call in the St.Alban’s and Hertfordshire Archaeological Society. They uncovered a walled area approximately 100′ x 100′ with two cremation burials within it (100 – 125 AD) and a central altar or shrine (similar to the Romano-Celtic temple excavated (1934) at Verulamium four miles to the south.). The few remaining pottery fragments were viewed before we continued through the Hertfordshire countryside to Ashwell. Here refreshments were served by the village ladies and the small but delightful museum was explored. Lying close to, the Icknield Way, Ashwell had been an important market town held by the Abbot., of Westminster from 930 AD until the Dissolution, (traces of his manor house were found under the present rectory).The town paid tithes and dues to Westminster (just as Hendon did) and consequently became staunchly Protestant when the monks’ hold was loosened.

The office used by the Abbot’s steward for the collection of taxes, monitoring of trade and storing of grain and wool later became known as the Town House. In 1930 a restoration fund started by two school boys saw the opening of the house as a local museum with a varied and un-stuffy collection ranging from a bushel-and-“strike” (a strip of wood for levelling off a measure) to a mummified black rat – the carrier of the plague which was to reduce Ashwell’s importance and leave the population at 2,000 – as it is today.

Next a 15th century double lichgate led us to St.Mary’s Church where  the rector greeted us first with information about their annual post-Easter music festival and of. Sunday teas and evensong, to which all visitors were welcome. He went on to describe his church. Built 1250-1350 it has survived as a “whole” and is remarkably light. The clerestory windows, off-set for economy, contain medallions of salvaged mediaeval glass. The great east window was originally

a memorial to Becket (a bill for it can been in Westminster Abbey). The amount of graffiti on the pillars and walls is unique. There are quotations, comments on plaque and storm and drawings – the finest being a detailed scratching of the first St.Paul’s Cathedral.

In recent years the church has been adorned with banners and a crowned madonna alta-tapestry for the Lady chapel made by skilled weaver, Mr. Percy Sheldrake, who retired to Ashwell to live as a hermit. Also a set of paintings of the Virgin of Ashwell was contributed by a badly crippled local artist. You can sense that the church and the village are permeated by a feeling of corporate purpose and pride. There are so many well preserved historic buildings and the mill has been restored to working order.

There are also natural springs in the chalk producing on average 1 1/3rd million gallons of water per day, never warmer than 52°. These are the source of the Cam which joins the Ouse at Ely and flows into the Wash (65 miles away). Rare flat worms, half an inch long, survivors of the Ice Age, are to be found here – apparently!

I am sure that I am not alone in my resolve to revisit Ashwell to study this pretty friendly village at leisure.

Back on the coach, Dorothy’s commentary now guided us through the fenland.

past: Sandy – a 7 acre roman enclosure and now HQ of R.S.P.B.

Tempsford – scene of a Danish battle

Sawtry – whose unfrocked priest was burned at Smithfield in 1401 as a follower of Wykeliffe.

 

 

Norman Cross – which marks a Napoleonic POW camp

Elton Hall – where Henry VIII’s signed prayer book and bible are to be found and  Oundle – the public school for 600 boys

And so to Ashton where Brian Dix in charge of the excavation, conducted us round the site which is a section of a small Roman town by the River Nene.

Since 1960 field-walking and aerial photography have shown street grids and properties. Opened up in 1971 and worked by amateurs and summer-school trainees, buildings of an industrial nature were revealed. The timber frame buildings of 50AD became two storey dwellings on a masonry base with evidence of hearths and iron-working. Thatch and tiles have been found also deep wells and lead tanks. Occupation lasted till late 14th century. The streets had been re-surfaced and repaired nine times and levelled on either side to boundary ditches. The cambered layering exactly resembled the cross-section illustration found in so many school text-books.

Ashton could well have started as a military supply camp placed at a strategic river crossing, or to control traffic on deep water.

Mr. Dix reckons that the selected trenching should be completed by October this year, before the by-pass is built. As a final, poignant link with the past he led us to where some past inhabitants lay bonily exposed in their shallow, stone-lined graves.

A short drive took us on to Godmanchester where the WI provided “the cup that cheers”. The Mayor came in to welcome us to the town exhibition and Paddy promptly initiated his worship into the advantages of starting a town-trail: found the church rather dank and devoid of informative literature, but on such a summer evening the Chinese bridge, the waterside dwellings and the scone–scoffing aquatic flotilla provided a picturesque finale to our day.

 

SITES TO WATCH

During the last month or so the following proposals have appeared on the planning application lists of the London Borough of Barnet. Should the applications be approved, the sites might have some archaeological interest, so we would greatly appreciate a tip-off if any member passing one of these sites notices any development activity. Please ring Elizabeth Sanderson (950 3106) and let her know:

Convent of St. Mary at the Cross, Hale Lane,                                                                    Outline application to erect

Edgware                                                                                                                         houses and flats

Old Red Lion, Underhill, Barnet                                                                                              Front/side extensions to building

879 High Road, N12                                                                                                                         Warehousing

195 Edgwarebury Lane                                                                                                            Side, front, rear extensions

23 Parsons Crescent, Edgware                                                                                          ditto

63 Edgwarebury Lane                                                                                                     Front/side extensions

100 Edgwarebury Lane                                                                                                  Rear/front extensions

 

Text Box: CONTD.

