Newsletter

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With this issue the Newsletter achieves its half-century. When it began in October 1969 it was a page-and-a-half long, appeared sporadically at about two-monthly intervals and was circulated to about 100 members. Today it is often difficult to compress it into its four-page straight-jacket and it comes out (we hope we are not tempting Providence) almost like clockwork at monthly intervals.

This seen as a suitable moment to pay tribute to two members who make this possible: Philippa Bernard, who not only gives the Society’s duplicator house-room, but is responsible for running-off the whole of each issue; and Harry Lawrence, who writes and fills the envelopes and expends much ingenuity on ideas for cutting in the postage bill. He and Philippa now cater for a circulation of nearly three times as large as five years ago — some 270 members and a number of complimentary copies — so this is no small job to do twelve times a year.

There is a full file of newsletters 1-50 in the HADAS book box. Anyone who wants to complete his or her file by replacing missing back numbers can get spare copies of many issues, at a cost of 10p each, by asking the Hon. Secretary; but a few numbers are out of print — notably, Nos. 1-5, 8, 10-12, 19, 25, 27, 30, 38 and 48. If you want to replace any of these, we suggest you borrow the book box copy from George Ingram, photo-copy it and return the original to him.
Looking Ahead

1 April — the day this Newsletter will probably reach you — sees the final lecture of this winter season, when Desmond Collins speaks to us about Neanderthal man.

20 April will be half-day trip to Willington, St. Ives and Godmanchester. Bookings are now closed: the coach is full and there is a waiting list.

6 May. Annual General Meeting. The Notice Calling this is enclosed with this Newsletter. The proceedings will start with coffee at 8.00p.m. at Central Library, The Burroughs, NW4; at 8.30 the business of the Meeting will begin. After business is completed, there will be a film, made by the Central Office of Information, “Caring for History”. It shows the work done by the Department of the Environment in restoring and preserving ancient monuments, and includes pictures of Hadrian’s Wall, Fountains Abbey, Conway and Stirling Castles and Audley End.

As a reminder, here are they all-day outings this summer:
Sat May 17 – The excavations at Mucking, Essex.
Sat June 14 – Maiden Castle and Dorchester
Sat. July 12 – Norwich
Sat Sept. 13 – Lullingstone Roman villa and Knole

A cordial invitation to HADAS members comes from the Camden History Society to a lecture by Charles E. Lee on Camden’s Lost Railways on 17 April at 7.30p.m. at the Working Men’s College, Crowndale Road, NW1.
The March lecture — Medieval Jewellery and Pottery

A report by Christine Arnott.

This unusual lecture grew in interest as the evening progressed. Our lecturer — John Cherry, Assistant Keeper in the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities at the British Museum — led us skilfully forward from simple pottery sherds to jewellery so complex that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to reproduce it today.

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One special aspect was slides of a selection of medieval prints and illuminated manuscripts portraying the pottery and jewellery in use. We were transported back in time to see the prototypes of the saucepan and frying pan and to watch how meals were cooked, the cottager warmed his feet by the fire, how the great were served at table and what tools were used to slice and divide the meats. Jewellery was shown adorning people in portraits; there were examples of the badges worn by retainers of Richard II and Richard III and even a religious triptych in which the Angels wore the Royal badge.

The pottery ranged from lowly and decorated cooking pots through tall slim 16 in. high jugs, often glazed, to speciality pieces from regional potteries in England and eccentric, over-elaborate jugs from the continent. The range of metalware ran from small tableware in silver, such as spice holders, to very tall bronze jugs that could have held hot water for the royal hands.

The jewellery was fascinating, particularly since the earlier slides had enlarged our knowledge of the period. The piece-de-resistance was the exquisite Swan jewel, found at Dunstable in 1965, which made us all green with envy.

The evening produced many side lights on the social scene: for instance, potters (the earliest traders) were taxed at 4d per annum while of the normal craftsman rate was 6d. We also learnt that elaboration in clothing was permitted only within the limits of a strict social scale — plenty of class stratification there!
Boundary Stones

The research Committee is planning a new field-work project: a survey of all the remaining parish boundary stones in the London Borough of Barnet. All interested HADAS members are cordially invited — indeed, urged — to take part in this.

The boundaries of the various parishes which form the modern Borough were at one time marked by stones. Many of these have vanished completely; others may be partly or even wholly buried; but here and there the stones still remain. They are a link with the way of life and social custom in which the parish was the key factor. From Tudor times onwards (when it took over from the then-decaying manor court) until the middle of the last century, the parish vestry provided the administration of local government.

Until the coming of the railways and the improvement in roads in the nineteenth century many people, from birth to death, never moved beyond their own parish boundaries; the parish itself formed the hub, and its boundaries of the limits, of existence.

The history of the parish and its boundaries, in many instances, goes back much further than Tudor days, to what lawyers call “time immemorial”. Some modern parish boundaries remain almost unchanged from those of pre-Conquest Anglo-Saxon estates, granted originally to a lord by a Saxon king. Estate boundary and parish boundary often marched together in the early days because the Saxon Lord frequently founded a church and appointed its priest; and the parish of that original church (no matter how often the church itself was rebuilt) continued unchanged through Norman to later times.

The HADAS survey will plot the position of each remaining boundary stone on a large-scale map; an accompanying index will give the O.S. grid reference of the stone, a description and a photo and/or drawing.

This will clearly be a long-term project on which many people can work at their own pace. If you would be prepared to help in your area (we hope that no one will have to travel far from home to do their research) please ring or write to our Hon. Secretary and let her know.

