Past Newsletters

HADAS AGM

Tuesday 8th June 2010 at 8pm at Avenue House.There will be a slide presentation looking at last year’s digs at Hendon School & at the back of Church Farm Museum, the long weekend at Hereford and how we are getting on with St Mary’s Hendon cemetery recording.

HADAS DIARY

Sunday 11 July HADAS Summer Outing

Following last year’s successful Sunday outing, a Sunday has once again been chosen for
our next coach trip, a visit to Charles Darwin’s home in Kent. Recently and extensively
refurbished to celebrate two hundred years since the great man’s birth, the house and
gardens are superb. They have recently been submitted for consideration to be included on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites.
In the afternoon we go on to visit Lullingstone Roman Villa, another English Heritage
property that has undergone a top-class makeover in the last couple of years. There is
much more to see now than on our last visit in 1999.

Please book as soon as possible using the booking form enclosed.

12 July for 2 weeks – Digging with UCL on WWII bunker in Sunnyhill Park.

More details in the next Newsletter

HADAS long weekend to Norwich – Saturday 28 August to Wednesday 1 September.

There are still two places available. Apply to Don who is working hard for us; contact details at back of this Newsletter.

Galleries of Modern London – Launch Sue Willetts

Discover the story of the greatest city in the world at the Galleries of Modern London.

On 28 May 2010 the Museum of London unveils its spectacular £20 million Galleries of Modern London.
7000 objects, together with interactives, film and changing displays, transport visitors through London’s tumultuous history, rich with drama, triumph and near disaster. From the devastation of the Great Fire of 1666 to wonders of invention at the Great Exhibition in 1851,
the Suffragettes’ fight for voting rights to the fashions which made the sixties swing, the galleries are an experience of rebirth and renewal, of excess and struggle. They embody the creative spirit of the capital. Every artefact tells a personal story as Londoners reinvent their city and are changed by it.

Independents Day 2010. Andrew Selkirk

The Council for Independent Archaeology will be holding its next meeting in Waltham Abbey on Saturday, 14th August 2010, and I hope that many members of HADAS will be able to attend.

The Council for Independent Archaeology, which was established in 1985, sets out to promote the interests of independent archaeological societies, like HADAS. Its biannual weekend congresses alternate with one-day conferences which highlight the work of local societies in a particular region. This year, the one-day conference is being held at Waltham Abbey and is run by the very active Waltham Abbey Historical Society, and this will give an excellent opportunity to hear about the work of the Society and other societies in the area and to tell other societies what we are doing, and of the success of our evening classes.

Waltham Abbey itself has a fascinating history. The Abbey was originally intended to be the great church of King Harold who met an unfortunate end at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, but who was buried at Waltham Abbey. Following his death the abbey inevitably went into something of a decline, but a century later King Henry II, in a fit of multi-culturalism, decided it was time to put Harold back on the map again and to tell the Anglo-Saxons that they were really English too, so he re-founded the Abbey as an Augustinian foundation. Today only the nave of the church survives, but Peter Huggins carried out excavations there in the 1980s (see Current Archaeology 125). At the end of the Conference he will be leading a tour of the Abbey and the surrounding areas of the town.

The cost of the Conference is £15 which includes lunch, and full details can be found on the Council’s website www.independents.org.uk

I look forward to seeing a number of HADAS members there!

Death on the (Greco-Roman) Nile; Peter Pickering

Egyptian Funerary Practices 332BC-AD130

Our last lecture of the 2009-2010 season was by John Johnson of the Egyptian Exploration Society. Its theme was the interaction between native Egyptian culture and ideas of the afterlife and those of the Greeks and Romans.

Egypt was conquered by Alexander the Great in 332BC; his general Ptolemy established a dynasty which lasted for three centuries until Egypt became part of the Roman Empire. Ptolemy indeed hijacked the corpse of the dead Alexander, so that he could be buried next to where Ptolemy himself intended to be buried, rather than with the Macedonian kings in Vergina.

Although the language and literature of the rulers and settlers was Greek, as was their culture generally, their building projects were firmly Egyptian. Their coins were Greek, but the Ptolemies were represented in sculpture as Pharaohs in the traditional way. The practice of burial as mummies in coffins decorated inside and outside with traditional Egyptian iconography spread among the Greek population. Indeed, although the very elaborate mummification procedures which had ensured the status of the Pharaonic élite in the afterlife were lightened, they were available to much wider sections of the population (some of whom had Greek names and some Egyptian). Some tombs had both Egyptian and Greek paintings on their walls, while others contained many ‘loculi’ (recesses) with false doors – much cheaper than individual tombs.

Mr Johnson produced many fascinating, and indeed gruesome illustrations (including the sacrifice of a leg of a living calf) of his theme, a theme which was made more difficult because in the past archaeological exploration in Egypt had concentrated on the earlier periods, often removing Greco-Roman levels with little recording. He noted that Greek inscriptions on mummy cases were often misspelt, and wondered if that was because of ignorance by the craftsmen, or a subtle hint that they did not think too much of these immigrants and their strange language. He suggested that the famous ‘portraits’ on mummy cases found by Flinders Petrie and others were of types rather than actual individuals – a proposition which several in the audience found it hard to accept.

At the end of the period covered in the lecture, Hadrian had his favourite Antinous, who was drowned in the Nile, commemorated in Egyptianising statues. Our speaker wondered whether the god Antenociticus, with his shrine near Hadrian’s Wall, was in fact the deified Antinous.

Mr Johnson finished his lecture with a promotion of the Egypt Exploration Society, which has done so much to forward the study of ancient Egypt. Interested members can find more about it on www.ees.ac.uk.

SOME NOTES ON LECTURES AT THE LAMAS 47th ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF LONDON ARCHAEOLOGISTS

SATURDAY 13th MARCH 2010. MUSEUM OF LONDON Andy Simpson

After a few years in the very pleasant Museum of Docklands, it was still good to return to the refurbished education wing of the Museum of London for this year’s conference.

The Thames Discovery Programme; Finds, Floods and Fabulous FROGS

Natalie Cohen, Thames Discovery Programme

…the FROGS being members of the Foreshore Recording and Observation Group set up and trained in safe practice by the project. With some 300 volunteers covering the Greater London area, this is a three year, HLF funded programme, based at UCL and the LAARC facility of the Museum of London. See www.thamesdiscovery.org Running for 18 months already, the small professional team administering the project is led by Director Gus Milne. Features recorded being uncovered, and sometimes eroded, by the Thames include gridirons at Bermondsey (with causeway) Charlton, Isleworth (with causeway), and Custom House. At Fulham/Putney an 18th –century bridge abutment was recorded. The work of Gus Milne and Mike Webber on the Thames Archaeological Survey, 1995-99 (with which CoLAS were involved) has been invaluable. Time Team excavated at Vauxhall in 2000, with Neolithic pottery being found in front of the MI5 building there along with a second Neolithic or Bronze Age causeway bridge. Chelsea has yielded Mid-Saxon fish traps along with a trepanned Bronze Age human skull. At Fulham the wooden piles of a lost 18th century bridge were plotted.

At Charlton an impressive quantity of timbers from scrapped 18th/19th century ‘wooden walls’ warships were found neatly stacked at the site of Castles Ship breakers. At Burrell’s wharf an intriguing complete18th century burial of an adolescent was found, most unusually buried on the Foreshore. Where the giant transatlantic Brunel steamship Great Eastern was launched in 1859, remains of the launch platform were recorded. On line resources include, as part of a community research project, a ‘Riverpedia’ and ‘Frog Blog’. Groups are taking responsibility for their own sections of Foreshore, e.g. at Swan Drawdock, where the other side of the 18th century Putney Bridge footings were found which formed the former bridge between Putney and Fulham.

Dan Hounsell of Network Archaeology Ltd reported work on ‘Settlement activity along the Harefield – Southall pipeline’. This was advance work ahead of construction of a new pipeline, which revealed two previously undiscovered late Iron Age and early Roman farmsteads, superseded by Roman field ditches.

Roman Cemetery at Trinity Street, Southwark

Doug Killock, Pre-Construct Archaeology

Dated c. 180AD – late 4th/early 5th century, with a ditch running through the middle of the site, this was a mix of inhumations and cremations, with triangles of skulls placed in the ditch with pottery.

Much of the site was disturbed by recent basements, with a lot of work actually being carried out within a basement, though with some outside work. Glass vessels and a pot with carbonised seed were recovered, which included grape seeds and others not as yet identified. Also found was a lead strip-reinforced wooden coffin, dated 180 – 300AD, of a type not known outside of London, though examples also recovered in the eastern cemetery of Roman London. Grave goods included glass vessels placed outside the coffin. There was evidence of cremated boots still on feet, and the spoil was metal-detected with good results, revealing 157 Roman coins, mostly fourth century in date. This is further evidence of the late survival of the Southwark ‘bridgehead’ to Roman London, with evidence of activity into the fourth/fifth century, so occupation had not simply retreated into the walled area at the time. One very late burial of c.388-402 was recorded, with then-antique bottles of 2nd-3rd century date buried with it. Another had a slab of tile, seemingly within the coffin. Burials within the cemetery were fairly densely concentrated, with a suggestion of demarcation within the cemetery, with densely used areas with burials in clusters and different, superimposed, East-West and North-South aligned burials. A plaster-lined burial of c.335 was dated by an associated coin, as it had no grave furniture or coffin evidence. As evidence of intense use, one grave had four stacked contemporary burials, perhaps hinting at a family tragedy?

The afternoon session – Saxon and Medieval London – Forty Years On, was most informative. Geoff Egan (MoLA) began by giving an overview of Medieval London’s Material Culture. Interesting finds from waterfront dumps included eleventh-century Byzantine items; nine coins and nine seals from the Vintry waterfront site. In the fourteenth century, pewter buckles began to supplement the traditional copper alloy variety. He pointed out also that metalwork of 1450 – 1480 was still rare.

Lundenwic; Discovery and Outcome Martin Biddle, Hertford College, Oxford

This was a fascinating review of middle Saxon London. In the early 1970s, little archaeology was being done in London and much evidence was being destroyed by redevelopment. The newly formed organisation ‘Rescue’ produced its document ‘The Future of London’s Past’ which focused on the walled city – a mistake, noted Biddle, who was one of its authors. Biddle referred to his work at Repton in Derbyshire, where 260 human bodies of Viking era origin, first noted in 1729, were excavated, having been buried in the winter of 873/4.

Despite Bede referring to the London of 731-2 being a trading emporium for many nations, the 1970s view was that at this time the Thames was lined with farms, not a major settlement. As far back as 1726, the minutes of the Society of Antiquaries recorded (Saxon) finds from under the portico of St Martin in the Fields, including a glass claw cup, supplemented by more similar finds – a bowl of c.700AD – from nearby recently. The Strand runs along the riverside, and the name Aldwych – ‘Old Vicus’ – the old vic of London, is a placename indictor of earlier Saxon occupation in this area, which became archeologically apparent only since the early 1980s.

In 1984, Biddle plotted the distribution of finds west of the walled area, and in 1985 came archaeological evidence of intensive seventh-century (middle Saxon) occupation at the Jubilee Hall excavations, with post holes, pits and a major ditch. At the Royal Opera House excavation a dense pattern of buildings gable – end on along a street was found. The western end of the still-occupied walled area probably featured high – status sites at this time, as did the White Tower area, perhaps a riverfront fort of late Roman origin, and there are early church dedications within the Temple area between the walled area to the east and Lundenwic to the west, perhaps suggesting this area too was part of Lundenwic, which had been abandoned by AD1000, and Westminster was colonised by church institutions.

Tales from the Riverbank – The Archaeology of our Medieval Port

Gustav Milne, Thames Discovery Programme

This covered work on London’s Riverbank along Thames Street 1972-2003, with emphasis on the Medieval port, which is also covered in Gus Milnes’ 2003 book, ‘The port of Medieval London’. The old docks were dying in the 1960s with the development of containerisation. Much destruction of archaeological deposits was caused by the still-unpublished redevelopment of the Baynard’s Castle site on the north bank of the Thames in 1972.

In the tenth-eleventh century, land on the North Bank was being reclaimed from the river, resulting in some 150 metres wide and one mile long being eventually reclaimed out to the present waterfront between Blackfriars and the Tower of London, using dumps of material that included domestic rubbish such shoes, pottery and metalwork – an invaluable archaeological source. At the earliest phase, a ‘beach market’ developed, with a dry standing laid up to the then-surviving Roman riverside wall and readily-beached shallow-draft ships berthed on this communally constructed ( like bridges and defences) timber and gravel riverside embankment/civic quay

London Bridge itself was built in stone in the twelfth century, following on from its timber-built Saxon predecessors.

Health in Medieval London – Jelena Bekvalac and Rebecca Redfern, Museum of London Centre for Human Bioarchaeology

Drawing on analytical work funded by the Wellcome Trust on the Museum of London’s very large collection of human skeletal material, this was a talk on the Bioarchaeological approach to Health studies. The data, giving some of the information to be gained about medieval life from the study of human remains, such as life expectancy, disease, diet and lifestyle is available online at

www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/Collections/Onlineresources/CHB/database

In the 14th/15th centuries, the climate was unstable, with a loss of agricultural land through flooding, and the population’s health was weakened by multiple epidemic events, with the great famine of 1315-17 followed by the Black Death c. 1348.

Urban populations were dominated by people under 40 – with many of them migrants vulnerable to, or bringing in, disease, since their immune systems were geared to a rural environment. There was a high population turnover. Average heights were 171.5cm (5ft 8 in) for males and 160.3cm (5ft 2 in) for women in medieval London – average for the UK medieval population. Most men died between the ages of 26 and 45, including those who died in epidemics. Many died at a younger age, due to a weaker immune system and riskier lifestyles, women on average dying between the ages of 36 and 45.

Diseases included osteoarthritis, common in both sexes, with diabetes and obesity evidenced especially in well-fed monastic community cemeteries. Dental health was fair, with no access to damaging sugar at that time, though cavities etc indicate poor dental hygiene.

Archaeology indicates syphilis was present in London pre-1492, despite earlier suggestions it came from South America post Columbus, with the earliest evidence being found in a monastic cemetery in Hull.

Metabolic diseases such as rickets and scurvy are not limited to urban populations.

Trauma wounds sometimes indicate evidence of assault, with hand and face fractures and limb dislocations, with weapon injuries indicated by evidence of recovery – regenerated bone – and surgery as well as embedded weapons such as an arrow point in one victim’s spine- he healed and lived for at least a year in that state. Cancers, both benign and malignant, are evidenced, and increased with urbanisation and industrialisation.

Changing Perspectives of London’s Monastic Archaeology

Chris Thomas, Museum of London Archaeology

The Archaeology of the Dissolution of the Monasteries might be seen as representing the end of the Medieval period. This aspect of archaeology has only really been studied over the past 20 years, and the ongoing series of MoLA monographs on these monastic sites, including their precincts and cemeteries, means that this area of London’s history is now more thoroughly researched and published than any other British urban centre. The Monasteries, or at least the religious buildings, wee usually made unusable by the stripping of lead and timber from roofs, the smashing of stained glass windows, again to recover the lead framing, and the removal of the dead from their tombs, (sometimes, but not always, with due warning for reburial elsewhere) sometimes leaving part for local use as happened at St Barts; other buildings were re-used for residential or industrial use. Others served simply as stone quarries.

Courses from Eric Morgan

Birkbeck Training Excavation. June & July. Syon Park, Brentford

Excavation of dissolved Bridgettine medieval abbey of Syon & Formal Gardens of16th Century.

Details available on http//www04.bbk.ac.uk/study/ce2009/summerschools/awards/XSCAR002.html

Cost per 5 day course £230-£265.

350 Years of Church Farm, Hendon Gerrard Roots

2010 is the 350th anniversary of Church Farm, the oldest surviving house in Hendon, and now Barnet borough’s museum. The Museum is marking the anniversary with an exhibition and associated events.

The exhibition, House on a Hill: 350 Years of Church Farm, Hendon, tells the story of the building- as centre of a busy hay and dairy farm, as dwelling and as museum- and runs from 29 May to 18 October.

Supporting the exhibition, we shall have a ‘Living History Day’ in the Museum garden in July, with re-enactments of scenes from everyday life in the 1600s; a series of talks (at Hendon Library), setting Church Farm in the context of national and local history; and, we hope, an evening of 17th Century music.

HADAS and UCL Institute of Archaeology, with pupils from local schools, will once again be digging in the Museum garden in July; then HADAS & UCL (using CFM as a base) will move on to excavate the WWII public air-raid shelters close by in Sunny Hill Park. (A small selection of finds from previous digs will be included in the exhibition.)

Children visiting will be invited to draw or paint the Museum, and we shall display their pictures during the exhibition. There will also be new displays within our exhibition of playthings past, The Moving Toyshop.

Dates and details of the events will be posted on the Friends of the Museum’s website, at: www.churchfarmhousemuseum.co.uk. Please come and join us in celebrating this splendid building- and keep your fingers crossed for decent weather!

Other Societies Events Eric Morgan

Wednesday 2 June 5.30pm Institute of Archaeology & British Museum Medieval Seminar. Room 612, IoA, UCL, Gordon Sq. WC1 “Fecit or Fake it? Anglo-Saxon Forgeries Old and New” Leslie Webster.

Saturday 5 June 12 noon-3pm on the hour, Guided tour of Forty Hall, Forty Hill, Enfield. Free costumed tour lasting about 45 mins. Booking required & info from forty.hall@enfield.gov.uk or 02083638196

Sunday 6 June 2.30pm Battle of Barnet Guided Walk. Meet at jnc. of Gt. North Rd./Hadley Green Rd. Led by Paul Baker. Cost £7. Lasts 2 hrs.

Sunday 6 June The Bothy Garden Open Day. Avenue House Grounds, East End Rd. N3

HADAS will be in the Garden Room in the morning from 10.30am.

Thursday 10 June 7.30pm Barnet Borough Arts Council, Trinity Church Centre, 15 Nether St. N12. AGM (HADAS is affiliated to BBAC). Talk by Gilly Kilburn on the new building at Barnet College. Coffee at 7pm.

Saturday 12 June 12.30-5.30pm Highgate Summer Festival,Pond Sq. N6. Lots of stalls incl Hornsey Hist. Soc., Highgate Soc.

Saturday 12 June 2-4pm Museum of London. Gardens in the City Tour of the Capital’s hidden historical gardens led by Sue Jackson.

Book in adv. £8 on www.museumoflondon.org.uk or 02070019844

Sunday 13 June 2.30pm Hooray for Hendon. Guided walk through 1000 years from the Domesday Book to Hendon Aerodrome. Meet at hendon Central tube stn. Led by Paul Baker. Cost £7. Lasts 2 hrs.

Monday 13 June 3pm Barnet & District Local History Society, Curch House, Wood St., Barnet (opp.Museum). “Shop till you Drop” 17th Century London Tokens. Talk by Barrie Cook. Tea & biscuits after.

Friday 13 June 7pm. COLAS, St Olave’s Parish Hall, Mark Lane EC3. “Roman Glass-Making in London”. Talk by Angela Wardle (MOL) Visitors £2.

Wednesday 23 June 7.45pm Friern Barnet & District Local History Society, St. John’s Church Hall (next to Whetstone Police Stn.), Friern Barnet Lane N2. Freeman of the City of London&Liverymen of the Stationers Company – A Personal View. Talk by Andrea Cameron. Cost £2.

Wednesday 23 June 7.30pm.Museum of London. London Festival of Architecture. London Wall, EC2. Talk by Dan Cruickshank on “How Georgian London Was Shaped by the Sex Industry”. Free, but booking is advised as above

Thursday 24 June,8.00pm. Finchley Society. Drawing Room, Avenue House, East End Rd. N3. A.G.M. followed by “Return to the Kruger National Park”. Talk by Roz Avery. Non-members £2.

Saturday 26 June 2.30pm.Enfield Society. Battle of Barnet. Meet at Arkley Hotel, Barnet

(307 bus terminus) for about 3 hour linear walk via Monken Hadley/Hadley Woods/Trent Park, ending at Oakwood Stn.. Led by Monica Smith.

Sunday 27 June East Finchley Festival,Cherry Tree Wood N2 (off High Rd. opp. Stn.)

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming Lectures and Events in 2010 / 11

An important date for your diaries. By Don Cooper

Tuesday 8th June 2010

The HADAS annual general meeting (AGM) takes place at Avenue House at 8 pm.

This is member’s opportunity to hear what your Society has been doing and what it intends to do in the coming year as well as being your chance to make suggestions, ask questions and contribute to the running of your society. Last year’s AGM was poorly attended but we are hoping that more members will come along this year to show support and appreciation for the hard work your volunteer committee does on your behalf. Do come along – I look forward to seeing you there.

Forthcoming Lectures

Lectures are held at Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley, and start promptly at 8 pm. Nearest tube station is Finchley Central. Non-members: £1. Coffee, tea and biscuits available. Buses 82, 143, 326 & 460 pass close by.

Tuesday 11th May: John Johnson. ‘Death on the (Graeco-Roman) Nile’ examines some of the cultural, religious and literary influences which impacted upon the funerary beliefs and practices of those living in Egypt from the time of Alexander the Great’s arrival in 332 BC until the close of the Second Century AD. This heavily illustrated lecture presents evidence from throughout Egypt as it considers the conservative nature of Egyptian religious belief against the backdrop of an increasingly multi-cultural society which developed as a result of Alexandria’s pre-eminent position in the Mediterranean world.

John J. Johnston read Egyptology and Classics at the University of Liverpool and Open University, respectively. He obtained an MA in Egyptian Archaeology from University College London (UCL), where he is currently reading for a PhD. John is a Trustee of the Egypt Exploration Society (EES) and a Committee Member of the Friends of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, where he contributes to a wide variety of projects and events.

Sunday July 11th – Outing to Down House in Kent, the home of Charles Darwin

Saturday 28 August – Wednesday 1 September, HADAS long weekend in Norwich

Tue. 12th Oct. Behind the scenes on Time Team – Raksha Dave. NB. The new series (13 episodes) of Channel 4’s Time Team began on Sun. 18th April at 5.30 pm.

Tue 9th Nov. Archaeology and the Olympics – David Divers, English Heritage

Tue 11th Jan. 2011: Science as a tool to help understand London’s archaeology – Jane Siddel, English Heritage

Tue. 8th Feb. 2011: The Roman wooden water pump – an ingenious machine – Richard Stein, MA, PhD, FCA

Local News:

Local Studies and Archives. Peter Pickering / Don Cooper

HADAS and the other societies concerned with local history have recently been worried about the future of the Local Studies and Archives Centre currently located at 80 Daws Lane, Mill Hill. Barnet Council have decided that the building was going to become surplus to requirements, and the Centre would therefore have to be relocated. A meeting was held in February, following which our Chairman, Don Cooper, wrote to Councillor Rams (the Cabinet Member for Investment in Learning) expressing concern over the proposal and asking to be reassured that the service, facilities and space at the new location will not in any way be reduced or inferior to those provided at present. He pointed out that the local studies centre serves as a focus for local societies involved in preserving the heritage and archaeology of the Borough, those researching its history, and Family History organisations providing genealogical service to the residents of the borough, as well as the tasks it carries out as the official Barnet Archive on behalf of the council etc. In his reply Councillor Rams reassured us that the Council remains committed to providing a strong, developing Local Studies service with the input of local history societies and groups much appreciated.

The Council aims to provide an accessible service to all customers and local groups, with some reduction in spending in the present challenging financial context. They are exploring the potential to integrate the service into a library, probably Hendon Library. Their intention is to provide a Local Studies service point supported by the Local Studies staff, with assistance from Library staff and to have direct access to as much of the most frequently consulted Local Studies material as can be accommodated and administered, alongside a longer-term plan to digitise more materials. Sharing duty with Library Staff will free the Local Studies staff from some of the most common local studies inquiries, thus allowing them to spend more time on specialised local studies work. The general facilities at a library are likely to be superior to those at Daws Lane, including better lighting, refreshment facilities, pay photocopiers, greater numbers of public computers, and Wi-Fi access for visitors and supporting book and non-book material. Moving these services into a Library would improve access – Hendon Library is, for example, open seven days a week, and until 8pm on three of those days. Although Local Studies staff would not be present all that time, it gives greater flexibility to the service and some level of access could perhaps be provided when the Local Studies team are not working.

HADAS and the other societies will monitor developments closely and will hold the Council to its assurances. One beneficial outcome from this worrying business is the closer co-operation of the concerned societies in the borough.

Jewish Museum – is now open after a major transformation project. Raymond Burton House, 129-131 Albert Street, London NW1 7NB. Tel: 020 7284 7384. The collection includes a mikvah, a medieval ritual bath, one of the most important archaeological finds relating to Anglo-Jewry, excavated in 2001 in Milk Street in the City of London.
St Andrew’s Old Church – Heritage and Cultural Centre, Old Church Lane, Kingsbury, London, London, NW9 8RU. Drama Workshop are planning for their future and want to hear from interested parties as they develop activities such as storytelling linked to its heritage as the oldest building in Brent. Contact Kaye James at: Drama Workhouse, PO Box 957, Wembley HA0 9EZ kj@dramaworkhouse.org.uk

Conferences / Study Days

Thu. 20th – Fri 21st May. University College London, Institute of Archaeology. 31-34 Gordon Sq. London, WC1. Wrapping and unwrapping the body. Global and multi-period coverage of this topic, including practical demonstration, at Petrie Museum. Free to attend but book in advance: Email ioa-wrapping@ucl.ac.uk and/or further details at www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/events.

