Past Newsletters

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.

It’s that time of the year again!

Only this year it is different, for the last five years Birkbeck College and HADAS have jointly run a course processing old HADAS digs to latest standards and bringing them to publication. However, this year Birkbeck has raised its course fees to £400 per student (it was £300 last year). As a consequence HADAS has decided to run the course itself. The course, “Looking at finds – a practical course in Post-Excavation Studies”, will be tutored by Jacqui Pearce (as usual) and will be held at Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE. Meetings will be held on Wednesday evenings from 6.30 to 8.30. The course will run for 22 two-hour sessions over two terms, from 30 September 2009 to 24 March 2010.

Fees and booking

We welcome anyone who wishes to acquire the relevant archaeological skills. The fee for the two terms is £275, payable to HADAS. To book, please contact the class tutor at jacquipearce126@hotmail.com or ring 020 8203 2506 (evenings only). For a detailed syllabus please check out the HADAS website or alternatively contact Jacqui Pearce or Don Cooper.

HADAS DIARY

Our new lecture programme begins again in October.

Tuesday 13th October 2009, Excavations at St Martin in the Fields, Alison Telfer – Project Officer, Museum of London Archaeology.

Tuesday 10th November 2009, Bricks and Skeletons: St John’s 1632 Brick Church Ruin (St John the Evangelist, Stanmore), Dr Frederick Hicks.

Lectures are held in the Drawing Room at Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley, N3 3QE, starting at 8.00pm. Coffee/tea and biscuits are served afterwards. New members and Visitors are welcomed. Avenue House is about ten to fifteen minutes walk from Finchley Central Station. Buses 82, 125, 143, 326, 382 & 460 pass close by.

FIELDWORK TEAM

The Fieldwork Team continues to meet most Sunday mornings in The Garden Room at Avenue House, around 10.30 hrs till ‘13.30ish’. New and old members are welcome to come along; though it is perhaps best first to check the emails on HADAS discussion: hadas@hadas.org.uk or ring Bill Bass, 020 8449 5666, to confirm that members will be meeting that Sunday.

OUTING TO BROUGHTON CASTLE & SWALCLIFFE BARN Report by Jean Bayne

Sunday July 26th 2009: We were welcomed at the entrance to Broughton Castle by Lord Saye and Sele himself – dapper, bright-eyed and charming ­– as we arrived ahead of time for our visit. So we had time to look at the 14th century church of St Mary, built close to the castle.

Evidence for an even earlier church lay in the 12th century circular font and an arcade of 4 arches in the south aisle appeared to be from the 13th century. Fragments of wall paintings survive and richly designed stained glass windows reflect changes down the centuries. Hatchments (1666-1847) decorate the walls. These are diamond shaped coats of arms which were hung outside the house of someone who had died. All of them were dedicated to either the Fiennes or Twistleton families. In fact, the Castle was in continuous family ownership from 1337. Alterations, additions and renewals continued to be made to the church, most recently in 1994, when the spire was struck by lightning and had to be restored. Nineteenth century restoration undertaken by Gilbert Scott and his son included a Gothic style pulpit and the chancel roof and east window. The changes were discreetly and sensitively done. The church is richly endowed with monuments, notable both for their number and as an index of family continuity throughout the centuries. They include the founder, Sir John de Broughton, who died in 1315, and the 2nd Lord Saye and Sele, who was killed at the battle of Barnet in 1471.

John de Broughton also founded the ‘castle’, early in the l4th century. It began life as a medieval manor house, dominated by the Great Hall and developed over the subsequent centuries into a grand Tudor mansion which remains virtually unchanged today. Entering through the gatehouse, the castle, as it is known, is set off dramatically by extensive front lawns and a wide moat. The high building itself has a symmetrical ‘feel’ to it, enhanced by the vertical and horizontal lines of the large windows. A small crenellated building was attached to one side in 1406, suggesting a military function but it was never a serious defensive establishment.

We entered the castle straight into the Great Hall where Lord Saye and Sele met us again to introduce us to his home and our guides. In spite of the suits of armour, leather buckets and family portraits of grand ancestors, it retained the atmosphere of a lived-in, family home, reinforced by Lord Saye’s description of chilly winter childhoods round the large log fire. I also recognized it from the film, Shakespeare in Love. Lord Saye was quick to point out how welcome film companies were in supporting the upkeep of the building!

The Great Hall had been significantly altered since medieval times when it had small windows, a low ceiling and a central fire. In the 16th century the roof was raised, large windows were put in and stairs and wings added. The walls and ceiling were plastered (though subsequently the plaster was removed from the walls) and the great fireplace was installed. The pendant ceiling dates from the 1760s.

Moving on, we next visited the undercroft, now a dining room, but originally used for storage in Tudor times. Beautiful oak double linenfold panelling decorated the room at intervals, with a tiny carving of sheep in the park at one point. Also notable was the vaulted ceiling which continued into the groined passageway out of the dining room and which included corbel heads at the base of the arches, one of which was the Green Man.

We made our way upstairs to the Queen’s Room, a bedroom named after Queen Anne of Denmark, who stayed there in 1604. The fireplace was an imposing feature: one of the first Elizabethan fireplaces built by English stonemasons in the new sixteenth century Renaissance style − with some local interpretation! In one corner of the room, there was a ‘squint’: a little window which looked down on the chapel and enabled the occupants to worship in their slippers perhaps. Our guide told us that he was once taking a group around and entered this room only to find it was occupied by a family guest! Again the whole building felt as if it was imbued with the living spirit of a welcoming, charming family.

The Queen’s Room was at the end of the Long Gallery, above the Great Hall, and this gallery featured ancestral and present day portraits of the family. One of the most notable was William Fiennes, the 8th Lord Saye and Sele, who was a Puritan Parliamentarian and active in the Civil War in the 17th century. He was pro-democracy and against Charles 1 because of his religion. However, he did not wish to be involved in the King’s execution and withdrew to Lundy for a number of years, thus avoiding Cromwell’s Parliament. When Charles II came to the throne in 1660, he was pardoned and brought back into government. No wonder he was nicknamed ‘Old Subtlety’!

In the 18th century, the name Fiennes was superseded by the name Twistleton, through marriage. (It was changed back to Fiennes in the 19th century.). In the l8th and l9th centuries, the family did not prosper, culminating in the experience of William Thomas, the 15th Earl who gambled away all the remaining wealth and was forced to auction the contents of the house in a 12 day auction in 1837.

Leading off the Long Gallery is the King’s Room which boasts a remarkable white chimney piece, stone underneath with a stucco overmantle above. The overmantle is decorated in the French style with dryads dancing round an oak tree. The Chinese wallpaper, dating from 1740-50, is hand-painted and the bed was designed in 1992 and built to reflect the character of the room. King James I (1604) and Edward VII (1901) both slept there.

At the end of the Long Gallery is the Great Parlour whose elaborate plaster ceiling bears the date 1599. Its striking nineteenth century wallpaper, designed to imitate Spanish leatherwork, reinforces the rather remote, dignified atmosphere of this room. It contained much family memorabilia including some coronation chairs. (Seemingly, if you attended a coronation, you were allowed to keep the chair you occupied; I wasn’t clear whether this applied to all the guests or only members of the aristocracy!)

At the top of the west stairs, lay a small but interesting room: The Room That Hath No Ears. Here, the 8th Lord, of Civil War renown, met with his cronies to criticize the King. Ostensibly claiming to be planning their new Puritan colony in America, they were, in fact, Parliamentary plotters. During the war the house was attacked and taken over when the King‘s army seized Banbury.

The Oak Room on the ground floor, originally l6th century, was also of historical interest. An interior porch had been built over the door on the inside of the room. It was inscribed: ‘I have no pleasure in the memory of the past’. It was clearly intended as a tribute to King Charles II. Even the painting over the fireplace is of a seascape of Scheveningen, Holland, from where Charles left exile to claim his throne in England. Wonderful Tudor oak panelling lines the walls and an intricate bone and tortoiseshell cabinet can be seen near the door.

We went out into the Lady’s Garden on the south side of the castle. Shrubs and flowers, especially roses, grew in profusion against the stone walls. In the middle, there were flower beds shaped like fleur-de-lys. Our guide told us that their shape was actually taken from the Scout Movement, not the French court, as one of the Lords had been an enthusiastic Scout Leader.

The Fiennes family are devoted to their castle and each other as William Fiennes makes clear in his new book: The Music Room. He describes his childhood in the castle, saying: ‘Nowhere was my sense of belonging as complete or unambiguous as it was in my childhood home.’

SWALCLIFFE BARN was our next stop. William of Wykham, founder of New College Oxford (1379), built this incredible barn for his college early in the 15th century. Oak trees from Bewdley Woods were used for the main roof timbers and local ironstone for the major construction. It is basically unaltered today and was used for 600 years until the 1960s, when it was still a working barn for storing agricultural produce and for housing pigs and poultry. The original stone threshing floors remain near the wagon porches.

Today, the barn houses carts and wagons and agricultural tools and machinery from the past and displays information on local history and archaeology. We noticed a Baker’s van and a Brewery Trolley and a Fire Engine and one cart which was still operating in the 1960s, telephone no.9 displayed on its side! Some members of our group had seen similar types of transport in their youth! The barn held memories of life in Swalcliffe through the ages and is itself one of the top dozen great barns remaining in England.

The Celtic World: The Archaeology of Iron Age Europe and Britain

This is the latest course arranged by the Mill Hill Archaeological Study Society, and will run on Fridays at 10:00-12:00, beginning on 2 October. The venue is the Lawrence Room at Hartley Hall, Flower Lane, NW7. The tutor will be Scott McCracken, known to many members, and the cost is £130 for the series of 20 classes. Enrolment will be at the first meeting. For further information contact the secretary, Peter Nicholson on 020 8959 4757.

Visit to Syon Park – 8th July 2009 Report by Jim Nelhams

During our long weekend in Durham a few years ago, we visited Alnwick Castle, home of the Duke of Northumberland. On this trip, we went to his London house, Syon House, on the north bank of the Thames opposite Kew Garden.

The first part of the visit was a conducted tour of the house. Our guide proved to be very interesting and knowledgeable, covering much history of the family as well as the house. Indeed, when we were offered the option of visiting some of the private rooms, everybody stayed with the group. Our guide also pointed out that some of the statues were fakes, made up from parts of other statues.

Sadly, the Northumberland Lion, which at one time was on the top of Northumberland House in Trafalgar Square, had been temporarily removed.

After the tour, we had the opportunity to view the grounds, including the Great Conservatory which contained some remarkable plants.

Syon House was the site of a Time Team dig in 2003 and since that time, with the encouragement of the House, it has been used by Birkbeck College each summer as a training dig for archaeology students. Volunteers from Richmond Archaeological Society are on hand during the dig to show members of the public around the site, but HADAS was privileged in receiving, despite the inclement weather, a thorough explanation of the dig and various findings from our President, Harvey Sheldon. Our thanks are due to Harvey.

Sigrid Padel, another of our members, has worked at the dig each year, and has kindly written in more detail about the findings, including some after our visit. Her report follows.

Digging at Syon 2004-9 Sigrid Padel

During the past five years and again in 2009, I was allowed to take part in Birkbeck’s training excavation as a volunteer helper. In practice that means that one might be asked to do almost anything from “clearing above blue plastic” where trenches are re-opened, to cleaning any part of the trench before photo sessions. Sometimes one is even allowed to dig, though most of that is done by the students who do, after all, pay for the privilege. This year, because there were many features to be investigated, volunteers were needed to excavate more than usual, especially during the last week and after the students had left.

In 2003 Time Team attempted to find the Bridgettine Abbey dissolved by Henry VIII, and had uncovered remnants of the foundations, especially at the east end of the church. By invitation from the then manager of the Syon Estate, Richard Pailthorpe, Birkbeck College was allowed to proceed with further investigation of the site. The Birkbeck digs aimed to discover not only as many as possible of the monastic remains, but also to trace and record remnants of the gardens that were laid out above in subsequent centuries.

Though much of these early formal gardens was destroyed when Capability Brown landscaped Syon Park in the eighteenth century, various paths and bedding trenches have been traced, Notable were two ornamental features,

probably fountains, dating to the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. For instance, the large round “pond”, identified as part of the garden shown on the map by Moses Glover of 1635, still existed, not only in outline, but with much of the brick paving still in situ. Some of us became very well acquainted with tumbles of brick which needed cleaning!

For me the main interest has been the discovery of abbey buildings. Several fellow volunteers and I are carrying out research into the Bridgettine Order and this abbey in particular. Properly we should use the name Birgittine, after the name of its founder, St. Birgitta of Sweden (1303-1373), if only to avoid confusion with the Irish St Bridget. (453-523). St. Birgitta, a fairly formidable character, left very precise instructions about how her order should be constituted and run, and how its churches should be constructed. This should be taken into consideration in interpreting what is uncovered at Syon. There are also records of the expenditure at the abbey from its foundation to its dissolution, summarised in an article by R.W. Dunning (“The Building of Syon Abbey” in Trans. Arc. Mons. Soc. 1981, Vol.25, p.16-26). From these and many other sources we know a fair amount about the various abbey buildings, but so far no plans or illustrations have been discovered which might aid interpretation.

For me, this year’s excavation was remarkable because not only did we uncover more parts of the abbey church, confirming its southern and south eastern extent, but also structures to the north of the church which appear to be the foundations of a cloister in the place where it was expected to be. Two buttressed robber trenches, one parallel with the north wall of the abbey, the other running north, would seem to be the outer walls of the cloister walk. Parallel with the eastern feature a more substantial foundation could be the wall of the east range of the buildings round the cloister. At Vadstena in Sweden, the mother house of the Bridgettine order, the nuns’ cloister lay to the north of the church. This was also the case at Gnadenberg in Bavaria. It is quite likely that this pattern was followed in England. Members of the Vadstena community spent two years in England helping to establish the monastery, but we have no evidence to show that they influenced the layout of the abbey buildings. If Birkbeck is allowed to continue excavation of the site next year, looking for the turn of the cloister wall at its northern extremity might be one of the research priorities.

Within the possible cloister area several features of uncertain purpose were excavated. One of these contained quite a large assemblage of pottery dating from a period up to 1520. Since the monastery was dissolved in 1539, the ceramics would seem to belong to the monastic period. It has to be said, though, that this area contained several intercutting features which await interpretation.

Time Team had come to the sensational conclusion that the abbey church had been ten bays long, extending from east of the present house to its western end, and nearly equalling Westminster Abbey in length. St. Birgitta, however stipulated that her churches should be five bays long. Several of the extant churches of the order follow that pattern. This summer a new geophysical investigation, part of a geophysics course run by Birkbeck, discovered what seem to be walls to the east of Syon House, exactly where the western end of a five bay church would have been. Whether this can be proved by excavation depends to some extent on being allowed to dig under the gravel path east of the house.

This is a mere snapshot of this large open area excavation, based largely on my experiences and interests. I have not mentioned the many burials which add an interesting and sometimes puzzling dimension to the interpretation of the site. It looks as if much remains to be discovered. It is to be hoped that Birkbeck can continue the investigation next year.

Ancient and New Discoveries in the Isle of Man Stewart J. Wild

On a recent visit to the Isle of Man – where HADAS enjoyed a long weekend trip in 1994 – I was interested to get the latest news on the excavations currently being carried out on the coast to the east of Ronaldsway Airport.

As part of the runway extension and construction of associated taxiways, major earthworks were started in May 2008. Archaeologists had already discovered nearby a 3,000-year-old Bronze Age village, three burials and numerous artifacts, including myriad pieces of pottery and worked flint.

Now a prehistoric dwelling dating back perhaps 8,000 years has been unearthed, the local newspaper trumpeting that it was “3,000 years older than Stonehenge”. Built by settlers after the end of the last Ice Age, it is probably the oldest structure ever found on the island.

Digging has brought to light the foundations of a shelter, with thousands of pieces of worked flint, charred remains of wood, and hundreds of hazelnut shells. The project is on schedule to be completed by the end of this year, and radio carbon-dating results are eagerly awaited. Manx National Heritage field archaeologist Andrew Johnson said, “Archaeologists hesitate to call a structure of this kind a ‘house’ because the received wisdom is that 8,000 years ago people moved through the landscape as nomads, gathering their food from the land, rather than staying put and farming and harvesting it. But this building was constructed from substantial pieces of timber and had a hearth for cooking and warmth. Its occupants lived here often, or long, enough to leave behind over 12,000 pieces of worked flint together with the tools needed to flake them, and food debris in the form of hundreds of hazelnut shells.”

The excavation has been undertaken by Oxford Archaeology North and monitored on behalf of the airport by Manx National Heritage. It is scheduled to be included by the BBC team filming the next series of Coast, so I hope we can look forward to seeing the results on our TV screens soon.

LONDON AND MIDDLESEX ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

44th Local History Conference

OPEN-AIR LONDON: Pleasure, Parks and Protest: SATURDAY 21 NOVEMBER 2009 10am–5pm

City of London School for Girls, Barbican

· Woodlands and Commons, by Dr. Colin Bowlt, LAMAS Archaeological Committee

· The London Square: Islets in our Desert of Brick, Slate and Mud, by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, Gardener, Historian and Gardens Adviser to Hampton Court & Kensington Palaces

· Common People, Common Land: a History of London’s Open Spaces as Places of Protest

by Michael Berlin, FLL Birkbeck, University of London

· The Pleasure Gardens of London: a Creative Use for Open Space, by Katrina Burnett, with Kate Semmens (Soprano) and Steven Devine (Harpsichord) from Finchcocks Musical Museum, Goudhurst.

The Conference will be introduced by Prof. Caroline Barron, President of LAMAS, who will present the Annual Local History Publications Award. There will be displays of recent work and publications by local history societies. Cost (including afternoon tea): LAMAS members £8, Non-members of LAMAS £10. Tickets from: Local History Conference, 24 Orchard Close, Ruislip, Middx. HA4 7LS. Cheques should be payable to LAMAS. Please enclose an s.a.e.

Don Cooper notes four new short courses at Birkbeck coming up in the next twelve months:

Learning from Pots – the role of ceramics in archaeology. This one day course will take place on Saturday, 3 October 2009 from 10.00 am to 5pm at the LAARC and will be run by Jacqui Pearce. The cost is £42. (FFAR155N0ACB)

Investigating Archives, Site Reports and Records in Field Archaeology. This course will take place on Saturday, 13th February and Sunday, 14 February 2010 at Birkbeck College in Malet Street and will be run by Kathryn Meheux, BA, PhD. It runs from 10am to 5.00pm each day and costs £84. (FFAR157N0ACB)

Pre-historic Artefacts – Exploring Archaeological Finds from the Distant Past. This course will take place on Saturday, 17 April 2010 from 10.00am to 5.00pm at the LAARC and will be run by John Cotton and Jacqui Pearce. The cost will be £42. (FFAR156N0ACB)

Small Finds – Interpreting Material Culture from Excavated Artefacts. This one day course will run on Saturday, 19 June 2010 from 10am to 5pm at the LAARC. The course will be run by Jacqui Pearce and will cost £42. (FFAR154N0ACB)

There are concessionary rates of approximately 50% off the full price on all the courses for those who qualify. I have included the course reference numbers against each course to aid booking with Birkbeck (I am not responsible for the daft course referencing system!) Details of the content of the courses can be found on the Birkbeck website www.bbk.ac.uk or 0845 6010174.