One member, Paddy Musgrove of Finchley, has already done some work in his area and has made some unexpected discoveries. For instance, he has found a documentary reference to a boundary stone (though he hasn’t yet located the stone itself) which was set up on an island on the Finchley/Hendon border; another has been found inside the pantry of a house. The living room, to the south of the stone, lay in Hampstead parish; the kitchen, to the north, was in Hendon. Boundary stones obviously occur in some unobvious places.

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Minimart
to all the good cooks who made things,
to all the good gardeners who grew things,
to all the good drivers who ferried things,
to all the good organisers who fixed things,
to all the good sellers who sold things,
to all the good buyers who bought things,
to all the good members who provided things,
and to all the good people who
manned the door, ran the stalls, collected
the money, gave coffee on demand, cleared
up the cups, tidied the hall, publicised
HADAS and charmed us into the raffle …
THANK YOU SO MUCH. after I he and of 19 hours are men are

How much can we tell you with bated breath: we never dared to hope for the profit we made: over £160. What this means to the Society is indicated below.
1975-6 Subscriptions

A reminder from the Hon. treasurer.

Members’ subscriptions to HADAS are now due, as the Society’s financial year begins on 1 April, 1975. The subscription remains unchanged at:
full member £1
Under-18 £0.65
senior citizen £0.75

A remittance is enclosed with this newsletter. Please complete and send it while you think of it. The former can also be used to order copies of the Society’s 2 Occasional Papers. The first of these – Chroniclers of the Battle of Barnet — has just been reprinted for the second time, so members who missed buying it on previous occasions can remedy the deficiency now.

This year members have the option of paying their current and future subscriptions by Standing Order through their Bank. If you would like to take this up, please complete the enclosed special form and send it to the Hon. Treasurer.

Although, like everyone else, HADAS is facing steeply rising costs, we are managing to hold subscriptions at their present rate for another year. This is due solely to the hard work of the Fund-raising Committee. That is why the Minimart was such a good effort — and why we urge you to support our fund-raisers in all their future efforts.

We have purposely mentioned no names in our thanks to the Minimart helpers: but there is a one name to which we must draw attention in connection with this successful occasion. It is that of Christine Arnott, chairman of the Fund-raising Committee. In that capacity she gave hours of time and thought, as well as carrying the final responsibility for whether the event succeeded or failed. HADAS is very much in her debt.
Guildhall Conference

The 12th Conference of London Archaeologists took place at Guildhall on 22 March. Five papers presented different aspects of London archaeology, including one each on digs at Shadwell and Staines and a round-up or a massive programme of excavation and publication undertaken last year by the City Urban Archaeology Unit.

A report on the seventeenth century stone-ware kiln in Woolwich was significant because, taken in conjunction with recent discoveries at Fulham, it may necessitate some considerable re-thinking of previous theories on the manufacture and dating of “Bellarmine”.

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There was a paper on Settlement Patterns in Greater London, deduced from known sites and finds and illustrated by a series of distribution maps from the Palaeolithic onwards. The maps showed the curious recurring dearth (as compared with most other urban areas) of known sites and finds in the London Borough of Barnet at almost every period. Barnet’s lack of impact on the archaeological scene (with the honourable exception of Brockley Hill) may be due to the natural cause (as we are often told) that the terrain was too heavily wooded to provide a setting for early settlement. Be that as it may, the white space on each succeeding distribution map, spotted with only an occasional mark of interest, became depressing. Are they really so few sites in Borough, or is it that no one has yet managed to find them?

One site in LBB was on show at the Conference. Ted Sammes and Jeremy Clynes mounted an excellent display of material from the Church Terrace dig, with evidence from the Roman period to the nineteenth century.
A Victorian Miscellany

Report on the current Church Farm House Museum Exhibition by Michael Bird.

Although it may not provide a coherent impression of the Victorian age, the almost magpie eccentricity of this exhibition of Victoriana belonging to Church Farm House Museum has great fascination.

From the intriguing “bijou skirt holder” to a formidable “Archimedean lawnmower” (62s. from Harrods, 1895) the objects possess an intimate domesticity and period quaintness. 9 year old Fanny Page’s dolls’ clothes display the virtuoso needlework of a conscious artist; while her sampler, with its uncompromising injunction to “obey your parents”, hints at a stern moral precocity.

A case full of intimidating household ironware includes a crimping machine and streamlined goffering iron and in the same room is a selection of Wedgwood “Asiatic pheasant” plates which, despite appearances, seem to have come from the Redhill Workhouse. Rustic earthenware flasks, a painted truncheon, wooden corn-measures and the reputed riding-whip of H. Rider Haggard share a case with a handbag and scent bottle. Nearby, providing a sort of touchstone of elegance, is the caligraphy of Frank Allsop’s exercise books and photocopies of more of his work on topical concerns from the “Cares of Greatness” to “Good out of Evil”. Also worth looking at is a collection of amateur watercolours, mostly of Hendon in the 1850s, and a magnificent, if shapeless, trousseau.

For those who feel that lack of schematisation is a disadvantage, this refreshingly indiscriminate miscellany justifies itself with the fact, proclaimed in the catalogue, that “all these articles are not usually on display”. The exhibition continues until 27 April.
Book Review

London Studies, No. 1, 1974. £1.50 from Dillons, 1 Malet Street, WC1.

This publication of 112 A4-size pages contains ten articles, 8 by Dr Francis Celoria. It is an interesting hotch-potch of archaeology, industrial archaeology and folklore. To the latter 49 pages are devoted: the anecdotes were originally collected by J. Pemslie between 1860-93. This section contains several references to our area, and is well indexed. Other material includes Pottery Machinery in Vauxhall, a list of find-spots of Neolithic Axes and an illustrated list of London iron tools which should interest HADAS gardeners and handymen.

Georgian Hadley, by W. H. Gelder, pub. Cowing & Son, 75p.