University of London Study Days: Hughes-Parry Hall (The Garden Halls), 19-26 Cartwright Gardens, Bloomsbury, London, WC1. Both days are aimed at adults.

Tut-ankh-amun on Saturday 29 May 2010: 11am – 5pm. Costs £35.00 incl. refreshments. Booking and payment before 10th May.

Forensic aspects of ancient Egypt. Sat. 19 June 2010: 11am – 5pm. Cost £30.00 incl. refreshments. Booking & payment before 2nd June. Those of secondary school age need permission from the Organizer. Posters & application forms available at http://www.icon.org.uk – follow link to Events or send application and payment by cheque (made out to Joyce Filer) with name/address/phone no./email & SAE to Joyce Filer. 4 Lowndes Court, London, W1F 7HE

Lecture Report Andy Simpson / John Chapman

The May lecture on ‘The GWR (Great Western Railway) Comes to the Thames Valley’ was given by Berkshire-based local historian and archaeologist John Chapman, who has kindly provided the lecture summary below. (Slightly shortened for space reasons) This was an excellent talk, illustrated with some fascinating nineteenth century illustrations, including early photos of the 1840s/50s, and was much enjoyed by the audience, prompting a number of questions at the end.

Before the coming of the railways the ability to carry people and goods over long distances was strictly limited. Heavy goods were hauled in huge lumbering carts by teams of up to a dozen horses and you had to be fairly well off to have a carriage. Also the state of the roads was worse than awful. Things improved with the turnpikes and stage coaches provided some sort of public transport system. Canals were developed to carry heavy goods.

The GWR was conceived by merchants in Bristol as a short cut in a journey from New York to London, and the first Bill was proposed in 1824 as a railway with a corresponding turnpike to collect passengers between stations and just off the route. Although it was fully subscribed the proposal failed. A new bill was promoted in 1833 when Isambard Kingdom Brunel was appointed as Engineer – this included a line through Windsor, Newbury and Devizes with some very long tunnels but it was strenuously opposed by landowners, the canal companies and Eton College, who were concerned about its effect on the behaviour of its pupils. The name Great Western Railway was proposed but – as a member of the House of Lords observed – it was neither Great, nor Western or even a railway. The route was resurveyed by Brunel to run via Southall, Didcot and Chippenham and most of the tunnels were replaced by cuttings. Brunel achieved a most remarkable mathematical feat in his calculations which gave an almost level railway with only a few hundred tons of spoil left over.

The new Bill received Royal Assent in 1835 and gave the railway the right to compulsorily purchase land. Brunel hired many teams of contractors and each set to build their bit of the railway. The British contractors devised methods which were so efficient that over the next 50 years or so they were hired to build railways all over the world – local contractors just could not compete. Brunel designed every last detail – even down to his own special screws. He had a standard range of buildings and bridges which could be readily adapted to local situations, but his attempts to design and specify locomotives was a disaster – about 20 years behind the times – and he employed the young Daniel Gooch as his locomotive engineer. The first section of line from London to Maidenhead (actually Taplow) was opened on 4th June 1838, but the locomotives Brunel had ordered were so dreadful they were unable to keep to the timetable and Gooch had to do a vast amount of work to keep two or three locomotives operational and eventually designed his own Firefly Class of fast-running 2-2-2 tender engines which were immensely successful. The Thames at Maidenhead posed a real problem as the river authorities required that river traffic must be unimpeded – Brunel’s standard designs were of no use so he designed a brand new bridge with shallow brick arches – everyone said it would fall down – but it didn’t and is still there today.

The tunnels on either side of Reading were replaced by deep cuttings at Sonning and Purley and the line to Steventon opened on 1st June 1840 and later a branch from Didcot to Oxford was constructed. At the same time construction had started from the Bristol end and the line to Bath was opened on 31st August 1840, Chippenham was reached from Steventon on the 31st May 1841 and on June 30th when Box tunnel was completed it became possible to traverse the whole route from Bristol to London. Branches were built to Windsor, Oxford and Newbury and then to Cheltenham and under the direction of Charles Russell a thriving business was established which saw off most of the canals. Expansion to Penzance, Birkenhead and Fishguard followed and soon they had a very comprehensive travel business which eventually got into hotels, steamships, package holidays, buses and aeroplanes.

Initially the first station from Paddington was West Drayton but the Enclosure Acts had allowed the building of estates on the fringes of London and the railway built stations to serve them. A deal was done with the North London Railway to provide a link from Acton to London Docks and with the Metropolitan Railway to link to the markets at Smithfield and Covent Garden and to the City of London. At first, rolling stock was based either on stage coaches or farmers’ carts but an accident in Sonning cutting on Christmas Eve 1841 (killing 8 and severely injuring another 17), caused the Board of Trade to begin to take rail safety seriously. Signalling had been a matter of hand signals but it was so obviously inadequate that other methods had to be devised and GWR introduced a simple ball and crossbar system.

The GWR ran to a ‘Broad’ gauge of seven feet which enabled trains to be much bigger, faster and more stable, but the rest of the country were adopting Stephenson’s standard gauge of 4ft 8½ inches. The Manchester and Southampton Railway got the right to build a standard gauge line in 1844 which meant that the GWR from Birmingham to Basingstoke had to have dual gauge track. These complications became so uneconomic that finally the GWR gave way and the last Broad Gauge train ran from Paddington to the West Country in May 1892. (The 2009 HADAS long weekend allowed us to view the replica Broad Gauge line and train at Didcot Railway Centre, hauled by a new-build ‘Firefly’ class engine – Ed.) In the early 1850s there was a take-over bid by interests in South Wales and the Midlands and Brunel was sacked after the railway ran into severe financial difficulties. He turned his hand to building Steam Ships and died on September 15th 1859. Daniel Gooch bought Brunel’s Great Eastern and pioneered laying transoceanic cables to link the Empire. He became an MP and was very wealthy and long-lived.

Exhibitions: Church Farm House Museum, Hendon

DREAMS OF FLIGHT: Hendon Aerodrome 1910- 1925 Gerrard Roots

7 April – 9 May 2010. The exhibition includes material from London Borough of Barnet’s Archives and the archives of the Royal Aero Club and marks the centenary of the French aviator Louis Paulhan’s victory in the London to Manchester Air Race of 1910. Paulhan took off from Hendon and landed in Manchester some 12 hours later, so easily winning the Daily Mail newspaper’s prize of £10,000 for anyone flying the distance in under 24 hours.

Hendon has long had an important place in the history of aeronautics. Manned balloons flew in the area from the 1860s onwards, and a non-rigid airship took off from Hendon in 1909 to drop suffragette leaflets over the Houses of Parliament. The first Hendon Aerodrome was built in Colindale in 1909 by Everitt and Edgecumbe, and when this was taken over by Claude Grahame-White in 1910, flying at Hendon quite literally ‘took off’. Grahame-White’s flying school was successful – it even, with some reluctance, trained women as pilots – but after 1911 his ‘Aerial Derbies’, in which planes flew over London, starting and finishing at Hendon, were even more profitable. 45,000 spectators attended the 1912 Aerial Derby, and by 1914 Hendon was as much a part of the Social Circuit as Royal Ascot or Cowes.

Grahame-White was an advocate of the importance of military aviation, and during World War I he placed London Aerodrome (as it was now known) at the disposal of the government, who used it to train pilots for the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service, and to test new military planes. (The first bombing raid from Britain took off from Hendon in 1917.) The War saw a massive increase in the manufacture of aircraft at Hendon: Grahame-White’s own factory employed 3500 men by 1918, and there were other major factories nearby such as Airco and Handley Page. After WWI the demand for aircraft fell, and Grahame-White’s factory turned to making cars and furniture instead. The aerial displays started up again in 1919, with a Victory Derby, but Hendon was soon deemed inadequate for the faster new planes and in 1923 the Derbies were moved to Croydon. In 1922 the Air Ministry requisitioned London Aerodrome and, after a bitter legal battle, Grahame-White pulled out of Hendon in 1925. However, his name is commemorated by the Grahame Park Estate, which occupies much of the old aerodrome site; nearby still stands ‘Aeroville’, the ‘model’ cottages that Grahame-White (an enlightened employer) built for his factory workers; and the Royal Airforce Museum incorporates some of Grahame-White’s factory buildings. Flying at Hendon may have long ceased, but all around us are reminders of Hendon’s fascinating aeronautical past.

Membership Matters Stephen Brunning

Many thanks to everyone who has already paid their subscriptions for this year. As the newsletter went to press, well over half of our members who pay by cheque have done so. Having the money by 5th April means we can claim Gift Aid this year for those people who have signed the declaration form. If you intend to pay by cheque this year and have not renewed, I would be grateful if you could do so as soon as possible. To request a Renewal or Gift Aid form, please contact me (details on back page). Thank you. We extend a warm welcome to new members who have joined HADAS recently, Paul Jackson, Susan Gordon and Alan Slade.

Media – TV & Cinema

Channel 4’s new series of Time Team began on Sunday 18 April, 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm Episodes 1 and 2 were based on Westminster Abbey and Tobermory on the Isle of Mull. The next episode on 2nd May features Piercebridge but the following list of sites may not be broadcast in this order since it has been obtained from the unofficial Time Team website: Sutton Courtenay (Oxon), Hopton Castle (Shropshire), Cunetio (Mildenhall, Wilts), Tregruk Castle (Wales), Burford Priory (Oxon), Governor’s Green (Portsmouth), Norman Cross (Cambs), Litlington (Cambs.), Dinmore Hill (Herefordshire), Bedford, Purlies Wood (near Peterborough).

Agora, a new Roman epic film – released 23rd April – stars Rachel Weisz as Hypatia of Alexandria, an astronomer-philosopher and Max Minghella as her slave Davus.

Other Societies’ Lectures and events Eric Morgan / Sue Willetts

Sun. 2nd May, 2pm. Enfield Arch. Society. Theobalds Lane, Theobalds Palace, Cedars Park, Cheshunt. History tour led by Mike Dewbrey. Meet outside the Tearooms in the Park. No booking required.

Mon. 3rd May – Fri. 14th May 10.30, Tues. 4th – Fri. 14th May. Barnet Borough Arts Council. South Friern Library, Colney Hatch Lane, N10. Spring Art Exhibition and Information stalls – including HADAS. Mon. 3rd May 10.30, Tues – Sat 10am – 5pm (closed 1 – 2pm) & Wed 10am – 8pm.

Mon. 3rd May, 10.30 am – 5.00 pm. Harrow Museum. Headstone Manor, Pinner View, North Harrow. Medieval May Day including Morris Men, Falconry, Maypole dancing and craft stalls. Small entry fee.

Tues. 4th May 6.15-8.15 pm Highgate Society. Summer Walk. The ecology and history of Highgate Wood (site of a Roman pottery kiln). Information Hut near Café, Led by Michael Hammerson, HADAS member. £5.00

Thur. 6th May, 1.15 pm. British Museum, Stevenson Lecture Theatre. Calleva (Silchester): facing up to Rome, Prof. Michael Fulford. Free, booking advised. (book online or phone 020 7323 8181 or Ticket Desk in BM,10.00 to 16.45 daily).

Fri. 7th May, 10.30 am. Friends of Barnet Borough Libraries. South Friern Library. Colney Hatch Lane, N10. Talk: Southgate before World War I.

Sun. 9th May, 2.30 pm. Historical High Barnet. Guided walk Through 1,000 years led by Paul Baker. Meet outside Barnet College, Wood Street. £7.00

Tues. 11th May, 6.30 pm London & Middlesex Archaeological Society. Clore Learning Centre at the Museum of London, London EC2Y 5HN at 6:30pm. Refreshments from 6 pm. Open to all: members may bring guests, and non-members welcome. Life in London’s Eastern Suburb c.1550-1700, Philip Baker, Senior Research Officer, Centre for Metropolitan History, University of London

Thurs. 13th May, 1.15 pm. British Museum, Stevenson Lecture Theatre. Vindolanda writing tablets, Prof. Alan Bowman. Book tickets online etc, – see May 6th.

Fri. 14th May, 8.00 pm. Enfield Archaeology Society. Jubilee Hall, 2 Parsonage Lane, Enfield. The Rose Theatre. New Developments, Harvey Sheldon (HADAS President). Doors open 7.30p.m. Visitors £1.00. Refreshments available.

Sat. 15th May, 6.00 – 8.00 pm Clore Learning Centre at Discover Greenwich, the Old Royal Naval College. The Archaeology of the Roman Temple in Greenwich Park, Harvey Sheldon. Tickets cost £20.00 (no concessions). Book tickets www.ggc.ac.uk or call 020 8853 7037 or 020 8853 7034

Sun. 16th May – Sun. 23rd, Barnet Borough Arts Council. The Spires, High St, Barnet, Spring Art exhibition and Information stalls, including. HADAS.

Phone 0208 445 8388 for opening times.

Sun. 16th May, 2.30 pm. Guided walk around Georgian Monken Hadley led by Paul Barker. (2 hours) Meet outside The Spires, High Street, Barnet. £7.00.

Tue. 18th May, 7.00 pm. London Archaeologist. Museum of London, 150 London Wall, EC2. Annual lecture & General Meeting. New light on London’s Shakespearean Playhouses. Julian Bowsher. Refreshments from 6.30 pm.

Wed. 19th May, 10.30 am. Friends of Barnet Borough Libraries Friern Barnet Library Rd, N11. A peep at Barnet postcards. Talk.

Wed. 19th May, 8.00 pm. Islington Archaeology & History Soc. Islington Town Hall, Upper St, N1. St. Pancras on Time. Talk.by Lester Hillman.

Fri. 21st May, 7.00 – 8.00 pm. COLAS, St Olaves Hall, Mark Lane EC3. Near Fenchurch St (BR) station. Doors open 6.30pm. Copped Hall Excavations. Christina Holloway MoLA / West Essex Archaeology Group. Visitors £2.00. Refreshments after. NB HADAS helped WEAG with resistivity & surveying.

Fri. 21st May, 7.30 pm. Wembley History Society. St. Andrew’s Church Hall, Church Lane, Kingsbury, NW9. The Air-Co Rag. Talk by Malcolm Barres-Baker (Archivist) on the Aircraft Manufacturing Co’s magazine (1917-20) incl. artwork

Wed. 26th May, 8.00 pm. Friern Barnet & District Local History Society. St. John’s Church Hall, Friern Barnet Lane. 100 Years of the Phoenix Cinema by Gerry Turvey. (Preceded by AGM) £2.00, free refreshments 7.45 pm and afterwards.

Wed 26th May, 7.00 pm. St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey, SW1. A Tudor body in Georgian clothes. Update on archaeological findings at Westminster. Talk by Warwick Rodwell + music by Cecilia Osmond & Robert Quinney. £15 incl. wine. Buy tickets online www.westminster-abbey.org/shop or from Abbey Shop or Chapter Office in Dean’s Yard. Proceeds to Church Appeal Fund. Tel: 020 7654 4963

Thurs. 27th May, 8.00 pm. Finchley Society. Drawing Room, Avenue House, East End Rd, N3. Long Lane Pasture. Talk by Ann Brown. Non-members £2.

Mon 31st May, 10.30 am – 4.00 pm. Kingsbury Open Day. St.Andrews Church (see p.3) HADAS helped on a dig here with Andy Agate. Stalls e.g. Wembley History Soc.

Thurs. 3rd June. 1.15 pm. British Museum, Stevenson Lecture Theatre. Hordes and hoards in Roman Britain, Dr. Andrew Burnett. Booking as for 6th May. Also Roman Society 100th Anniversary. A celebration will feature the Legio II Augusta http://www.legiiavg.org.uk

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming Lectures and Events.

The winter lecture series is as always at Avenue House. Lectures start promptly at 8pm; non-members £1; coffee, tea and biscuits can be bought.

Tuesday 13th April. The GWR comes to the Thames Valley -John Chapman.

In this month’s lecture we find out how the GWR came about. The talk traces the building of the railway and the early days of the broad gauge between London and Didcot, focusing on the main towns & villages. John Chapman has been Chairman of the South Eastern Museums Service and Deputy Chairman of the Rail Users Consultative Committee for Western England. He is a local historian with special interest in transport history.

Tues. 11th May -Graeco-Roman Period Funerary Practices in Egypt. John Johnson.

Tuesday, June 8th at 8pm at Avenue House – the 49th HADAS Annual General Meeting takes place – an important date for your diaries. Nomination papers for committee places will be sent out next month – so if you wish to join our committee of volunteers this is your opportunity.

Sunday July 11th We tried having an outing on a Sunday last year and it worked well. So keep your diaries clear for when we plan to visit sites in Kent including Darwin’s home – Down House

HADAS’ long weekend to Norwich – Saturday, August 28th to Wednesday, 1st September 2010.

Don Cooper, announced this trip in the last newsletter, and has had a splendid response. The trip is now three-quarters full. For those still making up their minds, the details are repeated here. The venue will be a hotel in Norwich. The city with its lovely cathedral, castle and museum has many attractions. We will travel by luxury coach, indeed, probably the same coach and driver as last year. Details of the weekend will be available in due course but an interesting trip is in prospect. The cost will be approximately £350 for people sharing and £390

for those requiring single rooms. There will be a limited number of places so please let Don know as soon as possible if you are interested in coming. A deposit of £50 per person is required together with an indication of whether you are sharing or not. Cheques should be made out to HADAS please. Don’s address details are:-59 Potters Road, Barnet, Herts EN5 5HS (020 8440 4350) e-mail to chairman@hadas.org.uk.

‘The Celtic World – Myth and Religion’ course by Peter Nicholson

Some elements of Celtic mythology are known to many. To enhance that knowledge the Mill Hill Archaeological Study Society is running a course of six classes entitled “The Celtic World – Myth and Religion”. The course will examine the background to Celtic belief systems and their priesthood, the Druids, through a study of both documentary and archaeological evidence. The mythology of archaeological sites in continental Europe, Britain and Ireland will also be explored. The course tutor is Scott McCracken. The course is on Friday mornings from

10 to 12, beginning 16th April, in the Lawrence Room, Hartley Hall, Flower Lane NW7. The cost for the course will be £36. For further information contact Peter Nicholson (020-8959 4757)

Walks in East Barnet and Hendon

Many members will remember the lecture that Paul Baker gave to us on Barnet last year. Some of us have also been on his interesting and entertaining themed walks around Barnet. On Sunday 18th April he will lead a walk round East Barnet (Meet outside East Barnet Library, Brookhill Road at 11am.) Then he will turn his attention to Hendon. His new series of walks will be called “Hooray for Hendon” and start from outside Hendon Central Station. The next one takes place on June 13th 2010 at 2.30pm and the one after that on the 7th November 2010 at 11am. The cost is £7 per person, children under 12 £3.

Site of the Battle of Barnet

The 11th March edition of the Hendon and Finchley Times, and its sister paper the Barnet and Potters Bar Times, included an article about the site of the Battle of Barnet. The Battlefields Trust claim that it may be a mile to the north of the accepted site, and are launching an appeal to raise money for an archaeological survey to be undertaken near Kitts End, where they think the battle really took place. The Trust, which is based in St Albans, made headlines earlier this year when members found evidence of the real site of the Battle of Bosworth, which was fought on August 22 1485 in Leicestershire, two miles away from where people had thought it was.

We may well hear more about this subject in the near future.

Bentley Priory by Peter Pickering

Our lecture on Tuesday 10th March was given by Erica Ferguson, the retired Squadron-Leader who runs the Bentley Priory Battle of Britain Trust, set up to preserve Bentley Priory, the headquarters of Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain in 1940. Its history goes much further back than the Second World War. It was a priory of the Augustinian Friars until the dissolution of the monasteries, but little if anything remains of that building; much remains however of the work which Sir John Soane designed at the end of the eighteenth century

for the Marquess of Abercorn, about whose family connection with Great Stanmore Church we heard in our November lecture. Later it was the home of Queen Adelaide, the widow of William IV, and after many vicissitudes (including a school which failed financially in 1926) was bought by the Air Ministry in 1926, who remained until 2008.

Despite the changes made for operational reasons (like replacing the orangeries by utilitarian blocks) by wear and tear, and by a serious fire during renovation in 1979 there is still much historic fabric – including the office used by Air Chief Marshall Dowding during the Battle of Britain. Erica Ferguson spoke of the efforts being made to preserve the main rooms of the priory as a sustainable museum, focusing on intangibles like leadership and courage, rather than the hardware which is the speciality of the RAF Museum. She was very hopeful that these efforts would succeed, despite a major setback when Barratt Homes, who were to have provided funding for the museum out of planning gain from redeveloping the rest of

the estate, backed out at the very last minute. In the meantime, the Trust opens the Priory for various events in the course of the year. Members may be interested in the 1940s day to be held on 22nd May. From 11 until 4 there will be re-enactments, tours, a Spitfire display, children’s activities, an art exhibition and lots more. Then from half-past seven until half-past eleven there will be a dinner and dancing to the sounds of the forties. The cost for the daytime will be £3.50

(children under 12 free) and for the evening £25 (concessions £22.50); the profits will go to St Luke’s Hospice, Harrow. For further details and a booking form consult Mita Vaghji on 020 8382 8063 or e-mail mvaghji@stlukes-hospice.org website stlukes-hospice.org.

St Andrew’s Old Church Kingsbury.

Many members will remember the excellent lecture that Andy Agate from UCL gave in May 2006 on his researches at Kingsbury Old Church (St. Andrews) and then his excavation there. The newsletter of the Ancient Monuments Society reports that the Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded a grant to permit this, the only Grade I listed church in Brent, now the property of the Churches Conservation Trust (the subject of our lecture in May 2008), to be repaired and softly adapted as a theatre by the body known as Drama Workshop. St Andrew’s, effectively redundant since 1934, has been through a series of unsatisfactory ‘solutions’ and it is hoped that this really will be the sustainable option which secures the fund for repairs and sees off the vandals.

Current Archaeology Conference by Peter Pickering

I went to the British Museum on the last weekend in February to the Awards for the Presentation of Heritage Research 2010 followed by the annual conference organised by ‘Current Archaeology’. Except for a talk by Julian Bowsher on the Rose and Globe Playhouses, there was nothing of specific London concern, but there was much of great interest. Among the contestants for the Awards were an amateur-run diving investigation off the South Devon coast which has found large quantities of copper and tin ingots – perhaps from the cargo of a Bronze Age ship bringing material from Mediterranean for processing in Britain (this entry was the winner) and a very detailed analysis of wall-paintings in Lakenheath Church Suffolk which found the origin of the unusual iconography in arguments between Ely Cathedral and Bury St Edmunds Abbey for control of the village. Most way-out was research into the carvings on trees (‘arborglyphs’ to you) by soldiers on Salisbury Plain – the researcher had managed to trace the descendants of some of those who had so defaced nature.

The conference offered choices -usually between two subjects each worth attending. Among my choices was a session on archaeology and climate change, which explored the evidence for past climates -were they warmer or colder then than to-day? As one might expect, the evidence is ambiguous. Although soldiers in Vindolanda wrote letters asking to be sent warmer clothing, that might have been because they came from southern climes, not because it was really cold – species of beetle, for instance flourished at Hadrian’s Wall which are now found only in southern England. Professor Baillie had studied long tree ring sequences in Ireland,

but trends in the width of rings was not a satisfactory proxy for the temperature – for instance older trees grow more slowly than younger ones, and major replantings in the eighteenth century invalidate calculations; Professor Baillie demonstrated amusingly how graphs could be drawn in ways which gave quite different impressions. Professor Fagan from California showed how people in pre-colonial America adapted to changing climates by moving from one area to another (especially in search of reliable water supplies); he was concerned that people to-day would be unable to adopt that strategy, and could suffer greatly as a consequence.

Another valuable session was on the Stonehenge Riverside Project, which has revolutionised views about the monument, what preceded it and why it was built – as a cremation cemetery for the powerful and house for the dead ancestors, linked with Durrington Walls where there were perhaps a thousand houses for the living, occupied not permanently but for feasting at recurrent festivals. Our old friend Mark Hassall tried to undermine this new account by quoting Diodorus Siculus, who says that in the land of the Hyperboreans there is a magnificent sacred precinct of Apollo and a notable temple which is adorned with many votive offerings and is

spherical in shape; he did not shake the speakers.

There was much at the conference about the notable advances in our knowledge produced by the Portable Antiquities Scheme, on subjects as diverse as settlement patterns, the recurrent shortages of small change in mediaeval England (which led to the illegal use of Venetian money), and a type of enamelled Roman brooch found especially on the Wirral peninsula. And, of course, the great hoards of Viking silver from the Vale of York, and the Staffordshire hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and garnets.

ROMANS GO HOME by Peter Pickering

This was the controversial Logo for the very serious conference on the End of Roman Britain which was held in the British Museum on 12th and 13th March. 2010 is not only the sixteenth centenary of AD 410, the traditional date for the end of Roman rule in Britain, but also the centenary of the founding of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. The Lecture Theatre was as packed as the programme of 26 half-hour lectures, which eschewed mention

of Arthur or Vortigern. Inevitably, since the subjects were separate and the speakers differed in their approaches, the conference had no single clear message. But I came away much better informed both as to the extent of general agreement among scholars and as to the matters which are of lively contention. With such a programme, there was little time for questions or discussion (and such questioning as there was was hogged by one or two individuals).