AUDREY HOOSON reports: Ruin and Rebellion: uncovering the past at Tutbury Castle

The current small exhibition in gallery 69a at the British Museum has interesting finds from recent and historical excavations in the Tutbury area of Staffordshire. In 1831, 30,000 silver coins were found and the display shows examples of these along with pottery finds.

The castle is possibly built on the site of an Iron Age hillfort and a gold torc from nearby Needwood Forest is one of the many objects on loan for the exhibition.

The exhibition closes 17 January 2010.

Eric Morgan’s Monthly Round-Up of What’s On.

Sat/Sun 5/6 Sept 10.30 – 6.00pm, Enfield Town Show, Town Park, Enfield. Including Enfield Society and Enfield Archaeological Society stalls.

Sun. 6 Sept. 3–6pm, The Bothy Garden, Avenue House, Open Day. HADAS will be in the Garden Room in the morning only.

Tues. 8 Sept. 8pm, Amateur Geological Society, The Parlour, St Margaret’s Church, Victoria Ave. N3, The Evolution of Whales, by Ted Wheeler.

Thurs. 10 Sept. 8.15pm, Hampstead Scientific Society, Age Concern Resource Centre, Henderson Ct, Prince Arthur Rd, corner Fitzjohns Ave, Scientific Methods in Archaeology, Dr Caroline Cartwright (British Museum)

Sat/ Sun 12/13 Sept. 10am -6pm, RAF Museum, Grahame Park Way, NW9, Battle of Britain Weekend.

Mon. 14 Sept. 3pm, Barnet & Dist. Local Hist Soc, Church House, Wood St. Barnet, The Development of the English Country House from Medieval to 20th Century, based on National Trust Properties, Pamela Wright

Tues. 15 Sept. 8pm, Avenue House, East End Rd, Archaeology of Anglo-Jewry in London 1066-1290 & 1656-1850, illustrated talk by Kenneth Marks

Fri. 18 Sept. 8pm, Enfield Archaeological Society, Jubilee Hall, Parsonage Lane, Enfield, Kensington Palace & Excavations 2008, Tim Bradley (PCA), £1.

Fri. 18 Sept. 7.30pm, Wembley History Society, St Andrews Church Hall, Church Lane, Kingsbury, NW9,

60 Years of Radio & TV, Trevor Legg, £1

London Open House Weekend, Saturday 19 & Sunday 20 September.

Free access to hundreds of buildings, many not normally open to the public. See www.openhouse.org.uk Events include:

Sat 19th only, 11am-4pm, Old St Andrews Church, Church Lane, Kingsbury, Open Day, Wembley Hist. Soc.

Sun. 20th Sept. 11am-4pm, Myddelton House: Open House, also E.A. Bowles’s House, Bulls Moor Lane, Enfield.

Sun. 20th Sept. 11-4.00pm, Highgate Woods Heritage Day, Information Hut, off Archway Rd, N6.

Sat/Sun 19/20 Sept. Open House: Museum of London Docklands, West India Quay, E14, Pre-booked Tours of the Grade I Listed Warehouse, website www.museumoflondon.org.uk/docklands or ‘ 020 7001 9844.

Thurs. 24 Sept. 7.45pm, Finchley Society, Avenue House, East End Rd. N3, They All Laughed at Christopher Columbus, Susette Palmer, £2.

Wed 23 Sept. 7.45pm, Friern Barnet & District Local History Society, St John’s Church Hall, Friern Barnet Lane, N20. London Garden Squares, Daphne Glick, £2. Refreshments before & after.

INVITATION

SUNDAY 2ND AUGUST 2009 2pm-5pm

ROMAN COOKERY DEMONSTRATION

&

EXHIBITION OF POTTERY FROM SULLONIACAE (Brockley Hill)

At AVENUE HOUSE, EAST END ROAD, FINCHLEY N3

‘Claudia Severa to her Lepidina greetings. On 11 September, sister, for the day of the celebration of my birthday, I give you a warm invitation to make sure that you come to us, to make the day more enjoyable for me by your arrival, if you are present (?). Give my greetings to your Cerialis. My Aelius and my little son send him (?) their greetings. I shall expect you sister. Farewell, sister my dearest soul, as I hope to prosper, and hail.

Oops! Sorry! That’s invitation c. AD 100. What I meant to write was invitation AD 2009:

‘We are holding an exhibition of finds from the Brockley Hill (Sulloniacae) digs carried out between 1937 and 1954 which we are currently cataloguing, and an open air demonstration of Roman cookery by Rose Baillie on Sunday 2nd August 2009 from 2pm to 5pm. Refreshments will be served. Everybody is welcome and we look forward to seeing you all.’

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HADAS long weekend in Hereford – 26th to 30th August 2009

The arrangements for our trip to Hereford have nearly been finalised – apart from the weather. The balance of the cost (£290 per person sharing a room or £330 for those in single rooms) is due by the 18th August 2009. Please send your payments to Jim Nelhams (address at back of newsletter). A little booklet of the trip and any instructions will be sent you as soon as it is possible.

A few places may still be available. We normally operate a waiting list as well because so often someone has to drop out, so please contact Jim if you are interested but have not yet signed up.

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Hampstead Ponds Peter Pickering

The Hampstead Heath conservators are planning to widen a spring to make a small pond on a part of the Heath which is near a tumulus (known as Boudicca’s tomb!!) on Parliament Hill midway between the Hampstead and the Highgate Ponds. A worked flint has been found nearby by our member Mike Hammerson, and the construction of the pond provides an opportunity to look for any other evidence of ancient occupation, and perhaps study the palaeobotany of the Heath. Underneath the turf there is some 30cm of soil on top of clay; the soil would be removed and the clay used as the foundation for the pond; the area that would be affected would be at most 30 square metres, and two or three trenches dug between the removal of the turf and the actual construction of the pond could provide valuable archaeological evidence. The work is planned for September/October. HADAS will not be undertaking the archaeological work involved, but encourages any members who would be interested in this worthwhile project to get in touch with Michael Hammerson (4 Bramalea Close Highgate London N6 4QD; michael@midsummer.demon.co.uk) or Jonathan Meares (Heathfield House, 432 Archway Road, London, N6 4JH; jonathan.meaves@cityoflondon.gov.uk.

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New member?

The following message has been forwarded by Andrew Coulson:

“We are proud to announce the birth of Jacob Thomas Allen born at 11.27pm Sunday 5th July 2009, weight 8lbs 7oz. All very tired and happy. Christian and Sam.”

Congratulations to you all.

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Preliminary report on the Excavation at Hendon School from June 29th to July 10th 2009 –

Sarah Dhanjal

Site code HDS06 Grid references: TQ23610, 89011

Introduction

The last two weeks have seen the fourth season of excavations at Hendon School. Don Cooper stated the aims and objectives of the Hendon School excavations in his report in the August 2008 HADAS newsletter. The structure of this report is based on his previous reports to aid anyone who may wish to study them.

To recap, the excavations were embarked upon after a former UCL Institute of Archaeology student, then working at Hendon School, enquired about the possibility of an archaeology project there. Working with HADAS, we looked into the possibility of archaeological interest in the area and found that it was the reputed site of John Norden’s Hendon House. Further information on the historical findings on Hendon House so far can be found at: https://www.hadas.org.uk/projects/hendon-house

The excavation was set up to give practical experience of archaeology to groups of pupils from the school and to further our knowledge of Hendon House. Pupils were given classroom talks by Sarah Dhanjal and Don Cooper well before the dig weeks.

Summary

The excavation this year, as with previous years, was completely different to our other experiences at the school. We were sad to find that our chairman and dig director, Don Cooper, would be unable to join us due to illness. He was missed. In addition, our visits to Sharon’s Bakery on Brent Street were not as frequent.

The excavation, from the point of view of introducing the pupils to archaeological excavation and some of the other activities associated with it onsite, was a success. However, there are plans afoot within the dig team to make our fifth season more successful by adding a stronger educational structure to the activities. We had some problems with the weather, the first week was during the recent heat wave and the trench was baked solid at times. During the second week we were hampered by thunderstorms! With regard to the research questions that this project addresses, we have found further material evidence of activity on the Hendon House site from John Norden’s time until the demolition of the house in 1909. Further examination of the finds from the past three seasons, together with this years finds will suggest whether the gaps in the historical evidence are supported or refuted by the archaeology.

Detail

As with previous years, our choice of dig site was restricted by the location of the running track on the field. We were particularly interested by a long low mound at the westernmost edge of the field. We thought that it was likely to be related to the levelling of the playing field, or the construction of an access path for building works within the school. As such it was likely to contain some interesting artefacts. After a resistivity survey of the area, a 7m x 1.5m trench was established on an east-west alignment across the feature.

Excavating started about 0900 – 0930 and the first group of pupils arrived at 10.15 for a one and a three quarter hour session, then with a break for lunch, the second group arrived at 13.30 and finished at 15.15. Given the changeable weather the end of the day was decided by a consensus from the dig team.

We worked with pupils who had been chosen by their teachers to join the project and with those who asked our contact teacher, Jill Hickman, if they could be involved. On one morning we were visited by HARP, the Hendon School autism unit. We also had a visit from the local MP, Andrew Dismore, who showed great interest in our work and promised to try and visit us again soon.

The pupil sessions started with a short health and safety presentation. They were instructed in excavation techniques and asked to trowel in the trench supervised by HADAS and UCL archaeologists. The pupils were also involved in finds washing and sorting. Other activities included surveying using a dumpy level ably instructed by Jim Nelhams and metal detecting with Andrew Coulson. Over the two weeks each of the pupils had the opportunity to take part in at least two sessions.

What did we find?

We excavated the first c.35cm as one context. This was a very mixed deposit which included small, not easily definable patches of loamy soil mixed with lumps of clay. The clay lumps were thick and hard to trowel (especially when baked!) and are likely to be redeposited from other areas of the school site. In the side of the trench there was the suggestion of successive dumping of soil, but it was not distinct enough to separate out into contexts. In this context we found a range of artefacts including school related finds: a coke can, two marbles, a coke bottle (complete with screw top and a little coke still inside) and half a protractor. Interestingly there was not the usual spread of school detritus in this context. Going further into the school’s history, there were flowerpots related to the use of the playing field as allotments in WW2. Also within this context, related to prior usage of the site, we found one piece of 14th century pottery, several pieces of 16th century pottery, two pieces of 16th century tile and proportionately more pieces of 17th century and later pottery. Unique to this trench was a high proportion of bad quality Victorian land drain, possibly suggesting that a drain was disturbed in the works that resulted in the construction of the feature we were excavating. The Victorian period was particularly well represented in our trench, with a farthing from the reign of Victoria, some interesting pieces of blue and white pottery and two pieces of stamped pipe stem. One read HARRI- on one side and –ITION on the other. The second read –ISSON HIGHG– and –IVAL EXHI–. Research by HADAS members suggests that the pipe stems were from pipes produced for the Festival Exhibition in the 1860s.

Given the adverse weather conditions, we were not able to excavate the whole trench down to the natural clay level. A 75 cm sondage was excavated in order to see what the archaeology would reveal. We found that the redeposited loam and clay layer was on top of a fine loamy soil, which was distinctly sterile and devoid of finds, possibly indicating a previous turf layer. Below this lay a loamy clay layer from which there were a few finds, a clay and river rolled pebble layer and then the natural London clay.

Contribution to research questions

The research questions posed by the project design brief can be answered as follows:

a. Is there any residual evidence of prehistoric activity? There was no evidence of prehistoric activity.

b. Considering the proximity to various Roman roads, is there evidence of Roman activity? This year we found no evidence of Roman activity.

c. Excavations in the area have uncovered considerable Anglo-Saxon material, is there any evidence of similar remains here? We found no evidence of Anglo-Saxon activity.

d. Is there any evidence of activity in the area between its mention in Domesday and the construction of the house? Of the pottery that has been dated thus far, the earliest sherd we found was a heavily abraded piece of 14th century pot. It is not diagnostic, so we cannot link it to a particular form of pot and being a lone piece, does not constitute robust evidence of activity earlier than that of Norden’s Hendon House.

e. What evidence remains for the different phases of rebuilding of the house up to the demolition in 1909? We found the ‘usual’ spread of building material including bricks, mortar and roof tiles. Particularly nice finds, possibly related to Norden’s Hendon House, include 2 pieces of green glazed tile, probably 16th century and some 16th century pottery. From the 16th century onwards there is a small amount of pottery and in the later periods, clay pipe.

Results

Every year we learn more about the Hendon House site, through the hard work of HADAS members who research the history and add to the oral history of the site. The archaeological excavations add another dimension by adding to the material evidence of the activity on the site through time. In addition it enables us to educate the school about the unique history of their site. We do this by working with specific groups of pupils, but also by talking to interested pupils and staff who are not involved in the project. We are also learning about how to work in the school environment. We hope that the fifth season at Hendon School will allow us to put our learning into practice.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Jill Hickman, our contact at Hendon School who makes the excavations at the site possible. Thank you to my fellow UCL students Gabe Moshenska, Hannah Page, Sarah Doherty, Emily Esche, Nicola Kalimeris, Naomi Hollis and Matt Caro. Thank you to HADAS members Jim Nelhams, Angela Holmes, Vicki Baldwin and Andrew Coulson for sharing your interest, enthusiasm and experience and of course, your time. In addition, thanks to all of the pupils who took part, especially Emma Densham, who was doing her year 11 work experience with us. Thanks also to Jacqui Pearce for examining the pot sherds. Finally, thanks must go to Don Cooper, whose hard work and support makes these projects possible.

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The following is a contribution from ‘M’, one of the pupils taking part in the dig:

“I thought the archaeology dig was great because I learnt so much more than what I used to know. We learnt about what equipment to use, to measure how deep we dug and how far. We also learnt about the history about a few objects as well.

Overall the dig was amazing and the archaeology team were really nice as well.”

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And an article from The Press concerning the Church Farm dig:

The Press www.northlondon-today.co.uk Thursday, July 16, 2009

Students dig in to find a little piece of history

by Lucy Purdy

CHILDREN saw history come alive this week as they took part in an archaeological dig in the grounds of the Church Farmhouse Museum in Hendon.

Pupils from St Mary’s CE School in Downage and St Mary’s and St John’s JMI School in Prothero Gardens, Hendon, joined archaeologists from University College London and Hendon And District Archaeological Society to investigate a Saxon ditch in the grounds of the house. It was built in Greyhound Hill in about 1660, opened as a local museum in 1955 and is one of the oldest surviving houses in the borough.

Sarah Dhanjal, a PhD student at UCL and member of HADAS, said the children relished the chance to take part in some excavations.

She said: “We talk to them about the history of the area and then get them in the trench and have a go themselves.

“They really enjoy the chance to do something physical and hopefully, for some of them, it will spark an interest in archaeology and history to go on to study the subject at university or just as a hobby.

“When you are stuck in a classroom, history doesn’t always make much sense. If you actually excavate something and learn that it’s 200 years old and you’re the first person to hold it since

it went in the ground – that’s really exciting!”

HADAS has held several digs in the grounds of the museum in the past, uncovering a Saxon ditch which is thought to be related to the church. They are also on the hunt for a well which can be seen in old pictures of the area but has yet to be unearthed.

Miss Dhanjal added: “It’s really important to do this kind of work to show people what we do. Archaeology is not something a lot of people know about and the children enjoy it a lot.”

HADAS Lecture – May 2009: London’s Roman Amphitheatre – Francis Grew

report by Andy Simpson

Francis is Curator of Archaeology at the Museum of London, and has led many tours of the preserved remains of the London amphitheatre which he expertly described in his talk to HADAS, setting it in the context of Roman London. The discovery captured the public imagination with its links to Gladiators.

The earliest hints of a possible amphitheatre in London/Londinium came, it was thought, with the discovery in the nineteenth century of a tombstone with gladiator sculpture showing a Retiarius (net carrier). This is one of the best depictions of this type of gladiator from the Roman Empire. It has a Greek inscription, dedicated by a woman to her husband Martialis, and was found on Tottenham Court Road. Sadly, the sculpture is of marble from Asia Minor and was probably imported into England in the sixteenth or seventeenth century as part of a private collection held by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel who had a house on the nearby Strand. In itself this is an interesting survival of such early collecting.

Antiquarians and the public have long been fascinated by Gladiators, and there was for many years a search for the presumed London amphitheatre. A further ‘Red Herring’ was the discovery of a very small ‘Gladiator’s Trident’ – possibly an eel spear, found in Southwark in the nineteenth century. Interest increased with the excavation of blitzed sites post WW2, with one suggested location being on the west bank of the Fleet River for topographical reasons. A key related discovery in 1987 by the late Dr Alan Vince was that of the long-sought Tudor Rose Theatre on the South Bank, with its interesting history, now displayed on site with conserved remains, with implications for conservation techniques. At one time it was thought the complex of Tudor playhouses/bearpits etc on the South Bank might have been a direct descendant of a Roman entertainments complex on the same site, but there is no evidence of this.

The Guildhall amphitheatre was found in 1988 as short stretches of wall found in four trial trenches dug before construction of a new Guildhall Art Gallery to replace that destroyed by enemy action in 1941. It had been expected to find remains of a medieval chapel attached to the Guildhall, and these remains were indeed located. The site is close to the Walbrook and outside the area of earliest Roman settlement, being just outside the Cripplegate Fort which housed the Governor of Britain’s Legionary bodyguard, leaving the question of if it was for military or civil use, although its relatively simple construction outlined below suggests it may have been for civilian use, perhaps including religious activities, animal fighting and the public execution of criminals.

What was found was a curving Roman wall laid on tile, and it was not immediately recognised as an amphitheatre. Other possibilities were a bath house or temple. A piece of the northern arena wall had first been noted in 1951 but its significance not noted at the time, and a dig nearby in 1985 had noted a curved wall, forming an arc with the newly discovered remains. Part of the site – the Guildhall Yard – had been open space since medieval times, bounded by the extant 15th-century Guildhall built 1411-1430 and Church of St Lawrence Jewry. The site was dug from 1992 to 1997, funded by the Corporation of London. About half of the courtyard (and actual arena) was excavated through area excavation, revealing a curving wall and entrance flanked by a chamber/room with two doorways either side; the rest hopefully survives, unexcavated, under the guildhall yard and surrounding buildings. Little of the structure remained above original ground level having been well robbed, but extensive foundations survived. Rooms either side of the entrance may have been to coral animals prior to driving them into the amphitheatre for slaughter.

The arena wall was of Kentish Ragstone and flat tile, and originally stood some 2m high. Post pits found are interpreted as being from a first phase timber-built amphitheatre erected c.AD70-74, replaced by a larger masonry phase post c. AD 120. The masonry phase had an arena roughly 57m X 45m with a 21m wide seating bank heaped up with spoil dug out from creating the arena (Giving a capacity of 7-10,000 people, bigger than the Caerleon Amphitheatre and comparable in size to those at Cirencester and Chester, compared to the 6,000 capacity of the present day Albert Hall), with entrances at the east and west ends and to the south. The eastern one had a cobbled surface and surviving wooden threshold beam. A magistrates viewing box probably stood at the north end. There was little evidence for a back wall, showing how simple the construction was, with no evidence for supporting buttresses of roofing over of the entrance passages. Caerleon and Chester, being military amphitheatres, had buttresses and a back wall, most such structures being concentrated in southern England. There was evidence in one side chamber of slots in a stone threshold suggesting a vertically sliding wooden gate to the amphitheatre, and thanks to waterlogged conditions, well preserved wooden channels and drains which were linked to an outside system that drained into the nearby Walbrook Valley. The site was always wet and drainage was required to clear blood etc from the arena. Markings on surviving timberwork is still undeciphered, and may be control marks by carpenters or timber merchants, with good survival of tree rings for dating.