 

  
13 Westview Gardens, Elstree

Surplus land at Queen Elizabeth’s Girls School, Barnet

Site of Waterfall Sports Club, Pymmes Green. Road, N11

St.Mary’s Abbey, The Ridgeway, NW7

 Side/Rear extensions

7 houses/ ancillary works

Outline applications to build maisonettes

Amended plan for new 2/3 storey block.
 

 

  

HADLEY WOOD DIG

Work continues at Hadley Wood during the weekends and it is hoped to open up a new trench to continue the section. All members a welcome – please telephone Brian Wrigley (959 5982) or Victor Jones (458 6180) to confirm times and obtain directions.

REMINDER…SUBSCRIPTIONS…REMINDER

Some subscriptions are still outstanding and should be paid as soon as possible please to Membership Secretary, Phyllis Fletcher,  27 Decoy Avenue, NW11 OES.

**

MORE WORK FOR THE WINTER

Last month we mentioned some of the courses available for students next winter –particularly post-Diploma and Diploma and Certificate courses. This month you may like a rundown on some WEA and similar courses in or near our Borough.

In Totteridge at Owens Adult Education Centre, 20 Chandos Avenue, N20, on Fridays from September 30th at 10.00 a.m. Western Archaeology – The Greeks. Lecturer -Tony Rook BSc.

At Haverstock School, Haverstock Hill, NW3, Tuesdays from Septembei 27th at

7 p.m. Archaeology tf the Later Roman Empire. A.C.King BA.

At Elstree Community Centre, Allum Lane, Elstree, Tuesdays from September 27th 7.30? p.m. Roman Britain. A.R.Wilmot, MA.

In Golders Green, 27 Rotherwick Road, NW11, Thursdays starting September 22nd

8 p.m. Medieval Archaeology. Miss J. Mattingly, BA.

At Southgate, United Reform Church premises, Fox Lane, N13, Wednesdays starting September 21st, 10.00 a.m. Greek Archaeology. Miss F. Cameron, MA.

At Edgware Friends Meeting , Rectory Lane, Mondays from September 26th, 10.30 a.m. Gardens through the Ages (from Tudor to Gertrude Jekyll). Lona Price, a National Trust Lecturer on gardens.

At Mill Hill, Union Church small hall, The Broadway, NW7, Tuesdays from September 27th, 10.30 a.m. London, the History and the Art (1509-1901). Cornelia Murray Philipson,


 Same venue, Thursdays from September 29th, 8 p.m. Aviation at Hendon: the Men, the Machines and the Museum. Michael C. Tagg (Curatorial Officer at the RAF Museum, Hendon).

At Barnet,
10.00 a.m.

 At the Council Offices, Wood Street, Tuesdays from September 27th, History and Practice of Architecture. David Mansfield Thomas.

 

At Friern
September

 Barnet, Assembly Rooms, 321 Colney Hatch Lane, N11, Wednesdays from 21st, 2 p.m. Britain’s Historic Houses. Mrs.Pamela Dormer.

 

Same venue, Thursdays from September 22nd at 10.00 a.m. Ancient Egypt: Art and Architecture. Mrs. Clare Abbott.

At North Finchley, 1 Woodberry Way, N12, Mondays from September 26th at 8 p.m. Classical Greece in 5th c. BC. Colin Matheson, BA.

At Hendon Library, The Burroughs, NW4. Wednesdays from September 28th at 7.30 p.m. An introduction to Ancient Egypt – history, art and religion. Stephanie Gee, MA.

Basic fees for 24 lecture courses are usually around f23-24. OAPs  £15-16. There are often much reduced special fees for the unemployed (e.g. £4.80) for 24 lectures at Mill Hill classes). Arrangements for enrolment vary, but it is usually possible to enrol (if places are still available) at the first two lectures of the term. advice about enrolment please ring Brigid Grafton Green (455 9040) for further information.

**

SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS IN OUR VILLAGE                                                                                     Isobel McPherson

In August 1908, the newly formed Finchley Co-Partnership Society purchased part of the Grass Park Estate from the freeholder, Mr.J.C.Williamson. It lay in a sheltered valley just east of the Dollis brook on the border with Hendon and the Co-Partnership intended to build there a development of small, traditional houses around a village green. Unlike most other schemes of its kind it provided for joint ownership of the land but individual ownership of the houses, which were to be designed by Frank Stratton, a partner in the local firm of Bennett and Stratton. Stratton’s attractive small houses can be seen, and easily recognised, in other parts of Finchley but Village Road

(‘The Village’ to most people) is his real memorial. Stratton was himself a member of the society and lived until his death in one of the houses. A pillar on the green bears his name and those of villagers who died in the two world wars.