I had not properly realised before that the historical sources for the first decade of the fifth century are quite extensive though of low quality – “we know more about the years 406-410 than we know about any other quinquennium of Romano-British history, apart from the periods that Tacitus describes for us”, that sources agree that there was a major Saxon raid on Britain during those years (though not on the precise date) and that the text of the historian Zosimus as we have it says that the emperor Honorius wrote a letter to the cities in Britain saying that they should protect themselves, though most scholars believe that, since the context is Alaric’s campaigns in Italy, ‘Britain’ is a scribal error for ‘Bruttium’.

The conference papers that discussed the archaeological evidence for a withdrawal of Roman forces from Britain tended to see geographical differences; several Saxon Shore forts were abandoned by 400, though there were many early fifth-century coins at Richborough; there was a lack of late defences in Wales, despite the Irish raiders, but on Hadrian’s Wall the late Roman garrisons remained and were slowly transmuted into the forces of local war-lords (two inscribed British names at Vindolanda being evidence of this). But everywhere the monetary economy collapsed, since soldiers and civil servants were no longer being paid in coin.

The conference heard about the evidence of continuity between Roman and Saxon London, shown by the fact that Saxon burials near St Martin’s-in-the-Fields seem to have respected the Roman ones (as described to us last October by Alison Telfer), and also that the late Roman city was not so sparsely populated as is generally believed (if the ubiquitous Dark Earth comes from biologically reworked middens, then there must have been a considerable population producing the rubbish that went into the middens). The experience of small towns was varied; Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews found good evidence for vigorous activity in Baldock extending well into the sixth century; Baldock might be atypical, perhaps because of a nearby pagan cult stronghold, or it might be that the evidence elsewhere has been removed by ploughing or unrecognised. There is a problem also with recognising the evidence in rural areas, where it may be that there was just not so much digging of ditches as in the Roman period. As for Verulamium, David Neal argued, as he had recently in Current Archaeology that development at Building 2 in Insula XXVII had not continued into the fifth century; he was met by a powerful rejoinder from Sheppard Frere, the original excavator, now 94 years old, read for him by a friend.

There was quite a lot about Gildas, the author of ‘The Ruin and Conquest of Britain’. Neil Faulkner saw him as “the Red Monk of the first peasants’ revolt” condemning an embryonic Dark Age élite that was constructing new forms of exploitation and domination after a lengthy period in which the peasantry had been relatively free of burdens. Another speaker praised Gildas’s latinity and used it as evidence of a continuing high level of education in the fifth century, for a society which needed literate men for the law and the church. It was

agreed that Gildas was not writing history, but apocalyptic polemic, and that it was wrong to judge him by historiographical standards. Ken Dark agreed about the level of education in Western Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries; Britannia Prima was the only one of the British provinces to remain wholly under British rule, and though hill-forts like Tintagel replaced villas and walled towns the evidence of inscriptions and trade with the Mediterranean showed that civilised life continued.

Buried hoards of Roman gold and silver -some of the most spectacular remains of late antiquity -were the subject of three papers. The far from uniform pattern of such finds throughout northern Europe (including Scandinavia) was analysed with suggestive results. One speaker saw burying treasure as a post-Roman rather than a late-Roman practice. Hoards could be linked in some way with the largesse that emperors provided to their own subjects (later to be returned through taxation) and to barbarian raiders like Alaric. Were hoards buried

in times of threat with the intention of recovery, or was the purpose more ritual? A particular paper was given by Kenneth Painter on the Traprain Law hoard -a collection of silver bullion from southern Scotland made up of crushed, chopped and hacked-up vessels.

I was especially fascinated by a paper on the linguistic divisions of Britain, though it was not presented very clearly, and the argumentation and evidence were much compressed. But the thesis seemed to be that the English language was not brought to this island after the end of Roman Britain by people from overseas, but that a germanic language had been spoken here from before the Roman conquest. Evidence adduced for this included the language on the coins of the Iceni, some things which Tacitus, Claudian and Nennius write, and the tribal name Deceangli. One consequence was that the Saxon shore got its name not because Saxons raided it, but because Saxons lived there in Roman Britain.

Finally, we were told how memories of Roman Britain persisted in later centuries, but sometimes in a strangely distorted form. Magnus Maximus got a good press in Wales – “Maxen was Emperor of Rome, and the handsomest and wisest of men, and the best fitted to be emperor of all that had gone before him; he married Helen of the Hosts, and built her Caerleon and Carmarthen as wedding presents; she then built roman roads (called Sarn Helen) throughout Wales”. Cleopatra was confused with Claudius Gothicus, and one saint’s life takes a list of Roman emperors to be a Bible-style genealogy (Carocius -ie Carausius -begat Diocletian,

Diocletian begat Galerius, Galerius begat Constantine the Great and so on.)

A very interesting conference, but pretty hard work for those attending.

Other Societies’ Events by Eric Morgan

Monday 12th April 3pm Barnet and District Local History Society. Church House Wood Street Barnet (opposite museum) “In the Footsteps of the Famous in Finchley” Talk by Paul Baker. Tea at 2.30 pm

Wednesday 14th April 8pm Hornsey Historical Society. Union Church Hall; Corner of Ferme Park Road and Weston Park N8 “Percy Joseph Barralet: Victorian Photographer” Talk by John Hinshelwood Visitors £1.

Thursday 15th April 8pm Enfield Society Jubilee Hall, 2 Parsonage Lane\Junction Chase Side Enfield.”Centenary of the extension of the Railway from Grange Park to Cuffley” Talk by Dave Cockle and Roger Elkin. There is an exhibition on this from 20th April to 20th June at Forty Hall.

Friday 16th April 7pm COLAS St Olave’s Parish Hall, Mark Lane EC3. “Deptford and Chichester – an archaeological comparison” Talk by Joanna Taylor. Visitors £2.

Friday 16th April. 8pm Enfield Archaeological Society Jubilee Hall, 2 Parsonage Lane\Junction Chase Side Enfield. AGM and “The excavations and fieldwork of Enfield Archaeological Society 2009”. Visitors £1.

Saturday 17th April 11am to 2pm. Enfield Society Historic Buildings Group. Guided tours of two Enfield churches – St Mary Magdalene, at the corner of the Ridgeway and Windmill Hill (with opportunity to ascend the Tower) and Christ Church United Reformed Church in Chase Side; refreshments and historical displays.

Wednesday 21st April 10.30 to 11.30am Friern Barnet Library Friern Barnet Road N11 “The history of Friary Park.” Mel Hooper. With coffee.

Thursday 22nd April 6.30pm Willesden Green Library Centre High Road NW10 “Neo-Tudor and its Enemies” talk by Gavin Stamp

Saturday 24th April 2-3pm Museum of London “Playhouse Finds” Jacky Kelly. Free.

Thursday 27th April 10.30 am Enfield Society Jubilee Hall, 2 Parsonage Lane\Junction Chase Side Enfield. “Discovering historic buildings in Edmonton, Winchmore Hill and Southgate” talk by Stephen Gilburt.

Wednesday 26th April. 7.45pm Friern Barnet and District Local History Society. St John’s Church Hall (next to Whetstone Police Station) Friern Barnet Lane N20. “The Fleet Valley” Ken Griffin. Visitors £2. Refreshments.

Thursday 29th April 8pm Finchley Society. Drawing Room, Avenue House, East End Road N3 “My granny had one of these, but she threw it away” Talk by Maurice Collins. Non-members £2.

Friday 30th April 2-3pm Museum of London “London’s Bodies” Walk to find out where the bodies are hidden. £6.50 Book in advance – 020 7001 9844.

Exhibitions

Till 5th April. Kenwood House. “Lost London 1870-1945”

Till 19th April Harrow Museum, Headstone Manor “Historic Views of London”

Till 2nd May Hampstead Museum, Burgh House “Religious Freedom in Hampstead”

Monday 12th April to Saturday 26th June Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre, Holborn Library, Theobalds Road “Victorian Artists of Camden Square”.

The Archaeology of Anglo-Jewry in London 1066-1290 and 1656-c.1850

A review of the January lecture by Simon Williams

Ken rather fascinatingly introduced the talk with a sub-title of “work in progress” (particularly of the re-admission period); making clear that the talk comprised the actual physical evidence (both documentary and artefact-led). The first question to be answered was: were there Jews here before 1066?—there may well have been individuals, in the Roman and Saxon periods, but there is no physical evidence for their presence.

The first set of dates represent the admission of the Jews to their expulsion; the second the re-admission by Cromwell (possibly after noticing how Amsterdam thrived). Why to 1850? Because from 1850 to1880 the community roughly doubled in size (approx. from 30,000 to 60,000). For the first 80-odd years they were only allowed to live in London. From documents it is possible to find some of the individual houses (out of a population of approx. 1,000) where Jews lived; and those which were confiscated before Edward 1st’s expulsion of 1290 (and hence reverted to the Crown and courtiers).

Prior to the expulsion there was a total population of only about 2,500 in the whole country. There was a cemetery for Jews (the only place in Britain in which they were allowed to be buried from 1070 to 1170) outside Cripplegate, near their early centre at the Guildhall. This appears to have been desecrated—when Grimes excavated here after the blitz, he found not a single skeleton complete and in place, the only substantial finds being two broken fragments of tombstones bearing parts of Hebrew inscriptions, re-used in the London City Wall.

The remains of two C13 ritual baths (Mikvaot) are the most substantial evidence to survive of British Jewry, found beneath basement level in the population centre adjacent to the Guildhall. One is currently being re-assembled in the lobby of the Jewish Museum. Much documentary information comes from tax receipts. In the Public Records Office, Kew, over 200 talleage sticks are a remarkably fleeting survival of the C13; these are split wooden sticks bearing on either side in Latin the amount paid, in and in Hebrew the names of the payer.

Jews were unable to do business within the city bounds, due to their inability to take a Christian oath so as to join a guild. This, on their re-admission, together with a barring of their return to the Guildhall area, caused them to move further east. Other artefacts comprise cemetery monuments: there are two unique to Britain to be found from the Brady Street cemetery, where most of the monuments are being eaten away by acid rain, one to the outstandingly philanthropic Miriam Levy, singularly adorned with a bust of her, and another with the skull and cross-bones (“for immortality / we are all equal in the eyes of God”) – of a type known from Amsterdam.

Synagogues of note surviving till recent times are the Great Synagogue – 1690 (Ashkenazi), Duke St (destroyed in the blitz), and the Bevis Marks example, of a similar date, where the candles are still lit every Friday night; these being the sole modern survivors of an original total of 5 known. Further artefacts comprise a dish from Mitre St. inscribed Halav (milk), of about 1710 .Other finds: from rubbish dumps around London are lead meat seals marked ‘kosher’; 2 shofarot, [ram’s horns] dating from 1800 (+/- 10 years) have also been found, both damaged. One was dredged from the Thames.

Thanks to Ken for an interesting and informative talk.

Further reading: The Jews of Britain (Todd M.Endleman, University of California Press, 2002)

An important date for your diaries by Don Cooper

During this unwelcome spell of cold weather it is nice to think forward to summer and HADAS’ long weekend. This year the long weekend will take place from Saturday, 28th August 2010 to Wednesday 1st September 2010. The venue will be a hotel in Norwich. The city with its lovely cathedral, castle and museum has many attractions. We will travel by luxury coach. Details of the weekend will be available in due course but an interesting trip is in prospect. The cost will be approximately £350 for people sharing and £390 for those requiring single rooms. There will be a limited number of places so please let me know as soon as possible if you are interested in coming. A deposit of £50 per person is required together with an indication of whether you are sharing or not. Cheques should be made out to HADAS please. My address details are below.

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming Lectures and Events in 2010

Lectures are held at Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley, and start promptly at 8 pm. Nearest tube station is Finchley Central. Non-members: £1. Coffee tea and biscuits available.

Tuesday 9th March 2010 – The History of RAF Bentley Priory – lecture by Erica Ferguson

Squadron Leader Erica Ferguson left the Royal Air Force in 1996 after 18 years of service as an Air Traffic Control officer. She had always had an interest in military heritage and veterans’ welfare and consequently was delighted to help with the project to preserve the important site of RAF Bentley Priory for the Nation after its closure by the Ministry of Defence in May 2008.

For this month’s lecture, Erica will give a presentation on the history of Bentley Priory and the plans for its future as a vibrant museum and education centre.

Tues. 13th April – The GWR comes to the Thames Valley – lecture by John Chapman. More on God’s Wonderful Railway! (John is also a military historian, and was part of the group with which HADAS member Andy Simpson toured the WW1 Salonika (Northern Greek) battlefields in 2009).

Tues. 11th May – Graeco-Roman Period Funerary Practices in Egypt. Lecture by John Johnson.

Saturday 28 August – Wednesday 1 September – HADAS Long Weekend in Norwich (details to come)

Membership Matters Stephen Brunning

A warm welcome to the new members who have joined since October 2009: Juliette, Colin and Christopher BROWN, Anthony BUCK, Andrea CATANIA, Edward and Valerie HARRIS, Joanna KACORZYK, Dot RAVENSWOOD, Fiona RICKLOW.

The HADAS membership year runs from 1st April to 31st March, and so all members who pay by cheque will need to renew from next month (except those people who have joined since January this year).

Please find enclosed a renewal form, and I would ask that you fill it in and return it to me along with the appropriate amount as soon as possible. The current rates and where to send your payment are on the form. Many thanks. If the renewal form is not enclosed and you require one, please contact me (details on back page)

February lecture – The Trendles Project given by William Cumber Liz Gapp

The subtitle of this talk was ‘Exploring Marcham’s Past’. Last year one of the HADAS outings was to this site, and as a result this talk was set up.

William Cumber introduced himself as the farmer who owns the land which this site occupies. He bought the farm in 1973, and started farming then. In 1975, a combine harvester driver commented on strange patterns noticed when the wheat was cut. The next year, in 1976, William Cumber used a crop-spraying helicopter to photograph a circle with a square on one end, which was very clear from the air. The corn in it was about waist high. Nothing much happened for a few years, but in 1981-2, when an archaeologist walked a field to the north of the one where the photo was taken, he was shown the photos taken of the circle. As a result, two sample trenches were cut by Richard Hingley, and the resultant discoveries led the experts to declare an undiscovered amphitheatre.

On this farm boundary the right-hand side is the farm, and the left hand side, that adjoins the farm, is a scheduled ancient monument with a Romano-British style temple. It is thought that this may overlay an Iron Age Celtic building. Due to the proximity of these remains, it was not altogether surprising that the farm field had remains in it to be discovered. Once William was aware of the likelihood of this, he made sure that ploughing in this field was kept to a minimum, and, with the advent of ‘set aside’, designated this field as such.

In the 1930s, this area was excavated by J.S P. Bradford and R.G. Goodchild, leading to the uncovering of the temple area as well as Iron Age roundhouses, pits and ditches. In 1964, Dennis Harding also did some excavation, resulting in a slightly different assessment of the age of the temple. Subsequently, a large tile scatter was found in one area on a recent excavation by Gary Lock which resolved the dilemma. The tiles actually had two different ages as there were two groupings a hundred years apart, probably relating to two separate occasions when the roof was tiled.

This area appeared not to be an occupation site. It is thought that it lies on the boundaries of three British tribes, namely the Atrebati, Catuvellauni and Dubunii tribes, and that this may have been where they met for religious and trade purposes.

In the 1990s, William Cumber’s wife met Gary Lock from Oxford University, and it was decided to use Marcham as a training dig for Oxford archaeology undergraduates. Geophysical surveys of the field were undertaken, which showed features at the cardinal points of the ‘amphitheatre’. It also showed a large rectangular building in the centre of the field and a system of prehistoric ditches in the south-western corner. The initial idea was for the excavation to be carried out over three years, but as time went on and the extent of the discoveries grew this has extended to more than ten years. This has been helped by lottery funding, and the various farming allowances that supplanted the set-aside scheme. Whilst these exist, it is economically viable for excavation to continue, especially as it is considered to be a very important site.

The first season, the rectilinear building base was uncovered, but it is not clear whether the building was ever completed, especially as there was no debris in the middle of the building, and so no indication of a tiled roof.

It was estimated that the building was dated to either the late 3rd century or 4th century. The floor is built on the local bedrock, and the building is thought to be some sort of shrine.

Over the following seasons more buildings were uncovered, and to distinguish them they were given nicknames according to the artefacts found in their vicinity. So ‘the café’ was located near to fragments of pottery and stone; the ‘trinket shop’ had metal working and evidence of burning nearby; another building was nicknamed ‘the pizza parlour’.

In another area, a four-metre square deep pit had been dug and refilled with stone except for one hole which was filled with coins. Buildings were found that had only ever had three sides, like the typical shops found at Pompeii, although the inside was barren of finds. The digger found 120 artefacts in a random trench that was found to contain two hearths. The walls Richard Hingley had uncovered were uncovered once more; he had marked them by covering them with old sacks. In the ‘Royal Box’, a raised dais in the middle of the ‘amphitheatre’ building was found a 2 ½” tall bronze brooch with enamel on it.

In the ‘Royal Box’ was found the centre of a drain, the extent of which is still being investigated. The amphitheatre was now re-identified as an arena, due to the fact that it is circular, not oval, and also that it is not near a large centre of population.

During the very wet years of 2006-7, there was a resultant problem with the water table, in particular on 20 July 2007 four inches of rain fell in Tewkesbury. The result was that it was impossible to excavate, and it took another year fully to drain, so it was only in 2009 that excavation of the drain could be continued. So far 300 metres have been discovered, and there is more to find. It didn’t work well as parts had collapsed, and it was built without man-holes to correct this.

The ‘arena’, which is about 40 metres in diameter and had walls around 4 to 4 ½ metres high, could also be a sacred pool, a concept which looked very likely in 2006-7. However, it is possible that this building has alternated between these two functions. The surrounding wall was scooped through revealing six skeletons. They are Christian burials dating to 380 AD, and there may be more, but due to the delicacy required in excavating them it was decided not to try to find any more. It was felt possible that these were buried in a ceremony to close the site.

An interesting find was the skeleton of ‘Daisy the cow’ which although a mature animal, was about half the size of the cows we see nowadays.

In the course of excavation, there have been several finds including; an intaglio, coins, pins, pottery and skeletons, both human and animal. The human remains have now been reburied close to where they came from, and the rest of the artefacts are temporarily stored in Beaumont St in Oxford.

One of the problems that arose once this very important site became well known, was that of theft by illegal metal detectorists often called “nighthawks“. Security on the site is difficult, so at various times the site was seeded with metal washers, and when that became possible to be screened out by the detectors, was then seeded with cartridge cases from the local clay pigeon club. This strategy has improved the situation, although it still happens.

The digging obviously costs money to pay for the supervisors and other facilities, so trainees pay to do the dig. A trust, the Vale and Ridgeway Trust, was funded by the Lottery Fund. This paid for three years’ worth of ‘people’s trench’ and for pamphlets about the excavation to be printed.

As William Cumber said at the end of his very interesting and entertaining talk, as the years go on there is more and more to talk about, so more has to be left out each time to fit the talk into the available time. It is impossible to give the full flavour of this talk as the slides shown added so much to the talk, but I hope this overview gives an indication of what was an excellent talk.

STOP PRESS – Congratulations to Dorothy Newbury, well-known long-term HADAS member, who has just celebrated her 90th birthday.

Waitrose Community Matters Stephen Brunning

HADAS was one of three nominated charities in January 2010 under the above initiative at Waitrose Mill Hill.

Each month, shops will have £1,000 to divide between three local organisations. Customers are offered a green token every time they shop. These can be inserted in one of three perspex boxes – one for each organisation. At the end of the month the tokens for each organisation are weighed. Then the beneficiaries will each receive a proportion of the cash depending on the number of tokens received.

I am pleased to report that shoppers have raised the splendid sum of £260 for HADAS. We had to compete with Copthall Swimming Club and Whetstone Wanderers Youth Football Club, so receiving over 25% of the cash is a great achievement. There is hope yet for the Historic Environment!

Remembering Helen O’Brien Sheila Woodward

It was with great sadness that we heard of the death of Helen O’Brien, a member of HADAS since 1973. She was a regular digger throughout the first phase (1976 to 1981) of the West Heath excavation. She also took part in the post-excavation work, and contributed to the West Heat Report, published in 1919.

Helen often participated in HADAS social activities in those early days, and those of us who shared them with her remember her quiet charm and beauty, her friendliness and her good humour. They are happy memories. We extend our sympathy to Helen’s husband and daughter in their great loss.

Graham Hutchings Don Cooper

We also have to report the death of a long-standing member, Graham Hutchings, in December 2009, aged 85. Graham was a member from 1981 to 2008 and kept an eye on developments and issues from the Cricklewood area. He was one of the organisers of the Cricklewood Festival and usually persuaded HADAS to have a stall there! Our condolences go out to his family and friends.

19th C Population History Workshop – a few places left

The LAMAS Local History Committee is organising a workshop for Saturday 20th March 2010, to demonstrate how members of affiliated local history societies can construct a nineteenth century population history of their parish. The workshop will be conducted between 10am and 1pm in the new e-learning suite of the Museum of London, London Wall, EC2.

The workshop will consist of a presentation showing how the census statistics have been used to create a population profile for one particular nineteenth century Middlesex parish. There will then be an extended hands-on session during which participants will be able to extract figures for their own parish from The Online Historical Population Reports website and compile a full set of data to take away. There are still a few places left. For further information or to book a place contact:

LAMAS Local History Workshop, c/o 9 Umfreville Road , London , N4 1RY ,

or email to: johnhinshelwood@btinternet.com – subject Local History Workshop

OTHER SOCIETIES’ LECTURES AND EVENTS Eric Morgan

Wednesday 3rd March, 8pm, Stanmore & Harrow Historical Society, Wealdstone Baptist Church Hall, High St, Wealdstone. “The History of Uxbridge” – talk by K. Pearce. Visitors £1.

Thursday 4th March, 10.30am-12 noon, Mill Hill Library, Hartley Avenue, NW7. “London Walks – History and Highlights of the Capital Ring”. Talk. Coffee, biscuits 50p.

Sunday 7th March, 11am – 1pm. “Hooray for Hendon!” Guided walk through 1,000 years from the Domesday Book to Hendon Aerodrome. Meet at Hendon Central Tube Station. Led by Paul Baker. Cost £7.

Monday 8th March, 3pm, Barnet and District Local History Society, Church House, Wood Street, Barnet (opposite Museum) “Hornblower’s Navy.” Talk by {Paul Chamberlain). Tea: 2.30 pm.

Wednesday 10th March, 8pm, Mill Hill Historical Society, Wilberforce Centre, St Paul’s Church, The Ridgeway, NW7 . “The Building of the Underground.” Talk by Tony Earle.

Saturday 13th March, 11am-5.30pm. Lamas Archaeology Conference, the Weston Theatre, Museum of London, London Wall, EC2. (For details please see February Newsletter)

Friday 19th March, 7.30 pm. Wembley Historical Society, St. Andrew’s Church Hall, Church Lane, Kingsbury, NW9: “My Little Bit of History”. Talks by Members.

Sunday 21st March, 11am-1pm – “Fabulous Finchley”. Guided walk through 1,000 years of Finchley Central and East Finchley. Meet at Finchley Central Tube Station (Ballards Lane exit). Finishes at East Finchley. Led by Paul Baker. Cost £7.

Wednesday 24th March, 7.45 pm, Friern Barnet & District Local History Society, St John’s Church Hall, (next to Whetstone Police Station) Friern Barnet Lane, N20. “Allotments”. Leon Price and Phyll Miles. Cost £2. Refreshments 7.45 pm.

Thursday 25th March, 2.30 pm. Finchley Society. Drawing Room, Avenue House, East End Road, Finchley N3. “Liquid History – London and the Thames”. Brenda Cole. £2.

Sunday 28th March, 11am-1pm “Battle of Barnet”. Guided walk. Meet at Junction of Great North Way and Hadley Green Road. Led by Paul Baker. Costs £7.

Please note that the exhibition on “The History of the Welsh Harp” at Church Farmhouse Museum, Greyhound Hill, NW4 mentioned in the February Newsletter has now been extended to Sunday 28th March

HADAS EVENTS 2010

The winter lecture series is held, as ever, at Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley. Nearest tube Finchley Central. Lectures start promptly at 8pm, non-members £1, coffee/biscuits available for purchase.

Tues. 9th February Lecture by William Cumber – The Trendles Project

The site at Marcham/Frilford is an Iron Age settlement which is overlain by a Romano-British temple complex. Its is often referred to as just ‘Frilford’. Marcham/Frilford is located in the Vale of the White Horse (on the A338 to Wantage at what used to be The Noah’s Ark pub) not far from the sites excavated as the Hillforts of the Ridgeway Project. Together the two projects explore life in this area through the later prehistoric and Romano-British periods.

William Cumber was born into a long-standing Berkshire farming family, and graduated in agriculture from Reading University in 1970. The M4 motorway destroyed the family farm at Theale (now Junction12!) and Manor Farm Marcham was bought to replace it. William and his wife became interested in archaeology once they knew there was potentially interesting archaeology on the farm (in 1982), but nothing more happened until the Oxford University dig started in 2001. Their focus is on the continuing occupation of a religious site through the Iron Age and Romano-British periods, and it is fair to say that they have found more than they expected – an intended three season dig enters its tenth season in 2010.