The drains and timber-lined settling tank were built entirely of green oak dated AD74, close to the presumed original construction date. From the timber phase, evidence was found of base plates and uprights with a timber bank supporting the seating, the timberwork being very complex, with drains around the arena wall. There were relatively few finds, suggesting the arena had been kept clean, although the drains yielded some pottery including complete vessels dating the second masonry phase, including Black Burnished Ware. Notable finds included a gold ear ring and some 17 fragments of Samian pottery with gladiator friezes, many of them preserving a complete scene, suggesting children or others were trading or collecting these sherds as souvenirs. Some fragments of painted wall plaster from the arena wall were found, plus marble inlays and mouldings and a coping stone, possibly from the arena wall, in late deposits.

There was also a lead curse, inscribed ‘I give to the goddess Diana my headdress/band less one third. If anyone has done this, slave or free, I give him to the goddess, and through me let him be unable to live’. Diana of the hunt was an important patron goddess to gladiators and those involved in wild beast hunts, and this curse may be from someone who worked at the amphitheatre itself.

The discovery and designation as a scheduled ancient monument led to conservation issues (with advice from English Heritage) and a major engineering task to protect and display the remains in a special chamber at the level found, in a controlled environment allowing the remains to dry out slowly, avoiding damage to the Roman masonry, with the challenge of avoiding deep piles through the chamber.

Over 1000 timbers were recovered during the excavation, and many were given wax (polyethylene glycol – PEG) and freeze-drying treatment at York by the York Archaeological Trust labs, with another three-metre portion of plank-roofed main timber drain conserved and reinstalled by the Museum of London in February 2006.

Following a major rebuild c.AD250-270, the site seems to have gone into decline in the fourth century, involving dismantling and abandonment, with three burials dated to the 360s dug into the seating bank.

Being a potentially defensible site it housed Saxon buildings from the ninth century, and retained a thread of continuity as a public space. The first Guildhall was built close by in the twelfth century.

The site is now publically accessible, complete with conserved timber drains on show, and is highly recommended for a visit, which is inclusive in the modest charge to see the excellent Guildhall Art Gallery above, which opened in 1999, along with the Guildhall great hall and crypt, also open to the public. The curve of the oval amphitheatre is marked out in the Guildhall yard in black paving stones. For more details, see: http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/LGNL_Services/Leisure_and_culture/Museums_and_galleries/Guildhall_Art_Gallery/ampitheatre.htm

See also Nick Bateman’s Book Gladiators at the Guildhall: The Story of London’s Roman Amphitheatre and Medieval Guildhall (Paperback)

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Roman Villas in Britain – A Retrospective Review Peter Pickering

In June I went to one of the two days of a conference with this title. It was held in the British Museum and was organised by the Association for Roman Archaeology. It was designed to challenge the long expected overview made by Sir Ian Richmond in ‘The Roman Villa in Britain’ (1969). He stated that a villa was a farm and primarily an economic term, indicating a place designed as an agricultural establishment.

The intention of the conference was to suggest alternative interpretations about the functions of villas. I did not, because of another engagement, manage to hear Roy Friendship-Taylor arguing that the Piddington Villa, the excavation of which HADAS visited a few years ago, was an imperial retreat, rather than a Romano-Celtic farm, nor the interpretation of Lullingstone as a pleasure house or hunting-lodge for the governor, later serving other functions, most of them religious; nor that of Great Witcombe as a magnificently proportioned rural shrine in honour of an as yet unknown water deity.

But I did hear Whitley Grange near Wroxeter interpreted as a hunting lodge with good fishing used by the élite of that city, and doubts about the ‘farmyard’ at Bignor (at which villa some gold-leaf wall plaster was found – an opulence very rare in the whole Roman empire). The other talks I heard were somewhat less revisionist. John Shepherd described the work he has done on Gayton Thorpe, which was first excavated in the 1920s. A paper about two villas – Dinnington and Yarford – on the south-western margins was especially concerned with the end of Roman Britain, and how the last phase of Dinnington was concurrent with the occupation of South Cadbury. Sam Moorhead and Philippa Walton presented a scholarly analysis of coin finds – apparently Britain has, compared with the rest of the empire, a large number of Constantinian coins, and the late silver ‘siliquae’.

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What’s On Eric Morgan

Sunday 2nd August, 3-5pm: Finchley Society, Avenue House, East End Road. The Bothy Garden open day. (HADAS will be at Avenue House this afternoon – see first page of this newsletter.)

Tuesday 4th August, 2-3pm: Harrow Museum, Headstone Manor, Pinner View, North Harrow: Southwark Cathedral. Talk by John & Jo Brewster on its 1,000 year history. Cost £3.

Tuesday 11th August, 8pm: Amateur Geological Society, The Parlour, St. Margaret’s Church, Victoria Avenue, N3 (off Hendon Lane): Dolled Up Gemstones: talk by Douglas Garrod on their artificial treatment.

Sunday 16th August, 2-4pm: The Battle of Barnet.. Guided walk. Meet at the junction of Great North Road/Hadley Green Road. Led by Paul Baker. Cost £7.

Tuesday 18th August, 2-3pm: Harrow Museum, Headstone Manor, Pinner View, North Harrow: War & Medicine. Talk by Kevin Brown on how war has dramatically impacted on the development of medicine. Cost £3.

Tuesday 18th August, 6pm: Highgate Wood Information Hut, off Archway Road, N6. Historical Walk.

Friday 21st August, 7pm: COLAS, St. Olave’s Parish Hall, Mark Lane, EC3: Algeria Before Islam. Talk by Ian Jones. Visitors £2. Refreshments.

Saturday 22nd August & Sunday 23rd August, 12-6pm: Friern Barnet Summer Show, Friary Park, Friern Barnet Lane, N12. Friern Barnet & District Local History Society will have a stand there. Also an Art Exhibition by Barnet Borough Arts Council whose stand has HADAS info, and many other stalls.

Sunday 23rd August, 2-4pm: The Heart of High Barnet. Guided historical walk through 1,000 years. Meet outside Barnet College, Wood Street. Led by Paul Baker. Cost £7.

Sunday 30th August, 2pm: A Meander Through Monken Hadley. Meet outside The Spires, High Street, Barnet. Historical walk through beautiful, unspoilt Georgian Hadley. Led by Paul Baker. Cost £7.

Excavations at Copped Hall, Epping with WEAG, August 2008

From Monday 17th to Friday 21st August. Continued excavation of an Elizabethan Great House and its Medieval predecessors. Places still available on Field School (not for beginners) this week. Full details from Mrs. Pauline Dalton, Roseleigh, Epping Road, Epping, Essex CM16 5HW, tel. 01992813725, email: pmd2@ukonline.co.uk or visit www.coppedhalltrust.org.uk (HADAS have helped WEAG here with resistivity and surveying site).

HADAS DIARY: Forthcoming Events

Wednesday 8th July: Outing to Syon Park

At the AGM last month our president, Harvey Sheldon, praised the cafeteria at Syon Park and reminded members of how much else there is to see there, quite apart from the interesting dig and the last few days of an exhibition based on the Time Team dig there. Application forms were sent out some time ago, but you may still be able to get a place: contact Jim Nelhams (see his details on the back page).

Sunday 26th July: Outing to Broughton Castle, Swalcliffe Village etc:

*BREAKING NEWS* from Stewart Wild:

*Our outing on Sunday 26 July will visit a dig in progress*

Good news for all those joining us on 26 July for our visit to Broughton Castle, near Banbury. On the way home, we have been able to arrange a guided tour at a dig in progress. In fields near Abingdon, Oxford

University’s School of Archaeology has been excavating a complex site each summer since 2001.

The site is an Iron Age settlement which is overlain by a Romano-British temple complex. The temple has a large temenos area defined by a stone wall with various public buildings outside it. One of these is a large
circular structure whose function is unclear at the moment but it was probably some form of theatre/amphi-theatre associated with religious activities and the nearby temple.

We hope you will be able to join us for our first outing on a Sunday. Booking forms were distributed last month; if you need a copy please contact:

June Porges (juneporges@btinternet.com) 020 8346 5078
Stewart Wild (stewartjwild@tiscali.co.uk) 020 8346 4166

Wednesday 26th August to Sunday 30th August inclusive –

HADAS long weekend in Hereford – not long to go!!! from Jim Nelhams

The arrangements for our trip to Hereford have nearly been finalised – apart from the weather. The balance of the cost (£290 per person sharing a room or £330 for those in single rooms) is due by the 18th August 2009, but should anybody like to pay an instalment in July and one in August they are welcome to do so. Please send your payments to Jim Nelhams (address at back of newsletter). A little booklet of the trip and any instructions will be sent to you as soon as it is available.

A few places may still be available. We normally operate a waiting list as well, because so often someone has to drop out, so please contact Jim if you are interested but have not yet signed up.

Ann Kahn

Each of our last three newsletters carried obituaries of long-standing members, and we were unable to include an appreciation of Ann Kahn as soon as we would have wished. Peter Pickering, who was among the HADAS members who were able to attend her funeral, has written the following for us:

Ann died on 21st April at the age of 85, immediately after completing our May newsletter, of which she was editor; this bald fact demonstrates the determination which was characteristic of her. She was a librarian by profession; she worked in Hendon public library in 1951, but her career was in the Civil Service, where she became Chief Librarian of the Department of Health and Social Security in 1974. She had many and varied interests, including the theatre and sailing (she was a founder member of both the Society for Theatre Research and the Civil Service Sailing Association) and of course archaeology (she had dug with Mortimer Wheeler at Maiden Castle). Ann joined HADAS in 1981; she was one of our regular team of newsletter editors and came to our meetings while she was still mobile. In 1989 she was confined to a wheelchair, in which I well remember her at our Christmas dinner in the Meritage Club. This scarcely cramped her style or her enthusiasms; Denis Ross and I visited her more than once to discuss the peculiarities of AppleMac computers, and at the time of her death she was engaged on projects including a Dictionary of Body Language and a History of the Civil Service Sailing Association.

Would you like to get the Newsletter by E-mail? Mary Rawitzer

Last month’s debacle, when three people between them managed NOT to put the Broughton Castle outing application form in with the June Newsletter, and it had to be e-mailed or posted separately, has prompted a suggestion from Jeffrey Lesser that some members might be willing, as he would be, to get the Newsletter by e-mail each month. This would save postage, paper and time, and bring the HADAS Newsletter into the modern world.

The HADAS Committee has considered this idea from time to time without ever making a decision, but really no decision is needed. If YOU would like to be sent the Newsletter by e-mail, please just send a brief message to mary.rawitzer@talktalk.net – so that I am certain we have your correct address.

Who were those three guilty people? I’m not telling on the others. But I was one of them.

UCL’S BLOOMSBURY SUMMER SCHOOL 2009:

Ancient Egypt and Beyond: From Nubia to the Levant (6 – 31 July 2009)

UCL has announced a programme of one-week courses taught by experts, with lavishly-illustrated lectures, gallery work in the British Museum, special-access classes in the Petrie Museum and UCL’s Institute of Archaeology, as well as social events. For further information visit: www.egyptology-uk.com/bloomsbury

or contact The Director, Bloomsbury Summer School, Department of History, UCL, Gower St., London WC1E 6BT. Tel: 020 7679 3622. E-mail: bloomsbury@egyptology-uk.com

UCL has also launched week-long sessions under the heading Bloomsbury Summer School in Egypt. The course, Exploring Amarna: Akhenaten’s Abandoned City, will actually be taught in Egypt, by Professor Barry Kemp, with daily visits to ancient sites. The first course, from 24th to 31st October 2009, is already full, but there may still be availability for the following one, from 30th November to 7th December 2009.

Is this the largest erratic ever found? Stewart Wild

Members will, I am sure, know what an erratic is. The word was coined in the nineteenth century to describe a rock or boulder that had ‘wandered’ from its original location, having been carried along by a glacier.

We have hundreds, if not thousands, of erratics in this country. However, on a recent visit to western Canada, I came across a remarkable discovery. South of Calgary, Alberta, in a windswept field near a town called Okatoks (which means “Big Rock” in the native Blackfoot language), lies possibly the largest erratic ever found.

Measuring approximately 41x18x9 metres (135ft long, 60ft wide and 30ft high), this colossal mass of quartzite (a kind of tough sandstone) weighs around 16,700 tons, and is over 500 million years old. It arrived in this location more than 10,000 years ago, having been transported from Mount Edith Cavell in the Jasper area, some 400kms to the northwest, not just by a glacier, but on top of a glacier, after a rockfall.

The quartzite was formed by layers of sediment deposited some 570 to 540 million years ago in a shallow sea long before the uplift of the Rocky Mountains. As time passed, the sediment was buried as layer upon layer built up thousands of feet thick. The pressure generated by the weight of the overlying sediments compacted the sand grains and cemented them into extremely hard, durable rock.

For as long as anyone can remember, this colossal piece of rock has been a local wonder and attraction. Erosion and the passage of time – the winters are fierce in this part of the world – have broken the rock into two large and many small pieces, yet have still left enough sheer faces to attract local youngsters anxious to try their skills at surreptitious and unsupported rock climbing despite its being a Provincial Historic Site.

The massive Okatoks erratic is just one of a train of similar boulders scattered across the plains from Alberta to northern Montana, having been dumped by ancient glaciers which then melted as the last Ice Age came to an end.

Pictures and further details are available on this Alberta website: http://culture.alberta.ca/museums/historicsiteslisting/okotokserratic/default.aspx

Ancient Mass Grave found on Dorset Olympic Site

Reuters recently reported the discovery of an ancient burial pit containing 45 severed skulls, that could be a mass war grave dating back to Roman times. It was found under a road being built for the 2012 Olympics.

Archaeologists, who have only just begun excavating the site, say they do not yet know who the bones might belong to. Reuters quotes David Score of Oxford Archaeology who is heading the dig: “We think that these dismembered bodies are likely to be native Iron Age Britons. The question is – how did they die and who killed them. Were they fighting amongst themselves? Were they executed by the Romans? Did they die in a battle with the Romans? The exciting scenario for us possibly is that there were skirmishes with the invading Romans and that’s how they ended up chopped up in a pit”.

The skulls and other bones were unearthed at Ridgeway Hill, on the construction site of a new major relief road to Weymouth, on the Dorset coast, which is to host sailing events for the London Olympics.

When the main Roman invasion force landed in Britain in AD 43, Claudius’s legions moved swiftly through western England to subdue fierce Celtic tribes. The grave site is close to Maiden Castle – Europe’s largest Iron Age hill fort – where local tribes are said to have staged a last stand against the Roman legions after the invasion. Some historians believe the Romans sacked the site, butchering its population including women and children, before burning it to the ground.

Few artifacts have so far been found with the bones, though pottery shards dating to the late Iron Age and early Roman period have been found scattered around the 6-metre wide pit. 45 skulls have been counted so far, together with a tangle of torsos, arms and legs. Most skulls were those of young men, supporting the theory they could have been killed in battle or executed en masse. But the archaeologists say, pending further analysis, they could also be Roman citizens or indigenous people who had died through disease or disaster.

St. Mary at Finchley Churchyard: John Cartwright Monument Vicki Baldwin

Preparatory work pre-renovations, December 2008

HADAS was asked to supply an archaeologist to be present during the dismantling of the Cartwright monu-ment in the churchyard of St. Mary at Finchley in December 2008, prior to proposed repair and renovation work following the detailed survey and recommendations for subsequent work carried out in May 2006.

The monument in question was erected in 1835 and is situated at the western edge of St. Mary’s churchyard. At present it is surrounded by green painted hoardings. It consists of a slender, 4-sided, tapering obelisk on a rectangular column resting on a wider, square plinth. This is placed on top of a concealed vault. Problems had arisen because, due to a number of factors, the leading (eastern) edge of the plinth had compromised the roof of the vault. This in turn, had caused the monument to lean to the east, with the possibility that it might fall and cause injury to anyone nearby and probably further damage the vault.

The work in December 2008 was carried out in two phases by two specialist teams. The first phase, between 10th and 13th December, consisted of carefully removing the materials at the north end used to re-seal the vault after the 2006survey. The earth covering the steps down to the entrance was cleared and the bricks sealing the doorway removed. Once this had been done it was possible to access the chamber. Clearance of the backfill exposed a steep flight of 4 brick steps leading to a low entrance. There were 3 steps each of 3 courses of brick with the top course laid endwise on their sides and the top edge chamfered. The top step consisted of a single course of side-laid, top edge chamfered brick, and the side walls were also brick. The entrance was low (approximately 1–1.25m high) with a step down into the chamber. Along the west side ran a plinth with 8 in situ coffins. Cracking and movement of the walls and roof, detailed in the 2006 report, was clearly visible.

The next stage in this phase of work consisted of the construction of a protective shell over the coffins so that any subsequent work on the surface of the vault could be undertaken without the problem of dislodged material falling into it and causing further damage. The shell consisted of 2 layers: the first, marine ply nailed to 2”x 4” struts and the second, a layer of thick insulation board. Once the shell had been constructed, the entrance was re-bricked, the steps covered and the area backfilled.

The following week a second specialist team began dismantling the monument itself. At least one panel from the base had already become detached and was in storage elsewhere. Possibly there were only 3 panels, not 4, attached to the lower part, as it appears the monument would have been visible from 3 sides only, having been positioned at the western edge of the vault area rather than in the middle of the plot. The sections of the monu-ment were mortared together, possibly evidence of an early use of Portland cement, the first patent for which was lodged in 1824. The top (obelisk) part of the monument was constructed from 2 pieces of stone joined by poured lead plugs as well as mortar. As each section was freed it was lifted by crane and positioned within the compound. The base plinth was left in situ as it was judged that moving it could cause further damage to the underlying brickwork of the vault roof. Once the monument had been dismantled, each section was protected by layers of hessian and bubblewrap until further work can take place. The vault and monument remain behind the hoardings in St. Mary’s churchyard awaiting the next phase of renovation.

Annual General Meeting : Secretary’s Report and Comments Jo Nelhams

The Society’s 48th Annual General Meeting was held on Tuesday 9th June 2009 with the President Harvey Sheldon in the Chair. In the absence of the Chairman, Don Cooper, Peter Pickering, the Vice-Chairman introduced the President. The attendance of members was very disappointing as only 22 attended, about 12% of the membership, with a further 10 members sending their apologies. However, it was the first evening of the tube strike which cannot have helped.

The Annual Report and Accounts were approved by the meeting.

The Officers and Committee remained unchanged and were duly re-elected, there being no further offers of people to fill the 4 vacancies still available.

A reminder of who is who on the elected committee:

Chairman: Don Cooper Vice-Chairman: Peter Pickering

Hon. Treasurer: Jim Nelhams Hon. Secretary: Jo Nelhams

Hon. Membership Secretary: Stephen Brunning

Committee:

Bill Bass, Andrew Coulson, Eric Morgan, June Porges, Mary Rawitzer, Denis Ross, Andrew Selkirk, Tim Wilkins.