The Co-Partnership remained in being until 1939 by which time the individual freeholds had been sold and during these thirty years firm restrictive covenants ensured that the character of the village remained unchanged. In 1941 the central green was taken over by the council and in 1955 a metalled public road replaced the rough track under private, village control. Stratton’s. houses, varied in detail but drawn into cohesion be careful siting and by the governing ‘village’ style were robustly built under the close supervision of the architect. The first twelve were occupied in 1909 and building was virtually complete by the outbreak of the First World War, so the village grew up in what is regarded as the best period for small house construction in England. Modern surveyors shake their heads over some of the features – huge barn-like lofts with no supporting purlins, for example –

but Stratton’s local knowledge and the high standard of materials and workmanship at that time ensured their survival.

 During the Second World War two houses were destroyed and most of the others suffered damage but after repair the fifty-two homes on the fringe of the irregular green looked much as their designer intended – and still-: o so, though they :Went through a difficult period before BBC designated the; village a Conservation:Area in November 1978. Various factors – a taste for novelty, the high cost of sand-surfaced tiles and timber,– the sheer impossibility of replacing exactly some window-frames and outside fittings – were responsible

for the decline, which seems to have been arrested in time to save the integrity of the Village. The houses, according to the original Schedule of Restrictive

Covenants were to be of minimum value of £300 (prime cost in labour and materials); one house has passed down through five generations of the same family. An excellent investment!

Thanks to the hoarding instincts of the villagers, the long lives and excellent memories of older residents (13 nonagenarians and several close-run centuries) and the dedicated research work of Miss Peggy Wells, the records of Village Road, Finchley, are remarkably complete. These include a Schedule of Deeds and Documents from September 1910 to April 1933, copies of the original covenant and the original Co-Partnership Share Certificate, house plans, details of construction, tree felling, ditch filling and old rights of way. One note says that the Village children ‘used to light the methane gas on the marshy ground’ below Windsor Road. We have a list of five marriages where both bride and groom were brought up here. Until most people had cars, village life was busy and enterprising. Societies flourished, with Tennis Courts at the back of No.21 (on the old course of the brook) an Operatic Society which never needed an outside soloist, several instrumental groups. During the annual Village Fete, which was held between 1911 and about 1927, the children took part in various open air plays under the direction of Jack Hutchinson who went on to a distinguished career as an actor, professionally known as Stephen Jack. He is still remembered piping the rats, then the merry children, out of the village and into the trees by the brook.

Mr.Hutchinson and Miss Wells are the chief recorders of the village history, having lived virtually all their lives herb. Mr. Hutchinson’s memoir of early village life is full of evocative detail and should certainly be published

one day. The place has always attracted artists, actors and musicians, but with a fair mixture of ‘ordinary folk’ among the illustrious.

Even when the Annual Fete lapsed, a tradition of Village Festivals continued and this Anniversary, year we shall be welcoming back residents from a distance who remember, as children, acting or playing in hay-houses on the green (in fact, we are always welcoming ,them. ‘Excuse me, I used to live in this house seventy five years ago’ says a stranger at the garden gate). We keep a low profile on these occasions, since space and resources are limited, but it

will be a proud occasion when the Rt. Rev. Cyril Tucker, CBE, Bishop in Argentina ’63-’75, Bishop of the Falkland Islands ’63-’76 opens the festivities, remembering the days when he was simply ‘one of the Tucker twins at 22 Village Road’.

 

BOOK REVIEW                                                                                                                                                        by Bill Firth

“Milk for the Millions” by Brigid Grafton Green. Published by Barnet Libraries. Local History Publications, price 50p.

This is the latest of the Barnet Libraries Local History Publications and is an account of the activities of the Express Dairy in the Borough of Barnet. The author’s name and her known interest in the subject are really recommendation enough, a review hardly seems necessary but I have agreed to do it so here goes.The account starts with a brief history of the company which George Barham founded in 1864 although there had been a dairy business for thirty years or so before ‘ that. It is a classic story of Victorian success, By the 1880s the company had two dairy farms in what is now the borough of Barnet – one was the well known College Farm, Finchley; the other was the dairy at Kenwood. Later there were

two others, Frith Manor, Woodside Park and Tithe Farm, Mill Hill but College Farm was the showpiece and a large part of the booklet is taken up with the develop­ments and innovations there.

There are other important connections in the borough too – the Cricklewood bottling plant, the central laboratories at Colindale, the first Express Dairy self-service shop – it’s all there.

Two points puzzle me – first there are two references (one is a quotation, the other may refer to one) to College Farm being four miles and later, five. miles from Central London – the farm gate is about 4  miles along the turnpike from Regents Park which is hardly Central London. Perhaps this is licence on the part of earlier authors (not the present one). Secondly there is a picture of a Radar controlled electric delivery vehicle of 1933. I thought Radar was a secret invention and only of military application until after World War II

Many HADAS members  are familiar with College Farm and many must know of its Express Dairy connections. However, it is nearly 10 years since the company left and there  must be an increasing number of people who do not know. these: things. Whether you think you know it or not, buy this publication, it is a marvellous piece of local history.