This reprints in book form articles which appeared first in the Barnet Press. It tells the history of 25 Hadley houses, taking you inside each to meet the present owner and see the interior features. Illustrated by a good photograph of each exterior.

Newsletter

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Excavation at St. James the Great Friern Barnet

A report by Ann Trewick.

On 1 February we opened 2 trenches, each 2 metres square, and at the east end of the church, under an ancient yew whose roots provide a definitive digging hazard.

By the end of the first day some of the brickwork which we have been asked to investigate was already revealed in trench A, which lies nearest to the church. The following week similar brickwork was uncovered in trench B. It appears to be a continuation of the same structure as that in trench A. the east/west span of the revealed brick is 2 metres. Three courses of bricks have been uncovered to date, but we are not yet at the base of the structure. Its top was covered with a layer of mortared tile. As yet it is too early to be certain what the brickwork is.

Daphne Lorimer has been making a survey of the site, using a plane-table and alidade, so that we shall have a precise scale-plan of all features, including tombstones, paths, trees, church wall, drain covers and rises and falls in ground surface. Peter Clinch is responsible for the photography.

We have been sustained by tea and coffee provided by Mrs. Malcolm Smith, whose husband takes a particular interest in the history of St. James’s and who has been of great help in arranging the dig. Our thanks go also to the Rector, Canon Gilmore, for his continued interest and encouragement. The dig will go on until further notice on Saturdays (weather permitting) from 10.00 a.m.-5.00 p.m. except for 22 March, when it will be closed to allow members to attend the Conference of London Archaeologists at Guildhall. Members who wish to dig (numbers are limited owing to the small size of the site) are asked to ring Ann Trewick.

Footnote: does any HADAS member know of legends of a tunnel (or tunnels) leading to St. James the Great from houses in the vicinity? We had heard, before the dig began, of a tunnel from the now-vanished Friary of the Knights of St. John to the Church; but since digging started the story has come from several independent sources — including a circumstantial tale of a lady who, in her childhood 80 years ago, was allowed to explore the opening of a tunnel near the Church for an entrance fee of 1d. Any further details of his legend would be most interesting.
Minimart **** Minimart **** Minimart

Just to remind you that this vital contribution to the Society’s financial resources will take place on Saturday March 8th from 10.00 a.m.-12.00 p.m. at the Henry Burden Hall, Egerton Gardens, NW4 (opposite Hendon Library). Entrance 5p, coffee and biscuits £0.10.

Details of the stalls were given in the last Newsletter. Any contributions can be brought to the next lecture on 4 March; or collection can be arranged by telephone either to Dorothy Newbury, Daphne Lorimer or Christine Arnott.
Conference of London Archaeologists

This annual event will take place at Guildhall on 22 March from 1.30-6.00 p.m. Mr Ralph Merryfield, now the doyen of London Roman scholars, will take the Chair. There will be five short talks on various aspects of London Archaeology, and displays of recent excavations and research projects. Among the latter, HADAS will be represented by an exhibit, arranged by Ted Sammes and Jeremy Clynes, on the Church Terrace dig.

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HADAS April lecture

Few members of HADAS need any introduction to last lecturer of the season, Desmond Collins, who will talk on 1 April on the theme of “Are We Fair to Neanderthal man?” He has already lectured to the Society several times in recent years, and a number of members have taken part in is conducted tours of the Dordogne and Spain.

Mr Collins has been, for the last ten years or so, one of the most popular lecturers for the Extra-mural Department of London University. Most HADAS members who have obtained, or are in the course of obtaining, the Diploma in Archaeology, will have taken their first serious steps in the subject under his guidance. His lectures at Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute, on “Early man — the Archaeology of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic times” have said many a HADAS foot on the archaeological path.

His bubbling enthusiasm for his subject is infectious; his wide-ranging knowledge illuminates those early years periods which are, to many archaeologists, the least well known. Flint tools, the evolution of homo sapiens, the effects of ice ages and inter-glacials on developing species become, as he speaks of them, matters of vital and immediate interest. We can say one thing with confidence: if you come to the HADAS lecture at Central Library, NW4 On 1 April (coffee 8.00p.m. lecture 8.30p.m.) You won’t be bored.
Other Dates For Your Diary

May 6th 1975. Annual General Meeting, Central library, 8.00p.m. Business meeting, followed by a film.

The Programme Committee announces the following dates for this summer’s coach outings:
Sat May 17 – The excavations at Mucking, Essex.
Sat June 14 – Maiden Castle and Dorchester
Sat. July 12 – Norwich
Sat Sept. 13 – Lullingstone Roman villa and Knole

And on Sunday 20 April, an additional half-day outing to Willington, St. Ives and Godmanchester. Daphne Lorimer, who is arranging this outing, gives us some hints of what we shall see:

John Bunyan preached in a stable (a magnificent Tudor stable) in Wilmington, and left his name scratched over a fireplace to prove it. The medieval bridge at St. Ives (home of Oliver Cromwell) has a minute chapel in the middle of it; on the wall of the thousand-year-old church at Godmanchester is a Mass-dial which tells the time of the tides. Come and see these and other curiosities of an antiquarian nature on this Spring outing, the first of the season.

An application form for this outing is enclosed. Please complete and send it, with remittance, as soon as possible to Dorothy Newbury.
A Coin found in Edgware

A note by Raymond Lowe.

A short while ago Mrs. Hall, who lives in Farm Road, off Hale Lane, Edgware, found a coin in her back garden (O.S. Grid Ref TQ 201 924). She kindly offered it to HADAS for study.

It proved to be a Tetrachm of the Emperor Aurelian. The obverse carries his portrait and titles in Greek. The reverse has an eagle with a wreath in its beak with the year of the reign 275 AD and the mint: Alexandria.