Four long-standing members died this year, Gillian Braithwaite, Andrew Saunders, Liz Holliday and Ann Kahn. They will be sadly missed.

More volunteers to act as editors/reserve editors of the newsletters are now badly needed, with access to a computer a requirement. Please contact a member of the committee if you are able to help. In the closing discussion the view was expressed that without active support from members for all the activities of the society, it would not be able to function.

The meeting was followed by presentations of the year’s activities in which members had participated.

Bill Bass presented an update on digging at Church Farm Museum. This was followed by the dig that took place at Hendon School, presented by Jim Nelhams. There will be further digs in both of these locations this year. Andy Simpson reported on the work of the Post-excavation Course run in conjunction with Birkbeck College with Jacqui Pearce as tutor. The book on the Church Terrace dig will be published later this year. Vicki Baldwin talked about the Cartwright Memorial (her report is above) and the evening concluded with a showing of a short film about the abandoned island of St. Kilda, made by a friend of Stewart Wild.

Those present at the AGM signed a get-well card and added personal messages to Don Cooper.

The following inscription was also added: –

The crew at our annual meeting But be sure, there’s no reason to panic. So we all have to make this appeal.

All wanted to send you a greeting. No need to get worried or manic We hope that, soon, better you’ll feel.

Such a shame you weren’t there We’re keeping afloat. For despite our endeavour,

To observe how they care No one’s rocking the boat, We know that it’s never

And to supervise moving the seating. And HADAS is not The Titanic. As good as when you’re at the wheel.

Other Societies’ Events from Eric Morgan

Thursday 2nd July, 7pm Enfield Society: Heritage Walk – Enfield Town.

Start at Market Place & look at historic buildings, including St Andrew’s Church & the Tudor

Room. End at Jubilee Hall with refreshments & sales tables

Other Societies’ Events (continued)

Thurs. 2nd July, 7-8.30pm Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Mddx Univ, Cat Hill, Barnet:

Through the Keyhole. Talk, by Lesley Hoskins on the everyday lives of Victorians. £5

Sat. 4th July, 11am-5pm Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery: Open Day, Harrow Rd NW6 &

Ladbroke Grove W10. Displays, stalls, food, incl. Willesden Local History Soc, bookstalls

Saturday 4th & Sunday 5th July, 12-7pm. East Barnet Festival, Oak Hill Park, Church Hill Rd,

E. Barnet. Lots of community stalls

Sunday 5th July, Avenue House Grounds, East End Rd, N3

2.15pm: Tree Walk, by Gary Pearse (Friends of Windsor Open Space)

3-5pm: The Bothy Garden Open Day

Tuesday 7th July, 2-3pm. Harrow Museum, Headstone Manor, Pinner View, North Harrow:

40 Years at Kodak. Talk by Tony Earle. £3

Saturday 11th & Sunday 12th July. Enfield Archaeological Society:

Dig at Theobalds Palace, Cedars Park, Broxbourne

Saturday 11th July, from 12-o’clock. Pentland Finchley Community Festival:

Victoria Park, Ballards Lane, N3. Lots of community stalls, incl. the Finchley Society

Tuesday 14th July, 8pm. Amateur Geological Society, The Parlour, St Margaret’s Church,

Victoria Ave, N3: Rock Curiosities. Talk, Stuart Adams

Wednesday 15th July, 7.30pm. Willesden Local History Soc: Guided tour of Lower Place.

Meet promptly, Grand Junction Arms car park, Acton Lane NW10. Led by Cliff Wadsworth

Saturday 18th & 19th July, 11am-4pm. Enfield Archaeological Society: Dig at Elsyng Palace

Forty Hall, Enfield (HADAS did resistivity here); also Enfield Museum Service:

The Tudors: in person & under your feet: Tudor Fayre

Saturday 18th July –Sunday 2nd August. Festival of British Archaeology, including Dig Harrow

exhibition 10.30am-5pm (Harrow Museum, see 7th July), Thames Treasures – London’s

River Revealed 10am(Sundays 11am)-6pm, series of events about the archaeology & the history

of the Thames. Full details: www.museumoflondon.org.uk/tel. 020 7001 9844

Saturday 25th/Sunday 26th July, 11.30am-4pm. COLAS at the Tower (part of Festival of BA): a

wide range of public displays and activities in front of the Tower & (around midday) on the foreshore

Sunday 26th July, 2.30pm. Hornsey Historical Society: History Walk around Highgate, start

Pond Square, N6. For full details phone 020 8883 8486

Thanks to contributors: Peter Pickering, Stewart Wild, Vicki Baldwin, Jim & Jo Nelhams, Eric Morgan.

HADAS DIARY: FORTHCOMING EVENTS

Tuesday 9 June: Annual General Meeting

Wednesday 8 July: Outing to Syon Park

13-20 July: HADAS DIG in Church Farm House Museum garden

Sunday 26 July: Outing to Broughton Castle and Oxfordshire

Sunday 2 August: Brockley Hill Pottery Display & Roman Cookery Demonstration

Wednesday 26 August to Sunday 30 August: HADAS long weekend in Hereford

————————————————————————————————————————-

Sunday 26 July: OUTING TO BROUGHTON CASTLE & OXFORDSHIRE

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find venues which are open on Saturdays so we are experimenting with a Sunday outing. Our main visit will be to Broughton Castle near Banbury. Some of you may have heard the Radio 4 reading of William Fiennes’ book “The Music Room” which is about his young days living in the castle which has been the home of the Fiennes family for twenty generations. We found it enchanting when we visited it and the fourteenth century church in the grounds. It is close to Swalcliffe village where there is a tithe barn (1409) with a small museum, remains of a Roman road and villa (at this point we are not sure whether digging will be in progress) and a hill fort which we promise not to make you climb! It should be an enjoyable day in a beautiful part of Oxfordshire. Application forms are included in this Newsletter.

Stewart Wild and June Porges

HADAS DIG Don Cooper

HADAS are going to dig at the back of Church Farm Museum again this year. The dig will start on the 13th July for one week. The Wednesday and Thursday the 15th and 16th of July will be devoted to the pupils of St Mary’s School. HADAS members will be welcome to come along on the other days to watch, get involved, chat and maybe get a cup of tea!

This is a rare opportunity for members to get involved with the practical side of archaeology. We look forward to seeing you there.

CORRECTIONS

In the May Newsletter (p3) it was reported that the site of the burial place of Anthony and Cleopatra has been found 17 miles North of Alexandria. Dr Jeffrey Lesser points out that “North” must be wrong (unless this is underwater archaeology?).

In last month’s newsletter the old Discussion List URL was quoted by mistake.

The correct one is below:
http://groups.google.com/group/hadas-archaeology

BROCKLEY HILL POTTERY DISPLAY& ROMAN COOKERY DEMONSTRATION

Sun 2 August 14.00-17.00 Avenue House, 17 East End Rd, Finchley, London N3 3QE

This event will be a display of Roman pottery excavated from kiln sites on Brockley Hill near Edgware (sometimes thought to be the settlement of Solloniacis). The material comes from a number of digs during the 1930s, 40s and 50s which eventually came into the care of the HADAS. We are now processing the pottery to current museum standards, on show will be a wide range of pottery types that were made at Brockley Hill, examples of which were distributed all over Roman Britain. Also, there will be a demonstration of Roman cooking by Rose Baillie of the City of London Archaeological Society . Rose will show how she thought a Roman kitchen worked and will cook a number of dishes in replica Roman pots.

The above event is part of the Festival of British Archaeology two week extravaganza organised by the CBA. For further information please contact Sophie Cringle, Marketing and Events Officer, Council for British Archaeology, St Mary’s House, 66 Bootham, York YO30 7BZ. Tel: 01904 671417. Email: festival@britarch.ac.uk.

See the full list at: http://festival.britarch.ac.uk/. We are listed under the London events (not Greater London). For members with no access to the internet, HADAS has ordered a small number of the National Events booklet which we hope will arrive to display at the AGM.

Bill Bass & Stephen Brunning

ELIZABETH ANN HOLLIDAY by Sheila Woodward

We were shocked and saddened to hear of the sudden death (from pancreatic cancer) on the 8th April of Liz Holliday at the comparatively early age of 62. Before moving from Barnet to Chipperfield 18 years ago she had been an active and enthusiastic member of HADAS and she maintained the connection even after her move.

Liz spent her childhood in North London. She attended Henrietta Barnett School where she was Head Girl in 1965, went on to study librarianship at the North London Polytechnic, and joined the Barnet Libraries Service and, in due course, HADAS. With her love of literature, history and art, her organizing abilities and her boundless energy, Liz became a valued contributor to many HADAS projects. She undertook research, wrote articles for publications (and designed at least one of our booklet covers) and helped to mount exhibitions. She served as Honorary Secretary to HADAS in the 1980s and early 1990s, continuing for a spell after her move to Chipperfield in 1991. While in Barnet she had been a regular attender at lectures and she enjoyed our Society outings. I vividly remember her at Bosworth Battlefield in 1993, passionately defending the reputation of Richard III!

Indeed Liz’s great “passion for life” was the main theme of the tributes paid to her at the Service of Thanksgiving in Chipperfield Parish Church on the 21st April attended by over 200 people. The number of village organizations in which she had served as Chairman or Secretary or Treasurer was mind-boggling. They included the Choral Society, the Horticultural Society, the Women’s Institute, various church committees, a Bookworms Club which she founded, and the Chipperfield News of which she was joint editor. Her love of dogs was legendary and she always owned at least two. Following her early retirement she had become a keen traveler, venturing as far afield as China and telling delightful tales of her adventures.

But above all, Liz’s family (sister, brother-in-law, nephew and niece) and her many friends and neighbours in Chipperfield remember her affection, her kindness, her wit, her cheerfulness and her courage. I am sure that is how her friends in HADAS remember her too.

EXIT SCOLA Peter Pickering

SCOLA is, or was, the Standing Conference on London Archaeology. I became its Assistant Secretary in 1995 and its Secretary in 2005; Michael Hammerson (a HADAS member) was its Treasurer even longer, having taken over from Derek Renn (a HADAS vice-president).

SCOLA was formed in 1992 in the wake of the Rose Theatre affair and the transfer of the responsibility for providing archaeological planning advice to London boroughs (the old Greater London Council had, of course, been abolished in 1986) from the Museum of London to English Heritage. SCOLA was intended to be a formal, pan-London forum with a solid constitution where issues of importance to the conduct of archaeology could be discussed, problems raised, and solutions found. It was originally sponsored by the Council for British Archaeology, the Society of Antiquaries and the two county archaeological societies, and had local archaeological societies, some local authorities and individuals among its membership. Its Chairman was not elected by the membership, but nominated by the Society of Antiquaries and the Council for British Archaeology; several very eminent people have become Chairman, including Barry Cunliffe, Michael Robbins, Martin Millett and Peter Addyman (twice)

SCOLA took a great interest from the beginning in the way in which developer-funded archaeology (under the Government’s Planning Policy Guidance (PPG) 16) was working in London, financed research into this, and held a conference in 2002. In its earlier years it ran other conferences with a more general appeal, on prehistoric London, on Dark Age London, and revisiting Martin Biddle’s seminal ‘The Future of London’s Past’.

Much of SCOLA’s effort, was spent on trying to ensure that the powers that be took account of archaeology (and the historic environment generally). This was not easy – the Greater London Authority, at least under Ken Livingstone, was a great disappointment to us, as was the Government’s decision last year to drop the Heritage Protection Bill from its legislative programme. Borough councils have not supported SCOLA as was hoped, and several borough museums have been closed or are under threat (though there is some better news – Havering is going to open a new one.)

SCOLA also took up some special cases where the system was not working well – for instance the decision to “preserve in situ” under a car park rather than excavate properly an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Croydon, and the failure to impose an adequate archaeological condition on some redevelopment along the line of the Roman road in Bow. More recently, we pressed for proper excavation and recording before the Olympic facilities were built; this seems to be proceeding satisfactorily, though there remain concerns about the effect of the equestrian events on Greenwich park. Although providing finance was not among its primary purposes, SCOLA did on a few occasions grant-aid the publication of excavations and other projects. In furtherance of its aim to inform the public, in 2004, 2006 and 2008 SCOLA, in conjunction with the ‘London Archaeologist’ magazine, offered a prize for the best publication relating to the archaeology of Greater London that had appeared over the previous two years.

Throughout, SCOLA was anxious to inform and involve local societies, who in turn supported SCOLA through subscriptions. In the early days SCOLA had ‘local area groups’ and organised an annual meeting for local societies to share information and views. In 2002 these were subsumed in the London Archaeological Forum, under the aegis of the Museum of London.

This year SCOLA was dissolved. That was because of the formation of the London Group of the Council for British Archaeology. To know more about that, read on . . .

ENTER CBA London by Don Cooper

The Council for British Archaeology (CBA) has for many years wanted to have a regional group that reflected the size and complexity of our capital city. The creation of CBA London in April 2008 provides this group. For those not familiar with the objectives of the national CBA they are spelt out on the following website: www.britarch.ac.uk/cba/objectives. In summary, as well as carrying out its statutory role with respect to listed buildings, three specific strategic objectives are identified as follows:

Advocacy: campaigning on behalf of the historic environment both above and below ground, championing the role of the voluntary sector, ensuring that archaeology has a place in education and life-long learning.

Participation: CBA London will support and encourage participation by all levels of London society

Discovery: Enabling and supporting the research by others to advance knowledge in archaeology.

These strategic objectives are complementary to SCOLA’s objectives and CBA London proposes to build on the excellent work that SCOLA has carried out over the last seventeen years.

The advent of CBA London represents an opportunity for local societies to take advantage of a large, national charity dedicated to the promotion of archaeology and able to bring its formidable advocacy skills to local archaeological issues and opportunities via local representation.

In practical terms CBA London will support young people’s participation in archaeology through the Young Archaeologists’ Club and promoting and helping with local schools practical archaeology endeavours.

In research CBA London has a particular objective in assisting with advice and support the processing of local archaeological excavations towards publication and the creation of an accessible archive. CBA London also supports and encourages participation in the Thames Foreshore Project

CBA London represents a great opportunity for local societies to raise participation in archaeology to a new level and if there are any other roles/activities that HADAS members would like CBA London to consider please don’t hesitate to contact me.

DIGGING IN ISRAEL–Tel Gezer Micky Watkins

In January I had a wonderful holiday in Israel. My niece Ros and her Perry took my sister Bunty and I on a tour including Nazareth, the Crusader Castle at Acre, mosaics at Zippori, and the Carmel range. We had a delicious falafel lunch in a tiny café and a Bedouin breakfast. Everybody was glad that the terrible hostilities in Gaza had finished.

After all the famous sites, Ros and Perry sprung a surprise. One kilometre from their house is Tel Gezer, one of three cities founded by Solomon. There are no crowds, no entry fee, no barrier and no shop.. Only a magnificent view, and a partially excavated site of world importance with no one but us to look at it. The site is large, 30 acres, and has been important since Canaanite times as it guards a valley leading from the coast road to Jerusalem. The early inhabitants lived in caves cut in the rock. In the 2nd millennium BCE it became one of the foremost Canaanite cities with massive walls and towers. At the centre was a cult area with ten monolithic steles, some still standing, and a large stone tank, possibly used for sacrificial blood. The Egyptian Pharoahs destroyed the city with fire and the kings of Gezer became their vassals.

The city was rebuilt in the 11th century BCE and was then conquered by Joshua and the Israelites. Its great period was under King Solomon who made it one of the three royal centres away from Jerusalem. He built strong fortifications and a water system.

Among the many finds is the famous Gezer Calendar – a small limestone tablet on which a list of agricultural chores done each month is engraved. It is one of the earliest examples of Hebrew writing.

There is an excavation every summer with archaeologists and amateurs from all over the world joining in. Details can be found on the internet: http://www.gezer.swbts.edu

If you just want to visit the site and Israel, you can ask Ros and Perry to help you. They could pick you up at Tel Aviv airport, accommodate you in their very comfortable house and take you round Tel Gezer. If they have time they could take you on a further tour. Perry is on the local archaeological committee and they are keen to promote visits. Ros is a landscape gardener and Perry an environmental consultant. Their e-mail address is: ecobon@gmail.com

THE EYE OF CHILDHOOD: children’s writers and artists in Barnet borough

(30 May- 27 September 2009 )

Church Farmhouse Museum’s Summer exhibition reveals the many children’s authors and illustrators, past and present, with connexions to our area: from Oliver Postgate (The Clangers; Bagpuss) to Joe Craig ( the Jimmy Coates series); from Sydney Hulme Beaman (the Toytown stories on radio and TV) to Helen Craig & Katharine Holabird (Angelina Ballerina); from Anthony Buckeridge (Jennings) to Spike Milligan (Silly Verse for Kids).

Earlier authors featured include Frank Horrabin, whose Japhet & Happy comic strip in the News Chronicle rivalled Rupert Bear in popularity in the 1920s; Mark Lemon (first editor of Punch) who lived at Church Farm as a boy in the early 1800s; and Lewis Carroll, as the Lewis Carroll Society was founded in Hendon in 1969.

Children visiting the exhibition will have the opportunity to write their own poems and brief stories, or draw illustrations to their favourite tales.

Reading is one of childhood’s greatest adventures. Come along and see how much the many and varied writers and artists of Barnet borough have contributed to it.

OTHER SOCIETIES EVENTS Eric Morgan

Friday 5 June 2.15pm: The Match Girls Strike (1889) Talk by Dr Louise Raw. Free

Hampstead Museum, Burgh House, New End Square NW3

Monday 8 June 3pm:Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths in Barnet, Finchley & Hendon. Talk by Nick Papadimitriou. Barnet & District Local History Society, Church House, Wood St Barnet (opp.museum)

Wednesday 10th June 7.45pm: The History of Churchyards. Talk by Dr Michael Worms. £1 Hornsey Historical Society, Union Church Hall, corner Ferme Park Rd./Weston Park N8

Saturday 13 June Highgate Summer Festival 12.30-5.30pm: Lots of stalls. Pond Square N6

Saturday 13 & Sunday 14 June: London Open Garden Squares Weekend. Visit gardens not normally open to the public. Tickets £8 (£6.75 if booked in advance). www.opengardens.org

Sunday 14 June 1-5pm: Avenue House 150th Anniversary Celebration Fun Day. Entrance £2.50 Lots of stalls including HADAS. The Garden Room will be open from 10.30am

15 June—26 September: Exhibition of Oral History Recordings & Photographs of Local People. Camden Local Studies & Archives, Holborn Library, 32-8 Theobalds Rd WC1

Friday 19 June 7pm: Play Houses of Tudor London. Talk by Julian Bowsher. Visitors £2

COLAS, St Olaves Parish Hall, Mark Lane EC3

Friday 19 June 8pm: Geoffery Gillam Memorial Lecture – His Contribution to Local Archaeology. Talk by IAW Jones. Jubilee Hall, 2 Parsonage Lane/junction Chase Side, Enfield

Saturday 20 & Sunday 21 June: Victorian Country Fair, part of London-wide Festival

Kenwood, Hampstead Lane NW3

http//www.londongov.uk/mayor/culture/story of London.jsp

Sunday 21 June: East Finchley Festival. Lots of stalls. Cherry Tree Wood (opp. Station)

Sunday 21 June 2pm: East Barnet Village, Guided Walk led by Paul Baker. 2 hours

Meet outside E. Barnet Library, Brookhill Rd

Tuesday 23 June 7.30pm: Barnet Borough Arts Council AGM. (HADAS is affiliated to BBAC)

Trinity Church Centre, 15 Nether St N12

Thursday 25 June 8pm: East Finchley’s History Through Maps. Talk by Tony Roberts. £2

Finchley Society, Drawing Room, Avenue House, East End Rd N3

Sunday 28 June 11.30am: Plaque unveiling ceremony, St Mary’s Church, Hendon Lane N3

To bring attention to the architectural & historical importance of the Church

HADAS DIARY: Forthcoming Lectures and Events

Tuesday 12th May: The Guildhall Roman Amphitheatre Stephen Brunning

Twenty-one years ago, archaeologists encountered a strange, curving wall at the very bottom of a trench that had been dug to explore London’s mediaeval Guildhall. Soon they realised they had stumbled upon a Roman amphitheatre: a building which conjured up visions of gladiatorial combat or religious persecution, and whose location had been the subject of antiquarian speculation for centuries. In this lecture we shall see how the amphitheatre was gradually uncovered, rebuilt on paper as a complete structure, and eventually opened to the public in a special gallery beneath the Guildhall Art Gallery.