The Barham family lived in Wembley and are commemorated in Barham Park which is part of the grounds of .their mansion. Despite their activities in Barnet, until now they seem to have been unrecognised here. Brigid Grafton Green has done them proud.

 

MILK FOR THE MILLIONS is available from HADAS or from any Barnet Library.

 

CHURCH FARM HOUSE MUSEUM

The next exhibition at the museum on show from 10th September – 18th December is entitled “VANITY FAIR 1869-1914″, and shows paintings, proofs and prints from the John Franks Collection.

This is an important collection of material relating to the famous 19th century weekly magazine “Vanity Fair”, which through its memorable caricatures recorded the great changes in English society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

(The museum in open on weekdays, except Tuesdays, from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. – 5.30 p.m. on Tuesdays from 10 a.m. – I p.m. and on Sundays from 2 p.m. — 5.30 p.m.).
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Newsletter-132-February-1982

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Newsletter-132-February-1982

 


Newsletter 132                      February 1982
HADAS DIARY

Tues Feb 2nd excavations on Guernsey. Lecture by Dr Ian Kinnes at Hendon Library. Coffee 8 p.m., Lecture 8.30.

This is our second attempt at the lecture scheduled for Nov 3rd last year which had to be cancelled owing to an accident to our speaker. Dr Kinnes is Assistant Keeper of the Dept. of Prehistoric and Romans – British Antiquities at the British Museum. He will be well known to many members as a lecturer at their Extramural Diploma classes. His subject will be the Neolithic excavation cn Guernsey which he began in 1979 and completed last year.

Tues Mar 2nd         Frozen Tombs of Siberia. Lecture by Kenneth Whitehorn

Tues Apr 6th      Prehistoric Burial rites in Britain. Lecture by Professor Grimes. Admission by ticket

Tues Apr 24th       21st Birthday Party further details in this issue

 

Sat  Feb 13th  at 10a.m. Roman Group. An outing is planned to the Bruce Castle Museum, Tottenham, to view a Roman kiln, lifted from Highgate Wood. Please phone Tessa Smith (958 9159) if you wish to come along and for further details, including car pick-up points.

Thurs Feb 18th at 8p.m. Documentary Group meeting at 33 Denman Drive NW11.

Anyone who would like to join the group will be welcome, but please let Nell Penny (458 1689) know if you intend to come.

WELCOME TO NEW MEMBERS….

…. who have joined HADAS since we last published a “welcoming” notice back last August:

Mr and Mrs Arnold and Daniel, Stanmore; Susan Baker, N10; Robert Bard, Elstree; Howard Bowdler, Mill Hill; Brian Cobb, Garden Suburb; Nina Feldman, Hampstead; Naomi Ford, Kilburn; Mr and Mrs Gilson, Whetstone;

Mr & Mrs Gregory, New Southgate; Steve Herman, NW1; H N Hesp, Finchley; Mrs Jacques, Garden Suburb; Louise Kenton, NW6; David Lightowler, Hendon; Peter Lucas, Golders Green; Dorothy. Rothstein, Hendon; Tessa Speare, Mill Hill; Nina Turnsek, Finchley, Mrs Tyler, Garden Suburb; Dominic Ward, Hendon; M D Webber, Archway; Stewart Wild, Finchley.

We are also happy to have added two more schools to the corporate membership: Holloway School, at which HADAS member Aubrey Hodes teaches and leads an archaeological group; and St James’ School, Grahame Park, where long-standing HADAS member Mary O’Connell is a teacher.

 

 


TWENTY-ONE THIS YEAR

Although we propose celebrating our 21st birthday all through 1982 (after all, you can’t have too much of a good thing) one highspot will undoubtedly be next April, the anniversary month. The founding meeting took place on April 19, 1961, and subsequently the inauguration Of the Society was back-dated

by the first Committee to April 1 of that year.

Our President, Professor Grimes, has as. you know kindly accepted an invitation to deliver the April lecture. To avoid any risk of exceeding the permitted number atterding on April 6th, and our having to turn members away, we have decided to issue tickets for this lecture. These will be obtainable at the February and March lectures, or on application to Dorothy Newbury, 55 Sunningfields Road, Hendon N.W.4.

On  Saturday, April 24th our birthday party will be held at St Jude’s Church Hall; Central Square, Hampstead Garden Suburb. It will be attended by the Mayor of Barnet, HADAS Vice-President Mrs Rosa Freedman. The time has now come to let you into some of the secrets of this exciting event.

The evening will consist of a buffet party, during which varied enter­tainment will be offered. Tickets will cost £7.50 including wine. Many members have already enquired anxiously how soon they will be on sale, so possibly they may go like hot cakes. They will be available from February 2nd before the lecture, or on application, with remittance, to Dorothy Newbury 55 Sunningfields Road N.W.4 and will be allocated on a “first come, first served” basis. There is, alas, a limit to the number who can be fitted into the hall and the party will have to be restricted to members only.