This talk complements the HADAS trip to Broughton Castle & Oxfordshire on Sunday 26th July 2009 when members were given a guided tour of this splendid site.

Tues. 9th March Lecture by Erica Ferguson – The History of RAF Bentley Priory

…which was just up the road at Stanmore until it closed in May 2008. Your editor was part of the RAF Museum team which recovered many of its historic artefacts.

Tues. 13th April Lecture by John Chapman – The GWR comes to the Thames Valley

More on God’s Wonderful Railway! –see Didcot shed visit report in this issue. John is also a military historian, and was part of the group with which your editor toured the WW1 Salonika (Northern Greek) battlefields in 2009.

Tues. 11th May Lecture by John Johnson – Graeco-Roman Period Funerary Practices in Egypt

NEW SERIES OF TIME TEAM

That time-honoured feature of winter Sunday evenings is back somewhat later this year – reportedly at the prime-time slot of 7pm in March.

THE GERRARD ROOTS PAGE…

I75 Years of Brent Reservoir Gerrard Roots

Until 14 February, Church Farmhouse Museum, Hendon, is celebrating the 175th anniversary of Brent Reservoir- ‘the Welsh Harp’- with a new exhibition on the fascinating history of this major resource, which spans the London boroughs of Barnet and Brent. The two borough’s Welsh Harp Joint Consultative Committee has sponsored the exhibition.

Brent Reservoir was built to replenish the water lost by the many locks on the Regent’s and Grand Union Canals. It opened in 1835, and was from the start much used for swimming and fishing, but it really took off as a recreation spot in the 1860s, thanks to William Perkins Warner, landlord of the now-demolished Welsh Harp pub (from which the reservoir takes its popular name) who added skating, shooting, a menagerie and even horse racing to the area’s attractions. The Welsh Harp had its own music hall, and its own music hall song- ‘The Jolliest Place That’s Out’- and it was until the rise of the seaside holiday in the 1890s a very popular resort for day-tripping Londoners.

The Welsh Harp has long-standing connexion with navigation: the modern ship’s propeller was created there in 1836; speed- boats and small flying-boats were common sights there in the 1920s and 1930s; and a number of boating groups use the reservoir today.

The Welsh Harp has some unusual associations, too. Torpedoes and tanks were tested there, and it was the scene of the Hendon Nudist Riots in the hot summer of 1930, which involved fist-fights between some 200 Hendon residents and nude sun-bathers.

Brent Reservoir, now managed by the Welsh Harp Conservation Group, has a diverse wildlife- from voles to slow-worms, and in 1975 was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest, because of its wealth of over-wintering waterfowl; teal, grebes, shovellers, coot and Canada geese are frequent visitors to the Welsh Harp- for nearly 200 years a wonderful breathing-space for London.

‘New’ Discoveries

Church Farm Museum Curator Gerrard had to move his museum off-site store just before Christmas. Amongst his discoveries was a small wooden crate of Ted Sammes material – building material – brick and roofing tile – from the HADAS Church End Farm, Hendon, excavations of the 1960s, as published in the recent HADAS publication ‘The Last Hendon Farm’. This material will be recovered to Avenue House, cleaned, and possibly summarised in a short note, as it can be added to some field drain pipes from Church End Farm and the Paddock also rediscovered since publication of the book

British Museum extension gets the go-ahead

Another important planning decision reached a head on 17 December when the British Museum obtained planning permission at the second attempt for its planned north-western corner development, designed to provide new research and conservation labs and new space in which to stage large-scale temporary exhibitions. The Museum’s architects, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, produced a revised plan that reduces the height of the extension by placing more of the structure beneath the ground.

The latest excavations at El Amarna Tim Wilkins

The ancient Egyptian city of Akhetaton, at the modern site of El Amarna in central Egypt, was the short-lived capital built by the ‘heretic’ Pharaoh Akhenaten from about 1353 BCE, and abandoned shortly after his death in about 1332 BCE. It was here that he pursued his vision of a society dedicated to the cult of one god, the power of the sun, the Aten.

As the city of Akhetaton was built, lived in and abandoned in such a very short period, excavations there give a rare snapshot of a population at a single particular time.

The latest excavations started in 2005 when an archaeologist walking the site noticed fragments of human bone and potsherds lying on the sand. These were traced back to a narrow wadi, about 600m long, at the extreme Eastern edge of the city plain, where recent, rare, rains had washed them out onto the sand. Investigations in the wadi found the cemetery of the ordinary citizens of the city where, according to the Project Director, Professor Barry Kemp, the density and area of the burial site could indicate maybe three thousand graves, of which less than 200 have been excavated so far. Work is slow and laborious because the sand is very soft and great care must be taken to prevent the sides slipping into the burial pit, and every breath of wind blows it back in. The spoil sand is also sieved to make sure that all bone fragments are recovered for analysis. Temperatures on site limit the digging season severely, with temperatures well over 40degrees in summer.

Only one grave found had brick walls and a vaulted roof, a few had wooden coffins, but mostly the bodies were just buried wrapped in linen cloth and bound with thin straight sticks. The graves were dug into the sand without any attempt to cut into the underlying rock, and, when filled in, were then outlined with stones on the surface. Once the body was bound it would have been hard to tell which way up it was, and so some are found buried facing down. None of the bodies were mummified.

The ages of the bodies at death are analysed and show a strong indication of a young population (See chart below). This may be because the people living in the city were primarily there to build and serve the temples and other institutions, and as a result older people did not move there. Also, with the site being abandoned in such a short time, the population didn’t get the chance to grow old. Consistent with this is that most bodies show signs of wear and tear, such as spinal compression from lifting and carrying heavy loads. These may have been talatat blocks – the stone blocks used for the more important buildings at Amarna, where most buildings were made from mud brick. These talatat blocks were cut to a standard size for faster construction: 27 cm x 27 cm x 54 cm (½ x ½ x 1 cubit), which would also make them about the maximum weight that a man could carry on his shoulder unaided. Where a body showed broken bones there are no indications that these had been splinted or treated in any other way – just left to heal.

The high statistics of deaths of young people may also indicate outbreaks of disease. The statistics from the plagues of the 1500’s show similar patterns and there are mentions in Hittite texts, probably from the time of Tutankhamun, of Egyptian prisoners introducing devastating epidemics to Hittite towns. There are many signs of undernourishment, or at least gross imbalance of diet, and there are many signs of a cereal-based diet (bread and beer) but very few animal bones. 74% of the under-20’s have signs of anaemia, caused probably by the unbalanced diet and an increased demand from the body for iron to cope with infections and parasites. The average male adult height at Amarna is about 5’ 4”, a significant drop from an average height of 5’6”, both before and after Amarna.

This presents a very different picture from the carvings on the walls of the city buildings and in the tombs of the Amarna period, which show vast numbers of offering tables piled high with all kinds of foods, especially meat, which the texts indicate were then distributed to the people. Hyena bones found at the workmen’s village to the south of the site show signs of butchering with knife cuts – so were they eating hyena as a delicacy, or as a rare source of meat?

A few of the bodies show signs of war wounds. One unfortunate man had been shot by an arrow in the same hip at two different times; having survived the first wound he was then killed by being shot again in the same place!

Further information can be found at: http://www.amarnaproject.com and http://www.amarnatrust.com

More on the Staffordshire Hoard By Don Cooper

I visited the British Museum to view the artefacts on display from the Staffordshire Hoard (there are 33 of them displayed in Room 37 – up the stairs on the left after you go in the main entrance – it’s the first room at the top of the stairs). To my mind one of the most interesting items on display is a crumpled up gold cross which had been studded with garnets. The garnets appear to have fallen out when the cross was crumpled up in the hoard as they were all found with it. The cross itself would appear to be Christian and to have been cherished by its owner as at one time the main garnet had cracked and had been repaired with a piece of gold “wire”. Would he or she then crumple it up to put it in the hoard or had it acquired a less pious owner? There is a lovely photograph of it on the web site www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk and to quote Leahy and Bland (2009, p36) “this apparent lack of respect shown to this Christian symbol may point to the hoard being buried by pagans, but Christians were also capable of despoiling each other’s shrines.” It will be interesting to follow the story as more and more research is carried out on the artefacts.

At the end of November 2009 the hoard was valued at £3.85 million pounds by the Treasure Valuation Committee at the British Museum and the race is on to raise the money. One pound of the £4.99 price on the Leahy and Bland (2009) book goes towards the fund.

Bibliography

Leahy & Bland. (2009) “The Staffordshire Hoard” London: The British Museum Press.

HADAS 2009 Long Weekend — Day 5 Off home – via Caerwent Jim Nelhams

Time to leave our Hereford base and head for home. But two more planned visits on the way. Our chosen route was via the picturesque Wye Valley with a chance to enjoy some more scenery, and a brief photo-op at Tintern Abbey.

Caerwent is today a small village on the south side of the A48 between Gloucester and Caerleon. The Romans called it Venta Silurum (the market of the Silures), and it was at one stage the largest centre of civilian population in Roman Wales. Within the Roman walls, sits now a rural village with church, Post Office and two public houses.

We arrived through the East Gate and left our coach in the car park close to the West Gate. The excellent guide book published by Cadw, the Welsh Assembly Government’s environment service, is normally sold in the Post Office which is closed on Sundays. Because of this, a supply had been delivered to the car park for our members by a local historian. Thus armed, and having examined the helpful information boards, we scattered to view different parts of the village.

Although the site has not been extensively excavated, though Time Team have been there, most of the finds are stored in Newport or Caerleon. Nevertheless, the footings of numerous buildings are visible, including a row of shops. More surprisingly, some ninety per cent of the town walls are still standing. The average height is around ten feet, though in some places, it reaches an impressive seventeen feet. Throughout the village, and round the walls, there are clear information boards.

At the centre of the “town” now sits the small church of St Stephen and St Tathan. Here are to be found a few Roman relics dedicated according to the priest to “Gods other than our own”, and including a Roman funerary urn.

Having started by the West Gate, our rendezvous point was The Coach and Horses, next to the East Gate, where we enjoyed coffee/tea before boarding our coach in the pub car park. At the back of the car park, mounds in the grass indicated the position of walls as yet unexcavated, but that is for another day!

So eastwards over the old Severn Bridge, with a good view of the new crossing, onto the M4, with a brief comfort stop on our way to Andy’s treat.

Didcot Railway Centre Andy Simpson

After the delights of Roman Caerwent, and having already enjoyed statically preserved steam locos at Blaenavon and at the Waterways Museum at Gloucester, our last port of call of the weekend was to that temple of Great Western Railway steam, Didcot Railway Centre. Of course, depending on your railway allegiances, the old Great Western Railway, which existed until nationalisation on 1 January 1948 when it became part of British Railways (though still pretty much going its own way as the ‘Great Western Region’ as it was known) could be known as ‘God’s Wonderful Railway’ or ‘The Great Way Round’. Speaking as a native of Wolverhampton which once boasted two GWR loco sheds and a GWR works (and an LMS loco shed) I do of course have a soft spot for the designs of GWR loco designers Gooch, Dean, Hawksworth and Collett. The Great Western Society, who run the centre on a volunteer basis, was founded by a group of schoolboys in the 1960s who wanted to preserve one of their favourite GWR steam locos. Today it has an extensive collection of copper-capped, Brunswick green (and black, and wartime Khaki) GWR steam power, from humble local goods/passenger tank locos to heavy goods engines and express passenger locos of the immortal ‘Castle’ and ‘King’ classes, plus some 40 carriages and several wagons. Many of the locos were rescued from the famous scrapyard at Barry, South Wales in the 1970s/80s after 20 years or more in limbo and restored to full working order. Others were purchased direct from BR, who retired their last standard gauge ex GWR steam power in November 1966, nearly two years before the final grubby end of BR steam in the Northwest in August 1968.

On site, the locos can stretch their legs on a half-mile ‘main line’ paralleling Network Rail lines, a shorter ‘branch line’ on which a 1940s GWR diesel railcar was running on the day of our visit, and Britain’s only operating Broad Gauge (7ft) line, on which we could take a ride behind the glorious replica 1840s loco ‘Fire Fly’ with its open topped third-class carriage.

The ambience of a working GWR/BR steam shed is maintained with the original locomotive shed, turntable and coaling stage. There is an excellent small relics museum, shop, cosy cafe, refurbished 1940s air raid shelter, and well-stocked collectors sales facilities which added to my existing stock of musty 1960s railway magazines to help with my research into the history of the above-mentioned Barry scrapyard.

An extra bonus was a working visit by Britain’s brand new mainline steam loco, the LNER designed ‘Pacific’ express passenger loco 60163 ‘Tornado’, behind which several of us enjoyed a run.

After that, it was time for a run back home to London. The end of another wonderful HADAS weekend. Our thanks again to Jim, Jo, and Don for all their planning and hard work.

Postscript Jim Nelhams

It was lovely to see people enjoying the trip, and the various visits we had planned, including places that some people would not have chosen to visit on their own. There were several comments from unexpected quarters on “the smell of the steam engines recalling wonderful memories of childhood”.

Our thanks to Don, who instigated the trip, and to all who have contributed to the write-ups which have appeared in the Newsletter. Here’s to 2010.

My Kinda Group – The Society of Dilettanti (From Society of Antiquities online newsletter)

The Society of Dilettanti are the subject of a new book of the same name by Jason Kelly, which traces the transformation of that society from a group of spoiled and self-indulgent libertines meeting to eat and drink to excess to a well-respected archaeological society, with aspirations (never realised) to learned society status and a set of apartments in which to display the spoils of travels in Italy, Greece and Turkey. These same fifty-nine aristocrats and antiquaries were also members of the Egyptian Society, the Divan Club (whose members had to have travelled in the Ottoman Empire) and the Royal Society!

Letter To Barnet Council Strategic Service (Planning and Housing) from Peter Pickering, HADAS Vice-Chairman, 7 Jan 2009; HADAS is the only archaeological society in the Borough of Barnet, and has for many decades conducted research, including a large number of excavations, throughout the borough. It is based in Avenue House, Finchley. It is concerned with the whole historic environment, and not simply that part of it which is buried. It engages with the public through lectures, events and community projects with schools.

HADAS welcomes the opportunity of participating in the process Barnet Council is now embarked on of producing a Local Development Framework to replace the old Unitary Development Plan, and offers the following comments on the ‘Direction of Travel’ document which was issued for consultation in November. The comments all relate to matters omitted from, or dealt with much too cursorily in, the document.

We note the references to the character of Barnet and its historic environment in the document. They are welcome so far as they go, but they do not go anything like far enough, and should have a chapter to themselves (as the natural environment has in Chapter 11) or at least a separate section in Chapter 9. This chapter or section should, in particular, outline the council’s policy on conservation areas (as the UDP did in Policies HC1 and following) and on the ‘local listing’ (as it is currently termed) of buildings of importance to the borough’s heritage and townscape character – as the UDP did in Policies HC14 and 15. It should also mention the wealth of nationally listed buildings which Barnet enjoys – Barnet is, I believe, very high in this league table among outer London boroughs. Examples of policies on these matters which Barnet could usefully emulate are in Policy 9B of the draft Core Strategy of Islington, and in SP10 of the Tower Hamlets Core Strategy.

Archaeology in the narrower sense makes even less of an appearance in the ‘Direction of Travel’ document – indeed I have found none at all. This must be rectified, and it must be made clear to the people of Barnet and to developers that the Council will insist on proper archaeological investigations in advance of any development where it seems possible that there are buried remains, and that the results of any investigation will be made public. Including Archaeological Priority Areas in one of the maps would be very helpful.

Another omission is of museums. There are two perfunctory mentions, one of Church House Farm Museum in the context of the library estate, and the other of the RAF Museum in the Colindale box in Chapter 7. One would not guess from this that the RAF Museum is a National Museum which the Council should be proud of having within its area. (although the Colindale Area Action Plan – a subsidiary plan within the overall Barnet Plan – does cover the RAF Museum and recognises its importance. The CAAP is available on-line-Ed. Nor is there even a mention of other museums, such as the Barnet Museum in Wood Street and the Stephens Collection in Avenue House. This contrasts pointedly with the several paragraphs devoted to the various types of open space. Although not really within HADAS’s remit, the document appears to neglect culture and the arts completely (there is not even a mention of the Arts Depot in North Finchley, let alone the various smaller arts centres). Surely they are significant in land use terms, and in making Barnet rather more self-contained, and not a mere dormitory suburb whose inhabitants look to central London for their entertainment (Chapter 12, rightly, sees local employment opportunities in such a context, and as reducing the need to travel). We ask for a chapter devoted to culture and the arts in their widest sense.

We hope that the Council will follow the suggestions we have made, and that the next version of the Core Strategy will deal adequately with all these matters. We give notice that if it does not, we shall seek to persuade the Inspector that their omission makes the Core Strategy unsound.

OTHER SOCIETIES’ LECTURES & EVENTS ERIC MORGAN

Sunday 7 February 10.30am Heath & Hampstead Society Meet at the Flag Pole, Whitestone Pond, NW3 How The Heath Was Saved For The Nation Walk led by Thomas Radice. Donation £2, lasts approx. 2 hours.

Monday 8 February 3pm Barnet and District Local History Society Church House, Wood St, Barnet 500 Years of English Architecture Talk by Pamela Wright. Tea at 2.30pm.

Wednesday 10 February 8pm Mill Hill Historical Society Wilberforce Centre, St Paul’s Church, The Ridgway, NW7 The Timber Framed Buildings of Middlesex Talk by Patricia A Clarke (preceded by AGM)

Saturday 13 March LAMAS 47th Annual Conference of London Archaeologists

Weston Theatre, Museum of London (NB NOT Docklands Museum as recently)

LAMAS members £8, non-members £10. Tickets (SAE please, and cheques payable to LAMAS) from Jon Cotton, Museum of London, 150 London Wall, EC2Y 5HN

Thursday 18 February Camden History Society Burgh House, New End Square, NW3 London’s Bridges: Tolls, Suicides & Bombs. Talk on their history by Peter Matthews

Friday 19 February 7.30pm Wembley History Society St Andrew’s Church Hall, Church Lane, Kingsbury, NW9 The History of Neasden Len Snow. £1 admission.

Wednesday 24th February Friern Barnet & District Local History Society St John’s Church Hall (Next to Whetstone Police Station) Friern Barnet Lane, N.20 Freemasonry Norman Greenshields £2. Refreshments 7.45pm.

Thursday 25 February 2.30pm Finchley Society Drawing Room, Avenue House, East End Road, N3 Murders in the Finchley area Talk by Roger Morris Non-Members £2.

Sunday 28 February 11AM – 1PM Battle of Barnet Guided Walk. Meet at junction of Great North Rd/Hadley Green Road. Led by Paul Baker. Costs £7.

HADAS EVENTS 2010

The winter lecture series takes place at Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE. Nearest tube Finchley Central. Lectures start promptly at 8 pm, non-members welcome – £1 donation please, coffee or tea available.

Tues. 12th January lecture by Ken Marks

The Archaeology of Anglo-Jewry in London 1066-1290 and 1656-1850.
This month’s lecture will concentrate on the physical evidence (the archaeology) of Anglo-Jewry in London in the periods 1066-1290 and 1656-c1850. Following the blitz in 1941 and during excavations in the City post War and even up to c1950 when the City was being redeveloped excavations near the Guildhall which was near to the Jewry in the medieval period revealed the remains of two 13thc. mikvaot. The bombing destroyed the area which to day is the Barbican and revealed the only Jewish Cemetery in England from c.1090-1177. In the re-admission period the speaker will discuss the first synagogues: the only one remaining being Bevis Marks (1701) The first cemeteries in Mile End and objects that have been found during excavations such as two shofarot, one dredged up from the Thames and the other found in a rubbish dump in Leadenhall Street.

Ken Marks has a B.A. (Hons) in Archaeology and a M.A. in Archaeology (U.C.L) where the subject was the Archaeology of London. Ken’s talk to HADAS is based on his M.A. dissertation. He has now started an MPhil on the Archaeology of Anglo-Jewry 1656-1880 covering the whole of England and Wales.

Tues. 9th February lecture by William Cumber – The Trendles Project

Tues. 9th March lecture by Erica Ferguson – The History of RAF Bentley Priory

Tues. 13th April lecture by John Chapman – The GWR comes to the Thames Valley

Tues. 11th May lecture by John Johnson – Graeco-Roman Period Funerary Practices in Egypt

Oliver Cromwell and the readmission of the Jews to England in 1656

10 October 2009 – 14 February 2010. Members with an interest in January’s lecture may find this exhibition at Church Farmhouse Museum worth looking out for.

The Jews were expelled from England in 1290, but in 1656 Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate government took an important step towards their readmission to this country. Cromwell was petitioned by Menasseh ben Israel, a rabbi based in Amsterdam, which had a thriving Jewish community, to live and worship freely in England again. Three councils were held, and although they came to no formal decisions, in 1656 Jews were allowed to worship privately, and the first synagogue and Jewish burial ground were allowed to be founded in London without any legal hindrance.

Cromwell may have had mixed motives for his actions: the Jewish community had made a major contribution to the economic success of the Dutch, which impressed him, and he also believed that that God’s Kingdom on earth could not be established until the conversion of the Jews to Christianity, but Cromwell also counted the Jews amongst the ‘Godly’ people, and there is no question that, after 1656, Jewish people were able to live in this country with a religious tolerance which would have been unimaginable in the preceding three centuries. (This exhibition, which was prepared by the Cromwell Museum at Huntingdon, has never been shown in London before.)

Brockley Hill Roman pottery project

Work continues at the Garden Room, Avenue House to process the finds from various Roman Brockley Hill finds in our care. It’s a big job, but we’ve nearly finished the initial processing of the original 8 tea-chest size boxes of material. But there’s plenty more to do – we have to separate the pot into the year of excavation, weigh the material and check our findings on the database

We are at the Garden Room most Sundays 10.30-1.30pm (contact Bill 8449 5666)

Brick and Skeletons: 1632 Brick Church Ruin – review of the November lecture Stephen Brunning

St John the Evangelist church of 1632 is located on the edge of Stanmore Park on the site of an earlier Saxon church (St Mary’s). The building was paid for by Sir John Wolstenholme, and was dedicated by William Laud in 1632. Laud was Bishop of London at the time, but went on the become Archbishop of Canterbury. Further increase in population led to a third (and present) church being built of Kentish Ragstone in 1850. A year later the people of Stanmore wanted to demolish the brick church to pay for the new one, but this was halted after a public outcry and it was left to decay. As the title of the lecture suggests, the church is now a ruin, with only the tower still standing intact.

In 1989 work was needed to “consolidate the ruin”, and English Heritage agreed to fund 80% of the restoration costs. Ivy covering the structure was removed, and a firm of builders and masons made safe the loose brickwork with lime and mortar. The work took 1 year 9 months to complete, at a cost of £175,000. Three monuments in the churchyard were also deemed to be at risk, and more funds will for their repair.

During the consolidation work, the missing coffin of the 4th Earl of Aberdeen was discovered. George Hamilton Gordon KG, KT was Prime Minister from 1852 to 1855. He was identified by the coronet of an earl and insignia of the Ancient Order of the Thistle of Scotland. Members of the Abercorn and Aberdeen families are buried in the Bentley Priory vault on the north side of the ruin.

Another vault was revealed underneath the floor at the east end of the church. This vault contained the burials of four John Wolstenholmes’ who are associated with Great Stanmore, including the tomb and lead coffin of the Sir John who built the church. Identification was made by a plaque on the wall, which unfortunately turned to dust when moved!!

There then followed the usual short question-and-answer session after the talk. One of the audience members asked about the connection of St John’s with Russia. The lecturer Dr Frederick Hicks said he did not know, but in bed that night remembered the Bernays’ family. Henry Arthur Bernays died on 8th July 1913 aged 61 in Moscow. He was buried in the churchyard under a marble monument. I have a letter with further information that Dr Hicks would like the gentleman who asked the original question to have. Please contact me on 020 8959 6419 if you are that person.

The ruin is open for viewing April to September every Saturday from 2.30 to 4.30 PM with guides – FREE. Other times and groups by appointment. Contact Dr Hicks on 020 8954 1677.

HADAS 2009 Long Weekend — Day 4

Day 4 saw us visiting the third city of the Three Choirs Festival – Gloucester, with a stop en route at Newent. Sadly, The Shambles in Newent had been sold though it was possible to see part of it.

Visit to The Church of St.Mary the Virgin, Newent Andy Simpson

A most appropriate stop-off on the way to Gloucester, this! (after an interesting sat-nav induced diversion around Newent and an ensuing short-cut taken by some 40 HADAS members through the back garden of one slightly bemused, but very helpful, Newent resident – (we sent her a bunch of flowers – JN)).

I was last at this beautiful Anglican church a couple of years ago when my old Wolverhampton primary school friend Simon Mason was inaugurated as vicar of the church – his first full rectorship after time as a Curate. As is the modern way, this means he is also responsible for ‘The United Benefice of Newent and Gorsley with Clifford’s Mesne in the Diocese of Gloucester’. Unfortunately Simon was away on the day of our visit, but the church was open for a detailed exploration by HADAS members. Shame the Guidebooks ran out!

The earliest visible parts of the present church dates back to the thirteenth century, with arcades in Early English style and a fourteenth century tower with its much-rebuilt spire reaching a height of 153 feet, and has the largest unsupported wooden ceiling in the country, dating to 1679 to replace the original nave which collapsed under a heavy fall of snow in 1674. The church displays some notable Saxon sculpture, including a probable early ninth-century Mercian cross-shaft in the porch (found in the churchyard in 1907). The Northumbrian style carving shows the fall of man and the sacrifice of Isaac. Close by at the base of the bell tower are two grave slabs of probable seventh century Celtic workmanship – Gloucestershire and much of Herefordshire being a Celtic enclave in the early medieval period.