The speaker, Francis Grew, is curator of archaeology at the Museum of London. He visited the amphitheatre excavations on many occasions and regularly leads tours of the surviving remains. He has ‘a particular interest in Roman art, religion and inscriptions, and has just completed editing a catalogue of Roman sculpture from Southeast England.

Tuesday 9th June: Annual General Meeting

Wednesday 8th July: Outing to Syon Park (see separate application form)

Wednesday 26th August to Sunday 30th August inclusive — HADAS long weekend in Hereford

Andrew Saunders by Peter Pickering

One of our distinguished vice-presidents, Andrew Saunders, died on March 23rd at the age of 77. He became a vice-president in 1973, at which time he lived in New Barnet. He had an international reputation as a historian of Britain’s coastal defences — in January 1976 he lectured to us on the subject of Napoleonic Defences and Martello Towers — though his major excavation project was at Launceston Castle in Cornwall. From 1970 to 1989 he was Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings — a post which no longer exists, having been abolished in 1989 as part of the trend to elevate management over professional expertise. In retirement he lived in Battle, and it was in the Great Hall of Battle Abbey that one of our other vice-presidents, Andrew Selkirk, attended the memorial celebration for him.

Membership Matters by Stephen Brunning

Renewals from members who pay by cheque have been arriving steadily. Many thanks to everyone who has already paid. Having the money banked by 5th April is a great help as it means we can claim the Gift Aid from the Inland Revenue this financial year. We do, of course, need a signed Gift

Aid Declaration to reclaim the tax on the subscriptions, and just over half the membership has done this. Gift Aid is worth in the region of £400 to us.

If you intend to pay by cheque this year and have not already returned the renewal form, I would be most grateful if you could do so as soon as possible. To request a Gift Aid form, or for any other membership queries, please contact me (details on the back page). Thank you.

The Royal Gunpowder Mills, Waltham Abbey by Peter Nicholson

The March lecture by Richard Thomas started with a brief history of gunpowder. In the 9th century China’s experiments with a variety of mixtures led initially to the making of fireworks and then to the first military use of gunpowder in about 1100. Inevitably news of this invention spread to Europe and in Britain Friar Roger Bacon experimented to find out the best proportions of the three constituents — saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur. He considered the knowledge to be so dangerous that he recorded the results in code in a document which still survives in the British Library. The first British military use was in bombards at Crecy in 1346. But they were less effective than bows and arrows and self-evidently remained so until some time after Agincourt in 1415.

A map of 1590 shows a fulling mill at the Waltham Abbey site, using the abundant water power provided by the River Lea. In 1640 this was converted to a powder mill. At that time, here and elsewhere, the manufacture of gunpowder was a private enterprise, but in 1787 the mill was bought by the government for £10,000 and £35,000 was spent on refurbishment and redevelopment.

Many precautions were taken to avoid explosions, but inevitably some occurred and lives were lost. The most dangerous process was the grinding together of the three components to form an intimate mixture. This was done by six-ton edge-running rollers, Initially water-powered, but after 1856 steam-powered by beam engines. The buildings where this was carried out, and others where gunpowder was handled and stored, were surrounded by earth banks or walls so that the force of any explosion was diverted upwards. Employees wore clothing and footwear designed to avoid harbouring grit which might cause sparks. It was necessary for transport round the site to be as smooth as possible. At first boats were used on an internal waterway system which was extended to a length of 10 miles. Later a narrow gauge railway was introduced, on which trucks on wooden wheels on wooden rails were moved by hand. Ultimately, metal wheels and rails were allowed and in 1916 a battery-powered locomotive was provided.

In the 19th century new explosives such as gun cotton and nitroglycerine were invented and the site was greatly expanded to accommodate their production. The, chemical reaction to produce nitro­glycerine was extremely hazardous. If the reaction mixture became either too hot or too cold it was likely to explode. A man was assigned to watch the thermometer continuously and to help his concentration he was given a one-legged stool to sit on.

During World War I the factory worked at maximum capacity with women providing over half the workforce. During World War II the manufacturing of explosives was stopped because of the greatly increased risk of bombing. In 1945 the site was converted to a research establishment which finally closed in 1991.

After decontamination the historic northern part was opened as a museum and visitor attraction. The southern extension was sold to provide an endowment, but unfortunately the proceeds were not well invested and, with a limited staff, it is only possible to open at weekends and a few other days. There is an exhibition and a 20 minute film and on many weekends social events are planned (see some listed under Other Societies’ Events, at back).

A tailpiece to last year’s long weekend at Beverley by Don Cooper

One of the surprises from our visit to the Hull Streetlife Museum was one of the largest thermometers I have ever seen. It was advertising Steven’s Ink – yes, he of Avenue House. It was on a reconstructed street of cobbled stones and replica shops including a chemist’s, grocer’s, bike shop, etc. The eight foot high thermometer stood outside the chemist’s shop and is another surviving relic of the Stephen’s Ink empire. Don’t forget to visit the Stephen’s Ink museum at Avenue House and see more exhibits from that great era.

Reappraisal of the Battle of Barnet 1471 by Don Cooper

Brian Warren, one of our members and a notable researcher, has produced this excellent booklet, which brings together for review all the known sources for the battle, ancient and modern. Brian reviews each reference with copious maps and diagrams and provides a fascinating overview of the tricky issue of where, on the actual ground, did the Battle of Barnet take place. This booklet should be required reading for all those interested in the history of Barnet. The booklet is published by the Potters Bar and District Historical Society and can be obtained for £2 plus £1 postage and packing from Mrs Mabel Hammett, 4 Heath Cottages, Heath Road, Potters Bar, Herts EN6 1LS.

Another Plea for Help by Don Cooper

Our Birkbeck course has been processing the finds from the HADAS dig at Burroughs Gardens in 1972. We have compared the diary entries with the finds we still have and it is clear we are missing a substantial number! Where are they? If anybody has a clue, or even a memory of what we kept, please give me a call on my phone number. 020 8440 4350.

Thanks very much.

Ancient Barnet from Brian Warren

Another proof of the antiquity of that part of Barnet which lies around the church has recently been brought to light by workmen who have commenced operations on the new building for the London and County Bank. In digging down to get space for a strong room, traces of ancient masonry were found. These consisted of large flints set in hard mortar which for a long time resisted pick and crowbar. The contractor, Mr PJ Baughten, a very competent judge of masonry, thinks the wall resembles in many respects the wall of Richborough Castle and also may be of Roman origin. (Barnet Press, 16.11.1878). I wonder what it really was?

British Museum: New Medieval Gallery

The British Museum has recently opened the Paul and Jill Ruddock Gallery of Medieval Europe and a new book has been produced: Masterpieces of Medieval Europe by James Robinson (British Museum Press 2009, £19.99 – for more details see www.britishmuseum.ac.uk)

Mark Anthony and Cleopatra: Final Resting Place?

Zahi Hawass, Director of Egypt’s Superior Council of Antiquities, said there was evidence that the couple were buried together in a complex tunnel system underlying the Tabusiris Magna temple, 17 miles north of Alexandria. A dig has started (Times, 16 April 2009). Sceptics must wait and see!

Other Societies’ Events by Eric Morgan

Saturday 2 May — Monday 4 May: Waltham Abbey — VE Day.

Information & confirmation: 01992 707370 & www.royalgunpowdermills.com

Monday 11 May 3pm: Hell upon Water: the infamous prison ships of England 1783-1815. Paul Chamberlain, Barnet/District Local History Soc. Church House, Wood St, Barnet, opp Museum

Wednesday 13 May 7.45pm: From Crouch Hall to Gin Lane Talk by Ruth Hazeldine. Hornsey Historical Society. Union Church Hall (corner Ferme Pk Rd/Weston Pk, N8) Visitors £1

Thursday 14 May 8pm: Discussion of on-going projects Finchley Society Local History Group Avenue House, East End Rd N3

Saturday 16 May — Sunday 17 May: Waltham Abbey Steam and Country Show Info: see 2 May

Saturday 16 May 10am-5pm: The Tudor Port of London: an archaeological investigation

Many interesting speakers, including Jacqui Pearce. West India Quay. Free, but book tickets: in advance from Gresham College (020 7831 0575 or enquiries @.qresham.ac.co.uk)

Tuesday 19th May 7pm: London Archaeologist Annual lecture/Meeting Institute of Archaeology 31-34 Gordon Square, WC1 Refreshments 6.30pm

Wednesday 20 May 7.30pm: Marylebone to Manchester, the old Great Central Railway route through Neasden. Talk by Peter Rousselange. Willesden Local History Society. Scout House, High Rd, NW10 (corner Strode Rd)

Wednesday 20 May 8pm: Supporting Community Archaeology Suzie Thomas. Islington Archaeology & History Society Islington Town Hall, Upper St, N1

Saturday 23 May — Monday 25 May: Saxon & Norman Event Waltham Abbey. Info: see 2 May

Monday 25 May until 5pm Both St Andrews old & new churches will be open, part of Kingsbury open day. Church Lane, NW9

Wednesday 27 May: RAF Museum: John Donovan Memorial Lecture by David Keen Friern Barnet & District Local History Society St John’s Church Hall (adj. Whetstone police station), Friern Barnet Lane, N20. Preceded by AGM £2

HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming Lectures and Events.

The winter lecture series is held, as ever, at Avenue House, 17 East End Road, Finchley, a fifteen-minute walk from Finchley Central tube station. Lectures start promptly at 8pm; non-members £1; coffee, tea and biscuits
can be bought.

Tuesday 14th April An album of treasures -Ann Saunders – (HADAS member and past President)
Our speaker Ann Saunders MBE needs no introduction to a lot of our members as she was president of HADAS from 1998 until 2001. Ann is a historian, and says the most useful thing she has done has been the
resuscitation of Lambeth Palace Library after the Second World War (Ann was Deputy Librarian 1952-55). Amongst her many achievements has been her prize for Best Specialist Guide Book of the Year in 1984 by the
British Tourist Board. Ann has been the Hon. Editor since 1975 of the journal of the London Topographical Society, a registered charity which concentrates exclusively on publishing books and sheet material illustrating the history, growth and topography of London. Ann edited the book which is her topic this month. “Historic Views of London” is a new book published by English Heritage presenting a selection of images by Bernard Howarth-Loomes, who was a life long collector of pre-photographic apparatus, early photographs and photographic equipment. He had particular enthusiasm for stereoscopic, or three-dimensional, photography
which became popular after the Great Exhibition of 1851. It was in Barnet that Howarth-Loomes lived, and first exhibited some of his photographs at Church Farmhouse Museum in 1971. The book focuses on over half of
the 350 photographic views of London from 1852 to 1915, and includes treasured images of iconic London landmarks and historical events. Publication coincided with an exhibition based on the book at Church Farmhouse Museum.

Tuesday 12th May The Guildhall Roman Amphitheatre -Francis Grew – Museum of London

Tuesday 9th June – Annual General Meeting

26th August to 30th August 2009 inclusive – HADAS Long weekend in Hereford

We have had a flood of bookings for the above trip and places are going quickly. Please send your deposits in as soon as possible so that final numbers can be advised to the hotel. There are a finite number of places and when this is reached a waiting list will be created.

‘Archaeology of the Bible’ course Peter Nicholson

The Mill Hill Archaeological Study Society is running a course of six meetings “Archaeology of the Bible: a short introduction” on recent discoveries in the Near East and how they have illuminated our understanding of the Bible as history. The course tutor is Scott McCracken. The course is on Friday mornings, beginning 1st
May, in the Lawrence Room, Hartley Hall, Flower Lane NW7. For further information contact Peter Nicholson
(020-8959 4757)
The following article appeared in the Society for Clay Pipe Research newsletter Autumn/Winter 2008. As Richard Field spent his early childhood in Barnet, It should appeal to Newsletter readers. The article is published here by kind permission of the author, Susie White.

The Case of Richard Field: Pipemaker and Murderer By Susie White

Back in 2005 Members may recall a paper on references to clay tobacco pipemakers in the records of the Old Bailey (White 2005). Since publishing that paper another fascinating case from the Old Bailey has come to the author’s attention, that of Richard Field, pipemaker and murderer (Ref.t17141209-28). Not only do the details of the case itself survive, but we also have a transcription of Field’s confession and final words uttered immediately prior to his execution at Tyburn, as recorded by Paul Lorrain (18th Century Collections online).Both records give an astonishing account of his life as a pipemaker prior to his conviction and execution.
In his own words Richard Field tells us that he was born in Conyhatch [sic] in Middlesex c1687. He first went to school in Coney Hatch and then went on to study in Finchley, Totteridge, and East-Barnet where it is noted that “a good and pious Gentlewoman” took care of his education.

When he was about 12 years old (c1699) he went to America where he was bound Apprentice to Michael Harding, a tobacco pipemaker in Boston. What is so interesting about this reference is that it is a nice early
seventeenth-century reference to a pipemaker in New England. The account goes on to say that after had had served his full seven years’ apprenticeship, he then worked for three more years as a journeyman. His Master,Harding, was by all accounts a good “Christian” man which gave Field the outward appearance of being “religious and careful to discharge [his] Christian Duties”,. However, things were clearly not what they seemed and Field said that “he had a wicked heart, and would often wrong even his good Master secretly; stealing money and other things from him”.

Field finally returned to England in c1709 where he continued to make pipes. The account is interesting in that it tells us that from this work he was only able to earn “5s. or 6s. a Week, and no more”. This was clearly not enough for Field to live on and he was persuaded by his friends to try alternative employment, and he appears to have tried his hand at watch-making, learning the art of punching and gilding. Unfortunately for Field he was unable to achieve what he described as the “ability and perfection” in this new-found trade to make a living and
therefore fell back into his old means of earning money – “his old trade of pipe-making”, but chose to supplement his income and began once again to “pilfer and steal wherever he could”.

By 1714 Richard Field was living in the parish of Hillendon with his wife Mary, and was working as a journeyman for the pipemaker Gabriel Randal at Uxbridge in Middlesex. On the 20th October 1714 Field was
accused not only of stealing 25 guineas from Randal, but also of murdering Randal’s wife, Mary.
On the day in question Randal had left home to deliver some pipes,leaving Field in the house with Mrs Randal. When Randal returned, some two hours later, he went upstairs to find his wife “lying a-cross the bed, with her
hands and legs tied” and “a clout [sic] thrust down her Throat, and another tied round her Head before her Mouth”. He immediately called for help from his neighbours, and on looking round the house found that a chest had been broken open with a hammer, which was later found on the workshop floor, and money stolen. Randal also found Field’s bloodied work apron.

By this time Field had left the scene and had managed to get on board a ship bound for Virginia, but thankfully was captured before the ship could depart. Not only did the authorities recover the money, but they also found a purse in Field’s possession which had belonged to Mary Randal. When questioned, Field could not explain how the purse had come into his possession, but tried to claim that the robbery had been carried out by a man called John Gardner; he denied any knowledge of the murder.

The Jury found him guilty of murder and felony, but acquitted his wife, who had been accused of being an accessory. Field was sentenced to death and was to be hanged at Tyburn on Wednesday 22nd December, 1714.
Between the time of sentencing and the actual execution, Field and the other condemned prisoners in Newgate Prison were visited by Paul Lorrain who “pray’d with them, and expounded the word of God to them in the
Chapel of Newgate, to which they were brought up twice every day, to the end that being instructed in that Holy Word, they might (as in a glass) see the deformity and heinousness of their sins”. Field confessed to
Lorrain that “the Devil prompted him to, he did not know how”, but that he “now express’d great sorrow, and earnestly ask’d God’s pardon and his Master’s; wishing a thousand times that he had not brought this double
guilt of blood and robbery upon his soul”.

Lorrain’s account goes on to describe how two carts were used to carry the condemned men from Newgate Prison to Tyburn. He asked the bystanders to pray for the men, and asked that “all (particularly Young People)
to take warning by them”. As the cart drew away from the scaffold “they were turned off; every one of them with his last Breath mightily calling all the while upon God to have mercy on their departing Souls”.

Although this is quite a chilling and gruesome tale of a man sent to the gallows, what makes it interesting is the level of detail about his life prior to his conviction. If we are lucky, we can often trace the names of individual pipemakers through the parish records to discover who they married and how many children they had. But rarely do we get the opportunity to discover so much detail about an individual – when they were born; where they went to school and, perhaps most fascinating of all in this particular case, the fact that he was apprenticed
not to a pipemaker in England, but to one in America.

Reference

White, S.D., (2005) ‘References to Clay Tobacco Pipes in the Old Bailey Records’ in Society for Clay Pipe Research, 68, 16-23.

Digging up the relatives by Jim Nelhams

In the newsletter of January 2006, I documented our knowledge of Jo’s family from her Great Grandfather onwards, and how we had arrived at that point. Lots of questions were still unanswered particularly about Jo’s
Great Half Auntie Hephzibah. Well, we haven’t all got one of those!

To summarise, Hephzibah was the daughter of Great Grandfather, William Willows from his first marriage. She was born in 1842, and when her mother died the following year, she was brought up by her grandparents, who had themselves produced a daughter the previous year. We had been able to trace Hephzibah in the census returns for 1851, 1861, 1871 and after her marriage to William Williams in 1881. At that point, she was living near Wakefield with two young children (Ethel and Sidney), and William was working on the railways, possibly at a coalmine. We have seen the children’s baptism records in Wakefield. After that, we could not see any of the four, and I speculated that they might have emigrated. I was up against the proverbial brick wall.

Tracing family histories is now very popular and more and more records are being transcribed and made available on the internet throughout the world. Last Autumn, I received a circular e-mail telling me that some new
emigration information had just been released, so I checked. There they were – all four of them, arriving in New South Wales on 11th October 1883 aboard a ship named Ellora, under an assisted passage scheme. So back on
the trail.
With help, I found that they had gone to a town called Gosford, about 50 miles north of Sydney. The town’s website lists “Pioneers” and William is listed. His occupation is given as “platelayer” and I read that the railway to Gosford was completed in 1887. As they travelled under an assisted passage scheme, more information may
be stored at Kew.
I also found records of the deaths of Hephzibah, Sidney and Ethel, and two records, – either of which could be William. William and Hephzibah had had a third child, Ernest William, after arriving, so I have another line to follow.
I am not sure yet if Sidney married, but I have found that Ethel married Jesse William Dyer in 1903 and they had five children, though the first two died young. The third child, John Willows Dyer, born in 1906 is clearly in the family, shown by the common Victorian practice of using the grandmother’s maiden name as a middle name.
Ethel lived to the grand age of 95 and her death is recorded in the Sydney Morning Herald. As she only died in 1972, I guessed there would be people today who would remember her, so I used Google on the internet to
search for the family name in Gosford – and found three names.