The Mayor will arrive at 7 pm and other guests are asked to be there bet­ween 6.30 – 6.45. The buffet is to be an historical one and we hope that members will adapt their dress to meet the same time-scale as the recipes which will be served. This ranges from the time of the Emperor Tiberius (14­ – 37 AD) to the start of the First World War (bustles and all that). We are, by the way, extremely–sorry that we are not offering any prehistoric dishes in the buffet: but the problems of cooking a soup by throwing in heated pot­boilers or making a stew in a sheepskin stretched between four poles has proved difficult to achieve in Hampstead Garden Suburb – even for the talented Corps of HADAS Cooks.

What we are trying to say is: don’t come dressed as usual. Be ingenious and add to the gaiety of the occasion be wearing something different, preferably historical – or even just a funny hat. How about sporting a wimple or a snood, a helmet or a stove-pipe? Or you could do worse than just toss your toga or tunic into the washing machine and turn up in Roman style again. However you choose to come, there will be a warm – and, we hope, delicious- welcome.

TESTING THE WATERS AT BARNET: Pt. II

 

In the December Newsletter we published a report on HADA’s visit to Barnet physic well. On that occasion TED SAMMES took samples of the well-water for analysis: below is his report.

All spring and well waters contain dissolved mineral matter to some extent. This has been obtained from the “rocks” through which the water has travelled from the land surface to the interior and back to the surface.

The water of Barnet Physic Well is no exception. The analysis of the sample taken on 6 November 1981 showed the water to have the following composition in milligrams per litre.

Magnesium sulphate                                                         1250 (Epsom Salts)

Calcium sulphate                                                                 480

Calcium carbonate                                                               300

Sodium chloride                                                                  180

Sodium sulphate                                                                    50           (Glaubers Salts)

Potassium sulphite                                                                 40

Total dissolved solids                                                        2508

Total hardness                                                                   1665

Temporary hardness due to calcium carbonate                 305
Acidity pH 8.2 alkaline

Our Bacteriologist concluded that due to slight faecal contamination the water would not be classed as satisfactory for drinking without chlorination. I was first down the steps and took the samples into sterile bottles before the rest of the party descended. The conclusion is not surprising, since the water was very still (we visited in a dry period) and its level only about 10-12 feet below the present land surface. In such conditions contamination could easily have crept in.

Jane Butler in HADAS Newsletter No 48*, February 1975, reported an analysis made by Dr Trinder in 1812 (I have converted his results, given in grains per gallon, to milligrams per litre, by multiplying by 14.28).

Magnesium sulphate                                                          1370

Calcium sulphate                                                                 343

Calcium carbonate                                                               228

Magnesium chloride                                                            171

Extractive matter                                                                 100

(I assume this last item is material he could not identify)

For the first three chemicals the two analyses show surprising agreement. Taking the major constituent, Epsom Salts, the dose range in the British Pharmacopoiea is 5 to 15 grams. To obtain the minimum dose one would need to drink in the region of 4 litres (7 pints)!

Pepys visited Barnet on 11 July 1664 and recorded what he drank:-

“Thence I and Will to see the Wells, half a mile off, and there I drank three

glasses and walked and came back and drunk two more; the woman would have had –

me drink three more but I could not, and so we rode home,”. If his glasses

were pint ones it makes a lot of sense.

The craze for well waters started in the 17th century and continued into the early 19th century to be killed off by the craze for sea-bathing.

In fact the date quoted for Dr Trinders analysis in HADAS Newsletter 48 was 1912; but in Newsletter 51 Jane Butler corrected this to 1812. Tunbridge Wells was discovered in 1606 by the then ailing Lord North who recognised in the water a similarity to that which he had seen at Spa in the Low Countries some years previously. Barnet was discovered in 1650 and was advertised in the Perfect Diurnal of 5 June 1652. Pepys second visit was on 11 August 1667 when he afterwards went to the Red Lion.

There were other wells in our vicinity at Hampstead, which was chalybeate (iron bearing). Kilburn was partly so and other wells have been noted at Cuffley, Welwyn, Totteridge, Muswell Hill, Islington and Sadlers Wells. As time progressed these became amusement parks with a well/spring and many died out.

That famous traveller Celia Fiennes, visited Barnet, but finding the well full of leaves and the water coming up dirty when drawn, did not drink.

Barnet survived until 1840 when it was demolished only to be resurrected in the early 20th century as a curiosity!

For further,reading:

Wise B.                                                         Bulletin of the Barnet & District

Local History Society. Nov. 1976,

Addison W.                                                 English Spas. Batsford 1951.

Potter G.                                                       Hampstead Wells., pub. 1904.

Reprinted Camden History Society 1978.

Note:

 Melville L.
Pepys S.

Butler J.

 Society at Tunbridge Wells. Published Eveleigh Nash. 1912

Diary & Correspondence. Vol.III,

Braybrooke. 1876 or Wheatley H.. 1949. Vol. IV.