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The mint of Alexandria was the largest of the Imperial Greek mints and second only in size to the Imperial Mint of Rome. It struck “Imperial Roman” coinage from the time of Tiberius (14-37 AD) until the reformation of Diacletian (295 AD) and its coins are amongst the commonest found. More than 130 have been recorded in Great Britain but none have come from a true Roman context. They are all considered to have been lost in this century or the last by returning travellers or soldiers.

The condition of this present coin rules out any possibility that it has lain in the soil for 1600 years. In addition the tetrachm circulated only in the East. Its weight and value were not on a par with coinage circulating in the West. It was heavier than the western double denarius, the antoninianus; but it was valued only at 1 denarius.

Thanks for help in identification are due to Dr Carson and Mr Castle of the British Museum. (Further reading: Coins of Greece and Rome, R. A. G. Carson).
The Lunt

Elizabeth Holliday reports on the HADAS February lecture.

Brian Hobley (now London’s Chief Urban Archaeologist) provided a crowded HADAS meeting on 4 February with inside information about this Warwickshire site, for which he was responsible when Field Officer to the Herbert Museum, Coventry.

It was hoped that the excavation of The Lunt would provide a complete plan of a typical Roman Fort. However, eight years work on the 4 1/2 acre site at Baginton provided that this particular fort was far from typical.

The site is in a commanding position on elevated ground near the confluence of the rivers Sowe and Avon. The discovery of curved eastern defences was the first indication that this particular fort was somewhat unusual. As the dig progressed, a large circular area just within the curved wall was uncovered (which explained in the unusual alignment of the defences). This feature was eventually interpreted as a cavalry training ground, or gyrus. Subsequent discovery of horse equipment, an ablution block adjacent to the stable block near the gyrus and special cavalry barrack blocks indicate that the fort was almost certainly a Roman cavalry training centre.

The chronology of the fort is complex, although the site was occupied for only 20 years, between AD 60 and 80. In that short time the alignments were altered at least three times, probably reflecting the changing demands made upon the Roman occupying force.

The first encampment, possibly covering as much as 26 acres, was founded at the time of Boudicca’s rebellion; within a few years this huge camp was replaced by the 4 1/2 acre fort which occupied the site for the main period. This fort in turn was contracted, probably as the Roman Army moved northward, until finally it was demolished with great care about AD 80. The site lay abandoned for almost 200 years, but was probably retained by the Roman Army on a care and maintenance basis, for the fourth, rather crude, series of defences will build in almost the same position during the troubled times of Gallienus in the second century AD.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of Coventry Museum’s work at The Lunt has been the simulation of various structures and the establishment of a special museum –The Lunt Roman Interpretive Centre — housed in a rebuilt granary. When the reconstructions are complete, The Lunt will provide an unique example in England of a Roman timber fort and will interpret, for both scholar and a layman, the two-dimensional remains found on the ground.

(A more detailed description of The Lunt excavations and the reconstruction which followed may be found in Current Archaeology 44.)

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Frith Manor Farm

It was recently announced that Frith Manor Farm, N12 – “60 plus acres of agricultural land with farmhouse and buildings” according to the blurb, is to be sold. We are asked to Daphne Lorimer to research the history of this estate, and here are her preliminary notes.

The present house at Frith Manor Farm is a Victorian building of no particular distinction; a dwelling house for the tenant farmer has, however, been in existence in the area for a very long time.

It has not, so far, been possible to pinpoint the first erection of buildings on the site, but the earliest map in the Borough Archives (James Crow, 1754) shows a cross-shaped building and a construction which appears to be in the position of the existing timbered barn. All this abuts onto field No. 620 in Isaac Messeder’s Survey Book which accompanies the Crow map. This is at the head of Frith Lane, and was stated to have been reclaimed from swamp. This area is covered today by the junction of Frith and Partingdale Lanes and it is still usually running in water. In 1754 much of the Frith Manor Estate was held by the Peacock family; on the death of Richard Peacock it was sold to John Lade Esq. whose son became Sir John Lade Bart.

In 1796, Cook’s map and field book show that much of the property had been split up among private owners, but that Sir John Lade still owned Frith Manor Farm, then let to a tenant named Johnston at a yearly rental of £115. Sir John, in fact, used Frith Manor Farm and Dollis Farm (in the occupation of John Edgar at annual rental of £127) as security for a loan of £7,517.2.6. The mortgage was dated 5 December 1796 and between that date and 9 December 1809, when he sold it to Sir Charles Blick, Sir John appears to have taken possession of Frith Manor Farm, built himself a manor house on the site and converted the farm into servants quarters.

In 1811 Frith Manor was sold to Thomas Fentham who, in 1828, is recorded as holding Frith Manor House and about 80 acres. In the Tythe Book of 1842 he was tythed on over 91 acres.

The maps of the latter half of the nineteenth century show little change in the buildings. The circular lawn had been laid down by 1864. It was adorned by two magnificent cedars which, we are assured by the Estate Agent’s brochure of the 1920s, were planted by Queen Elizabeth or Charles II (they were obviously too small for Charles to have hidden in them!). The poor remnants of these trees are to be seen today behind the stables of the Frith Manor Riding School.

Frith Manor Farm was eventually sold to the Express Dairy for a rest home for horses and the site of the old manor house is now covered by the stable yards of the riding school.

All these buildings lie on the East side of Partingdale Lane; but to confuse matters still more, on the west side a house existed called Frith Manor which was demolished in the 1960s. The site was subsequently used as married quarters for Mill Hill Barracks. This Frith Manor appears only on one map and no records of it had been found to date. If memory serves, it was of Victorian period and may possibly at one time have been the farmhouse for the farm.
Earlier History of Frith Manor

The Manor of Fryth or Newhall was a sub-Manor of the Manor of Hendon. It was gifted by the Abbot of Westminster to the le Rous family who, in the twelfth century, were in possession of Hendon north of the Brent. In 1312 Richard le Rous exchanged Hendon north of the Brent for Hendon south of the Brent with the Abbot of Westminster. The Abbey then granted Fryth Manor to its steward, Sir Richard Rook, Knight of the shire of Middlesex.