I selected one of the names and fired off a speculative e-mail. Within 48 hours, I had a response – from Ethel’s grandson, and Hephzibah’s great grandson. He was very surprised and pleased, and sent photos of himself and his wife. I responded by sending him the information about Hephzibah and her parents.
We had already hoped to visit Australia next year, so now we will follow in Hephzibah’s footprints – though we do not plan to go by boat.

The Building of the Underground – report of February’s lecture by Tony Earle

The Underground was the vision of city solicitor Charles Pearson who saw the need to relieve congestion in the city streets brought about by the growing financial wealth of the British Empire.

The Great Western Railway, whose terminus was way out at Paddington, backed a scheme to build a railway under the streets to Farringdon allowing it to run ‘Broad Gauge’ trains right to the city. It was built by ‘cut and cover’ technique along what is now the Marylebone Road. Opening in 1863 it was an instant success; the world’s first underground railway and the only one ever to be hauled by steam.

Passengers travelled in closed carriages lit by gas but were often brought out to the surface coughing and gasping owing to the smoke and fumes from the engine mixed with fellow travellers’ cigar, cigarette and pipe smoke. Experiments with coke-fired and smoke-free engines were a failure.
The District Railway was next off the mark and by 1870 the government had decided to complete an underground circle running along the new embankment by the Temple (the Circle Line). When built, the

Metropolitan operated it the clockwise direction and the District, in competition, anti-clockwise with each having their own station at the same destination.

The first deep tube railway dug through the clay using a tunnelling shield was the City and South London (1890). Using electric locomotion passengers rode in carriages without windows affectionately known as
‘Padded Cells’. During the rest of the century the system in the centre expanded and at 1900 the map looked very similar to that of today.

Financial problems enabled an American financier Charles Yerkes to take control. Under his direction eight new extensions were built with many new stations. His architect Leslie Green designed the distinctive red tile glazed buildings, which are so familiar and easily recognised as tube stations.

Frank Pick was the direct successor to these early builders between the wars and it is to him that we owe the uniformity and style of the modern underground. He oversaw the integration of the system, the adoption of the corporate roundel logo, and the famous stylised map of Harry Beck in 1931 (Harry lived in Courthouse Road West Finchley). His architect Charles Holden built modern glass and brick stations such as the one at East Finchley, many of which have been listed.

During the war Churchill and the Government frequently met at Down Street station with other stations sheltering thousands every night. (Down Street station had been closed in 1932 and does not appear on Harry
Beck’s maps – SB).

With neglect and lack of investment during and after the war the system fell into a poor state of repair until the early 1960s when following public outcry the Government started re-investing in London Transport, with planned modernisation, new rolling stock and the building of the Victoria line. With new lines for the Olympics and Cross Rail just starting the future for the Underground looks bright.

With grateful thanks to Tony Earle for providing the notes used in this report. Despite the cold weather, lots of people turned up to hear his talk. We even needed more chairs which does not happen very often! The “Name the Station” quiz was good fun too – Stephen Brunning.

Gillian Braithwaite

As was briefly reported in the March newsletter Gillian Braithwaite died in November 2008. She joined HADAS in 1979 and dug enthusiastically at West Heath for three seasons before her husband was posted to the
British Embassy in Washington. During that time she was studying at the Institute of Archaeology, and wrote a dissertation on West Roman Face Pots, Face Beakers and Head Pots, which led to an important article in the journal ‘Britannia’ for 1984. After her return from the United States, she became active in HADAS once more,
and, prior to the laying of the water main from Arkley to Iver, led a month’s fieldwork and trial trenching in Brockley Hill in August-September 1987 looking for evidence of a Roman road east of the present A5 Watling Street.

She was a very nice person. Tessa Smith says that it was a pleasure to have been one of her team when she surveyed and excavated, and remembers her slim figure striding along in welly boots. Her easy welcoming and
friendly manner ensured that the excavating team worked well. She was insistent that the site would be left cleaned up and replanted – in her own words “like Mr. MacGregor’s cabbage patch.” She was hoping to go back
to Brockley Hill another year but then her husband became Ambassador in Moscow.

A reminiscence of Gillian Braithwaite by Robert Michel

I was very sorry to learn of Gillian Braithwaite’s passing late last year.

I was one of the gallant HADAS team that excavated and field-walked at Brockley Hill, Stanmore, in August/September 1987 under her direction. In my uninformed view, her project encapsulated all that is best
about non-professional archaeology.

* Her leadership was energetic in style and inclusive in nature. Even my opinion was sought occasionally!
* Gillian spent much of the dig phase in the trenches with the troops. Directing operations from a distant HQ
was clearly not her style.
* She had no qualms about calling in the professionals when necessary. Harvey Sheldon duly arrived and after
dubiously inspecting the fruits of our labours, opined that ‘Roman roads have made fools of us all’ (or some
such).
* On completion of the dig, Gillian promptly produced an excavation report that was both concise (12 pages)
and accessible to the non-specialist.
* Finally – and arguably most importantly – she threw a ‘winding up party’, which sadly a prior engagement
meant I had to miss. I still have my yellowing hand written invitation which, with my personal copy of the
report, serves to prompt happy memories of a noteworthy HADAS dig and a very special person.
My thoughts and prayers are with her family.

Mary O’Connell by Sheila Woodward

Mary O’Connell is well known to many of her fellow HADAS members. With her unsurpassed knowledge of London (she is a Freeman of the City and was one of its accredited guides) she has lad us on many fascinating
walks through its highways and byways, exploring both its great buildings and its hidden corners and quirky treasures. I remember particularly a visit to St. Paul’s Cathedral when we saw its famous geometric staircase and its superb library which includes a Wyclif Bible, and another most interesting tour of Clerkenwell and the Museum and Priory Church of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem.
Mary ‘retired’ a couple of years ago to her bungalow in Taunton which had long been her holiday home. We heard recently that she has now moved to a care-home where her daughter assures us that she continues to enjoy
life and participates enthusiastically in all its activities. Her new address is Abbeyfield Extra Care Home, Heron House, Bishops Hull, Taunton TA1 5HA.

Dr Alan Vince BA PhD, FSA, MIfA (1952-2009)

Alan Vince died on 23rd February at the age of 56. He was one of the foremost authorities on mediaeval pottery in Britain, and in 2007 provided HADAS with invaluable advice on a sample of pottery from Church Terrace.
He had studied archaeology at Southampton University, and had a period working with the Department of Urban Archaeology at the Museum of London. In 1997 Alan started his company “The Alan Vince Archaeological Consultancy” while living in Lincoln. His research interests included Anglo-Saxon medieval towns, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Urban Archaeology, and Artefact Taphonomy. His death at such an early age is a serious loss to archaeology.

Robert Winton

Members will also regret to learn that Robert Winton, Secretary of the Finchley Society for many years until last autumn, died peacefully on 25th February at the age of 94.

Divine Cat: Speaking to the gods in Ancient Egypt
A British Museum Tour Brent Museum, 12 March – 10 May 2009

Brent Museum is hosting an exciting exhibition focussing on one of the British Museum’s great treasures: the iconic Gayer-Anderson Cat.

The ancient Egyptian sculpture is on display at Brent Museum, in Willesden Green from 12 March – 10 May 2009. This will be the first time that the cat has been displayed at another museum venue.

Councillor Irwin Van Colle, Brent Council’s Lead Member for Environment, Planning and Culture: “We are really excited to be able to display the Divine Cat, which is an amazing ancient sculpture of international
importance. It is an incredible coup for our museum to be the first place outside the British Museum to exhibit
the cat in 60 years.”

Brent Museum is based in Willesden Green Library Centre, 95 High Road, London, NW10 2SF. It is free to visit. To find out more, call 020 8937 3600 or visit www.brent.gov.uk/museum

Other Societies’ Events by Eric Morgan

Sunday 5th April 2.30pm Hornsey Historical Society Tour and History walk round neglected bits of Hornsey village. Cost £2. Meet at corner of Hornsey High Road/Nightingale Lane to see old and new housing at
the beginning and end up at Hornsey’s oldest building – St. Mary’s Church tower. Lasts under 2 hours.

Monday 6th April 3pm Barnet and District Local History Society. Church House, Wood Street, Barnet (opposite Museum) “Barnet in the Times.” Hugh Petrie.

Wednesday 8th April 7.45 pm Hornsey Historical Society. Union Church Hall; Corner of Ferme Park Road and Weston Park N8 “The History of Coffee Houses (Coffee Shops, Coffee Stalls and Coffee Bars)” Marlene
McAndrew. Visitors £1. Refreshments.

Wednesday 15th April 7.30pm Willesden Local History Society. Scout House High Road NW10 (corner of Strode Road) “The Brent Cemeteries Service” Bob Langford. (Including restoration of the fine civilian war
memorial in Willesden New Cemetery and the redevelopment of the old cemetery.)

Thursdays 16th and 23rd April 2pm Amateur Geological Society. Walks visiting churches in the City of London. Start at Bank Tube Station. Each £7. Book by sending a cheque made out to M E Howgate (who leads
the walk) to Mike Howgate, 71 Hoppers Road, Winchmore Hill, N21 3LP, with contact details and list of walks you are paying for. (Tel 020 8882 2606) (e-mail mehowgate@hotmail.com). Walks last 2 hours.

Thursday 16th April 6.30pm LAMAS Terrace Room, Museum of London 150 London Wall EC2 “Friends in the City: the Quakers in C17 and early C18 London”. Talk by Dr Simon Dixon. Refreshments 6pm.

Friday 17th April 7pm COLAS The City Temple, Holborn Viaduct WC1 “Child Health in London: 1000 years of Human Growth” Talk by Dr Daniel Antoine (Institute of Archaeology) Visitors £2. Light refreshments
afterwards.

Friday 17th April. 8pm Enfield Archaeological Society Jubilee Hall, 2 Parsonage Lane\Junction Chase Side Enfield. “The excavations and fieldwork of Enfield Archaeological Society 2008”. Preceded by AGM. Visitors £1. Refreshments, sales, information from 7.30pm.

Sunday 19th April. 11am The Battle of Barnet. Guided walk. Meet at the junction of Great North Road and Hadley Green Road. Led by Paul Baker. Costs £7.

Monday 22nd April. 7.45pm Friern Barnet and District Local History Society. St John’s Church Hall (next to Whetstone Police Station) Friern Barnet Lane N20. “Hertfordshire and Local Convicts” Ken Griffin. Visitors
£2. Refreshments.

Tuesday 28th April 10.30am Enfield Society. Jubilee Hall, Parsonage Lane Enfield “Mr Bowles and Myddleton House.” Bryan Hewitt (HADAS did resistivity here).

Wednesday 29th April 6pm Gresham College. Barnard’s Inn Hall, Holborn, EC1 “Merchants and heroes: London’s History in the time of John Stow.” Dr Matthew Davies.

Thursday 30th April 8pm Finchley Society. Drawing Room, Avenue House, East End Road N3 “Finchley’s Pioneers of Film Exhibition 1909-18” Talk by Gerry Turvey. Non-members £2.

Thursday 30th April 8pm Camden History Society Burgh House, New End Square NW3 “Searching for Trevithick’s London Railway of 1808.” Talk by John Liffen.

Newsletter
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HADAS DIARY

Tuesday 9 March – An Urban Roman Site in Colchester – lecture by Ben Holloway (field archaeologist and site supervisor for Colchester Archaeological Trust) about last year’s excavations in Colchester where finds included a 2nd C Roman town house. Ben Holloway has also worked on the Isle of Man and the west coast of Scotland.

Tuesday 13 April – Hendon – Field and Factory – lecture by Hugh Petrie

Tuesday 11 May – Roman Roads – lecture by Harvey Sheldon

Tuesday 8 June – AGM

July – HADAS long weekend in Cumbria.

Lectures start at 8 pm in the drawing room (ground floor) of Avenue House, East End Road. Finchley. N3. Buses including the 82, 143, 260 and 326 pass close by along Bollards Lane, a five to ten minute walk from Finchely Central Tube Station.
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THE PORTABLE ANTIQUITIES SCHEME PETER NICHOLSON

Our first lecture of 2004 was given by Nicole Weller, who spoke about the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which arises from the 1996 Treasure Act. Before the 1996 Act, the only formal framework relating to archaeological finds was the ancient common law of treasure trove, which was concerned only with objects made of precious metal and determining whether they should become Crown property. The foundation of the 1996 Act was the recognition that archaeological finds have a value other than that of any bullion they may contain, in the information they can provide, and that this informatkion is worth collecting. The Act extended the definition of “treasure” to include items of high significance which were not previously covered, for instance two or more metal prehistoric objects, of any composition, found together now count as treasure, and, as before, there is a legal requirement to report the finding of treasure to the Coroner to have its ownership determined. Evem under the extended definition, most interesting archaeological finds will not count as treasure, and to deal with these the Portable Antiquities Scheme was set up. This is a completely voluntary scheme set up to promote the recording of archaeological objects found by non-professionals of all sorts, especially metal detectorists, who in the past have had little contact with the archaeological community. It operates through a network of Finds Liaison Officers gradually built up since 1997, which now covers all the counties of England and Wales. Our lecturer, Nicole Weller, is the recently-appointed Finds Liaison Officer (and also Community Archaeologist) for London, stationed at the Museum of London. Nicole is happy to look at archaeological finds of all kinds, as she demonstrated by casting a professionl eye over the multifarious small finds brought to the meeting by members of the Society, which added to the interest of the evening. Finds submitted to her under the PAS will be identified, with the help of other staff at the Museum of London where necessary, and a written report provided. All items prior to 1650 are recorded on a database (with safeguards against unscrupulous interest) and will in due course be added to the Sites and Monuments Record. Some items prior to 1714 will also be recorded, and no-one should be deterred from submitting finds because of doubts about their eligibility for recording – all are welcome. After examination, items will be returned to their finders, unless the objects are shown to be treasure, in which case fair compensation will be paid. Although the scheme has only recently started to operate in our area, since it began in 1997 more than 150,000 finds have been recorded, so it can fairly be described as an established success. The good news: there is a nationwide scheme gathering large amounts of information which would formerly have been lost, and locally we have an approachable and enthusiastic Finds Liaison Officer. And the (possibly) bad news? Funding for the scheme is only guaranteed for three more years. Let us hope by then its value will be as apparent to those who control the purse-strings as it is to us.
PEOPLE IN THE NEWS by Audree Price-Davies

Mrs Ann Saunders, a past President of HADAS, is a new entry in Who Who 2004. She was awarded the MBE in 2002 for her work as voluntary editor of journals for the Costume Society and the London Topographical Society. Mrs Saunders said “Clothing is very important, because we say a lot in the way we dress, in the way we present ourselves to the world. Textile production has been a staple industry for a very long time. The London Topographical Society has been going since 1880, and every year we publish one thing – it might be a book or a map.” Mrs Saunders teaches the History of London at City University, and is currently writing a history of the Merchant Taylors.

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OTHER SOCIETIES’ LECTURES AND EVENTS by Eric Morgan

Exhibitions

Saturday 28 February-Sunday 23 May: Church Farmhouse Museum, Greyhound Hill, Hendon, NW4. Local Treasures. Some of the historical documents and objects held by the Museum and Council’s local studies and archives. Meetings

Wednesday 3 March, 5 pm: British Archaeological Association, Society of Antiquaries. Burlington House, Piccadilly. W1 The Colonia Family and the Flamboyant Gothic Style in Burgos 1440-1540. Talk by Dr Steven Brindle.

Thursday 4 March, 7.30 pm: London Canal Museum, 12-13 New Wharf Road, Kings Cross, London N1. Bournevilles – Chocolate to Cadburys. Talk by Richard Hill. Concessions: £1.25.

Saturday 6 March, 11 am – 2 pm: LAARC – Mortimer Wheeler House, 46 Eagle Wharf Road, N1. Glass – Open Day. Find out about the fascinating glass collection, and take a tour of the new stores … plus how to spot fakes.

Sunday 7 March 2.30 pm: Heath and Hampstead Society, Burgh House, New End Square, NW3. History of archaeology of the Heath. Walk led by Michael Hammerson (Highgate archaeologist and HADAS member). Donation: £1.

Monday 8 March 3pm: – Barnet and District Local History Society, Wyburn Room, Wesley Hall, Stapylton Road, Barnet. The End of the Line – Story of the Railway service to the GNL Cemetry. Talk by Martin Dawes.

Wednesday 10 March 7 pm: RAF Museum, Grahame Park Way, NW9. A chance to see rare and exclusive footage from the archives of RAF Museum.

Wednesday 10 March, 8.15 pm: Mill Hill Historical Society Harwood Hall, Union Church, The Broadway, NW7. Claude Grahame White and Hendon Aircraft Factory. Talk by Edward Sargent.

Friday 12th March, 8 pm: Enfield Archaeological Society, Jubilee Hall, Parsonage Lane / junction .of Chase Side, Enfield. Rock Art of Prehistoric Britain. Talk by Fay Stevens. Visitors £1.

Wednesday 17 March, 6.30 pm: London and Middlesex Archaeological Society. Interpretation Unit, Museum of London, 150 London Wall, EC2. Brunel, the GWR and the Making of Paddington Station (1836-55). Dr Steven Brindle (English Heritage).

Wednesday 17 March, 8 pm: Willesden Local History Society, Willesden Suite, Library Centre, 95 High Road, NW 10. Where Was the Well-on-the-Hill? (Recognition of Saxon geographical features). Talk by Zäe Ayle.

Friday 19th March: City of London Archaeological Society. St Olave’s Parish Hall, Mark Lane, EC3. The Archaeology of Armageddon – The Great War. Talk by Andy Robertshaw,

Saturday 20th March 11 am – 1pm and 2pm – 4pm: LAARC, Mortimer Wheeler House, 46 Eagle Wharf Road, NI. Ceramics: Open Day. Explore the ceramics collection – how it’s stored, conserved, researched and documented; and attend a Roman pottery demonstration.

Saturday 20 March, 10.30am – 12.30pm:. Highgate Wood Information Hut. A demonstration of a charcoal kiln.

Wednesday 24th March, 8 pm:. Friern Barnet & District Local History Society, St John’s Church Hall Friern Barnet Lane, N12. A Million Years at STC (the History of Standard Telephones & Cables). A talk by Stan Springate.

Thursay 25 March, 8 pm: The Finchley Society, Drawing Room, Avenue House, East End Road, N3 Recycling Progress in Barnet – Not A Moment Too Soon. A talk by Fred Woodworth (London Borough of Barnet).

Saturday 27 March, 11 am – 5 pm: LAMAS CONFERENCE, Museum of London Lecture Theatre. HADAS will have a stand there (Please see February Newsletter).