The Physic Well at Barnet. H.A.D.A.S. Newsletter No.48. Feb 1975.

 

For anyone curious enough to search out the site of the Kilburn Well its site is within the angle formed by Kilburn High Road and Belsize Road. In 1947 there was still a stone tablet let into the wall recording this fact.

My thanks are due to the Directors of Weston Research Laboratories Ltd for permission to carry out this work.

SAXON AND NORMAN LONDON

Ann Saunders reports on the January Lecture:

In an outstandingly interesting and informative lecture, John Clark, author of the Museum: of London’s excellent booklet, Saxon and Norman London, gave us an account of the history of the city between the fifth and the thirteenth centuries – a period which he said, he felt to be the most intriguing in all London’s past. He began by describing Britain after the Roman withdrawal of troops in 410 A.D. Left undefended the Anglo-Saxons began to arrive, first as invaders and then as settlers. At its best, theirs was an Iron Age civilisation they shunned towns, preferring to live in the countryside. Roman London, which may well have been experiencing a recession as early as the second half of the fourth century, despite its new and elaborate river wall, fell into decay. With its twin purposes of government and trade both in abeyance, it must have become a ghost town with a population of near-squatters living within the walls which no longer encircled anything worth protecting. The progressive dilapidation of the Roman house excavated at Billingsgate demonstrated that London decay was gradual and that there was no sudden, violent catastrophe.

By the eighth century, there had been a resurgence. The Venerable Bede, writing about 730 A.D., described the city as ‘the mart of many nations’; by the third quarter of the ninth century, Alfred the Great had halted the Viking invasions; he proceeded to put the walls of London in good repair. Officials, such as the port-reeve, later known as the sheriff, and the aldermen, made an appearance; city life was regulated by the folk-moot and the busting. The contingent from London acquitted itself well at the battle of Hastings and the Londoners were able to drive their own bargain with William the Conqueror. By the 1140s, their descendants were beginning to assert their right to elect a mayor and to form themselves in­to a self-governing commune, a right that was confirmed by King John shortly before he was constrained to sign Magna Carta. The City Seal was struck, showing St. Paul with drawn sword against a background of imposing buildings.

Mr Clark then described how the medieval city adopted a noble origin for itself; – Geoffrey of Monmouth’s version of its foundation by the much travelled Brutus as New Troy. He concluded, more realistically with William FitzStephen’s proud description of the city which he knew and loved and which had nurtured Thomas a Becket; a city with good government, fine buildings, energetic apprentices skating on the ice-covered marsh beyond Moorgate, and an excellent ‘take-away restaurant’ beside the river, should its citizens need to deal with unexpected guests; a city of which it could truly be said that it spreads its fame wider, sends its wealth and wares further, and lifts its head higher than all others.

POSTER COMPETITION FOR JUNIOR MEMBERS   A note from BRYAN HACKETT, our Junior representative

As 1982 is the 21st anniversary of the foundation of HADAS, we hope to involve as many members as possible in the celebrations. School members (4 schools are corporate members of HADAS) have been asked to take part in a poster competition to produce a poster on an archaeological or historical theme. The title chosen is ‘Scenes from History,” and artists can choose to illustrate any period either in prehistoric or historic times, from early cave-dwellers down to a scene from industrial archaeology of the turn of this century.

Individual Junior (under-18) members are also eligible to enter the competition and this is a cordial invitation to them to do so.

The rules are:

1.     Posters should be either double crown (20″ x 30″ or crown size (15″ x 20″).

2.     They can be the work of a group of students in a school or of an individual artist.

.3.        Each school can submit several entries if it wishes individual Junior members of HADAS may submit up to three designs each.

4.     Entries should reach Mrs Grafton Green by March 31, 1982.

As regards School members, HADAS will provide a prize, worth £10, for the school from which the winning entry comes. As regards Junior members, there will be a small prize if a Junior member wins.

A selection of entries will, it is hoped, be on show at the 21st Birthday party on April 24, 1982, which will be attended by the Mayor of Barnett Mrs Rosa Freedman. It is also hoped to show entries at the AGM in Hendon Library on May 11, 1982.

If any problems or difficulties arise in connection with the competitIon please contact the Hon. Secretary.

BITS AND BOBS

HADAS member Dr Ann Saunders, who talked to us in November about the history or Marylebone, will be lecturing on, Feb 16 at Bedford College, Regents Park, NW1, on “Marylebone Park 1537 – 1811.” Lecture starts at 5.15, but if you go along a bit earlier you can have a free tea, being served from 4.30 on! HADAS members, Dr. Saunders assures us, will be most welcome.

Many thanks to the, members who kindly responded to the invitation in the December Newsletter to help re-instate Barnet Museum: Alec Gouldsmith, Brigid Grafton Green, Audrey Hooson, Isobel McPherson, Andrew and Joan Pares, and Linda Webb. Their names have been passed to the Curator, Bill Taylor, who asks us to express his thanks and to say he will be in touch with volunteers in the next month or so to give details of when and what, help is needed. Meantime if any other members would like to add their names to the list, please let Brigid Grafton Green know.