There are smaller (replica) sculpted stones within one of the aisles. Notable is the small but closely carved Newent Stone found in 1912 serving as the support for the skull of a medieval burial. It shows the ‘Harrowing of Hell’ and the name EDRED along with the names of the four evangelists. It again reflects Northumbrian styles and possibly originated as a portable altar in the pre-Conquest eleventh century before being re-used as a pillow stone in the burial, though one study suggests an eighth century date commemorating EDRED as the first Saxon Abbot. The Newent Stone cast is flanked by four further replicas of originals held in Gloucester Museum; the originals are again of probable seventh century Irish Celtic origin from a monastic community.

There was just time also to explore a little of the pretty town of Newent – with its well-stocked charity shops. Particularly notable is the timber –framed Market-house built as a butter market back in 1668. Now run by Newent Town Council, it hosts the Newent Heritage Exhibition, open in summer months, recoding historical information on the town which has prehistoric and Roman occupation in the vicinity (and an abandoned railway station closed since c.1964!) and was formerly on the drover’s road from Wales and retains a large lake created from former monastic fish ponds. The town is also known for its annual Onion Fayre held in September (www.newentonionfayre.org). Close by is the 900ft Masy Hill, the highest point in Gloucestershire. For further details see Newent-online.co.uk

Gloucester Docks and the National Waterways Museum Jo Nelhams

The River Severn had provided an important trade route for hundreds of years for shallow draft sailing vessels, which were able to navigate the narrow, winding river. In 1580 Gloucester became a customs port by charter from Queen Elizabeth 1, but few sea going vessels were able to sail as far as Gloucester. With considerable growth of trade in the 18th century, there was a proposal to construct a canal this was authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1793. However, as with many projects, there were financial difficulties and delays with changes of plans, and the canal was finally completed in 1827.

With the canal fully operational, merchants took advantage of the new facilities. The geographical position of Gloucester being so far inland gave it advantages over Bristol, because goods could be transferred to narrow boats to supply the Midlands through the canal network. Imports increased dramatically in the 1850s and 60s, but unfortunately vessels had to go elsewhere to find a return cargo as salt was the only regular export.

Improvements to the docks enabled them to take ships that were increasing in size and the docks remained busy until the 20th century. The First World War saw a dramatic decline in trade and competition with road transport also added to the dock’s demise.

During the Second World War, the docks played a vital part in handling cargos for the Midlands, but after the war, the docks were used less as competition from other ports increased and larger coastal vessels were too big to enter the port at Gloucester. The last commercial traffic on the canal were grain barges passing through to Tewkesbury, but these came to an end in 1998.

The National Waterways Museum is housed in a warehouse at Gloucester docks. Here you can find a comprehensive history of the development of transport by water with the construction of the canal system.

The Third Duke of Bridgewater is known as the Father of Canals. By the middle of the 18th century the need for improvement in transport was widely recognised and the Duke needed an outlet for his coal and he needed cheap transport. In 1759 he obtained an Act of Parliament to build the first proper canal from his coalmines at Worsley to Manchester. This eventually led to the construction of what is still known as the Bridgewater Canal. A few years earlier the Sankey Brook from St. Helens to the River Mersey had been widened and new cuts were made to straighten the brook. The Duke of Bridgewater employed James Brindley, who had already a reputation for his work with early steam power and flint mills. The Bridgewater canal was built with just hand tools and gangs of men who became known as navvies.

Over the next 30 years numerous canals were built and much of the network is still in existence. However the introduction of the railways signalled the end to the majority of commercial traffic on the canals, although small amounts of traffic continued until the early 1960s, until the ‘big freeze’ of 1963, which caused the canals to freeze over for nearly three months.

The canals have given us some famous and beautiful constructions such as Telford’s Pontcysyllte Aqueduct on the Llangollen canal, the Anderton boat lift to the River Weaver and the Crofton Pumping Station on the Kennet and Avon canal, which houses two Cornish beam engines, the older built by Boulton and Watt dating from 1812. The Crofton Society restored the steam pumps in 1970 and regular steam weekends have been held ever since.

Many of the canals have been restored and this programme continues. The canals are used for pleasure and narrow boating is a wonderful way to appreciate the beautiful scenery this country has to offer. Our visit to the Docks and Museum included a leisurely cruise along the canal with all the members of the party.

On a personal note, after the Hereford trip, Jim and I explored the Monmouth and Brecon canal on a narrow boat with our daughter and her husband plus two dogs. We visited Llanfoist Wharf, which was where Blaenavon was connected to the canal by a tram road. Here we saw the replica truck and position of the former tram track to the wharf from Blaenavon.

Gloucester Cathedral Jean Bayne

My initial impression of the interior of Gloucester Cathedral was not very favourable. The view of the Great East Window from the West end was obscured. (I later realised that it was by a magnificent Tudor organ, very tall and richly decorated).

Also the floor space of much of the nave had been given over to an exhibition on Icons and reduced a powerful open space to something fragmentary and visually out of place. However, by the end of my visit, I was enchanted and enthralled by the glory and beauty of this great holy place.

Founded as a Anglo Saxon religious house by Osric, Prince of Mercia in 678, it became a Benedictine monastery in the 11th century. In 1072, William the Conqueror appointed Serlo, a Norman monk, to redesign and extend the building. So an entirely new Romanesque style church replaced the original Anglo Saxon building and the large round columns in the nave are testament to this. In the following centuries grand scale and small scale additions and projects demonstrated Gloucester’s capacity to develop and respond to changing contexts. For example, the Lady Chapel was added in 1470, using the Perpendicular style of English architecture and was later restored by the Victorians. The stained glass here is both medieval and Victorian Arts and Crafts but there is no dissonance between the two types. Moreover, the beautiful music scroll stained glass windows, placed in the chapel in 1992 to celebrate a local composer of English church music, carry on this tradition and meld in as part of a whole. And my favourite window of all is also a very modern one in the South Ambulatory Chapel by Tom Denny in moving swirls of blue and yellow depicting Thomas in the presence of Christ and animals, plants and birds from Psalm 148. (He also has a smaller window in Worcester Cathedral)

There are many fascinating monuments here too. Osric is immortalised in stone, holding a model of the building he founded close to his chest and the last Abbot of Gloucester, who died just before the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540, is also represented. A poignant monument is of two sisters in effigy, facing each other across an aisle: they had both died in childbirth within a year in Tudor times. There are two other unusual monuments which reflect earlier times: one is of Robert of Normandy, the eldest son of William, and the other is of King Edward 11. Robert was imprisoned by his younger brother, Henry, and died in 1134. He was a benefactor of the Abbey and is buried in the Chapter House. His effigy is made from Irish bog oak and is highly coloured and decorated. Moreover, he was a warrior in the first Crusade and is shown ready to fight. One leg is raised and his hand is on his sword, suggesting that he is about to spring up and go into battle. Nearby, there are 2 massive cope chests from the 1300s in which ceremonial church vestments were securely locked. The other monument of Edward 11 is huge. He is represented in alabaster, a rare medium at that time, and beautifully carved in great detail. He rests on a tomb clad in Purbeck marble and is covered by a intricate, pinnacled canopy made from local limestone with angels surrounding his bearded head. His tomb became a place of pilgrimage so he was very revered at the time. His best known claim to fame nowadays, though, is his alleged homosexuality and his supposed very gruesome murder by his estranged wife, Isabella and her lover Mortimer. Red hot pokers seem to have been involved according to later commentators! His death (1327) was also the impetus for the transformation of the East end of the cathedral by his son, Edward 111

Between 1337 and 1348 a perpendicular styled Quire replaced the Romanesque one of Serlo’s time and stone screen walls were taken to great heights. New stalls and misericords were put in place as well as a vaulted roof above the high altar with carved angels playing musical instruments around the central figure of Christ.

Dominating the east end is the magnificent Great Window. It is the second largest in Britain and fills the whole wall space. It is as big as a tennis court, and the impact of its recurring patterns and strong horizontal and vertical lines reflect the medieval notion of hierarchy, rising from earth to heaven. Noble families at the bottom, followed by bishops ,abbots, saints ,apostles and angels in separate layers going up to its high centrepiece, Christ and the Virgin Mary with the 12 apostles .In front is the high altar, designed by George Gilbert Scott in 1873. The Victorians were very active restorers in the nineteenth century and their work in Gloucester Cathedral is particularly sensitively done. They added more misericords and relaid the floor in the quire.

We were lucky to be shown round by one of the cathedral guides and, therefore, able to go down into the Crypt. Very well preserved, it dated from 1087 and contained some of the earliest Norman architecture in the cathedral. Its solid round pillars, low vaulted ceilings and mix of light and shade infused with a strange silence, evoked images of monks moving slowly, chanting softly. It was also the place where monks’ bodies were laid to rest before burial.

In contrast, the cloisters were light, airy and welcoming. The view down the east walk was stunning. The beautifully carved fan vaulting is the earliest surviving example in Britain. Its ‘white’ look suggested recent cleaning but not so! The word ‘cloister means an enclosed space and it comprises walled walks on the sides of a central open garth . Consistent with Benedictine practice, the domestic quarters were built on the outside of 3 of the walks (1412). The east walk gave access to the Chapter House and the dormitories. Twenty carrels were placed on the South walk where the monks read and studied at wooden desks. There was also a lavatorium for communal washing on the north walk which used water from a local stream and there was a well in the garth, or outside space, in the centre. Monks were able to hang up their towels on the wall on which the kitchen was built as it was warmed from the fire on the other side! Some small compensation for the privations of monastic life!

This life came to an end in 1540 with the Dissolution and Henry VIII reconsecrated the building as a cathedral in honour of Edward 11. The next great upheaval in the seventeenth century was the Civil War. Gloucester escaped the ravages of Puritan fanaticism and later the Mayor and city of Gloucester saved the cathedral from planned destruction

One tiny detail which we enjoyed: our guide told us that there is a resident stone mason at Gloucester Cathedral who has been working there for 50 years. On one of the newly repaired stone walls in the garth, the stone mason had left not only his mark, but a tiny carving of himself at work! It is details like this that enhance a guided tour and, thanks to her, we learnt from her knowledge and enthusiasm as she brought this wonderful building alive for us.

Gloucester Folk Museum Brenda Pershouse

The Folk Museum in Gloucester was well worth a visit. It had exhibits showing ancient machinery with descriptions of a variety of trades. The making of metal pins was skilful. Very small machines cut up the wires which had been stretched to great lengths. At last I know the meaning of “wire drawers”, who have a livery hall in the City of London.

There were exhibits of old fashioned dairy methods that I remember on my cousin’s farm in the 1950s. There was a shoemaking factory, a Victorian classroom, a room full of children’s toys, fishing nets of all kinds, civil war weapons and many more interesting exhibits.

CBA Study Weekend – Shrewsbury 16th to 18th October 2009 Emma Robinson

The CBA must yet again be thanked for organising a most enjoyable and stimulating weekend. Participants were given wide ranging insights into impressive sites and landscapes around Shrewsbury and located on or near to the River Severn. We are all in great debt to those who gave up time to talk to us, guide us round the various sites and to the CBA staff themselves. The main foci of the weekend were on landscapes of the British industrial revolution and Roman settlement – but this was set in a wider context stressing the complexity of the making of the landscapes. It was above all an active weekend where morning lectures were skilfully crafted to illuminate field trips in the afternoon. Fortunately the weather was kind to us.

On Friday afternoon we were introduced to Shrewsbury by Martin Wood the Town Crier and joined his party for a memorable walking trip to explore its past. He opened so many doors for us. We were fascinated, for example, to be shown the recently discovered remains of the Norman castle wall below the Prince Rupert Hotel’s newly opened heath club.

The tone for the formal part of the programme was set by Professor Marilyn Palmer the speaker for the De Cardi Lecture on Friday evening. Marilyn became Britain’s first professor of industrial archaeology in 2000 and gave a most informative overview of the history of the discipline. She also reminded us that Britain was effectively the birthplace of the industrial revolution from the 16th century.

On Saturday we departed in good time for the World Heritage Site of Ironbridge for morning lectures in the Heritage Centre at Coalbrookdale. To give some background context – Dr Roger White spoke eloquently on the archaeology of Shropshire. This gave us a strong foundation for Paul Belford’s talk on Birthplace of Industry? Coalbrookdale from 1500 to 1900. We learnt that the geographical location and fortunate geology of this area simply brought together so many of the mineral resources that were required for exploring and perfecting new industrial techniques. The achievements of pioneering industrialists – including Abraham Darby, William Reynolds and John Wilkinson – led to these landscapes becoming the most technologically advanced area in the world by the end of the 18th century. Roger and Paul then spoke further on Antiquarians and Archaeologists in Shropshire and the Manufacturing Industrial Heritage in Telford. (The new town of Telford is the local government area into which the World Heritage Site of Ironbridge now falls and its industrial heritage is seen as an important element in giving rise to its place identity.) This gave us further insights not only into how this part of the nation’s past was being re-discovered and re-interpreted, but also into the rise of industrial tourism which has surprisingly early roots. In the afternoon Roger and Paul took us for a walk through the surviving built and natural environment, including the world famous Iron Bridge of 1779. All of this reminded us of the area’s unique contribution to the history and development of industrialised society. In the evening many of the party met for a convivial dinner in the Prince Rupert Hotel.

On Sunday we explored the adjacent landscapes of Wroxeter (the Roman city of Viroconium) and Attingham Park (an 18th century mansion, gardens and park) which are located on the outskirts of Shrewsbury. Before leaving Shrewsbury Roger White first gave us a most informative talk about Wroxeter which gave us real insights into its position in the landscape and land use in the area for settlement, trade, agriculture and routes of communication. We found his work on the study of the history of place names particularly interesting. The physical remains are impressive – particularly the walls known as the ‘old work’ – however, it was Roger’s tour of the hinterland of Viroconium which for us was a particular highlight. He led us to the highest point in the vast city and described the landscape – naming the hills and rocky outcrops around and also the building materials and mineral resources that were so close to hand – whilst a mixed herd of interested cows looked on. Only a fraction of the city has been excavated – the rest is now mostly under grassland. The fine mid 19th century model farm (located opposite the current visitor centre) is an increasingly rare survival. It is good to hear that they have been preserved with the intention of forming a more fitting interpretation centre for the site.

The afternoon found us at Atcham Memorial Hall (the village in which Attingham is situated) for a talk on the history and archaeology of Attingham Park. Atcham itself was a planned medieval town. However, much of the original settlement was ‘lost’ when ‘improvements’ were made to the park which was the ancestral home of the Berwick family for over 160 years and where each generation has left its mark. The mansion is set in a magnificent deer park, substantially landscaped by Humphrey Repton. However, we were reminded that the park had its origins in an industrial landscape and evidence of this is etched onto the surface of the landscape. Eamonn Baldwin spoke briefly about current archaeological work in the Deer Park. He focussed on a Roman marching camp (an overnight camp with surrounding ditch thrown up as and when required) – which unusually showed signs of having been reused We enjoyed a guided walk through the deer park and viewed the environmental study centre, the walled gardens, conservatories and orchards which are under restoration.

Since the programme was largely focussed outside Shrewsbury many participants (ourselves included) decided to stay over until Monday. We particularly wanted to see the remains of the great Abbey church outside the city walls and also have a better opportunity to look at the strong defensive setting of the city in a loop the River Seven. The great Benedictine Abbey Church of Saints Peter and Paul was founded in 1083 by Roger de Montgomery, a relative of William the Conqueror – although it has Saxon origins. It grew to become one of the most important and influential abbeys in Britain. After the relics of the Welsh Saint Winefride were brought to the Abbey from Wales in 1147 it became an important centre of pilgrimage. The Abbey was granted its own charter and its Abbot was privileged to sit in the House of Lords. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries the Abbey was finally surrendered to the Crown in January 1540. The town was allowed to keep the nave of the Abbey which had been a parish church – but most of the rest was destroyed and the stone robbed for other buildings – but nevertheless it is still impressive.

RAF Museum watchtower move

St George, London’s leading mixed-use developer, and the Royal Air Force Museum, held on December 7th a turf cutting ceremony to celebrate the beginning of the relocation and refurbishment of the historic Grahame-White Watchtower building from Beaufort Park to the Museum’s site.

The redundant Watchtower building, built in 1911, was once the centre piece of the aviation pioneer Claude Grahame-White’s aircraft factory in Hendon and was home to the birth of British aviation. Flying from Hendon ceased in the late 1960’s and since then, the Watchtower has fallen into disrepair and is to be renovated and relocated to the adjacent museum by St George.

Ross Faragher, Managing Director of award winning developers St George Central London commented: “Today we celebrate the first steps to relocate and refurbish the redundant Grahame-White Watchtower. This historic building is to be rejoined to the Grahame-White factory at The Royal Air Force Museum and is set to become an important learning resource reflecting the achievements of this early aviation pioneer and the history of the local area, for the benefit of the nation.”

Dr Fopp, Director General, Royal Air Force Museum commented: “Claude Grahame-White was one of the most important pioneers in British Aviation. The relocation of The Watchtower marks a continuing chapter of the Museum’s efforts to preserve the historic fabric of this cradle of aviation. It will provide a fitting tribute to him and the history of aviation in the local area.”

CAMRA celebrates news of National Brewing Museum

CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, is delighted to announce their support for the opening of the National Brewery Centre in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, in 2010, after brewer Molson Coors UK reversed its decision to close the brewery site. Last summer, the Coors Visitor Centre, formerly the Bass Museum, closed its doors due to falling visitor numbers, despite opposition by CAMRA, Janet Dean MP, local and county councils, Burton Civic Society and Chamber of Commerce, and the local media.

However, through the work of a Local Action Group, CAMRA is pleased that the Brewing Centre will now become a reality, and will retain key elements of the existing facilities to ensure the building’s historic aspects remain.

Nik Antona, CAMRA Director, and Burton branch spokesperson, said:

‘It’s fantastic news that we will again have a brewing museum in this country, and a centre reflecting the brewing styles of the UK. This is something CAMRA has been campaigning strongly for over the past year. Having passed a motion at our national AGM to campaign to keep the museum open, we participated in a march through the town centre of Burton, as well as organising a petition at our Burton Beer Festival last September.

The plans for the Centre are very promising, and an official opening could be a real boost for the local Burton economy. As the capital of British brewing, this is exactly what the town deserves. This is especially promising for the White Shield Brewery, which is based on site. Having won CAMRA awards in the past, it will be great to see their quality recognised further in the public domain. Once again this is a really exciting development, and CAMRA is looking forward to working with all parties involved in the opening in order to promote real ale and celebrate one of Britain’s most historic industries.”

Other societies’ events Eric Morgan

Weds 6th Jan: 8.00pm, Stanmore & Harrow Historical Society, Wealdstone Baptist Church Hall, High St, Wealdstone.

40 years with Kodak by Tony Earl

Thurs 7th Jan: 7.30pm, London Canal Museum, 12=13 New Wharf Rd, Kings X, N1

Birmingham Canals – Past & Present by Eric Lewis. £3 (cons £2)

Thur 7th Jan: 8.00pm, Pinner Local History Society, Village Hall, Chapel Lane Car Park, Pinner.

London’s Woodlands by Colin Bowlt . Visitors £2.

Mon 11th Jan: 2.30 for 3.00pm, Barnet & Local History Society, Church House, Wood St, Barnet, (opposite museum).

Hospital & Quarantine Ships on the River Thames by Dr Ian Johnston

Weds 13th Jan: 8.00pm, Mill Hill Historical Society, The Wilberforce Centre, St Paul’s Church, The Ridgeway NW7.

Newspaper Printing by Martin Bourn

Weds 13th Jan: 7.45pm, Hornsey Historical Society, Union Church Hall, Corner of Ferme Park Rd/Weston Park, N8.

History of Crouch End & Hornsey by Steven Denford. Visitors £1.

Fri 15th Jan: 7.30pm, Wembley Historical Society, St Andrews Church Hall, Church Lane, Kingsbury NW9.

The History of the Welsh Harp by Mr Leslie Williams. Visitors £1

Weds 20th Jan: 8.00pm Islington Archaeological Society, Islington Town Hall, Upper St, N1.

Islington’s ‘Baby Farm’ by Joan Lock.

Thur 21st Jan: 7.30pm, Camden History Society, Charlie Ratchford Centre, Belmont Street, NW1

From Hatton Garden to Hampstead – Buildings of the Royal Free by Neil McIntyre.

Thur 21st Jan: 8.00pm, Enfield Society, Jubilee Hall, 2 Parsonage Lane/junction Chase Side, Enfield.

Enfield’s Industrial Heritage by Stephen Gilburt.

Sun 24th: 11.00am-1.00pm Battle of Barnet Guided Walk, meet at the junction of Great North Rd/Hadley Green Rd.

Led by Paul Baker – cost £7.

Weds 27th Jan: 7.45pm, Friern Barnet & District Local History Society, St John’s Hall (next Whetstone Police stn), Friern Barnet Lane, N20. 50 Years in Estate Agency by Barry Carmody. £2

Fri 29th Jan: 7.45 SAHAAS, College of Law, University of Herts, Hatfield Rd Campus, St Albans.

The Second Battle of St Albans, 17th February 1461 by Dr Peter Burley

Doesn’t time go quickly, here we are in the middle of November looking forward to that end-of-year holiday period again!! May we, however, take this opportunity to wish all our readers a joyous holiday and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

HADAS Diary

As you will all know by now we had the Cafe di Lino booked for Sunday, 6th December 2009 for a holiday meal. However, the fates were against us!! When I went to finalise the menu, the manager informed me that they were closing for good the next day. He returned our deposit and wished us well. C’est la vie! It was too late to try somewhere else, so apologies to all and, maybe, we will try again early in the New Year.

Tuesday 12th January 2010 The Archaeology of Anglo-Jewry in London 1066-1290 and 1656-c.1850. Lecture by Ken Marks.

Tuesday 9th February 2010 The Trendles Project. Lecture by William Cumber.

Tuesday 9th March 2010 The History of RAF Bentley Priory. Lecture by Erica Ferguson.

Tuesday 13th April 2010 The GWR comes to the Thames Valley. Lecture by John Chapman.

Tuesday 11th May 2010 Graeco-Roman Period Funerary Practices in Egypt. Lecture by John Johnson.

Lectures start at 7.45 for 8.00pm in the Drawing Room, Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE. Buses 82, 143, 326 & 460 pass close by, and it is five to ten minutes walk from Finchley Central Station (Northern Line).

Avenue House Quiz by Don Cooper

On Monday, 19th October a dozen or more stalwart members of HADAS turned up for the Avenue House Quiz which was run as part of the fundraising effort on behalf of the Avenue House estate and gardens. The HADAS members divided themselves into two tables and, suitably fed and watered settled down to answering the questions. After a titanic struggle HADAS emerged triumphant with one HADAS table being first and the other second out of the eight tables playing – a great effort! I was tempted to name names but I have resisted it.

According to an article in this week’s Barnet & Potters Bar Times (published Thursday, 12th November 2009) Avenue House “funding is desperately needed to help preserve a struggling historic building”.

The article goes on to say that because of the current economic environment bookings for its function rooms are down and the income is not covering the expenses. It would be a shame and a great loss if Avenue House were to fail so activities such as the quiz are ever more important and deserve our support.

Report on the Roman Pottery Day & Cookery Demonstration at Avenue House, August 2nd. By Bill Bassus

This event came together from two different angles. The first was the current project to computerise, catalogue and repackage the Roman pottery excavated at the kiln site on Brockley Hill, north of Edgware, during the 1930s to 1950s. Although not dug by HADAS, this substantial amount of material came into our care, and has been worked on by members of this society on and off over the years. We hope to bring the packaging and archive up to current museum standards with the aim of possibly depositing it with the London Archaeological Archive and Resource Centre (LAARC). The LAARC also has material from Brockley Hill (much from excavations in the 1960s) so it may be an idea to combine the two collections. Our collection has been on display on several occasions during HADAS’s care and ideas were floated for a final show before any deposit to the LAARC.

The second angle came from Rose Baillie, Chair of the City of London Archaeological Society (CoLAS). Rose has an interest in Roman cooking and has written books on the subject (see below). She was looking for a suitable venue to conduct some experimental Roman cookery and wondered if Avenue House would be a possibility. Thus the idea came about to combine the two like-minded projects.

The day was flagged and publicised as part of the CBA’s Festival of Archaeology 2009 and some smart publicity signs from them were set up around Avenue House. After much organisation the pottery display and information panels were set up in the Dining Room (most appropriate) of AH, the tables were laden with mortaria (many with stamps of the potters), flagons, jars, bowls, lamp holders, tazza (decorated incense burners or similar) and amphorae. Also on display were a collection of small finds including a chisel, samian ware dish, intaglio, antifix (roof ornament) and bronze pin. Other exhibits were the ‘Moxon Collection’ which contains the likes of a potters’ stamp, a square bottle, some small jars and a spacer, the spacer was used to create a space between any heating flues and a wall. A half-section model of a Roman kiln illustrated the type that may have been used at Brockley Hill. The information panels showed the location of the site and explained the nature and use of the pottery and potters who worked there.