The estate was thickly wooded. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon “fyrthe: wooded country”. Frith wood ran from north to south, was enclosed on three sides by water and was a favourite hunting ground of the Abbot of Westminster until the Dissolution. Bishop Thirleby, to whom Henry VIII granted Hendon on the Dissolution, claimed Frith to have been given to him as his own personal property.

Newsletter

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News first of an activity which is vital to our Society’s existence — fund raising.

Christine Arnott, who chairs the HADAS Fund-raising Committee, sends these details of the Minimart which is to be held on March 8th, 1975, at Henry Burden Hall, Egerton Gardens, NW4 from 10.00 a.m.-12.00 p.m.

She looks forward to welcoming many members of the Society there that morning.

There will be 6 main stalls; contributions to any or all of them are will be most gratefully received. The following members are in charge:

George Ingram will deal in books, hard and paper-backed, and stamps. If you have any used stands for him, it will be much appreciated if you have time to separate British from foreign.

Elizabeth Holliday, organising the plants and cuttings stall, will be glad of contributions of established cuttings, indoor plants, bulbs or seedlings.

Nell Penny would like for her stall cosmetics, stationery, any “unwanted” gifts you care to offer and jewellery and trinkets.

Daphne Lorimer will be in charge of home-made cakes, jams, biscuits and sweets.

Dorothy Newbury will have the Good-As-New stall (sections for ladies’, gentlemen’s and children’s clothing).

Christine Arnott will specialise in Bric-a-brac.

The three last-named stall-holders will be at the next HADAS lecture on 4th February and will be happy to accept any articles which members care to bring.

In addition to the main stalls, Joan Bird will dispense coffee and biscuits throughout the Minimart, so please come with your friends and spend a pleasant morning at the Society’s “shop”.
Looking ahead with HADAS

The lecture on Tuesday 4 March will be by John Cherry, Assistant Keeper of the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities at the British Museum.

He will talk to us on Medieval Jewellery and Pottery, and hopes to include among his slides the Swan jewel found at Dunstable in 1965 and the jewellery from Fishpool, in Nottinghamshire, discovered in 1966. Among the pottery he will discuss finds from several nearby Hertfordshire sites.

Further dates for meetings are:
Tuesday April 1 – Are We Fair to Neanderthal Man? – Desmond Collins
Tuesday May 6 – Annual General Meeting

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All meetings are at Central Library, The Burroughs, NW4 and start with coffee at 8.00p.m.

And don’t forget the Friern Barnet dig. As announced in the last Newsletter, it starts on 1 February at the Church of St. James, Friern Barnet Lane. It will continue thereafter each Saturday till further notice. Digging will be (weather permitting) from 10.00a.m. to dusk each Saturday. Members wishing to take part are asked first to get in touch with Ann Trewick, as the area of excavation is small and the number of diggers may have, at the beginning, to be limited.
Pottery Processing

As this Newsletter is being prepared, two of the three January pottery weekends arranged at the Hampstead Garden Suburb Teahouse have taken place, with an average of a dozen members present at each morning and afternoon session, and a total of 24 different people taking part.

The solid work put in by these stalwarts has made the pottery processing situation much brighter. For these sessions the Teahouse was metaphorically divided into two (sheep at one end of the big room and goats at the other — though I’d neither care nor dare to say which was which!). On one side the Medievalists scratched away, marking sherd after sherd with the details and depths of the Church Terrace trenches; on the other the Romanists checked and indexed the shapely cream, pink and buff ware, sandy-feeling to the touch, that was turned out by the Brockley Hill potters of the late first/early second centuries AD. At a table linking the groups two members showed their skill by carefully sticking broken pots together and drawing them to scale.

After these two weekends it looks as if the Church Terrace marking might even be complete by the end of the third week end; and though the Brockley Hill indexing will not be finished, a major part of that work should be done too. Many thanks to all those who helped in this valuable exercise.
HADAS BOOK BOX

Recent accessions, most gratefully received by the Society, include:

Introducing Archaeology, Magnus Magnusson, 1973 edition. From Albert Dean.

The Conquest of New Spain, Bernal Diaz, trans 1963

The Norman Conquest (booklet for the ninth centenary of the Battle of Hastings, 1966)

The Quest for Arthur’s Britain, edit. Geoffrey Ashe, 1968.

(The three above from Mrs. Lewy.)

The Baths of Wroxeter Roman City, Graham Webster, 1968. From Ann Thompson.

Discovering Monuments, J. Bennet. From Ted Sammes.

Our Hon. Librarian, George Ingram, wears a slightly worried look just now, because one or two books are being borrowed for rather longer stretches. He asks that members who borrow a book at one meeting should return it at the following meeting or (if they cannot come to that meeting) that they should renew the loan by a phone call or letter to him.
Mucking — the January lecture

A report by Colin Evans.

The flood of questions that followed the Society’s lecture on 7 January was testimony to the interest engendered in members by a site which, among other features, has produced a Bronze Age round barrow, a late Bronze Age Hill fort, Roman para-military enclosures and Saxon halls, sunken huts and burial grounds. A tantalising glimpse of these was provided by the Director of the site, Mrs. M. U. Jones, and her husband, Mr W. T. Jones, who have revealed them in nine years of digging ahead of a gravel quarrier’s dragline at Mucking in Essex.