In–the October newsletter we mentioned the special-interest group which Mrs Beatrice Shearer is hoping to form for everyone working on documents concerned with population history in London – parish registers, census records,. manor court records, surveys, etc.

The inaugural meeting of this group will be held on Sat. Feb 6 at the Museum of Landon from 10.30 – 12.30. There is an open invitation to all interested local historians to attend.

Congratulations to HADAS member Andrew Pares who was awarded the CBE in the New Year Honours, for political and public service in London. Mr Pares and his wife, Joan, joined the Society seven years ago and have been keen supporters of our lectures and other activities ever since. Mrs Pares is one of the hard-working team which has been processing the West Heath finds. Mr Pares, who still holds many offices in voluntary bodies in the.. Borough, was:Mayor of Barnet in 1976-7, and in that capacity officially opened the HADAS exhibition “Archaeology in Action” at Church Farm House Museum on Feb 19 1977. He was the inspiration and founder-chairman of the Barnet Voluntary Service Council, to which we are affiliated. We rejoice with him in this well-earned honour.

 

Dear Editor,

The account in the HADAS December. Newsletter of Anthony Salvin and his work was most interesting. Your readers may like to know that Salvin designed ‘two schools in what is now the borough of Haringey. One, St James’, Tetherdown, in Muswell Hill was demolished some years ago, but the other, St Michael’s Primary School, Highgate (1852) can be seen today from North Road. Salvin’s original buildings have been recently converted to a nursery, and infant section, a new junior school having been constructed a little distance away, and the facade including the belfry restored.

Yours sincerely,
JOAN SCHWITZER

Chairman, Hornsey Historical Society.

The Old Schoolhouse,

136 Tottenham Lane,

London N8

The Museum of London’s spring programme contains details of further – interesting “Workshops” on forthcoming Thursdays at 1.10 pm in the Education Department of the Museum, including:

Feb 4             The Work of a Paper Conservator                             John Bayne

11       Palaeolithic Flints from Yiewsley                              David Longden

18        Preserving our Textile Heritage                                 Kay Staniland

25       London Pottery – 1150-1350                                     Alan Vince

Mar 4 “Penny, Cheap & Nasty” – the Ernest King Collection     Christine Johnstone,

 11  Creating an exhibition: London’s Flying Start”                   Colin Manton

18 Animal Remains from London Archaeological Sites  Philip Armitage

25 The Taking of Snuff                                                        Tessa Murdoch

All those in charge of Workshops are members of the Museum staff.

And should you be in the Museum, don’t forget to look in on “London’s Flying Start”, where there is much to interest members in the recent history of our Borough. The exhibition goes on until May 9. Admission charges are adults 60p; children, students and pensioners, 30p.

 

HOW OLD IS THE MANOR HOUSE

HADAS members, under the leadership of Paddy Musgrove, have been excavating the cellar passage at Manor House, East End Road. A report is being prepared.

EXCAVATIONS AT FINCHLEY 1978-79 Pt.1               Report by Paddy Musgrove

The Background

The Victorian rectory of St. Mary-at-Finchley, Hendon Lane, N3, designed by Anthony Salvin, (1) was demolished in 1973 (2) and replaced by a modern rectory in the western portion of the then extensive gardens. Surface finds made during the rebuilding period included 17th century stoneware and a number of small yellow paving bricks, similar to those found elsewhere in the Borough of Barnet (e.g. at Burroughs Gardens and Church Terrace, Hendon) and thought by the Guildhall Museum to be of 13th/14th century date (3). Some of these were found in isolation; others had been reused, together with bricks of much more recent date, to make a garden path for the Victorian rectory.

When the Rev. T. Reader-White, founder of Christ’s College, was appointed rector in 1848, one of his first acts was to demolish the old rectory, then standing in what is now Rectory Close, and to build his new rectory on land to the north, known as the “Old Orchard” (4). The Tithe Map of 1841 shows the old building was of eccentric plan and abutting onto the boundary of the church­yard directly facing the tower of the church (Fig. 1).

Reader White’s predecessor, Ralph Worsley, whose wife inherited Moss Hall, chose to live in Nether Street rather than in the old rectory (5)  a possible reflection of the age or condition of the building, of which we have various descriptions.

C. O. Banks, in a manuscript “index” held in the Borough of Barnet’s Local History Collection, states that the old rectory was “a whitewashed house that stood facing the west tower of the church”. He further records that “in the spring of 1939 Frank Marcham wanted to sell 2 very fine water colours of the back view of the rectory looking from the corner of the north outside aisle at the west end, It stood in a direct line facing the tower and overlooking the churchyard. The red bricks of the east side of the rectory formed the boundary of the churchyard”. Unfortunately, we are not told the date of Frank Marcham’s pictures, nor do we know where they are today.