The cooking camp set up outside next to the Garden Room, Rose and her helpers built a small low level metal hearth (about two bricks high) to protect the tarmac, this was filled with charcoal. Tables were laid out with food, ingredients and various replica pots. The charcoal was lit at 1.30pm and a busy period of activity started to follow as various dishes were cooked using a mortaria to grind/mash ingredients and cooking pots on the charcoal. It was fascinating to see how it might have been done. The audience (and this writer) sampled the occasional morsel (at their own risk) which they found to be very tasty.

Here we are able to disclose (ahem) a new find and how Rose got some of her inspiration:

New Vindolanda tablet sheds light on Roman cuisine.

Scientific advances have made possible the decipherment of another writing tablet from Vindolanda. It is believed to be a follow-up to the well-known birthday invitation from the Prefect’s wife to another officer’s wife, to join her on her birthday.

Three days before Ides of September
Claudia Severa to her Lepidina greetings.

Dear sister,

I greatly missed you on the day of my birthday. How pleasant the day would have been had you been present. I am grieved to hear of Sulpicia’s mishap with the mule. May she learn a lesson by it.

A great calamity befell us. Our careless slaves let the kitchen burn down and we are cooking on a hearth in the Praetorium courtyard. How the Brittunculi must be laughing. Thanks to the Saviour Gods no-one was hurt, although Aelius Filus is sniffing all day. I pray it is only the accursed summer and not something worse.

Then dear sister the Governor decided to visit. You know he likes to dine like Lucullus. I have not seen a grape since I left Portus Itius, my amphora of Hispanic olives is apparently at the bottom of the Tamesis and those scoundrels at Sulloniacae served my crockery order so ill it arrived either broken or misshapen. Despite everything we did manage some recipes from Apicius. Here is the menu –

Gustatio: Republican style garlic, cheese and herb relish; Sesame, chickpea and olive oil dip, served on soldiers’ bread.

Fercula: Matius’ Pork and Apple Minutal with leek; Lambs’ kidneys brazed in olive oil and fish sauce, with chicory, and celery and aniseed flavoured spelt dumplings.

Mensa secunda: In truth we could manage only a selection of nibbles from Esco’s taberna in the vicus, but there was plenty of wine and his Excellency seemed content…..

All our greetings to your Cerialis and the little ones. My Aelius says can Cerialis send down some legionary craftsmen as soon as possible – they cannot all be building that wall thing. I shall expect you sister my dearest soul, as soon as you are able. May you all prosper. Vale!

So there you have it, the day seemed to go very well with what appeared to be a large amount of HADAS members and members of the public passing through, including a surprise visit by HADAS Chairman Don Cooper who had been laid low recently. Rose would like to thank her helpers: Winston Edwards and Pam Bremner along with HADAS member Emma-Jane Robinson. I would like to thank Vicki Baldwinus for her dedication, Tessa Smith, Steve Brunning, Avenue House and other members who helped in the organisation or on the day, cheers.

From the rich literature on Roman cuisine, with a measure of social history, archaeology, a dash of scandal and fish sauce:

Eating and Drinking in the Roman World

An Introduction with Recipes

by Rose Baillie

Enlarged Third Edition 2009. A5. pp 54. Illustrated throughout. Spiral bound & laminated covers for easy kitchen use. £6 incl. p&p.

Available from the author: 15 Escuan Lodge, Aberdeen Park, London N5 2AP

Cheques payable to R.Baillie please.

Hampstead Heath: Tumulus Field – Pond Dig by Emma and David Robinson

We responded to a message from Don Cooper – on behalf of Michael Hammerson of The Highgate Society – asking for HADAS volunteers to provide practical assistance for a project to dig a new pond in the Tumulus Field (Hampstead Heath) in late October. The site is near the bottom of a north-east facing grassy slope above the model boating lake – OS Reference (approx.) TQ 2755 8670. It was chosen since a natural (seasonal) spring bubbles to the surface here. The project is still work in progress, and the final report will be summarised in the Newsletter in due course.

Above the site on the hill crest is a mound known as Boadicea’s Grave which some consider is the remains of a bowl-shaped Bronze Age tumulus. It is also the only scheduled ancient monument on Hampstead Heath. The origins of the mound are widely disputed and remain a puzzle. It was excavated by Sir Hercules Read in 1894 but no trace of a burial was found. In considering the evidence the local historian Alan Farmer believes that the mound was made in the 17th century possibly for a windmill and built up in the late 18th century to form a picturesque object in the landscape. To support his assertion he observes that a 16th century map shows the site within ancient woodland and no tumulus is marked [1]. However, it is possible that an existing but non-prominent feature could have been overlooked by the map maker. On the West Heath there is evidence of flint knapping and Michael Hammerson recently found a struck flint flake close to the new pond site. Beyond this we did not know what we might find. If we found Bronze Age cremations we would need to call in English Heritage! Our brief was to clean down the levels as they were scraped by the small excavator, look out for any finds or cut features and record our findings.

Two days in late October had been set aside for an initial archaeological excavation. We first did a little homework. Alan Farmer gives an account of the landscape history and this suggests that for many centuries Tumulus Field had been used for farming and leisure purposes. He helpfully includes a print depicting the model boating lake in 1854 – surrounded by meadowland and scattered mature trees – with people relaxing and going about their leisure pursuits [2]. We did an initial field walk. The site revealed an open ditch – the course of old field drains – with a moister area around the spring. In the drain below the top soil sandy loam was revealed. This reflects the geology of the Hampstead-Highgate ridge – a crescent of high ground connecting the two. The top horizon of the ridge is formed of Bagshot Sand (with localised masses of flints), with Claygate Beds (sandy clay) below – the whole lying on impermeable London Clay. Rainwater falling on the hill percolates down to the clay layer and emerges as springs towards the bottom of the slope. The immediate area was particularly rich in mole hills – notable for being composed mainly of fine crumbly loam. These produced, however, an interesting selection of finds (which proved broadly representative of later findings) and included: fragments of assorted ceramics (mostly 18th and 19th century) and clay tobacco pipes – together with fragments of brick, glass and tile, and flint and pebbles – but no coins or metal objects.

Hampstead Heath folk start work early. By 8.15 on the first day the team began to assemble. The weather for late October was glorious. We discussed strategy with Michael Hammerson and agreed that two trenches should be dug – the first across and the second down the slope. This selection was made in the hope that any linear or cut features would be revealed. Using a small excavator the turf was removed and the surface checked and trowelled. The surface was then carefully scraped and checked removing 5 or 6 cm at a time. Spoil heaps were trowelled. Finds arising from each scraping of the surface and the spoil were bagged and labelled. We were all surprised by the scarcity of substantial metal finds. Our lack of metal finds was confirmed by use of a metal detector. Doubtless someone had been there before us on such a mission?

Overall the finds from the pond reflected those produced by the moles – although we did find some wood/tree-root preserved in the damper areas near the spring which are arguably the remains of a large standard tree? As for evidence of cut features there is little to report beyond the presence of field drains of various ages. Milk bottles (20th century), however, were abundant – although there was less evidence to suggest unduly bibulous habits represented by beer and wine bottles. A little 17th century material was found and it is conjectured that this might relate to the workers who dug the model boating and other lakes. The first day the two trenches were cleared down to natural levels, and horizons measured and recorded. Environmentalists also sampled the underlying clay layers using a hand auger. The second day of digging our purpose was to scrape and check the substantial extent of the new pond back to the natural. This was achieved. The profiles remained broadly the same – although hydrological differences were noted. Most of the finds are still being cleaned and categorised – a task for which Susan Trackman kindly volunteered. We have arranged to meet up in late November with Michael Hammerson to discuss any further work and how best to write up the overall project.

We subsequently made a couple of further visits to check for further finds. We trowelled the drainage ditch below two large sections of bituminous drains (which had been removed to a safe distance). We also sampled and checked silt samples from the pipes. On each visit we have continued to monitor new molehills and, yes, the moles have found yet more clay pipes for us. Overall our impression of Tumulus Field is of an agricultural, natural and leisure landscape of great time-depth – which has preserved remarkably strong inheritances from the past. We are grateful to Meg Game and all the other City of London Corporation folk for their assistance and hospitality and look forward to visiting the completed pond in the spring.

Notes:

[1] Farmer, A., 1984. Hampstead Heath. London: Historical Publications Ltd. pp. 127-129.

[2] Ibid – pp. 165.

HEREFORD VISIT – DAY 3

Day 3 of our trip involved an incursion into Wales to visit the World Heritage site of Blaenavon, visiting a church on the way, and returning early to allow some time in Hereford.

KILPECK CHURCH by Audrey Hooson

The first visit of the day was to the mid-12th Century church of SS. Mary and David at Kilpeck, eight miles south-west of our base in Hereford. There is written evidence for an earlier monastic cell or kil of Pedoric in 650 AD and in the north-east corner of the nave there are Anglo-Saxon remains, which were incorporated into the Norman building.

The present church was built by Hugh de Kilpeck, adjacent to a castle built by his father, William fitz Norman. All that remains of this castle are a motte and a fragment of the keep, giving an unusual two layer churchyard.

Kilpeck now has the church, a few cottages and many visitors. The latter come mainly to see the red sandstone sculptural decoration. We were very fortunate to arrive early in the morning, when the low sun brought out the external detail very well. The small proportions of the church, when compared with Abbeys and Cathedrals, enable it to be seen very easily

Kilpeck is the most complete example of the “Herefordshire School” This was a conflation of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, West European and Oriental images, with the possible addition of Beasts from illuminated Bestiaries. The analysis and definition of these sources has kept many Scholars busy! Herefordshire seems quite an isolated county now, but in the Norman period it was a very important area and the local rulers travelled widely.

The church has a three-cell plan with a rectangular nave, square chancel and apsidal sanctuary, also a later minstrel’s gallery. Internally the main decorative elements are the Evangelical figures composing the chancel arch and the Cat masks forming the central boss of the chevron ribbed vault of the semi-circular apse.

Externally, the tympanum of the south portal has a Tree of Life with pillars adorned with a pair of snakes, having their tails in their mouths, symbolising the unending cycle of life and death. At the top right-hand pillar is the Green Man, fertility symbol of Springtime. Above the tympanum there is an Angel, symbol of the Western Church, and to its left a Phoenix, symbol of the Eastern Church. The left-hand pillar shows the so-called “Welsh Warriors”, two soldiers carrying swords and wearing Phrygian caps with quilted or mailed jackets, and above them a lion and a dragon. The door itself is furnished with wrought iron hinges that are identical to those at the Norman church at Peterchurch.

The West window has intricate rope-work ornamentation on the pillars and arch. Two Green Men cap the pillars.

Surrounding the apse, chancel and nave there is a series of eighty-nine elaborately carved stone corbels. These emphasise the startling mixture of Pagan and Christian decoration at this church. Over the South door and on the main axis of the apse are “Agnus Dei” but elsewhere, there is a carving of the “Sheelagh-na-gig” a Celtic fertility symbol. This ‘exhibitionist’ figure is similar to those found in South West France. There are others in England including at Salisbury and Lincoln.

Many animals such as deer, rabbits, lions, cats and various birds are depicted. An inverted ibex head is one of the subjects that gave rise to the theory that an illuminated Bestiary inspired some of these. Ibex were shown in this position since it was considered that their strong horns could bear the weight of their body, should they fall from a precipice. Humans are shown taking part in various activities, such as wrestling, juggling and playing a rebec.

It is customary to consider the sculptural decoration in churches as being created as a gift to God. The fascinating variety of sources and lavish forms in this Seigneural church seem more like Hugh de Kilpeck and his advisors displaying their erudition.

Blaenavon – The Big Pit – HADAS plunges to new depths by Jim Nelhams

From Kilpeck, where we had been joined by Stewart Wild, our “underground” expert (– no not just the Northern Line), we headed south, skirting Abergavenny and onto the A465 Head of the Valleys Road. The first turning to Blaenavon was ignored since it involved a humped-back bridge at Llanfoist over the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal on which our coach would have grounded – so a slightly longer route was needed.

The Big Pit at Blaenavon is now the National Coal Museum of Wales, and we had booked a tour of the mine. On arrival, we were split into two groups for the underground tour, and equipped with miner’s helmets and lamps. Sadly electrical equipment including cameras had to be stored away before this point, so the sight of our groups is left to your imagination and our memories. Down 300 feet in the cage and our tour begins, through the galleries and the underground stables once used by pit ponies, and past redundant equipment to the coal face. Such was the interest that the tour scheduled for 50 minutes took nearer 90. And the taller among us appreciated why we were wearing helmets.

Near the entrance, we had seen two old steam engines, showing how the coal was removed, but this mine predates the railways. It is an amalgamation of several mines, the oldest opening in 1812. At the outset, it, and the nearby Ironworks, survived because of the canal, and Hill’s tramroad, which connected Blaenavon to Llanfoist Wharf. Similar tramroads connected other pits to the canal. Hill’s tramroad involved three inclined planes and a tunnel, and was an engineering triumph on its own. Parts of the track still exist and replica wagons can be seen by the canal. The track used L-shaped rails two feet apart, allowing horses to walk between the rails. But our descent down to the village of Blaenavon was made in the comfort of our coach, to the Heritage Centre, with some passengers dropping off at the Ironworks on the way.

Blaenavon Ironworks by David Bromley

The ironworks opened in 1788 with three steam-powered blast furnaces. Within ten years it was the second largest in Wales, employing 350 people and producing 5,400 tons of iron a year. Two further furnaces were added in 1810 and it then became the one of the largest ironworks in the world.

The left-hand side of the site is cut into the hill to form a cliff, with the brick and stone furnaces built against it, allowing the raw materials – iron ore, limestone and coke – to be added to the furnace tops at the upper level. Also on this level were the calcining kilns, where the iron ore was roasted prior to loading to remove mud and moisture and drive off impurities.

Following Blaenavon’s closure, the fine cut stone facing of two of the furnaces was robbed out in 1911 to build the nearby church, giving an opportunity to view the exposed inverted ‘bottle-shaped’ firebrick lining and the construction of the furnaces. In Furnace 2, the base interior has been cut away prior to re-lining. The missing section would have completed the wine bottle shape down to the tapping point, as can be seen on another furnace where the iron tapping point is heavily scoured by the molten iron.

In front of the furnaces are a casting shed, where iron was tapped off from the furnace and run into moulds in the sand floor to form ‘pigs’, as well as a foundry shed where cast-iron finished products were made (with examples on show). Adjacent to the shed is a small cupola furnace for re-melting iron for casting.

To the right of the site are the workers’ cottages, company shop and offices, built around three sides of a square. Two cottages have been re-created as they were when built. Although very small, they were built to attract workers and were a great improvement on labourers’ cottages of the time. Originally they had outside ash buckets, the communal toilets being a much later addition.

The centre of the square had originally been the Manager’s house and office, but this was demolished in 1860 to build a chimney about 140 feet high to draw waste gases from the furnaces into the boilers of the blowing engines, now both demolished. These underground pipes also served to keep the workers’ cottages warm – an early form of underfloor heating.

The most striking feature of the site is the Balance Tower, a fine stone-faced structure some 90 feet high. The function of this water-powered lift was to raise the raw materials to the level of the furnace tops and the finished products from the foundry and casting shops up to the level of the railway. The raw materials arrived on the site at the lower level. At the top of the tower, an empty wagon was loaded onto a platform, below which was a tank holding 2.9 tons of water. A loaded wagon was placed onto the corresponding lower platform and the upper tank was filled with water. The upper wagon would then descend, slowly at first but gaining speed. A chain clamp on the upper wheel controlled the descent and when the wagon reached the bottom, an automatic valve released the water and the wagon was locked down. The operation was almost silent and was called the guillotine, as accidents were common. It is reported that a man was crushed in 1840.

The ironworks continued to operate until the 1860s, when a new works was opened nearby. By 1900 Blaenavon had become the maintenance department for the company’s steelworks and coalmines, but by the 1960s the site was in ruins.

It is now managed by Cadw Welsh Heritage Monuments and is part of the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape World Heritage site.

Hereford by Jeffrey Lesser

Fortunately Hereford was not on our daily itinerary of visits. As a base it was perfect as it gave more time to appreciate this West Country jewel. Of the three cities it is by far the most pleasant, not submerged by outlets of the multiple-shops as in the case of Worcester and Gloucester. There was the opportunity to visit at leisure the unspoilt architecture and sites apart from the Cathedral, of this relatively small historic city.

The Saxon town of Hereford (“army ford”) lay on the north of the bend in the river Wye and the castle on its bank allowed control in both directions. This did not prevent Welsh raids with a spectacular destruction of the Minster and town in 1055. The Minster was then already venerable having been founded in 676 CE. The famous Mappa Mundi, together with the library of chained books, is housed in a special building next to the Cathedral which dates from the 13th century. On the map both Hereford and Jerusalem are marked. Our 18th century but relatively modernized hotel was in Broad Street where there is a variety of architecture. Past the Cathedral to reach the river one must deviate through King Street, previously the King’s Ditch, and cross the 15C stone bridge where the Roman army forded.

From the south bank one sees the Bishop’s Palace close to the Cathedral before walking east along the park. There is a small monument recording the death by drowning of an unfortunate swimmer and begging others not to risk it. Perhaps this is why there were no boats to be seen although previously the river was an important commercial route. Re-crossing the river by the Victorian suspension bridge, one reaches the site of the castle itself raised on a slight cliff. Apart from some mounds, nothing is visible of this royal castle built by William FitzOsbern, Earl of Hereford, as defence against the Welsh. The Castle Pool is the only remnant of the moat. The site of the keep is now Redcliffe Gardens and the Watergate became a prison. Next to it is a house belonging to a gentlemen’s club known as the Society of Tempers who insisted on being pleasant, as do we.

East of the Cathedral lies Castle Street with the Cathedral school, where the corn market was held. St. Ethelbert Street commemorates the saint, king of East Anglia, murdered by King Offa in 794. Previously East Street was ‘Behind the Wall Street’ as it lay behind the Saxon defences. Chandos House, now a pharmacy, was the town house of the Duke of Chandos, M.P. for the City, although we know him for his connection with Edgware and Handel. Here are more smart 17th and 18th century residences and the 19th century terracotta Town Hall, said to house the City Charter given by Richard 1st in 1189. From here the architecture is later and more imposing, including the Shirehall and Assembly Rooms of Sir Robert Smirke, and the War Memorial of both World Wars.

The approach to the historic northern part of the city is dominated by the ‘Old House’ dated 1621. It is typically Jacobean and bears the arms of the Butchers’ Guild as it was at the end of the Shambles. However, it has been used for selling a wide variety of goods in the past but is now a local museum with much Jacobean furniture and implements.

The wide expanse of High Town which the ‘Old House’ dominates, is a public concourse counter-balancing the Cathedral to the north. It has been a market place since the 12th century, with names such as Cooken, Mercers’ and Butchers’ Rows. The Bullring and mediaeval Town Hall were here, the site of the latter marked out in black paving stones, south of the area of the Butter Market, which now is a modern market for a wide variety of goods.

In contrast to spacious High Town, narrow Capuchin Lane leads off south into Church Street, ex Cabbage Street, equally narrow. This passes south parallel to Broad Street, crossing East Street, previously the other end of ‘Behind the Wall Street ‘ mentioned before. Church Street has many picturesque shops with timber framing and stone cellars. Obviously it was of great importance despite its restricted width, leading from the busy commercial centre of High Town to the Cathedral surrounded by wide lawns.

The Cathedral and its contents require a proper account elsewhere. The ancient monuments it contains are notably counterbalanced by a striking modern abstract ‘Crown of Thorns’ at the Crossing. The beauty of the design sits incongruously with its subject, but staying in Hereford itself allowed appreciation of the atmosphere of the Cathedral at a quiet and empty time.

The Library of Hereford Cathedral by Emma and David Robinson

By any measure the Library of Hereford Cathedral is a remarkable survival whose origins can be traced back to 1100. The important 8th century Hereford Gospels manuscript is widely considered to be the sole survivor today of the burning of the earlier Saxon church in 1055. But what makes this Library unique? In their history of Hereford Cathedral Aylmer and Tiller [1] argue that this is because:

– An astonishing number of medieval manuscripts survive in their original early bindings.

– The Hereford Chained Library is the most perfect and largest (some 1,444 books) example of an early

Jacobean library in the country [and, indeed, the world].

– It survived both the Reformation and the Civil War remarkably complete.

– A working theological lending library and a reference library are still retained. [It is of note that there

has been a working theological library in the cathedral continuously since the 12th century].

– A new state of the art library building was acquired in 1996.

To this list naturally should be added the presence of manuscripts and early printed books of international importance dating from the 7th century – but in this Hereford is of course not alone amongst our English cathedral libraries.

It is therefore of no surprise that we were encouraged to visit the new Library building whilst in the Cathedral. Personally, having researched in academic libraries for many years, and with a particular interest in historical collections, a visit was, not surprisingly, a high priority for us.

The Library as it exists today has evolved over the years, with additions from various sources. Not only have smaller collections of books, manuscripts and archives previously kept elsewhere in the cathedral precincts been brought together for the first time, but also further significant collections have been transferred to the Library for safe keeping; for example, the important chained library of the parish church of All Saints Hereford which had remarkably survived in the church until 1992.

Over the years the Library was housed in various locations in the cathedral precincts – but notably in 1590 it was moved into the Lady Chapel from a cloister room. Security in libraries has always been a concern since books were rare and valuable yet easily transportable. At first, efforts were made to secure the physical Library space; however, by 1596/7 the first purchase of irons and chains to fasten books securely to the library shelving is recorded in the archive. A major innovation of this system was that books could for the first time be placed upright on the shelves and so save space. However, to be chained in this position they would need to be placed with their fore edges outwards – so that the chain would not get tangled when a book was lifted down and placed on the reading desk below. The chains end in a ring which runs upon a rod, and when a book is added to the shelf a key is used to free the hasp and release the rod.

The chained library is now housed in a specially designed chamber in the new library building which means that the whole chained library can now be seen in its original arrangement (as created between 1611 and 1841). This also allows the books to be kept in controlled environmental conditions to modern standards of preservation. The state of the art exhibition area gives visitors the chance to view treasures from the collections whilst aiding their interpretation.

On view in the exhibition area are a number of treasures of the Cathedral. Four of these which are of international importance are described briefly below.

The Hereford Mappa Mundi (or map of the world) dates to c. 1300. This is drawn on a single sheet of vellum and is the largest known surviving medieval map of its kind. It reveals how medieval scholars interpreted the world in spiritual and geographical terms. The proposed sale of the map in the late 20th century to raise funds for preservation of other cathedral treasures resulted in an international outcry – but subsequently its future in the cathedral collections was secured.

There is a particularly fine early copy of the Magna Carta. Although this charter (also called the Great Charter of Liberties) was agreed and signed by King John in 1215 at Runnymede, it went though a number of revisions and reissues before becoming enshrined in English statute law in 1297. The most significant revision of the charter was issued in 1217. It is this version which Hereford Cathedral possesses.

The Hereford Gospels is an 8th century illuminated manuscript gospel book with large illuminated initials in the insular style (and the only book known to have survived the burning of the cathedral in 1055). It is likely to have been produced in Wales or near the Welsh borders. It is of note for its decoration which has features relating to the pre-Christian Celtic style.

In the context of Hereford being an apple growing area it is also pertinent that the Library possesses the famous Cider Bible – a 1420 copy of Wycliffe’s version in English. In this the scribe wrote ‘he shall not drinke syn ne sidir’ instead of the usual ‘strong drink’.

Today the whole Library continues to serve the cathedral’s mission and to bear witness to the Christian faith. It is also an important research centre and noted visitor destination. It would have been good to have spent more time there – although we were lucky to be able to speak briefly with curator – but this will need to wait until we can pay another visit.

[1] G.E. Aylmer and John Tiller (2000). Hereford Cathedral: A History. Hambledon Continuum

The Staffordshire Hoard Don Cooper

This is the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever discovered. The hoard was discovered by a metal detectorist (Terry Herbert) in a farmer’s field in Staffordshire in July 2009. After uncovering a number of gold items and as required by the Treasure Act 1996 he informed the representative of the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Archaeologists were mobilised and the important hoard was secured. The hoard has yet to be properly analysed and conserved, but early indications are that it dates to the late 7th or early 8th century, around the time covered by the great poem, Beowulf.

In Anglo-Saxon times this area of Staffordshire would have been in the Kingdom of Mercia. Mercia was ruled by Penda from 626 to 655 AD, followed by his son Wulfhere and then in 675 by another son Aethelred who reigned until 704. It is exciting to think that perhaps one of these kings was around at the time this hoard was deposited.

The hoard contains over 1500 items made up of 5kgs of gold and 2.5kgs of silver. To put it into perspective, the Sutton Hoo excavation in 1939 turned up 1.5kgs of gold. It is a “warlike” hoard consisting predominately of objects relating to the battlefield. There are, for instance, 87 sword pommels and 71 sword hilt collars. There are none or few domestic items or feminine ones. There are a number of apparently Christian crosses. One remarkable find is a strip of gold with inscriptions on both sides. One side has not yet been conserved and interpreted but the other contains an inscription in Latin from the Book of Numbers, which is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible/Christian Old Testament, and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah or Pentateuch. The Latin reads: “Surge domine et dissipentur inimice tui et fugiant qui oderient te a facie tua” (Numbers, Chapter 10 verse 35). It can be translated as: “Arise, O Lord, and let your enemies be dispersed and those who hate you flee from before your face”

Many archaeologists believe that when this hoard is fully conserved, analysed and interpreted it will greatly improve our understanding of that period of the history of these islands that used to be described as the “Dark Ages”

Some of the artefacts are currently on display at the British Museum and there is another lecture on the discovery on the 10th December at 18.30 also at the British Museum, booking essential. To book ring 0207 323 8181, the cost is £5, concessions £3.