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Archaeologists were first drawn to the 100 foot terrace on the North Bank of the Thames by extensive crop marks — which a local farmer has complained are all that he can grow in such poor soil! Using techniques familiar to the gravel quarriers, approximately 30 acres have been cleared of brick top-soil and the stains in the gravel beneath explored carefully. The acidic nature of the gravel has destroyed all but the most durable remains, both human and environmental, but as Mr Jones pointed out, the finds still fill 3,000 boxes in the basement of Thurrock Museum. (He might have added that the most important of them have also helped to fill the showcases at the British Museum.)

Approximately 6 acres of the site remain. It was interesting to note that the rate at which these are dug will depend upon the economic prosperity of Britain, since greater prosperity implies more building and hence a greater need for gravel.

In May members will be able to follow up this introduction to Mucking, as the site will be on the itinerary for one of the Society’s day trips.
The Physic Well at Barnet

Here Jane Butler, one of the younger members of the HADAS Buildings Survey Group, describes a building, hitherto unlisted, which she suggests should be Listed because of its historic associations.

The Physic Well is covered by a pseudo-Tudor “hut” — even that looks quite impressive. It is of red brick with wooden beams, has an Elizabethan look and was probably built around 1840. About 1808 a subscription had been raised by neighbouring gentlemen for arching over the Well and erecting a pump. The house formerly built above it had by then had begun to fall into decay and was finally demolished in 1840.

The mineral spring had been discovered about 1650 and had become a fashionable resort for Londoners. It was visited by Samuel Pepys, who recorded his visits in his Diary: July 11th 1664; and August 11th 1667.

In 1677 Mr Owen, an alderman of London, gave 20 shillings a year to Barnet in trust to be paid by the Company of Fishmongers for the repair of the Physic Well. Under George II an Act of Parliament for the enclosure of part of Barnet Common contained a special clause preserving to the inhabitants of Barnet the right to use the medicinal Well FOR EVER.

The parish accounts show that the water, which Chancey says “is supposed to be alom, but most certainly is a mix’d fix’d salt of great use in most weakly bodies, especially those who are Hypocondriacal or Hysterical”, was sold and the money given to the poor of Barnet.

The water has been analysed several times this century with varying opinions. In 1907 the County Analyst reported it was quite unfit for drinking and did not possess any medicinal properties. In 1912 (NOTE – corrected to 1812– see newsletter 51) it was analysed by Dr Trinder, who stated that 1 gallon contained:
96 gr. Sulphate of magnesia
12 gr. Muriate of magnesia
16 gr. Carbonate of lime
24 gr. Sulphate of lime.

A further analysis in 1922 found and that the water retained its high medicinal properties. A suggestion was made by Barnet Urban District Council that they should restore the Well to its former position as one of the attractions of Barnet. They got as far as opening the Well and found — what no one knew existed — an underground chamber and a flight of stone steps leading thereto.

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The Well chamber is perfect and undisturbed, preserved by the earth that had covered it. It is brick built; walls, floor and barrel shaped roof alike. The bricks are small, red, hand-shaped and well burnt. The room would hold about 20 people. Two sumps, stone-lined, are sunk a foot or so in the floor for convenience in dipping out the water. Into them the spring is led by channels and pipes penetrating the surrounding ground.

It is a pity that the Council did not carry out their intention. If the Well were re-opened, cleared and cleansed, its medicinal value might again be appreciable. The same spring has been tapped in the cellars of a nearby house, “The Whalebones”: it appears to be efficacious and as unpalatable as of yore.
Two styles of exhibition

By Raymond Lowe.

Grimes Graves (until 29 June, 1975): Greek-Illyrian Treasures from Yugoslavia (until March 2nd, 1975) — both at the British Museum.

Both these exhibitions are well worth seeing. Should you have the time, see them on the same day. They make an interesting comparison.

The Yugoslavian objects have a beauty and interest of their own but there is little to learn from the captions. Perhaps the Yugoslavs didn’t give the British Museum much to go on, but whatever the reason, the knowledge to be gained is minimal, in the very worst traditions of the B.M. Yet the exhibition is still a “must”. The gold is remarkable, though the craftsmanship is unimaginative. The bronze work shows greater craft but much of it could do with a work-over by the British Museum laboratories. The pottery is so poor one wonders why they bothered to send it.

GRIMES GRAVES is perhaps one of the best exhibitions to date and there is much to learn. It is an interim report on work now in progress at this famous prehistoric flint-mine site. One comes away knowing much more about phosphate soil fertility surveying, resistivity tests, soil sampling and analysis and the study of flint core samples. Amongst objects on show is a plaster cast of a wooden shaft from the mines, a fingerprint on antler pickaxe and some unusual Bronze Age pottery. Don’t miss the slides projected on top of the first central column.

We must mention a third exhibition, although its short run — just the last two weeks of January, 1975 — means that you may have missed it in London. It is PRESERVING THE FUTURE OF THE PAST, on show at the Fine Rooms in Somerset House from January 15th until February 1st.

It describes the activity of the Directorate of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings, and aims to show 5,000 years of British architectural and engineering history. It is one of nine or so exhibitions which the Department of the Environment is mounting in connection with European Architectural Heritage Year. As it is mobile, and will tour the country, you may catch up with it somewhere else later this year. If you do, it is worth a visit.
CBA on the move

The members may like to have a note of the Council for British Archaeology’s new address — they moved on 6 January last. It is:

7, Marylebone Road, London NW1. The phone number remains the same.

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STOP PRESS **** DON’T FORGET THE CHRISTMAS PARTY **** FRIDAY DECEMBER 6 AT 166 STATION ROAD, NW4 **** STARTS 7.30 P.M. **** TICKETS 75p ADULTS, 50p UNDER-14S **** REFRESHMENTS INCLUDED ****

Don’t forget too that last-minute contributions to the Tombola are welcomed by Dorothy Newbury.