Saturday 27 March, 11 am – 1 pm: LAARC. Mortimer Wheeler House, Eagle Wharf Road, N 1. A Local History for Greater London – Conference by LAMAS. Local History Committee. 2 representatives from HADAS are invited to discuss how LAMAS could be of assistance to HADAS and research potential of Societies combined to provide “joined up” local history for London. Dr Cathy Ross (MoL) will talk on Museum’s projected 20th C Gallery, Wartime Evacuation, parish records. Further tour of ceramics and glass store, coffee and biscouts wioll be served. Apply ASAP to Anne Hignell, Sec., 24 Orchard Close, Ruislip, Middx. HA4 7LS.

Sunday 28 March 10.30 am: Enfield Preservation Society, Jubilee Hall, Junction Parsonage Lane/Chase Side, Enfield. Beneath the City’s Streets – London’s Unseen History. Talk by Mr P. Lawrence.

Thursday 1st April, 8 pm: Pinner Local History Society, Village Hall, Chapel Lane car park, Pinner. The “Golden Age” of Thames Finds – the social and antiquarian background to finds recovered from the Thames. Talk by Jonathan Cotton.

Sunday 28 March 2004 – 1100 am: – a walk along the ancient boundaries in Kenwood, led by Malcolm Stokes for English Heritage. To book, phone Kenwood House : 020 8348 1286. £3.50 (concessions £2.50). Meet at the main entrance to the house itself.

ADVANCE NOTICE: Sunday 9 May, 1-5 pm Church End Festival, Avenue House grounds, East End Road, Finchley. HADAS will have a stand here.

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HADAS DIARY – Forthcoming Lectures and Events in 2009

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 10th March, 2009 – The Royal Gunpowder Mills – Richard Thomas. This lecture will take the form of a tour of the former Royal Gunpowder Factory at Waltham Abbey. We examine both the history of the site and the development of gunpowder and chemical explosives including nitro-glycerine, guncotton and cordite. We will also look at the canals and boats that formed the backbone of the transport system within the site.

Tuesday 14th April – An Album of Treasures – Ann Saunders, (HADAS member and past President)

Tuesday 12th May – The Guildhall Roman Amphitheatre – Lecture by Francis Grew (Museum of London)

Another date for your diary
This year the HADAS Long Weekend will take place between Wednesday 26th August and Sunday 30th August. Staying in the centre of Hereford we will explore the cathedrals and churches, castles, museums, industrial history and archaeology and much besides of the area. See the attached booking form for more details.

An Exploration of the Western Desert of Egypt
Report on the January Lecture – Denis Ross

On 13 January 2009, Nicole Douek gave a well-attended talk on “An exploration of the Western Desert of Egypt”. Nicole is an Egyptologist by background and well known through her activities at the British Museum and elsewhere in the UK and also abroad. She was at one time an active member of HADAS and we had at last succeeded in getting her along to talk to us.

As indicated by the title of her talk, it was not concerned with the popular areas of the Nile but on that part of the Sahara which comprises the Western Desert of Egypt and to which Nicole has become a frequent visitor and tour leader. It consists of a vast area of sand – “the Great Sand Sea”- which is the driest desert in the world and in which whole armies have been known to disappear!

Supported by excellent slides, she took us on a tour of the area explaining the various geological formations of sand, granite, sandstone and limestone. Areas which were once inaccessible have become accessible over the years with appropriate vehicles – she produced a slide of early travellers with their Ford Model T vehicles – now superseded by Toyotas.

Nicole directed attention to the five major oases of the Western Desert – Siwa, Bahariyah, Farafra, Dakhla and Kharga – where water is available and which “provide man with food, shelter and a very distinctive and individual desert culture.”

She explained that the advancing and retreating of the sea over millions of years had made the area very
productive of “finds” such as fossils, nummulites (single cell organisms that lived some 65 million years ago), coral, oyster shells, and ammonites. There are also “extraterritorial” rocks – fulgurites – remains of meteorites, and pebbles of Libyan glass. She had thoughtfully brought for our inspection an impressive collection of some of these items.
She told us about and showed slides of the Djara cave – first discovered in 1875 and rediscovered some 120 years later – which is full of stalactites and stalagmites and also contains ancient wall paintings of animals.
Nicole showed us impressive slides of the various kinds of sand dunes and of vehicles manoeuvring over them and explained the background of the production of dunes.

She showed slides of ancient tracks “telling of endless caravans”. She also told us about earlier explorers ranging from Herodotus to Bagnold.

Obviously, in this short note it is impossible to cover the breadth and fascination of her talk. Nicole is an enthusiast and enthusiasts are able to enthuse other people. It was obvious that she had that effect on her audi-
ence. After she finished, I heard various people enquiring about her forthcoming tours! We must ask her back!

JILL BRAITHWAITE – a brief note.
Members will be sorry to hear of the recent death of Jill Braithwaite, one-time member of HADAS. Her husband, Rodric Braithwaite, in his Guardian obituary article, says “My wife, Jill Braithwaite, who has died aged 71, had four careers: she was a promising diplomat, a wife and mother, a meticulous scholar, and a supporter of social reform in Russia.”

HADAS LONG WEEKEND (LINCOLNSHIRE AND YORKSHIRE)
Day 5 (the final day) – THE HUMBER BRIDGE by Jo Nelhams

Our final day dawned, and we were greeted with a rather thick Yorkshire mist. We climbed aboard our red bus for the last time at Bishop Burton, with plans to view the Humber Bridge. Unfortunately the visibility was not as clear as we had hoped, but undaunted we vacated the bus at the bridge and had time to peruse the shop. We had crossed the bridge a few times in sunlight on our travels already, so we had had opportunities to admire this beautifully constructed man-made masterpiece.

The first design for a bridge over the Humber was in the 1930s by Sir Douglas Fox and Partners for a multi-span road bridge. In 1935 the first suggestion for a suspension bridge was mooted. The company was now known as Freeman Fox and Partners. In 1955 new designs were prepared and in 1959 The Humber Bridge Act was passed. Test drillings were made at Barton in 1967.

It was another 4 years before the Government announced that the bridge should go ahead. Freeman, Fox and Partners at once began to formulate detailed designs. In 1972, the construction of the Humber Bridge commenced at Barton-upon-Humber. This massive engineering project would be in operation for another 8 years.

One wonders what some of the great engineers of the past would think of how technology has progressed. The main span between the towers on the Humber Bridge stretches to 1,410 metres. The very famous Clifton Suspension Bridge, which was designed by Brunel has a central span of 214 metres and was erected at a time when steel was practically unknown. This iron bridge is almost exactly as it was completed in 1864. When reading of the construction of the Humber Bridge, the word that recurs frequently is “steel”. The coffer dams
were constructed of sheet piles of steel. The caissons had steel sections added. The concrete was reinforced with steel. 16,500 tonnes of steel was used as well as 480,000 tonnes of concrete.

The first suspension bridges were rope bridges, where the support was from above rather than below. The original conception of a suspension bridge is still the same, but the advancement in materials and mechanically-driven aids has contributed greatly to the magnificent extensions of the suspension bridge technology that we see today.

The Clifton Suspension Bridge is over 150 years old, when the fastest road transport envisaged was a horse and carriage.

The Humber Bridge was formally opened in July 1981. What will be crossing it in 2131? Will it celebrate its 150 years? We will never know.

We returned to our big red bus and headed south for Andy’s treat. Can you believe it, an air museum he had not yet explored?

NEWARK AIR MUSEUM by Andy Simpson

Having avoided the rain all weekend, we finally met it on our way home on Sunday, at the final place we visited – an aircraft museum I have never previously visited and had long wished to get to. Upon arrival at the site on the edge of a former wartime bomber airfeld, now subsumed into Winthorpe Showground on the outskirts of Newark, but with traces of dispersals and runway still visible, we were split into two groups and braved the drizzle to be taken round the site by enthusiastic members of this volunteer-run museum.

This is one of the UK’s largest volunteer-managed aviation museums, with some 69 aircraft and cockpit sections, of which a number are recognised as being of significant historic value by the National Aviation Heritage Committee, and many are now housed in two large display halls, with just the largest airframes still exposed to the outside elements. Separate buildings house the engine and artefact collections, and there is a very well stocked shop which was surprised by the number of books on the wartime defences of London that it suddenly sold to a certain coach party!

Many of the group parted with their 50ps for a chance to explore inside the Avro Shackleton maritime reconnaissance aircraft, a direct descendant of the immortal wartime Lancaster Bomber via its later derivative, the Avro Lincoln. None of the aircraft are airworthy, but several are undergoing static restoration to a very high standard, and the iconic Avro Vulcan V-Bomber still has its electric and hydraulic systems operable to enable volunteers to work its ground power unit, flaps, bomb doors and landing lights – quite an achievement for a large and complex aircraft which has now stood outside since 1983.

The Museum has its origins in 1965 when a derelict 1930s Westland Wallace biplane light bomber was rescued from a hedgerow near Cranwell, Lincs. After changing hands this aircraft is now restored and on display at the RAF Museum, Hendon. The Museum was established at its present site in 1967. Other notable aircraft displayed include an Avro Anson transport, Handley Page Hastings transport of Berlin Airlift fame, de Havilland Tiger Moth trainer, several English Electric Canberra bomber aircraft and nose sections, Fleet Air Arm aircraft such as the Gannet AEW aircraft, Sea Hawk fighter-bomber and Buccaneer jet bomber, a couple of Cold-War era Russian jet fighters, and classic 1950s RAF jet fighters such as the Gloster Javelin and Meteor and Supermarine Swift. Equally fascinating are relics such as the section of Avro Lancaster fuselage rescued from an afterlife as a garden shed and crash site/aviation archaeology items such as a very rare section of Handley Page Halifax bomber fuselage. There is also a display on Guy Gibson – a brave man, but not quite as portrayed by Richard Todd in the 1950s Dambusters film.

A fascinating end to a splendid weekend. Thanks again to Don, Liz, Jim and Jo.

HENDON SCHOOL EXCAVATION – 16th – 27th June 2008 Don Cooper
(Site code – HDS06)

A preliminary report of the above excavation was published in the August Newsletter (No. 449). Since that time, both the pottery sherds found and the animal bone have been analysed, and they provide a further insight into what was happening in Hendon through the ages.

The pottery report

The 6m x 2m trench yielded 258 sherds of pottery. There were six sherds of Roman pot, including a sherd of Roman mortarium or mortar bowl used for grinding seeds and herbs. This is a unique find from Hendon. Then there were twelve sherds of 11th to 12th century pots, mostly cooking pots similar to those found at Church Terrace and The Burroughs. There were also 57 sherds of 15th and 16th century pots, again similar to what is found on other digs in the Borough. Note that there are no sherds from the 13th and 14th centuries, a phenomenon we have seen elsewhere. Perhaps the Black Death in 1349 had had a devastating effect on the population of this part of Hendon. The remaining sherds cover a period from about 1600 right up to the turn of the 20th century. Jugs, jars, dishes, bowls, drinking cups and mugs as well as cooking pots are all represented.
The junction of Bell Lane and Brent Street is considered to be the site of one of the three ancient hamlets in Hendon, and the finding of sherds from the 10th to 12th century adds further evidence to that proposition. The excavation site which is in the grounds of John Norden’s Hendon House did not yield any sherds of pottery that could be directly associated with the house, although there is no reason to suppose that basic wares, such as are represented by the sherds found, were not used by his household.

The sherds have all been marked, bagged, boxed and labelled and are currently in HADAS’ store at Avenue House where they can be inspected. It is expected that they will be presented to Hendon School later this year. Our thanks are due to Jacqui Pearce of MOLA for identifying the form and fabric of the sherds found.

The animal bone report

A total of 54 animal and bird bones were recovered from the excavation. Overall, the bones recovered from most contexts were in good condition with some from the lowest contexts a bit more fragmentary than those from the upper contexts. The pH tests indicated that the acidity of the soil was more or less the same for each context.

The bones are, on the whole, from animals you would expect to find in a domestic assemblage, such as “food” bones from pigs, beef cattle, and sheep and indicate that the excavation area was used to dispose of domestic waste. The only slightly surprising bone is that of a wild bird possibly a lapwing. However, there are a number of ways it could have entered a domestic refuse area. The lapwing bone is interesting from the perspective that, if you assume it is a local bird, it hints that there was open field land around, as this is their natural environment.

Many of the animal bones are un-fused indicating that “joints” of young animals were being consumed. There were also typical cut marks reflecting that domestic consumption.

Our thanks are due to Emily Eshe who analysed the bones and the above paragraph is a summary of her report – Many, many thanks Emily.
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Membership Renewal Stephen Brunning, Membership Secretary

The HADAS membership year runs from 1st April, so all memberships are now due for renewal apart from those new members who have joined since January. I have enclosed a renewal form for those people who pay by cheque, and would ask that you return the form to me along with your cheque for the appropriate amount.
A Standing Order form was enclosed with the January newsletter. If any member intends to pay the new rates by this method and has not yet submitted an updated mandate to their bank, I would be grateful if they could do so as soon as possible.

Anyone who thinks they should have had a membership renewal form or Standing Order form but hasn’t received one, anyone who wants to make their membership under Gift Aid and hasn’t already done so, or anyone who has any question at all about their membership: please just ask me! (Contact details on back page.) Many thanks.
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EXHIBITION – CHILDREN’S WRITERS AND ARTISTS

Church Farmhouse Museum, the London Borough of Barnet’s museum at Hendon, intends to mount an exhibition in Summer 2009 on children’s writers and artists with Barnet Borough connexions.

The exhibition will concentrate on Oliver Postgate (Bagpuss, Noggin the Nog, The Clangers; born and grew up in Hendon and Finchley); Anthony Buckeridge (the Jennings stories; born in Mill Hill); Frank Horrabin (the Japhet & Happy cartoon series for the News Chronicle; lived in Hendon); and Sydney and Betty Hulme Beaman (the Toytown stories on radio and TV; lived in Golders Green).

Others featured will include Spike Milligan, Glen Petrie, Judy Hindley, Raymond Sheppard, Betty Ladler and Lewis Carroll (the Lewis Carroll Society was founded in Hendon in 1969 by the late Ellis Hillman, a former Mayor of Barnet Borough).

The Museum would be interested to hear from anyone with material on the above which they might be prepared to lend for the exhibition, or from those with information about other published children’s writers and artists with local connexions whom they think should be included. Please contact Church Farmhouse Museum by telephone on 0208 359 3942, or by email at gerrard.roots@barnet.gov.uk.
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EMAIL DISCUSSION FORUM Stephen Brunning

HADAS have been working hard at improving our online presence and now have a new discussion group hosted by Google Groups. As well as our new group, we are relaunching our website at https://www.hadas.org.uk/ and have a new home for the newsletter archive at http://newsletters.hadas.org.uk.

We have decided to restrict the new group to HADAS members only. People can request an invitation to join, but have to be approved by the group owners.

Please log onto http://groups.google.com/group/hadas-archaeology and click on “apply for group member- ship” on the right hand side. If you are not already a member of google groups you will need to create an account first (from this page).

Once a person has joined, an email sent to hadas-archaeology@googlegroups.com is received by everyone on the list without disclosing each individual’s email address. However, unlike the old discussion list, your membership can be edited to show “no email”. This means you will have to log onto the group to read the posts. Some people prefer this as it saves emails clogging up their in-box. I am a member of 5 online discussion groups!!

Latest news, events and information about the society will be posted to the group, as well as more general discussion between members of the society. It is particularly useful in providing last minute event information that was too late for publication in the current newsletter, and will have passed by the time the next edition is printed.

It is very easy to unsubscribe from the discussion group. Click on “Edit my membership” down the right-hand side of the page, and you will see the option to do this.

I would like to reassure subscribers that the information is secure, as only the group owners (Don Cooper & I) have access to the email addresses of the people on it.

OTHER SOCIETIES’ LECTURES AND EVENTS Eric Morgan

Thursday 5th March, 11am-12 noon, Museum of London, 150 London Wall, EC2 “Archaeology of Spitalfields” with Francis Grew. Free, but book on 020 7001 9844.

Friday 6th March, 3-4pm, Museum of London as above. “Spitalfields Woman”, with Jenny Hall. Free, but book in advance. (Remains of woman found in Roman cemetery.)

Monday 9th March, 3 pm. Barnet & District Local History Society, Church House, Wood St., Barnet (opposite Museum) “Bizarre Barnet”. Gerard Roots (HADAS).

Tuesday 10th March, 3.15-4pm, Museum of London, as above. “Spitalfields – Romans to 19th C”, with Chris Thomas. Free, but book. (Discoveries made 1991-2003).

Wednesday 11th March, 8 pm, Mill Hill Historical Society, Wilberforce Centre, St Paul‘s Church, The Ridgeway, NW7.“Wren and his Contemporaries”. Jo and John Brewster.

Thursday 12th March, 6.30 pm. L.A.M.A.S., Terrace Room, Museum of London, as above. “Forging the Railway – Archaeologists Investigate Stations, Viaducts, Railway Works”. Talk by Andrew Westman (MOLA). Refreshments 6pm.

Saturday 14th March, 11am-5.30pm. L.A.M.A.S. Archaeology Conference, Wilberforce Lecture Theatre, Museum in Docklands, West India Quay, E14. Morning Session 11am-1pm: Recent Work; Afternoon Session, 2.15pm-5.30pm: London Icons. Cost including afternoon tea (3.45-4.30pm) for HADAS, £8. Ticket applications to Jon Cotton, Early Dept., Museum of London, 150 London Wall, London EC2Y 5HN. [jcotton@museumoflondon.org.uk] or on line via Paypal at [www.lamas.org.uk]. Please make cheques out to L.A.M.A.S. and enclose an SAE.

Thursday 26th March, 2.30 pm. Finchley Society, Drawing Room, Avenue House, East End Rd, N3. “John Betjeman – an Enthusiastic View”. Terence Atkins. Non-members £2.

HADAS EVENTS 2009
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 10 February Lecture by Tony Earle ‘The Building of the Underground’
“The excitement of the first lines”. “The health benefits of traveling in the smoke filled tunnels”!! An illustrated talk with pictures, models and
handouts covering the Underground from its inception to modern times with recollections from the mid 1950’s to the present day. Audience participation encouraged!
Tony Earle spent 40 years working for Kodak, starting in 1961 in the research workshop, and finishing as their Principle Scientist in 2001.
Tony now gives short talks to clubs, societies & museums on a variety of different subjects around the Home Counties and Essex.

Tues 10 March lecture by Richard Thomas The Royal Gunpowder Mills

Tues 14 April lecture by Ann Saunders – HADAS member and past President
An album of treasures

Tues 12 May lecture by Francis Grew – Museum of London
The Guildhall Roman Amphitheatre

NEW SERIES OF TIME TEAM

That time-honoured feature of winter Sunday evenings is back – the new series of Time Team. Channel 4, around 5.45pm (times and transmission order may vary-details from the Unofficial Time Team web site, www.timeteam.klz.com); Series started 4 January. See also the official site, www.channel4.com/history/timeteam.

1 Feb – Blood, Sweat and Beers – Risehill, North Yorkshire.
8 Feb – Buried Bishops and Belfries – Salisbury Cathedral.
15 Feb – Anarchy in the UK – Radcot, Oxfordshire.
22 Feb – Mystery of the Ice Cream Villa – Yarwell, Colworth, Bedfordshire.
1 March – Hermit Harbour – Looe, Cornwall
8 March – Called to the Bar – Lincoln’s Inn, London
15 March – Beacon of the Fens – Warboys, The Fens
22 March – The Hollow Way – Ulnaby, County Durham
29 March – Skeletons in the Shed – Blythburgh, Suffolk

Hampstead and North West London Historical Association
The above branch of the Historical Association meets on Thursdays at 8pm at Fellowship House, Willifield Way, London NW11. There is no problem with parking. Visitors are welcome at £3.00, members of Fellowship House, 50p.