All of the information in this article has been collated from the web site: www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk. This web site has excellent photos of the hoard and is a good source for what is happening to the artefacts and where they are likely to be displayed. Any opinions expressed are mine.

Other Societies’ Events by Eric Morgan

Tuesday, 8th December 2009 at 18.30 LAMAS Terrace Room, Museum of London, London Wall, EC2 a lecture entitled “Rebels and Infidels at the City’s Village Hall: the Radical Collections at Bishopsgate Library” By Stefan Dickers. Refreshments at 18.00

Tuesday, 8th December 2009 at 20.00 Amateur Geological Society, The Parlour, St Margaret’s Church, Victoria Lane, N3 (off Hendon Lane) a lecture entitled “Fluorspar mining in the Northern Pennines” by David Greenwood

Thursday, 10th December 2009 at 12.45 Museum of London a talk by Jon Cotton entitled “Golden Age finds” Jon describes some of the curious objects found in the Thames in the Victorian Era. The talk is free.

Thursday, 17th December 2009 at 19.30 Camden History Society, Burgh House, New End Square, NW3 a lecture entitled “London’s Shops – The World’s Emporium” by Susan Jenkinson. Cake & wine at 19.00, visitors £1.

Monday, 21st December 2009 at 20.15 Ruislip, Northwood & Eastcote Local History Society, St Martin’s church hall, Eastcote Road, Ruislip a lecture by Eileen Bowlt entitled “Ian Tait’s Ruislip in the 1920s” Visitors £2

Monday, January 11th 2010 at 15.00 Barnet & District Local History Society, Church House, Wood Street, Barnet a lecture entitled “Hospital and quarantine ships on the river Thames” by Dr. Ian Johnston.

Friday, 16th January 2010 at 20.00 Enfield Archaeological Society, Jubilee Hall, 2 Parsonage Lane, Enfield, (close to Chase Side) a lecture entitled “Southgate before World War I” by Graham Dalling, Visitors £1.

HADAS DIARY – LECTURES AND DECEMBER EVENT

Tuesday, 10th November 2009, Bricks and Skeletons: St John the Evangelist Stanmore – 1932 Brick Church Ruin. Lecture by Dr Frederick Hicks.

The Domesday Book of 1086 lists Stanmore as having a priest with half a hyde of land, so presumably there was a church. It is known that there was a Saxon-medieval church, the first church, called St Mary’s. Increase in population led to a second church in 1632, built entirely of brick and named St John the Evangelist after John Wolstenholme, Farmer of Customs to King Charles I. Further increase in population led to a third church in 1850, which is still in current use.

Demolition of the brick church, to sell materials to offset the cost of the new church, was stopped in 1851 after a public outcry. It was left as a roofless ruin, described by Pevsner as “the finest ruin in Middlesex”. Historically involved are John Wolstenholme, Archbishop William Laud, Marquess of Abercorn (Hamilton), Fourth Earl of Aberdeen (Gordon), Prime Minister, Dowager Queen Adelaide and others buried in the churchyard such as W S Gilbert.

Dr Frederick Hicks is a retired GP and Vice-Chairman of the Stanmore & Harrow Historical Society.

Sunday 6th December 2009, 6.30 for 7pm. HADAS has booked the CASA DI LINO restaurant (see www.casadilino.co.uk) in North Finchley for the evening. Apart from a meal (from a special menu), we will have a guest lecturer and/or slides of this year’s trips. Details of the menu are being discussed but will include a choice of starters and main courses. To keep the cost down to around £20 per head, we will not be providing transport to what will be a local event.

Because of possible postal disruption, if you would like to take part, please email or phone Jim Nelhams – treasurer@hadas.org.uk, 020 8449 7076, as soon as possible, and not later than 21st November. Details of the menu will be circulated to those responding. The invitation is open to HADAS members and their friends, and we hope that as many as possible will support this celebratory event.

Tuesday 12th January 2010. The Achaeology of Anglo-Jewry in London 1066-1290 and 1656-c.1850.

Lecture by Ken Marks.

Tuesday 9th February 2010. The Trendles Project. Lecture by William Cumber.

Tuesday 9th March 2010. The History of RAF Bentley Priory. Lecture by Erica Ferguson.

Tuesday 13th April 2010. The GWR comes to the Thames Valley. Lecture by John Chapman.

Tuesday 11th May 2010. Graeco-Roman Period Funerary Practices in Egypt. Lecture by John Johnson.

Lectures start at 7.45 for 8.00pm in the Drawing Room, Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE.

Buses 82, 143, 326 & 460 pass close by, and it is five to ten minutes walk from Finchley Central Station (Northern Line).

Hereford Trip DAY 2 Jim Nelhams

Day 2 saw us heading for Worcester. After our first stop at the Royal Worcester Porcelain Museum, people were free to visit a number of places within walking distance. Museum tickets allowed half price admission to several of these, and “pocket money” was distributed on the coach to go towards the remaining costs.

Worcester Porcelain Museum by Sylvia Javes

When we arrived at the museum, we were served with coffee: served, of course in Worcester porcelain cups.

The museum is adjacent to the old Worcester Royal Porcelain factory, which, sadly, had closed down in June, a few weeks before our visit. The factory had been a major employer in Worcester, with crafts being passed down through generations. The museum was originally a reference and resource centre for the factory, with an archive of pattern books as well as collections of porcelain. Fortunately it is an independent trust and owns its own site, so there was no danger to its valuable collections when the factory went into liquidation.

In the mid 18th century, porcelain was imported from China. It was expensive, and the designs were not always suitable for the western market. Worcester Porcelain began in 1751, when Dr John Wall and his partner William Davis, a chemist, produced a fine porcelain in Worcester (porcelain = pure kaolin). A factory was established close to the river, with good transport connections for raw materials and shipping out the products. Early designs copied Chinese products, blue and white porcelain, but this was coarser than the Chinese product, and not durable. Then a better formula was developed, and the company began to prosper. New designs copied English silver: sauce and cream jugs, decorated with coloured Chinese prints. In the mid 1750s painted designs moved away from the Chinese prints. Influenced by Meissen designs, the artists painted flower sprays in soft colours.

The most fashionable background colour was blue, but it was difficult to achieve a perfect solid ground colour, so ‘scale blue’ was developed, tiny blue brush strokes forming the background. This job was done by children. Panels were left white, then filled with flowers, fruit, birds and insects by artists. Among the artists employed were engravers who made the patterns for transfer prints that were used for decoration. The transfers were inked papers that were applied to the porcelain, and then fired, to leave the design behind, and could be left monochrome or filled with colour by artists. Other experts included gilders: much Worcester porcelain is richly embellished with gold.

The museum is a treasure house of Worcester porcelain from the earliest pieces right up to modern ovenware. There are sumptuous dinner services, gilded and painted by skilled artists. In some services, each piece has a different design, for example a tea service with a different British bird on each piece. There are decorative vases and figurines, produced to grace mantelpieces, including a whole series of set pieces depicting American birds. The oven-to-table ware was originally made with gilding, but this was changed to green edging so the porcelain is microwave and dishwasher safe. This is a delightful museum, and would be well worth another visit.

Worcester Cathedral by Sigrid Padel

After our tour of the Worcester Porcelain Museum and lunch al fresco, but in warm sunshine, many of the group assembled for a guided tour of the cathedral. This began in the south transept, where we were joined by our guide, a rather elegant lady whose name, Faith Mountain, seemed very appropriate to her function. Though fairly advanced in years, she impressed us with her knowledge of this building and the love and enthusiasm with which she guided us.

Oswald, Bishop of Worcester from 961, built the first cathedral here, but this was destroyed by the Danes. The next building phase, under Wulfstan, began in 1084. Little of this remains, but we were able to visit the Norman crypt with its four aisles of seven narrow bays divided by a forest of slim round pillars, creating a space which emanates sanctity and peace, even today. Originally an ambulatory encircled the east end. This enabled pilgrims to file round the shrine of St. Oswald, just in front of the altar. Later on Oswald’s body was removed and the east end was blocked off. Though traces of the Norman cathedral survive here and there, the crypt and the chapter house are the only structures which show strong evidence of this style.

Most of the cathedral dates from the 13th and 14th centuries and is remarkable for a feeling of harmony created by its unity of style. Because we could not enter the nave, which was being used for an exhibition, we rather missed out on getting a view of the whole length and magnificence of this Gothic building, but we were able to see some of the remarkable detail and beautiful workmanship in the choir and ambulatory. Our guide pointed out some fine carving in the spandrels, especially in the Lady Chapel. The stained glass, some of it very beautiful, is mainly Victorian.

In the Choir there were some intriguing carved misericords, but unfortunately the lighting was poor and we did not have time to study them in detail. King John’s tomb is in a prominent position here. (Died 1216) He chose to be buried in this cathedral, which he visited often. Though we tend to think of him mainly as the king who had to sign Magna Carta, he appears here in a different light. He was fond of hunting in the nearby forests and loved Worcester. It is known that he venerated St. Wulfstan. A codicil to his will asked that he should be buried in this cathedral. On the north side of the chancel stands the highly decorated chantry chapel of Prince Arthur, elder brother of Henry VIII and first husband of Catharine of Aragon. Aged only 15, he had died at Ludlow Castle and was buried here with great pomp. English history might have run a very different course had he succeeded instead of Henry VIII!

We also visited the 14th century cloister and the Chapter House, the latter sadly being used as a cafe at the moment. It is unique for being the only circular Chapter House in England. The lower half is Norman, with beautiful blind arcading. Traces of paint still visible in places indicate the probably very vividly coloured decoration in its original state. The vaulting is supported by a single column, a design also to be found at Wells and Lincoln. This and the many later windows in the Perpendicular style create a wonderfully light space.

Drama in the Cathedral by Tessa Smith

In the magnificent setting of the Nave of Worcester Cathedral an exhibition of theatrical costume caught my eye. Excavated from the Royal Shakespeare Company, the V&A and film and TV costumiers’ archives, the clothes ranged from those worn by Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in Macbeth to those worn by Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean

On entering the Nave a procession of slim and modest wedding gowns greeted the eye. Made in light and delicate fabrics of fawn and beige they were dainty and modest. However on closer inspection, and every model deserved close inspection, the needlework involved revealed pleats and plackets, ribbons and bows, embroidery and stitch work, the styles echoing the styles of each period. Costumes worn by Emma Thompson as Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, Billie Piper as Fanny Price in Mansfield Park, Charlotte Gainsbourg as Jane Eyre, and even Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice processed down the Nave

The next display was of Royal costumes arranged regally on the steps leading up to the Quire of the Cathedral Rich and colourful clothes worn by some of our most well loved actresses as Queen Elizabeth1, Helen Mirren, Cate Blanchett and Judy Dench displayed huge collars, tightly pointed waists, long and heavy trains, panniers of gold and silver and bodices flashing with jewels. King II, the Duke of Norfolk, Ann Boleyn and Queen Victoria were resplendent in rich embroidery at collar, cuff and hem.

Picking out a few from the next display (over 200 costumes altogether): outfits worn by Renee Zellweger as Beatrix Potter, Meryl Streep as Karen Blixen in Out of Africa, Madonna as Eva Peron and Minnie Driver as Carlotta in Phantom of the Opera made up quite an international cast, “all the world’s a stage”, and somehow the fact that the clothes were displayed on mannequins did not detract from the theatrical atmosphere in the Cathedral. Music from some of these played quietly, enhancing the spirit of the place.

Below the magnificent West Window a dramatic tableau of costumes from Shakespearean plays worn by Kenneth Branagh as Hamlet, Derek Jacobi as Prospero, Donald Sinden as Henry VIII, Glenda Jackson as Cleopatra, Juliet Stevenson as Titania. and Vanessa Redgrave in Taming of the Shrew held the stage Crimson velvet, yellow silk brocade and the occasional twinkle and flash of sequin on Titania’s costume contrasted with sombre leather and dull coarse weave, some clothes being quite subdued, after all the costumes are only props to help the actors portray their characters

A final motley crew from Pirates of the Caribbean and Robin Hood led me towards the exit of this superb exhibition of theatrical costume set in the dignified atmosphere of Worcester Cathedral.

A Chance Meeting in Worcester by Emma and David Robinson

One of the fascinating things about the study trip was how we each have our own stories to tell. Here are a few words from one of ours.

It was mid-afternoon. We were standing near St George’s Square after the funeral service of Private Jason Williams of the Mercian Regiment (who had given his life in the Afghanistan conflict), waiting for the cortege to go by. As it passed everyone began to clap to show their appreciation. It was an impressive and moving civic experience of a community marking their respect and affection for one of their own. Bystanders volunteered their own thoughts to us of what the ceremony had meant to them – remembering young people dear to them who had died young often in tragic circumstances.

Musing on this we walked on towards the High Street. On reaching Worcester Guildhall we encountered two others of our group who said that the mayor had just returned and had spoken with them. We were keen to make a visit to the building since guidebooks had enthused on the subject and not without reason.

The present Guildhall is a splendid Queen Anne building, begun in 1722 by Thomas White, a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren. White was not paid promptly for his efforts. He died in poverty in 1738, however not before assigning the debt owed him to the Worcester Royal Infirmary in his will. This debt was finally fulfilled when the city paid up in 1753. Rather to our surprise as we were looking around the magnificent entrance gallery the Mayor, Councillor Andrew Roberts, emerged from his parlour – and on hearing us exclaim about the splendour of the building invited us into his private rooms to meet the mayoress and for a closer look – particularly at the city regalia. These included the fine 18th century city maces and a 17th century ceremonial sword. He demonstrated how the maces were held and explained that tradition dictates how the position of the mace has to be reversed if the monarch has touched it. Since he had been wearing the mayoral chain this was not yet back in its safe. It is particularly fine and the chain consists of interlinked solid gold ingots. The Mayor and his partner were taking tea – naturally from a Royal Worcester Porcelain tea service.

The Mayor recounted the history of items amongst the earlier regalia which had to be sold to satisfy city debts. The city is lucky to still have this magnificent building since, as the Mayor added, in the 19th century there were plans to demolish the entire building and replace it rather in the style of Manchester’s Gothic Revival Town Hall. The earlier building was apparently retained solely because the Mayor at the time used his casting vote to defeat the proposal. After this the city simply ran out of money so the original Guildhall remains. By chance we had visited Manchester Town Hall – including the Mayor’s Parlour – in May 2009 on the occasion of the investiture of the Lord Mayor. The differences in style (including the regalia and tea services used) were, to say the least, striking.

The Mayor also showed us how Worcester had remembered all of those who had served in the First Wold War – not just those who had made the ultimate sacrifice – this great roll of honour being accommodated behind panelled doors in the entrance gallery. Having thanked the Mayor we then continued with our visit. Of particular note is the Assembly Room occupying almost the whole second floor, veryimpressive with fine decorated ceilings. However, it was the surprise element of the visit that impressed us most, enabling us to get a real feeling for the hospitality and traditions of the city.

The Commandery, Worcester by Vicki Baldwin

When we visited The Commandery, Sigrid Padel and I were not sure quite what to expect. From the outside it didn’t appear to be a particularly large building. We were given handsets and told that we had a choice of six tours to follow, all taking the same route. We were also told that if we wanted to follow all six then it would take us about six hours to complete. An hour to follow one tour seemed a reasonable amount of time, so we stepped through the door into a courtyard surrounded by timber framed buildings. Originally there had been a chapel to Saint Gudwal to which was later added a hospital that grew into two wings joined by the Great Hall. The current buildings dated from the late 15th century and have undergone several changes in use, hence the six different tours to follow. We chose to follow the first tour which covers the early history of the place as a hospital. Other tours dealt with The Commandery’s use as a private house in the 16th century; as a military headquarters in the Civil War, as a Victorian college for the blind and, most recently, as a printers.

The tour started in the Great Hall where there was a display relating the Civil War. One range of rooms related to wealthy living; the other to the life of the ordinary people. In total there were more than thirty rooms. Each room was numbered and had a small information board, but in general they were bare although some had 17th century carved fireplaces. The handsets provided the information. Some rooms had definite functions such as the ‘Games Room’ with its selection of well-made board games, each one appropriate for a period covered by the tours. The ‘Building Room’ had colour-coded plans of the building at the key periods and soft blocks to recreate the layout. Another room had six different ways of producing writing. My favourite was a room with its walls covered in names. Again these were colour-coded to period and were names of actual people who had been associated with the Commandery in its various phases. In the middle of the room was a table with a book that gave a short biography for each name.

Nothing prepared us for the original wall and ceiling paintings that adorn one room. These date from the period of the Hospital of Saint Wulfstan and although restored are impressive, not least for the ceiling painting depicting the Trinity and, unusually, showing the face of God. This room would have been for patients in the hospital to visit to pray for healing.

I’m sure we took more than an hour to complete the tour and could have taken longer. The idea of a series of almost empty rooms coupled with a structured narrative worked very well and had there been more time I would have liked to follow another tour. If I visit Worcester again, I would like to revisit The Commandery.

The Greyfriars, Worcester by Graham Javes

The Greyfriars is a late15th century timber-framed merchant’s townhouse, built about 1480 by Thomas Grene, who later described the building in his will as a ‘tenement and brewhouse’. On the profits of brewing, Grene rose to become High Bailiff in 1493 and 1497. The property was extended in the 17th century, probably by the Street family, when a gallery was built over an archway where previously it may have been open to the elements. The property saw many vicissitudes over the following centuries, the front being converted into several shops in the later 19th and early 20th centuries. There is now no evidence of a medieval Great Hall.

The house has been called The Greyfriars only since the early 20th century when local historians confused the upper floor with a description of the refectory of the Franciscan friary, which once stood nearby andall trace of which had finally disappeared about 100 years earlier. The Greyfriars came into the possession of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society. It was saved from demolition by Mr Matley Moore and his sister Miss Elsie Moore, who restored it on behalf of the society during the war years, resourcefully reusing materials then difficult to obtain. The present furniture, tapestries and decor, much dating from the 17th century, were acquired by the Moores, obtained from other houses, purchases from house-sales and gifts from their many friends in the Archaeological Society. Miss Moore was an artist and needlewoman interested in medieval wall painting and hangings, whilst her brother Matley specialised in churches and church silver, becoming secretary to the Diocesan Advisory Committee. Each was recognised in their field with a fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries. Finally, in 1949 the Moores moved into The Greyfriars, along with their mother, Florence, to live out their lives there.

Concerned at the destruction of the old city in the face of post-war redevelopment, Matley Moore persuaded the Worcestershire Archaeological Society to donate The Greyfriars to the National Trust in 1966.

During our visit to The Greyfriars, we were entertained by two students, who played early English music on replica contemporary instruments in the parlour, and discussed their instruments – the Northumberland bagpipes, a lute and a hurdy-gurdy – ­ with visitors.

Back to Hereford by Jim Nelhams

On our way back to Hereford, we diverted through Malvern Link, where we stopped at a very rare Victorian fluted Pillar Box, one of only four of its type still in use – three of these are in the Malvern area and the remaining one in Solihull. We continued over the Malvern Hills to enjoy the views of the surrounding countryside, which inspired so much of Sir Edward Elgar’s music.

The Finchley Arrow – straight to the point by Stewart Wild

Members, especially those living in Finchley, will be interested in the arrival of a new free community newspaper, the “Finchley Arrow”, edited by Andrew Taylor. Andrew and his wife Pam came on our summer
outing to Broughton Castle, and HADAS gets a mention in the first issue, available now on the internet at www.finchleyarrow.co.uk.

Andrew is an experienced journalist and started the successful community newspaper “The Archer” in East Finchley some fifteen years ago. This latest internet newspaper is non-profit making, non-political and aims to publish monthly.

Calling all standing order payers! By Stephen Brunning

Have you moved home in the last few years? If so, I would be grateful if you could let me have a note of it to check against the membership database. I have come across a few members who have changed addresses that we were unaware of. Writing each year to the people who pay by cheque flags this up, but sometimes contact is lost with standing order payers. Emailing me at membership@hadas.org.uk would be the best option, as I can also add this information to our list! Otherwise, a telephone call to 020 8959 6419 will suffice. Many thanks.

Excavations in St Martin-in-the-Fields – Report of October lecture by Peter Pickering

Our lecture series opened on Tuesday 13th October with a lecture by Alison Telfer of Museum of London Archaeology on the exciting excavations carried out in advance of and during the recent major refurbishment of the church of St-Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square. The work has included in particular the demolition of Victorian burial vaults to create modern facilities for community use.

The present church, built in the 1720s by the architect James Gibbs, replaced earlier churches of which the archaeologists found no certain trace. What they did find, despite the removal of many archaeological deposits by the construction of the vaults and by the ubiquitous sewers, was evidence of continuous human activity from the earliest Roman times. In the nineteenth century a large number of coffins – after reburial of the bodies – had been dumped in pits; among them was a gold mourning ring dated 1815. From the seventeenth century were cellars. From the sixteenth a wall of uncertain purpose and, beneath that, a burial from the twelfth century. Beneath that again was a high status burial of the seventh century, with a hanging bowl, a small glass ‘palm cup’ (so called because it will fit into the palm of a hand) and amethyst beads. Under the nineteenth century vaults were deep cut Saxon pits, with antler picks, and perhaps a sunken-floor building. The sequence of burials continued with ones from the fifth/sixth centuries, and an early fifth century stone coffin, which had been reused – a few bones from the earlier occupant still being there.

Continuity was implied by the fact that the Saxon burials seemed to have respected the Roman ones. A particularly intriguing find was a tile kiln dated to the first half of the fifth century; what, the excavators wondered, were the tiles used for – was building going on nearby at the very end of the Roman period? Finally, there were traces of a building from the very beginning of the Roman occupation – a late Iron Age farm or perhaps, Alison speculated, a lookout post used by the Roman invaders?

This was a fine start to the lecture season, well presented, well illustrated and about an important site almost on our doorstep.

Postal Strike and e-mail by Mary Rawitzer

Thank you again to everyone who responded to our general request in the last newsletter for e-mail subscribers. Some people still prefer paper, of course and we are happy to keep it that way. However, if it looks as if there will be a serious postal strike we shall be sending this newsletter out by post as usual, but will also try to e-mail it to everyone for whom we have an up-to-date e-mail address.

Cuttings from the papers Submitted by Stewart Wild

The Sunday Telegraph – 3rd October 2009

A piece of a marble statue found at Fishbourne Roman Palace is believed to be depicting the Emperor Nero as a young boy. The stone, which is the right side of the head and lower face, will be scanned to create a computer image of what he may have looked like. The only other known statues of Nero are to be found in the Italian National Museum of Antiquities in Parma, and the Louvre Museum in Paris. The reason so few statues survive is because images of him were destroyed after he was declared an enemy of the state when ousted in a military coup. Although the statue was discovered in 1964, it was previously believed to be that of a British King called Togidubnes, or a member of his family.

Other Societies’ Events Compiled by Eric Morgan

Friday 6th November 12.45 to 1.45pm. Museum of London. London Wall EC2. Avid Antiquarians. Talk by Francis Grew on the Museum’s Roman Sculpture. FREE.

Wednesday 11th November 7.45pm. Mill Hill Historical Society. Wilberforce Centre, St Paul’s Church, The Ridgeway NW7. Christ’s Hospital School (Sussex). Talk by Colin G Bell.

Friday 13th November, 8pm. Enfield Archaeological Society. Jubilee Hall, 2 Parsonage Lane, junction of Chase Side, Enfield. Waltham Abbey Excavations 2008. Talk by Peter Huggins. Visitors £1. Refreshments, sales and info from 7.30pm.

Thursday 19th November 7.30pm. Camden History Society. Burgh House, New End Sq NW3. History of the Blue Plaque Scheme in London. Talk by Howard Spencer.

Friday 20th November 7pm. COLAS. St Olave’s Parish Hall, Mark Lane, EC3. From Ice Age to Essex: excavations on the Essex Gravels. Talk by Pamela Greenwood. Visitors £2. Light refreshments afterwards.

Friday 20th November 7.30pm. Wembley History Society. St Andrews (New) Church, Church Lane, Kingsbury NW9. 176 years of the Oxford Movement. Talk by Rev. John Smith. Visitors £1. Refreshments in interval.

Wednesday 25th November 8pm. Barnet & District Local History Society. Church House, Wood Street, Barnet (opposite museum). AGM.

Wednesday 25th November 7.45pm. Friern Barnet & District Local History Society. St John’s Church Hall, (next to Whetstone Police Station), Friern Barnet Lane, N20. History of Queen Elizabeth Girls School. Talk by Jennifer Johnson. Cost £2. Refreshments before and after meeting.

Thursday 26th November 2.30pm. Finchley Society. Drawing Room, Avenue House, East End Road, N3. Comic & Satirical Edwardian Postcards by Cynicus. Talk by Hugh Garnsworthy. Non-members £2.

Saturday 28th November 10.15am to 3.30pm. Amateur Geological Society. St Mary’s Hall, Hendon Lane N3. Mineral & Fossil Bazaar. Rocks, Crystals, Gemstones and Jewellery. Admission £1. Refreshments.