The V.C.H. tells us that “the parsonage house, mentioned in 1476, stood near the church and in 1810 was chiefly built of timber, with roofs of slate and tiles”, while Alfred D. Cheney, writing about John Spendlove (Finchley’s own notorious “Rector of Bray”, who died in 1581) records that “the old rectory where he resided (a long, low-ceilinged, thatch-roofed building) stood within the grounds of the present modern (i.e. Victorian – P.M.) edifice, but much nearer the road.” (6)

Although the descriptions vary widely, their references to the positioning of the building are all compatible with its location shown on the 1841 Tithe Map. The odd outline shown in that map could well indicate a building assembled in bits and pieces over a long period and appearing to both Ralph Worsley and Reader White as of such antiquity or decrepitude as to persuade them to live elsewhere.

The relevance of all this to the trial trenches opened by HADAS in the rectory garden in 1978 lies in the fact that our investigations in the “Old Orchard”, reported below, yielded large quantities of dumped building materials which, although of different periods, had all been deposited in the mid-19th century, i.e. around the time of the demolishing of the old rectory and the building of Salvin’s new one.

The Excavation

During April and May of 1978, three small trenches (A, B and C in Figure 1) were opened, Trench A measured 4 metres by 2 metres and B and C were each 2 metres square. Their locations and dimensions were largely dictated by the need to avoid areas soon to be taken over by builders.

St Mary’s church contains a 12th century font (dug up in the rectory grounds (7) sometime last century and subsequently stored variously in the Church belfry, “the back garden of Mr Wells, Ballards Lane, … occupier of Mr Plowman’s House (builder)” (8), and the rectory stables. (9) The church itself is referred to in 1274 (10), but fragments of earlier Norman masonry are built into one wall. The purpose of the excavation was to seek further evidence of this early occupation.

In the event, pottery dating from the 12th century through to the present century was indeed found. The most common finds in all three trenches were, however, fragments of hand-made roofing tiles, bricks and other builders’ rubble including thick painted plaster from lath and plaster walls.

Trench A showed five separate layers of made-up material, but here, despite their substantial content of medieval and other pro-Victorian pottery, the creation of all these layers can be dated by clay pipes and blue-and-white crockery to the 19th century at earliest.

At the north of the site, the natural land surface slopes to the north­west down to the Dollis Brook and here, in trench C, it became clear that, also around the time the Victorian rectory was built, a substantial “terrace” was created along the slope of the hill, partly for garden landscaping, but also to provide level land around Salvin’s new rectory building.

Figure 2 shows a section of this “terrace” build-up exposed in trench C. The section of field drain shown was in situ. With exterior and interior diameters of 2½ ins. and 1½ ins., the pipe is of a type which came into use about the mid-1840s. (11) his drain (and probably others) would have been needed to prevent surface water being dammed up behind the new raised “terrace”. Also, from the same layer, a clay tobacco pipe made by George Andrews, who was working in Highgate in 1845, helps to establish the approximate earliest date of deposit. In this trench, as in trench A, medieval pottery was found at all levels, as also were objects of 19th century date. It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that the “terrace” was built up largely from materials deriving from the demolished early rectory.

For various reasons, including those of safety, it was not possible to excavate trench C to a depth, greater than 2.20 metres, but, as the drawn section shows, the natural clay beneath the “terrace” had been cut away at some period to form a pit or ditch with a very gradually sloping side. Being unable to determine the full extent and shape of the feature, we therefore can only speculate about its purpose. One possibility, however, is that it may have been dug to provide clay for brickmaking. Prior to about 1850, such shallow pits were customary, so as to facilitate the re-establishment of agricultural land. (12)

As trench C lay close to the boundary of the rectory garden, we decided to seek permission to open a trench at a later date in the garden of 33 Church Crescent in the hope of picking up this feature again. (In the spring of 1979 trench D – see Fig. 1 – was opened in Church Crescent and will be reported upon later.)

In the area of trench B we found that recent work by builders had removed all top soil, leaving only 21 cm., of dirty, yellow, gravelly clay on top of the undisturbed natural, but even this contained much rubble, together with oyster shells, post-medieval pottery and a single flint struck flake, one of five flakes of–probable Mesolithic origin found on the site.

These, together with the chief pottery and other finds, will be described in the second part of this report, which will also deal with the features discovered in trench D.

FOOTNOTES:

1.       Victoria History of the  County of Middlesex, Vol. VI

2.       Finchley Press, 8th June, 1973

3.       HADAS Newsletter, No. 29, July 1973

4.        Tithe Map 1841

5.       Victoria History Middx., VoL VI.

6.       Home Counties Magazine, Vol. III, 1901, p. 288.

7.       Guide displayed in St. Mary’s Church,.

8.       W. Bolton, Home Counties Magazine, Vol. XI, 1909, p. 75; A. Heal, ibid.

9.          Miss D. St. Hill Bourne, Finchley Society Newsletter, June 1972

10.        V. C. H., Middx., Vol VI

11.        Nigel Harvey, Fields Hedges and Ditches

12.        Survey of Bedfordshire;  Brickmaking, a History & Gazetteer; Bedfordshire County Council and Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England)