January Lecture

The next HADAS lecture, on 7 January 1975 will be by Mrs. M. U. and Mr. W. T. Jones, who will discuss the dig which has been going on for the last nine years at Mucking, Essex. It is one of the largest excavations in Britain, and because of the sequence of occupation, one of the most important.

The Mucking sites were discovered as a result of cropmarks observed in 50 acres of barley grown on Thames terrace gravel. Professor St. Joseph, Director of Aerial Photography at Cambridge, recorded the cropmarks in the dry summer of 1959. Almost as soon as he had published a photograph showing an especially dense complex of sites their destruction by gravel quarrying had begun.

Since September 1965 excavation has been almost continuous. It is now organised by the Mucking Excavation Committee (within the Committee for Thurrock Archaeology), with support from many institutions, local firms and individuals.

The cropmarks provide a palimpsest of such features as ditches and pits — underground traces which survive from ancient landscapes. When plough soil and sub soil has been stripped of, these should show up as soil marks in the gravel. Work so far indicates that they have a range of 3,000 years, from Neolithic to early Saxon. Flints extend occupation back to the Mesolithic, while a medieval windmill and later field ditches are the only recent features.

Mrs. Jones will describe the site and settlement material, Mr Jones the cemetery material.

Looking Ahead

In case you haven’t got the list of future lectures by you, here again of the details for your new diary:

Tuesday Feb. 4 – The Lunt Roman Fort, Warwicks – Excavation and reconstruction – Brian Hobley

Tuesday March 4 – Medieval Jewellery and Pottery – John Cherry

Tuesday April 1 – Are We Fair to Neanderthal Man? – Desmond Collins

Tuesday May 6 – Annual General Meeting
All meetings take place at Central Library, The Burroughs, NW4 and start at 8.00p.m. with coffee and biscuits.

HADAS Building Survey

The Society survey of buildings which might be included in the revised Statutory List of Buildings of Architectural and Historic Interest has now been completed.

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As described in newsletters 41 and 42, this survey began as a result of an invitation from the Borough Planning Officer to put forward recommendations which he, in turn, could place before the officers now conducting, for the Department of the Environment, a revision of the Statutory List for our Borough. Some 25 members volunteered to help with the survey. The Borough was sub-divided into eighteen areas; during the last three months each volunteer has studied the buildings in his or her area.

When these studies were completed, the Research Committee took over. It went into fairly continuous session, sifting all the information provided by the volunteers and working out the final recommendations, which were sent on 13 November to the Borough Planning Office.

Our recommendations were put forward in 4 parts. Part I consisted of buildings never before Listed, which HADAS now recommended for Listing. It contained some 43 buildings or groups, and included the suggestion that one Conservation Area – Moss Hall Crescent, North Finchley — should be extended; and that all buildings in the original Hampstead Garden Suburb, planned by Sir Raymond Unwin and Sir Edwin Lutyens and built between 1907-14, be Listed.

Buildings which had once been on the old Supplementary List, now extinct, provided Part II of our recommendations. Here 57 buildings were recommended for statutory Listing.

Part III contained the details of street furniture, as distinct from buildings. HADAS hopes this category will be given particular consideration because it contributes so much to the history of the area. Hitherto street furniture has not been Listed in this Borough, but there is a precedent — a Victorian post-box has been Listed recently in neighbouring Camden. We suggested Listing a number of milestones, 6 cattle troughs, 2 drinking fountains, some boundary stones and some historic post-boxes. We are glad to report that in his acknowledgement of the receipt of our recommendations, the Borough Planning Officer says that “the review of the Statutory List will include consideration of those items referred to in Part III of your survey which I noted includes considerable historical detail”.

The final part of the HADAS recommendations was a miscellaneous section which we called “buildings to which HADAS wishes to draw the Borough’s attention”. We did not definitely recommend the buildings in this section for Listing. It contained some buildings of historical significance but a little architectural merit — for instance, the Central Public Health Laboratory in Colindale. This was the first Government Lymph Establishment, opened in June 1907, from which all vaccine used for public vaccinations in England and Wales was distributed. The building still retains the original calf houses, now used for other purposes.

Part IV also contained details of buildings which are examples of notable architects’ work and therefore have a place in the history of architecture — for instance, a house in Barnet Lane designed by Edwin Lutyens, in his “country house” style, for Victorian author Silas Hocking; and examples of particular building periods. In this part, too, we are asked that the Department of the Environment’s attention be particularly drawn to Barnet High Street, where remains of Medieval, seventeenth and eighteenth century buildings may still lie concealed behind modern facades.

HADAS is much indebted to the members who took part in the survey. Many did detailed documentary research and provided, in addition to the recommendations which have gone forward, a mass of other material, including photographs, of interesting buildings all over the Borough. All this information will be incorporated in the Society’s Buildings Index, making it a larger and more effective source of reference.

Mycenae Rich in Gold

Raymond Lowe reports on the November 5th lecture.

Having been asked to forego the pleasures of Guy Fawkes, which always smacks of a pre-Christian Nordi religious ritual, we were well rewarded by Mrs. Wallace-Zeuner. Seldom have so many members (a record 104) been so entertained and informed in such a delightful manner.

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We were first shown two replicas of the famous Vapheio gold cups with their scenes of bulls and athletes. They were passed round the room while we were skilfully led to through the legend and history of the city and the Trojan War, a story which, if it were contemporary, would find its place in the News of the World.