The further programme for 2009 is as follows:

12 February. Gladstone’s ever shifting reputation (illustrated). Dr Michael Partridge. Dr Partridge is the author of a recent biography, ‘Gladstone’ (2003), in which he delights in exploring the many controversies about this statesman, praised and reviled by his contemporaries, and still a subject of dissension among historians today.

12 March. Was Madame de Pompadour a better influence on Art than on Politics? (illustrated). Professor Julian Swann (Birkbeck College). Professor Swann has been foremost in exploring the relationship between French elites and the absolutist monarchy during the decades before the Revolution. Other historians have looked at one or other side in this conflict, but few have examined the crucial interaction between the two – the dilemma facing the royal administration: to buy off or oppose the opposition, in the elegant metaphor of President Johnson, to have the opponents in the tent pissing outwards, rather than on the outside pissing in. On this general theme Professor Swann has written some much acclaimed books, ‘Politics and the Parlement of Paris, 1754-1774’ (1995) and ‘Provincial Power and Absolute Monarchy: the Estates General of Burgundy, 1661-1790’ (2003), besides a host of articles, notably on the neglected subject of Political Disgrace during the ancien régime.

23 April. Churchill as seen through his art, (illustrated). Mrs. Josephine Cole. Mrs. Cole has long been intrigued by the many surprising ways in which art illumines history. Her fifteen years of experience as a journalist to the Splash Team, which involved working on daily newspapers, radio and television, has helped her to become one of the leading communicators in the subject.

For further information please contact the Secretary Hugh Hamilton, 2 Wild Hatch, London NW11 7LD. Tel 020 8455 8318.

A quick weblink; Subject: Festival of British Archaeology 2009; see http://festival.britarch.ac.uk/
TRANSPORT CORNER – Buried steam loco at Scratchwood? Andy Simpson

An interesting snippet from that voice of Middle England, the Daily Mail. Apparently during the making of the 1962 feature film ‘The Password is Courage’ 86 tons of Derby Works built ex-LMS Fowler 2-6-4 tank loco, BR number 42325 of 1929, was derailed down a pit at Scratchwood Sidings between Mill Hill and Elstree tunnels on the St Pancras – Bedford Midland main line, where Scratchwood motorway services now stand. Anyone know anything? Is it possibly still there? The film is a factually based account of Sergeant-Major Charles Coward, played by Dirk Bogarde. The relevant scene shows Coward and other POW’s on a prison train hurling lighted straw onto a passing munitions train, which subsequently explodes, the loco supposedly being buried where it came to rest after the end of filming. Given that it would have been worth probably a couple of thousand pounds scrap value at 1962 prices (a good three/four years wages for the working man, then), this seems unlikely, and web sources indicate she was broken up on site by a local scrappy having only been fairly gently toppled on her side, but who knows? A few bits may remain.

REVELATIONS ABOUT THE STATUE OF “LA DÉLIVRANCE”

This is the Finchley Society newsletter report of the talk given a year or so ago about La Déliverance. The talk itself had a lot more information about the other similar statues (of various sizes) and the vicissitudes they have suffered, and about what led Lord Rothermere (a) to buy the statue and (b) to present it to Finchley. Peter Pickering

Everything you did not know about the statue of La Délivrance and so never asked: Louise
Curzon could not have been the model as she claimed, the statue is not a copy, La Délivrance is really the name of the sword not the statue, and why the first battle of the Marne in 1914 meant much more to the French than just a victory. Martin Bolton revealed all this and more in a fascinating talk to the Finchley Society on November 29, based on his work in co-operation with John Rickard, both amateur researchers.

Louise Curzon could not have been the model because she was born in 1905 and the statue was started in 1914, when she would have been only nine years old. Also Emile Guillaume was a distinguished sculptor who would never have made a statue using only photographs, and is much more likely to have used a French rather than an English model. So who is the model? “I don’t know,” said Martin Bolton, “but I believe that the statue was inspired by Marianne, the symbol of the French revolution in 1792, and who was shown with an upraised sword, and again, naked, on a medal commemorating the battle of the Marne.
Is the statue a copy or the original? A number of statues were cast from the original clay model which Emile Guillaume created, so that all of them can be regarded originals.
The special significance of deliverance for the French was that in 1871 Paris was besieged by the Germans and they feared a repeat in 1914, from which the battle of the Marne delivered them.
“Délivrance” is written on the hilt of the Finchley statue, and probably this was originally intended as the name of the sword but became attached to the whole statue. Martin Bolton described the statue as an extremely important example of the first art deco style and a remarkable work of art, perfect in its portrayal of the human form.
Finchley Society information from www.finchleysociety.org.uk or 8883 2633.

DAY 4 HADAS Long weekend Wharram Percy by Bill Bass

Our group is dropped off at the Bella Farm car-park and we set off westwards to the village. The path we follow has been used to access the Wharram Percy area for perhaps the last 2000 years so much so that the ‘ground level’ is a good 10 feet above our heads; we are walking down a worn ‘holloway’. At the bottom of the wold we encounter a more modern feature of the landscape – the disused trackbed of the Malton to Driffield Railway. The railway was conceived in the ‘railway mania’ of the 1850s as a main line between Newcastle and Hull, but in the event became a local line serving small settlements and quarries in the area; the railway was closed and lifted in the 1950s. After climbing the embankment we enter the English Heritage-maintained monument proper.

Wharram Percy is always worth a visit, tucked away in the chalkland Yorkshire wolds, it serves as an important type-site of a Deserted Medieval Village (DMV). Important, because although many DMV’s had been recognised across the country, their nature, use, date and reason for desertion had been open to much speculation until a long term excavation was started at Wharram in 1950. Over the next 40 years (say 6-8 weeks a year) a team led by Maurice Beresford and John Hurst meticulously surveyed and unpicked the archaeology of peasants ‘tofts & crofts’, a manor house, the church, mill and so on.

Walking along the path we come to an interpretation board, this shows the general layout of the village. On the higher slopes are peasant housing and two medieval manor house sites (one earlier, one later). Towards the lower slopes are further housing earthworks, a farm complex, church and watermill site.

Occupation of the area has been known from the pre-historic and Roman periods, in the Saxon era a farming settlement grew in the valley which evolved into the medieval village and surrounding ridge & furrow field systems.

To the left-side of the path there is a multitude of earthworks; these are the remains of croft houses on the lower slope of the wold with their kitchen gardens and access ways to the larger plots behind, which ran down to the stream. Next is the standing building of what was a mid-18th century courtyard farm, attached to the gable end of this structure is a dedication plaque to the excavation diggers (one of our group remembers visiting when the dig was in full swing) and a name board from Wharram station which was approximately ½ mile north of Wharram Percy on the railway line mentioned above.

The excavations and building survey at St Martin’s church perhaps reflect the story of Wharram Percy as a whole, and it was a rare opportunity to fully dig a standing church and sample its cemetery. The first church appears to have been built in the mid-10th century as a private church for the small settlement at that time. Gradually it expanded in size with added side aisles etc to become the local parish church, reaching its apogee in the mid 14th century then gradually thereafter (c1500) the village became depopulated. The church continued in a reduced capacity until the last service in 1949. Burials inside the building were fully excavated being post-medieval in date, whilst a large sample of the graveyard produced medieval and later burials. We inspected the now mostly roofless but preserved structure, the partial tower (half collapsed in a storm of 1959) and the remaining tombstones.

Some of the group had their packed lunch beside the picturesque and restored millpond. A stiff climb brings us to the higher plateaux, excavation here discovered the different types of building method of the peasants ‘long-houses’ e.g. cruck-framing, and their constant rebuilding and realignment on the same spot. 1956 saw the surprise discovery of a Norman 12th century manor house, the extensive undercroft was constructed of chalk block dressed with sandstone. A second manor house, later in date but unexcavated, lies slightly further north.

The reasons for these villages failing could stem from a number of situations, but the end came for Wharram Percy as the woollen cloth industry became more profitable than agriculture, thus the land was turned over to sheep farming and the peasants were moved on. The excavations have shown that far from being fixed features, the crofts, manor house and church etc were constantly changing according to the prevalent economic and other circumstances. Walking around it was good to see the site still attracted a fair number of visitors with an interest in the past – more feet for the ‘holloway’.

MALTON By Sylvia Javes

On the way to Malton we passed through Norton, a town rather in the shadow of Malton, but almost as large, and having its own town council. Until 1974 it was in the East Riding, administered from Beverley, whereas Malton was in the North Riding. All the ‘Malton’ racing stables, and the Malton rail and bus stations are actually in Norton. The River Derwent marks the boundary, and the County Bridge separates the two towns.

It being Saturday, Malton market was in full swing, and there was a continental market as well as the general market and the monthly farmers’ market. In the middle of the market place is the old town hall, from where Edmund Burke, MP for Malton, addressed his constituents in the 1780s. This now houses the local museum. On the ground floor are displays of Roman artefacts found in the area, including urns discovered by gravediggers in Norton Cemetery, and wall-plaster showing a picture of a goddess. Upstairs is the Wharram Percy exhibition with a reconstruction of a medieval village house, complete with farmyard sound effects. There is also a finds tent, and recorded reminiscences by Maurice Beresford. The display builds a picture of the people of Wharram Percy, with artefacts including personal items, agricultural tools, bakestones, and a chalice from the church. The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of John Hurst, archaeologist at Wharram, who died in 2003.

St Michael’s Church in the market place and St Leonard’s church on the hill overlooking the town are both 12th century chapels of ease. St Leonard’s was gifted to the Catholics in 1971. Its clock tower and spire date from the 19th century.

Those who followed the town trail ventured as far as Old Malton Gate, where The Lodge is situated. This was the gatehouse of Malton Castle, built in 1604. It narrowly escaped demolition in about 1670 when Margaret and Mary Eure quarrelled over ownership of the property. The sheriff proposed demolishing the buildings and sharing the building stone. They demolished the manor house but came to an agreement before destroying the gatehouse. After many years of neglect the Lodge became a hotel in 1996. Beyond and behind The Lodge, on Orchard Fields, are the remains of a Roman Fort. Nearby, a Roman mosaic depicting the four seasons was excavated in 1949 and reburied. The Wharram Percy contingent arrived in Malton with time to slake their thirst before reboarding the coach for a surprise visit to the beautifully sited Kirkham Priory.

Castle Howard by Stewart Wild

After a pleasant interlude in Malton, we headed southwest to Castle Howard, first stopping briefly at what remains of Kirkham Priory (and a look at the neighbouring vintage signal box and gated level crossing on the line to Scarborough for a couple of the usual suspects – Ed).

These atmospheric ruins, in the care of English Heritage, are in a beautiful location overlooking the River Derwent. The Priory was founded around 1120 by Walter l’Espec, the founder of Rievaulx Abbey, and housed a prosperous religious community that followed the rule of St Augustine. After the Dissolution in 1537-39 it fell into ruin, and there is not much left today apart from the elaborate gatehouse and decorated façade. Its lovely setting, however, means that it continues to be a popular destination for visitors like us and tour boats up and down the river.

Castle Howard was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh in 1699, and took over one hundred years to complete. It is not a castle at all, but a fabulous country mansion – think French château. It occupies, however, the site of a real castle, that of Henderskelfe or “Hundred Hill”, which was built in the reign of Edward III (1327-77) and burned down in 1695. The estate came into the hands of the Howard family, the earls of Carlisle, when Lord William Howard acquired it by marriage to Elizabeth, a descendant of the baron of Greystock, around 1550. The current owners, the Hon. Simon Howard and his wife Rebecca, are related to the Duke of Norfolk, and have two children, twins Merlin and Octavia, aged six. Set among one thousand acres of gardens dotted with statues, lakes and fountains, Castle Howard enjoys great views to the north and south. It is well-known for having been a major location for the acclaimed 1981 Granada TV series Brideshead Revisited starring Jeremy Irons and Diana Quick.

We entered the estate via the spacious Stable Courtyard, which houses the ticket office, stylish Courtyard Cafe, handmade chocolate shop, a gift shop/book shop, the Jorvik Glass Blowing Studio (handmade items in metal and glass for sale), and farm shop with quality local produce.

A tractor-driven land-train was available to transport us to the house itself, but the weather was fine so most of us chose to stroll the three hundred or so yards to the entrance. The rooms on show, reminiscent of Petworth House, contain much valuable furniture, many superb works of art, and family treasures and photographs – the tour is self-guided and there are knowledgeable stewards throughout. One room displays a temporary exhibition of large atmospheric photographs of the landscape and architecture of Castle Howard, taken in the space of a couple of hours one misty dawn last October by the owner’s brother Nick Howard.

But it has not always been so peaceful: in the early hours of 9 November 1940 a large part of the house was badly damaged by fire, which apparently started in a chimney. Most but not all of the devastated rooms have been restored in the decades since, and the house has been open to the public since 1952.

Some of the upper-floor apartments, still in a bare and unrestored state, were converted into a second Brideshead film-set interior earlier this year, and now house an exhibition with information boards that tell the story of the fire and how Evelyn Waugh’s famous novel came to be filmed not once but twice at Castle Howard. The 2008 version is a 133-minute movie that opened in the US in July and was due for release in this country in the first week of October (early reports suggested that you may prefer the novel).

The southeast wing is home to some permanent exhibitions that include Maids and Mistresses – The Women of Castle Howard and The Building of Castle Howard, although not everyone in our group made it this far.

After touring the house, we made good use of the cafe and other Stable Courtyard facilities before boarding our coach, tired but happy, for the return to Bishop Burton. On the way back our Treasurer announced the answers to the two clever quizzes he had devised; I cannot say who won the prize.

Bletchley Park A review of the November lecture by Jim Nelhams

Our lecture on 11th November, Armistice Day, was given by Hugh Davies. The lecture was subtitled “Enigma – how breaking the Axis codes led to the world’s first computer and what lessons it still has for us today”. The lecture itself proved to be a first for HADAS – a presentation using a computer projector – but with sound effects.

Bletchley Park is now controlled by English Heritage. HADAS has visited it in the past, but further work has been undertaken there, partly with Lottery funding, though they still need a lot more money. They have completed a full rebuild of the Colossus computer which is now fully operational.

The people who worked at Bletchley Park during WW2 made an enormous contribution to the Allies’ efforts. At the time, they were known as the Government Code and Cipher School, which later became GCHQ. Fundamentally, it was a civilian organisation and they never fired a shot. They collected information but did not make military decisions. SIGINT – Signals Intelligence – dealt with intercepting signals, decoding them and analysing the traffic. HUMINT dealt with Human Intelligence – information from agents, resistance organisations and POWs. TECHINT – Technical Intelligence – handled information from radar and photo reconnaissance.

With intercepted signals, direction finding equipment was used to locate the source of the signal, and because of a thorough study of the call signs, BP knew the location of the transmitters and to whom they were talking.

It was vital that the enemy should not find out that BP were reading their messages, which meant that our own people, excepting those at the very top, and those that needed to know, should not find out. Consequently, no action took place solely based on the intercepted information, and much information was attributed to false agents. There was no evidence that the enemy suspected that their signals were being read and understood.
BP aimed to discover – what the enemy was doing now (tactical); what he was about to do; what were his resources and capabilities; what he was thinking of doing; what was the effect of our actions; have we confused or misled him about our intentions and capabilities; was he doing the same to us.

During the Battle of the Atlantic, information led to successes against the U-boat fleet, and they were withdrawn in May 1943, allowing many more supply convoys to reach the UK. The U-boat offensive was rejoined later in 1943 but again withdrawn.

Approaching D-Day, BP knew Hitler’s belief that the main invasion would be across the Dover Straights. Without this knowledge, the Normandy Invasion would not have taken place when it did.

Most German messages were encoded and decoded using an Enigma Machine, though High Command messages later used a more complicated machine made by a company called Lorenz. To send a message, the originator had the plain language text and the decoding key to generate the coded message. The receiver used the same decoding key on the coded message to get back to the plain text. The decoding key changed daily. Bletchley Park only had the coded message and needed to discover the key to unscramble the message. Because of the large number of possibilities, manually discovering the code in a reasonable time was not possible.

They had received information from Poland about the Enigma machine. The Poles had developed an electro-mechanical machine to help decode this, but changes to the Enigma machines made this no longer usable. BP enhanced the original Polish design to produce their version, which they called “The Bombe”, which was successful, though slow.

The Lorenz machine was more complicated, and it took some time to decode the first message and understand how the machine worked. Because it had so many more options, a faster machine was needed and a machine christened “Colossus” was developed at the Post Office research department in Dollis Hill, built using electronic valves. The machine recently reconstructed at Bletchley Park is Colossus 2.

The German systems failed for a number of reasons, but mainly because they did not allow for human nature. While computers do what they are told, people are cleverer, and will make mistakes. They will use the same words and patterns so that their messages are in part predictable. This helped in reducing the options to be checked during decoding.

At Bletchley Park, the people achieved great things because they believed in what they were doing. Unfortunately, with the continuing requirement for secrecy, the development of the first computer and so many of the other remarkable achievements were not acknowledged for a considerable time.

SPRING FUNDRAISING EVENTS FOR THE 150th ANNIVERSARY OF
AVENUE HOUSE, 1859 – 2009

18 Feb 2009, 7.30pm Quiz Night Tickets £8 per person, including finger food/nibbles, raffle and cash bar, tables of 6 or 8. A good time was had by all with the last quiz in November, and HADAS again hope to make up a table or two. Book a place by phone
(0208 346 78120 or e-mail info@avenuehouse.org.uk or book in person at Avenue House.

OTHER SOCIETIES’ LECTURES & EVENTS ERIC MORGAN

Monday 9th February, 3pm Barnet & District Local History Society Church House, Wood St, Barnet (Opposite Museum) – Heraldry: The Picture-Book of History Talk by Dr Andrew Gray

Wednesday 11th February, 8pm Mill Hill History Society The Wilberforce Centre, St Paul’s Church, The Ridgeway, NW7 Beneath The City Streets: London’s Unseen History. Talk by Peter Lawrence (Preceded by AGM)

Wednesday 18 February, 7.30pm Willesden Local History Society. Scout House, High Rd, NW.10 (Corner Strode Road) The New River & its History Talk by Jean Linwood.

Thursday 19th February, 6.15pm LAMAS Terrace Room, Museum of London, London Wall, EC2 Presidential Address; Preceded by AGM. Refreshments 5.30pm.

Thursday 19 February, 7.30pm Camden History Society, Burgh House, New End Square, NW3 The Strange History of Dr. Thomas Southwood Smith of Highgate. Talk by Isabel Raphael.

Wednesday 25 February, 8pm Friern Barnet & District Local History Society St John’s Church Hall (Next to Whetstone Police Station) Friern Barnet Lane, N20
100 Years of the North Circular Road Talk by Reg Hart Visitors £2.

Thursday 26th February, 2.30pm Finchley Society Drawing Room, Avenue House, East End Road N3 The City’s Old Lady – The Story of the Bank of England Talk by Brenda Cole. Non-Members £2.

Thanks as ever to this month’s contributors; Bill Bass; Stephen Brunning; Sylvia Javes; Eric Morgan; Jim Nelhams; Peter Pickering; Stewart Wild.