Monday 30th November to Sunday 6th December. Barnet Borough Arts Council. The Spires (outside Waitrose), High Street, Barnet. Painting & What’s On (including HADAS).

Membership Matters Stephen Brunning

A warm welcome to the new members who have joined since January 2009: Jeffrey & Rosie BENGE, Michael & Kiran GIBLIN, Jessica & Charmaine KLEIN, Gary, Sarah, Lucy & Thomas SENIOR.

If you have not yet taken the plunge to attend one of our events, you don’t know what you’re missing! Why not come along to one of the Tuesday evening lectures? We would love to see you there, and do come up and say hello!!

Liz Sagues has written to advise me that she is not renewing her membership of HADAS. Liz says she has lots of happy memories over a very long connection with the society. Liz joined in April 1976 and took part in the opening fortnight of the West Heath Dig that year. Some members will know Liz had moved to Chichester and tells me she is too far away and out of touch with all things archaeological now.
Liz has also asked me to extend her best wishes to everyone who knows her.

More for e-mail Newsletters, please Mary Rawitzer

We have had some helpful take-up of our offer to e-mail HADAS Newsletters, saving time and money and enabling members to select anything they need to keep in print without taking up too much space.

One of the things that came up on the Hereford trip was that many more people were interested or willing than originally replied. Of course, it was all too exciting for me to remember to write down the names of those interested!

So here is a fresh request and reminder: Are you willing to receive the HADAS Newsletter by e-mail? Would everyone who is and hasn’t yet said so, please e-mail me with the simple word “Yes”. Address: mary.rawitzer@talktalk.net

NOTE: Sending newsletters by email would allow us to include colour photographs and diagrams.

LECTURE SEASON BEGINS Stephen Brunning

A reminder that our lecture season starts this month. All lectures are at Avenue House, 17 East End Road,

N3 3QE – 7:30 for 8:00 pm. Visitors are welcome at a nominal charge of £1.

Tuesday 13th October 2009

Alison Telfer – Project Officer Museum of London Archaeology

Excavations at St Martin in the Fields

Traditional thought has suggested a Middle Saxon (7th century) date for the origins of the church of St Martin, located at the western edge of the Saxon town of Lundenwic. Recent excavations in the grounds of the church revealed a sarcophagus burial dating to the early 5th century, the time when the Romans were leaving Britain.

Alison Telfer is a Project Officer for Museum of London Archaeology, and has been digging in London for over twenty years. Alison says the site is one of the most exciting she has ever worked on, and feels honoured to be speaking to HADAS about it. Further revelations about the site have emerged (through scientific analysis) in the last 3 months, and so this lecture will be the most up-to-date yet.

Tuesday 10th November 2009

Dr Frederick Hicks

Bricks and Skeletons: St Johns 1632 Brick Church Ruin

Dates for 2010 lectures – (all Tuesdays)

12th January, 9th February, 9th March, 13th April, 11th May 2010.

Hendon St Mary’s Churchyard Jim Nelhams

Much recent work has been going on in the churchyard with undergrowth being cleared making many more of the graves accessible. It is also planned to replant the Garden of Rest. The work will aid our project to catalogue all the burials at St Mary’s. HADAS will be sending a donation to support the work.

HADAS Facebook Group Stephen Brunning

HADAS has started a Facebook group for people into social networking websites. I have uploaded a few photos to view at: www.facebook.com. Please feel free to add a few more.

If you have not already done so, you will need to sign up (free) first. Once registered, type “Hendon and District Archaeological Society” into the search box (top right of the screen). This should find our group.

Please take a look and tell me what you think. I do not want the Facebook group to take the place of the discussion list, but it’s good to advertise HADAS more widely. With the link to our own website, we may even get a few more members! I advertised the Roman Cookery Demonstration here, and it generated a good few enquiries as the event was forwarded to other people via “friends” lists.

The “great and the good” in archaeology seem to be on Facebook. But be warned – it can become addictive!!!!

The Medieval Period in the Local Area, by Brian Warren Graham Javes

Hard on the heels of his Reappraisal of the Battle of Barnet 1471 earlier this year, HADAS member Brian Warren has written another in the series of booklets published by Potters Bar and District Historical Society. This latest one is The Medieval Period in the Local Area: the area being South Mimms and Potters Bar.

Brian states his primary aim was to write the history of the manors in the parish and particularly to compare the earliest South Mimms court roll of 1345 with the rolls of 1451 and 1452. Between these dates, in 1387, occurs the earliest mention of Potters Bar: ‘the King’s Highway from Pottersbarre towards Barnet’ (pp.4-5). Medieval names of roads on the manor are given with their earliest known dates. The number of maps in this small booklet is impressive. This is the history of the manor of South Mimms, which was later sub-divided into the manors of Wyllyotts, Mandeville, Durhams, Old Fold, and Barnet, later called Mimms Side or West Barnet (p. 16). More especially, this booklet discusses the tenants recorded at the South Mimms View of Frankpledges in 1451 and 1452, opening a window into their lives.

The Medieval Period in the Local Area, by Brian Warren, Potters Bar and District Historical Society, 2009, pp. 36, A5, typescript, 12 photographs including cover, 9 maps, 1 drawing, Price £2 + £1 p&p. From Mrs Mabel Hammett, 4 Heath Cottages, Heath Road, Potters Bar, EN6 1LS. Cheques payable to Potters Bar and District Historical Society. (It is hoped that copies will be available at the next HADAS lecture.)

COMMITTEE MEETING

Our next committee meeting is on Thursday 15th October. If you would like anything to be discussed at this meeting, please talk to or email any committee member.

Celia Fiennes and Barnet Graham Javes

In her recent report on the HADAS outing to Broughton Castle, Jean Bayne noted the funerary monument in Broughton church to the second Lord Saye and Sele, one of the comparatively few Yorkist nobles to be killed at the battle of Barnet in 1471. Another distinguished member of the Fiennes family having connections with Barnet was Celia Fiennes, renowned for the journal she kept of her journeys through England, later edited as Through England on a side saddle in the time of William and Mary. Celia was the daughter of Nathaniel, the second son of William, the 8th Baron and first Viscount Saye and Sele. She was born in the manor house at Newton Toney, near Salisbury, in 1662.

On the final leg of her ‘Northern Journey’ in 1697, which had taken Celia from London through Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire to Lincoln, Nottingham, York, Hull and Scarborough, returning through the Peak District, Warwick, Northampton and St Albans, she eventually arrived in Barnet:

‘… and seems to be a very sharpe aire, it’s a large place and the houses are made commodious to entertain the Company that comes to drink the waters [at Barnet Physick Well] which certainly if they be at the paines to go once and see would have but little stomach to drink them; the well is a large place walled in 8 square, it’s at least two yards over and built 2 or 3 yards up from the water and over it is lattices of wood round to looke down into it and so covered like a house above, below are staires down to a doore to go in to dip the water there. I stood at the lowest step above the water to look into it, its full of leaves and dirt and every tyme they dip it troubles the water, not but what they take up and let stand looks clear but I could not taste it … ’

Comparing the Barnet mineral water unfavourably with that of Tunbridge and Hampstead, she likened it to Epsom. In both cases the spring was not fast-flowing so that debris was not washed away.

In those days the well stood on Barnet Common. The fashion for taking the waters ended, and with it Barnet’s claims as a tourist centre. In 1927 while the 180-house Wellhouse Estate was being built around the site, The Times reported that Barnet Urban District Council, ‘carrying out the wishes of many local societies and local historians’, and notably ‘the Barnet Record Society’, was planning to erect ‘a new brick structure with fountains, appropriate garden walks and flower beds, with two approach roads’ to be called Well Road and Pepys Crescent. In the event, in 1937, a mock-Tudor building was erected over the well – today a Grade II Listed Building, a target of vandals and on the English Heritage ‘Buildings At Risk Register’.

Returning to Celia Fiennes, she must have liked Chipping Barnet better than she liked its waters. For many years she made her principal home in Wood Street, Barnet, though it was at Hackney that she died. In 1709 she gave the Independent chapel in Wood Street (now the United Reform Church) a tablecloth and plate for the communion and in her will, proved 1738, she left the chapel £1 a year for ten years.

HADAS OUTINGS 2009 Jim Nelhams

When the committee discussed outings for this year, a number of suggestions were made. So each of our outings has tried one or more of the suggestions.

A midweek trip to Syon House and Syon Park allowed us to see a dig in progress. Although this trip was on a Wednesday, there was no drop in the number taking part.

The trip to Broughton Castle was on a Sunday: there was a lot less traffic, and more time at our destinations.

Finally, the trip to Hereford used a hotel instead of student accommodation. This seemed to work well, which means that we do not need to stay in a university town nor wait until the students have gone home.

We can take these lessons on board when planning for next year. Nevertheless, it is helpful to get your feedback – what worked and what didn’t, and why – and to get suggestions for next year and further ahead. If you have any ideas/comments on where we might go, or what we might change, please send them to Jo Nelhams (address and email shown on the back page of this newsletter).

Thank you, thank you, thank you Don Cooper

When I became ill in May, the HADAS long weekend trip was potentially in jeopardy; however, Jo and Jim Nelhams (our Honorary Secretary and Honorary Treasurer respectively) stepped in and took over the task. There is a lot effort and time required to run these events and Jo and Jim have been magnificent. All “travellers” I have spoken to and heard from tell me that it was a most successful trip. On my behalf and on behalf of all those who went on the trip I would like to send a huge vote of thanks to Jo & Jim.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who sent get-well cards and messages to me which have been both very welcome and encouraging. I am looking forward to being healthy again. Thank you all very much.

HADAS in HEREFORD Jim Nelhams

After a tour of North London to pick up our 34 passengers, off we went in our coach (from Galleon Travel) towards Hereford. At the wheel was Craig. We were fortunate to have such a careful, considerate and helpful driver.

During the planning stages of this trip, the project had a code name in honour of our ex-Secretary – ROSS on WYE. The long term weather forecast indicated that “in Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen”. This proved accurate, and throughout the trip, the weather was kind to us.

Following a comfort/coffee stop at Oxford Services on the M40 before continuing westwards, everybody was provided with information about the places we had booked to visit and various options that they could choose, particularly in Worcester and Gloucester.

Our base was to be The Green Dragon Hotel in Hereford, a coaching inn dating from the 16th Century, though the front façade was added in 1857, and only 200 yards from the Cathedral. All rooms had television and tea-making equipment.

Apart from the first evening, when we had a lecture, coffee was served after dinner in the relaxing and comfortable Garrick Lounge (David Garrick, once owner of Hendon Hall, was born in Hereford) providing a good chance to get to know others on the trip. A number of friendships were made or strengthened.

Because the hotel did not provide packed lunches, these were made up each morning in Jim and Jo’s bedroom, with cereal bars and fruit juices brought from Barnet, and fresh sandwiches supplied to order from the nearby branch of Greggs. Fresh fruit was also available on the coach.

Adding to the enjoyment, we saw some beautiful countryside, such as the view from the Malvern Hills and a trip down the Wye Valley. For the ornithologists, at least 9 red kites were spotted near Loudwater on our homeward journey. These impressive birds died out in most of the England and Scotland in Victorian times, though a few remained in Mid-Wales. A number have been released at a sanctuary in the Chilterns since 1989 and have gradually been spreading across Southern England.

A number of our fellow travellers have already submitted their “homework” on places visited – to be serialised in this and future newsletters.

If anybody is interested in visiting any of the places which were on out itinerary, I am happy to pass on information about those places.

Jo and I would like to thank our fellow travellers for their kind words of appreciation, and for their co-operation, and hope that we see them again on future outings and at other HADAS events.

HEREFORD TRIP Day 1

Tewkesbury and Deerhurst Sheila Woodward

Hereford was this year’s centre for the “HADAS LONG WEEKEND” – a loose term applied to outings extending over 3, 4 or 5 days, or even in 1978 to a full week! This was the 32nd such outing and I have been on 22 of them and can vouch for this year’s being another triumph of brilliant organisation and imaginative planning. So thank you Jim, Jo and Don.

On our first day, en route to Hereford, we visited two fascinating church buildings, both monastic in origin, but one huge and one tiny. Tewkesbury Abbey, splendidly sited at the confluence of the Rivers Avon and Severn, is now a mere parish church but with the dimensions of a cathedral. Its magnificent central tower dominates both church and landscape. The present building, founded in 1087 and considerably re-modelled in the 14th century, might be described as “Norman fabric with Decorated (style) trim”. Of its Saxon predecessor, also Benedictine and founded in 715 by the (allegedly named) Mercian Dukes Oddo and Doddo, there is little or no trace.

Tewkesbury Abbey is a glorious structure and one could enjoy it aesthetically while knowing nothing of its turbulent history. The Norman West Front with its elaborate 65 feet high recessed arch is immediately impressive. Enter the Abbey by the North door, where a simple cut cross in the porch wall marks the consecration of the building in 1121, and you are immediately in the great nave. It is awe-inspiring: the vast space, the 14 gigantic plain-drummed columns (they are over 6 feet in diameter and over 30 feet high), the distant view of the great East window. Overhead a plain Norman roof has been replaced by a riot of Decorated lierne vaulting, with central bosses illustrating the life of Christ and side bosses depicting angels playing various instruments – shawms, timbrels, even bagpipes and a hurdy-gurdy! Move eastward under the tower and into the choir and sanctuary. Here, Decorated has almost completely ousted Norman; only the stubs of the great pillars remain to support the new-style arches and windows. The “stellar” ceiling with its gilded liernes against a white, blue and red background, and the little Yorkist motifs of the sun in splendour, is stunning. The 7 windows display English medieval glass at its finest, the colours rich, vibrant, glowing. Behind the choir and sanctuary is the ambulatory with its chevet of chapels, and throughout this eastern area are scattered the tombs and chantries, superbly crafted and exquisitely lovely, which are one of the great glories of this church. It has been described as “second only to Westminster Abbey in its collection of funerary monuments”.

The history of Tewkesbury chimes with the history of medieval England. Most of the great dynasties of the period are recorded here in tomb or monument or stained glass; The Fitzhamons and Fitzroys who built, the de Clares and Despensers who re-modelled, extended or adorned, the Beauchamps and Nevilles who continued those activities. There were Crusaders, and there were rebels who changed sides frequently. During the Wars of the Roses, the Battle of Tewkesbury was fought on the abbey’s doorstep and briefly inside its walls, and the Prince of Wales, Henry VI’s son, was buried before the altar, “cruelly slain while still a youth …. Alas the fury of men!”. George, Duke of Clarence, Edward IV’s brother, executed (or murdered) in the Tower of London, was brought back to Tewkesbury for burial with his wife. So Lancastrian and Yorkist lie together in death.

Tewkesbury ceased to be a monastery in 1540, at Henry VIII’s dissolution and Henry offered the abbey church to the people of Tewkesbury for £453, the estimated value of the roof-lead and bells. So it became our second largest parish church, the largest being Beverley Minster which we visited last year. Tewkesbury Abbey’s history since 1540 has been less turbulent but of continuing interest. It has acquired 3 organs (now more or less combined): the apse organ, the Milton organ (on which the poet may have played when it was at Hampton Court) and the Victorian Grove organ. There are “new” windows, including the Victorian west window and the 21st century Tom Denny windows. There are many “new” tombs including that of Mrs Craik who wrote “John Halifax, Gentleman”. (Our guide was most impressed to find that some of us had heard of, though not necessarily read, that famous Victorian novel!) Some of our group visited the Sacristy to see the church vestments and silverware. Despite its chequered history, Tewkesbury Abbey now seems a place of tranquillity and beauty, its main enemy no longer warfare but the periodic flooding of the River Severn.

Four miles south of Tewkesbury is the village of Deerhurst, on the east bank of the Severn. We were reminded of the latter’s tendency to flood as we walked past a huge “Nilometer” installed in a field to measure the depth of each year’s water. Deerhurst Church, which like Tewkesbury is dedicated to Mary the Virgin and is of monastic origin, is at first sight rather an architectural jumble. Indeed, Simon Jenkins describes it as “a delight to the detective”, a museum of styles and treasures from almost every period of English architecture. Yet it is small, as befits its village, and owes its current importance to its complex history and its exceptional survival. It is sited on an early frontier of Roman Britain at a point where the river was once fordable. As part of the Kingdom of Hwicce, it was Celtic Christian by the late 6th century and probably converted to Roman Christianity in the 7th century. The monastery at Deerhurst may go back to those early days and it possibly became a royal mausoleum, so growing in importance. Huge bequests of land in the 9th century added to its prestige and it was a meeting place for a treaty-signing in 1016 between Canute and Edmund Ironside. Its decline began when Edward the Confessor made it a cell of Saint Denis in Paris After that, it was downhill all the way to the Dissolution when it became a parish church.

The earliest church here, 6th or 7th century, was a simple rectangle which was altered and expanded between 715 and 1066 into an apsidal and aisled church by 2-storeyed chapels and a tall tower. A surprising amount of that Saxon structure remains but it is not always obvious. At our visit, we faced an additional complication as restoration and preservation work was in progress, but our very helpful guide minimised that problem. So the treasure hunt was on! For me, the view down the nave looking west, with those 2 ornate triangular windows, had the greatest impact. But there was also the sturdy font with its spiral decoration, the strangely-haunting beasts’ heads, still showing traces of colour; the moving simplicity of the Virgin with Child; and the rather unnerving Deerhurst angel whose enormous staring eyes, stylised wings and hair suggested Celtic influence.

There is little left of the monastic buildings: a few corbels, a cloister door. But Deerhurst has one more card up its sleeve – a second Saxon church, or rather, chapel. It was found in the 19th century under the plaster of Abbots Court, an adjacent farmhouse. Built of stone rubble, a simple two-cell structure with long and short quoins, both the chancel arch and south door arch have the horseshoe shape typical of the 11th century. The chapel is dated and identified by the Odda Stone found buried nearby. This is now in the Ashmolean, and it is inscribed in Latin translated as follows: –

“Earl Odda ordered this Royal hall to be built and dedicated in honour of the Holy Trinity and for the soul of his brother Elfric who died in this place. Bishop Ealdred dedicated it on 12th April, the fourteenth year of Edward, King of England” (1056).

Earl Odda, after the fall of Earl Godwin, was a most important person of his day. He is buried at Pershore.

Incidentally, for anyone interested in the details of Philip Rahtz’s excavations at Deerhurst, the references are: –

P. A Rahtz Deerhurst Church Trans. of Bristol and Glos. Archaeol. 90(1971) 129-135

P.A Rahtz Deerhurst Current Archaeology 28(1971) 135-139

L.A.S Butler, P.A.Rahtz and H.M.Taylor

Deerhust 1971-1974 Antiquaries Journal 55(1975) 346-365

P.A.Rahtz Excavations at St Mary’s Church Deerhurst 1971-1973

CBA Research Report No 15 (London 1976)

Hereford – Evening Lecture by Tim Hoverd David and Emma Robinson

On the first evening of the tour we were very fortunate that Tim Hoverd, Archaeological Projects Officer/ Field Projects and Community-Based Activities, with Herefordshire Archaeology gave us an excellent introduction to the county. Tim is also closely involved in the major county project “The Lower Lugg Valley: Landscape Change and Conservation” which he spoke about at some length and illustrated with excellent slides. It is of note that this project revealed the county’s first recorded henge monument. More information will be available with the publication of the final project report scheduled for 30 September this year (further information is available on the county archaeology website).

The interest generated by Tim’s talk generally was so considerable that many questions were raised on a huge variety of issues and were all fielded with expertise by the speaker. However, we finally ran out of time with further questions still unasked. The timing of the lecture was particularly fortunate since it enabled the group to put into context much of what we saw during the tour, even where we were not able to make a specific visit. For example, crossing the Malvern Hills or driving through the market town of Ledbury. This latter location has now been selected by the Victoria County History’s England’s Past for Everyone Project. The working titles of the project reports are Ledbury: a Market Town and its Tudor Heritage and Medieval Ledbury.

What really struck us most forcefully about the lecture was that until recently relatively little work had been done on the county’s landscape and rich archaeological inheritances. The speaker made the valid point that the work done in the county to date is equivalent to what had been achieved in Dorset by the 1920s (although many archaeological sites in that county have sadly now been lost mainly due to ploughing). Tim also gave some consideration as to why the county had been so overlooked until recently and in this regard wondered whether the period when it was administratively combined with Worcestershire (from 1974 to 1998) had had the effect of reducing interest in areas away from the main focus of settlement. In this context, when considering the progress which had recently been made, Tim also emphasized the point that voluntary groups locally are now very important in making up for the indifference of the past.

In addition, Tim spoke at some length on the relatively unpopulated nature of Herefordshire after the early Middle Ages and the ravages of the plague, stressing that agricultural production had peaked at a very early date. This has led to a situation in which much land which was once cultivated for arable crops has become pasture or indeed woodland. What is now emerging is that a remarkable amount of underlying archaeology has been preserved in the landscape. So, for example, the speaker had been mapping landscape features such as ridge and furrow fields, boundary ditches; lime kilns, evidence of Roman settlements, and fortifications generally – all of which have been completely untouched and overlooked for centuries. Tim illustrated these points with a number of interesting maps resulting from his field walks and emphasised the fact that many of the locations he had identified had been lost from memory and appear on no known maps. He also stressed that in other counties many such survivals had long since been physically obliterated; increasing the heritage value of the sites which are now being revealed in Herefordshire.

During the Roman settlement the area became an important granary and communication route and there seems to have been a period of relative stability. The Roman settlement seems to have been far more important than previously recognised although much work remains to be done. It appeared to us that in many ways the amount of detailed work which had been carried out across the county was not dissimilar to the position which, until recently, had existed in remote areas such as the Shetland Islands where a full time archaeologist had not been appointed until the late 1990s. Simply due to its location on the Welsh borders Herefordshire has been very much at the margins of different cultures, which has led to it often being a contested landscape. This point was well illustrated by the descriptions of English incursions into Wales and Welsh incursions into England which occurred over an extensive period of time and led to the destruction of whole areas of farmland and settlements, including the city of Hereford.

This contested nature of the landscape since earliest settlement led on to an interesting description of the ferocity with which warfare had been carried on between various tribes and the attempts which had been made to eradicate not only the physical traces of settlement but also the cultural memory relating to the settlement.

From Tim’s talk the picture emerged of a county with a remarkably rich inheritance from past waves of settlement, but also one which had substantially been overlooked until the very recent past. The study of the archaeology of Herefordshire will not only give greater insights into the locality but also into the history of our country.

FUTURE INSTALMENTS

DAY 2 Worcester, including the Royal Worcester Porcelain Museum

DAY 3 Kilpeck Church; Blaenavon: the Big Pit and the Ironworks; Hereford

DAY 4 Newent Church plus Gloucester: Waterways Museum and Boat trip, etc

DAY 5 Caerwent Roman Town and Didcot Railway Centre

Other Societies’ Events

Eric Morgan

Until Sunday 4th October – Barnet Borough Arts Council – The Spires, Barnet. Art display, “What’s On” and advance information on festivals.

Thursday 1st October, 8pm – Pinner Local History Society – Village Hall, Chapel Lane, Pinner. Recording Londoners’ Iconic Buildings – Emma Dwyer (Senior Archaeologist, MOLA) – Visitors – £2.

Wednesday 14th October, 7.45pm – Hornsey Historical Society – Union Church Hall, corner of Ferme Park Road/Weston Park, N8 – A. V. Roe, The first flight over Walthamstow Marshes – Dr Neil Houghton – Visitors – £1 – refreshments.

Friday 16th October, 7.30pm – Wembley History Society, St Andrew’s Church Hall, Church Lane Kingsbury – London during the English Civil Wars – Joe Carr (Curator, Brent Museum) – Visitors – £1 – refreshments.

Friday 16th October, 8pm – Enfield Archaeology Society – Jubilee Hall, Parsonage Lane/Chase Side, Enfield – Prehistoric London Archaeology – Jon Cotton (Museum of London) – Visitors – £1 – refreshments from 7.30pm.

Monday 19th October, 8.15pm – Ruislip, Northwood & Eastcote Local History Society, St Martin’s Church Hall, Eastcote Road, Ruislip – The More: Cardinal Wolsey’s Palace in Rickmansworth – Heather Falvey – Visitors – £2.

Wednesday 21st October 7.30pm – Willesden Local History Society – Scout House, High Road, NW10 (corner Strode Road) – Christ Church Brondesbury – Gwen Molloy.

Wednesday 21st October, 8pm – Edmonton Hundred Historical Society – Jubilee Hall, Enfield (as above) – How rural Tottenham disappeared – Ken Barnes – Visitors – £1.

Thursday 22nd October, 7.30pm – Camden History Society – Wellcome Collection, 215 Euston Road, WC1 – Why did Darwin choose to live in Gower Street? – Dr Joe Cain – Visitors – £1.

Wednesday 28th October, 7.45pm – Friern Barnet & District Local History Society – St John’s Hall, Friern Barnet Lane (next to Police Station) – The Parish of Friern Barnet – Yasmine Webb – Visitors – £2 – refreshments.

Thursday 29th October, 8pm – Finchley Society – Avenue House – Hampstead Garden Suburb – place and people – Jane Blackburn – Visitors – £2.

Thanks to all our contributors – Stephen Brunning, Don Cooper, Graham Javes, Eric Morgan, Jim Nelhams, Mary Rawitzer, David and Emma Robinson and Sheila Woodward.