The various folk movements which affected the Minoan and Mycenean empires were briefly touched on and the history of the digs which began with Heinrich Schliemann, one of the fathers of archaeology, and now continues with the work of Lord William Taylour. All this was given in a very lively manner. The slides, all taken on by Mrs. Wallace-Zeuner (haven’t we all suffered from site descriptions by lecturers who have never seen the sites in question?) were better than she admitted. They showed the site, grave circle A, the Lion Gate, the cyclopean walls, the stele and the grave goods. They were accompanied by a commentary which covered architecture, weaponry, strategy, pottery, fashion and the astonishing gold work of the Greek Bronze Age.

It ended with a well-deserved round of applause for a remarkable lady. Maps and examples of four types of Mycenean pottery were available afterwards for inspection — “don’t put them the your ditty bag” she warned us. We didn’t.

College Farm, Finchley

Newsletter 45 described the threat hanging over College Farm; here are some details of its history.

There has been a farm on this site (app. TQ 247 895) since medieval times. Originally it was a sheep farm, known in the 18th/early nineteenth century as Sheephouse Farm.

In 1868 Sheephouse was bought by G. T. Barham, who had founded the Express Dairy Company four years previously. The old buildings were demolished in 1882 and the new buildings were opened in 1883. The plans suggest that the new buildings occupy precisely the same site as the old. The architect of the new farm was Frederick Chancellor, whose main interest was ecclesiastical building; he was diocesan surveyor to St. Albans for many years. The tender accepted for the building of college farm was for £4942.

From the outset College Farm (presumably so named because the nearest large building in 1883 would have been Christ’s College, Finchley) was something of a public relations exercise. It was not intended to produce milk in quantity; but in its use of the latest equipment and the most hygienic methods it was to be a model of what a dairy serving a growing urban population ought to be.

When Barham first bought it, the farm consisted of 120 acres. He kept 110 acres in permanent pasture or meadow and 10 acres in arable. The pasture, dressed liberally with horse and cow manure, gave two crops a year. A feature of the farm was its large oak-fenced stack yard, to the east of the main 5-gable red-brick complex. The yard enclosed 6 large ricks, each containing 40 to 50 tons of hay.

From the 1890s, the number of cows in a milk usually averaged 40 the year round. 30-40 acres were used as pasture for these animals, the other 70-80 acres being mown.

Precise records and accounting were one of the rules. In 1890 the Farm produced 28,184 gallons of milk, from a herd composed half of Guernseys and half of Shorthorns and Kerrys. As cows went dry they were retired to another Express farm and replaced by newly calved cows. The average yield per cow was about 587 gallons. The money value of each cow’s milk at 4d a quart was approximately £37 for 10 months in milk.

The farm had its own laboratory, on one side of the entrance hall. The office was on the other side. In the upper part of the building were dormitories for the men. The main part of the building consisted of the byre and a large milking parlour, the walls of which were Minton-tiled.

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The name of each cow appeared on its stall along with the cards and rosettes it had won at shows.

Later the east end of the building was adapted for use by the ponies which drew the milk floats. Another Express Dairy Farm at nearby Fryth was also used for Welsh ponies. Pony-drawn floats were finally taken out of service in 1957. The last pony, aged 20, died in 1972. The year before he had appeared, by special invitation, at the Horse of the Year Show, accompanied by the last of the Dairy’s team of ten farriers, then aged 95.

The farm had extensive outbuildings in which forage was chaffed, roots (mainly mangels, from the 10 acres of arable) were pulped and food mixed. The chaff-cutter, root-pulper and cake-crusher were driven by a steam engine. Mangel tops and cabbage supplied green food until after Christmas.

Across the cobbled yard to the south of the main building was a model dairy. Originally this had a thatched roof and a wide overhanging eaves for coolness. Today it still remains but it is now tiled. It too was Minton-tiled inside and originally had slate benches and white porcelain milk-pans. From the first, however, it was little used as a dairy. In fact it quickly became a focal point for Victorian family outings, and was famous for the watercress teas served in it. The watercress was also local, from the beds in the Mutton Brook just south of the farm. Public events were publicly celebrated at the farm — for instance, Edward VII’s Coronation was marked by a “crumpet and country dance party”.

College Farm was a place where both the general public and the trade could go to see milk production at its best. Up to the Second World War it had a European reputation among the dairy managers. It was celebrated for its sales of pedigree Guernseys; it became, in the 1920s, London’s first TT dairy, setting the standard for all the Express Dairy Company’s suppliers. The preparation of the farm for certification necessitated some physical changes, and it was closed for a short time and reopened in 1921 in its new status by Dame Margaret Lloyd George. Until 1963 the dairy housed the first milk-bottling plant used in the London area (and possibly the first in Britain). The change to mechanical bottling was made, as an experiment, in the mid-1920s and was an unqualified success. The plant remained in use till 1963, when it was demolished as uneconomic. Less successful — but still in the van of progress — was the installation in 1929 of the first “Sealcone” machine outside the U.S. (i.e. the use of waxed cartons for milk).

The farm survived, but on a reduced scale, after the second war. In 1946 a pure Ayrshire herd was installed. Each member of the herd was named – Hannah, May, etc — and every calf born since took his mother’s name and a number; for instance “Hannah” in 1972 was Hannah 45.

By then the lessons of up-to-date and hygienic dairying which College Farm had pioneered had been well learnt, but the farm continued to serve a useful educational function for the public and for school parties in particular. A Museum of Dairying had been built up by Mr Walter Nell, a nephew of George Barham. This, with its collection of early equipment and its exhibits showing the distribution and marketing of milk — there was a complete dairy shop of the turn-of-the-century — was a great attraction. Up to Spring 1974 some 10 cows remained in residence; and as late as 1973 you couldn’t book at short notice to visit the dairy because it was already booked months ahead by parties.

Where now for College Farm? The departure of the cows last spring and the more recent dismantling of the museum and its local treasures have broken one of the last remaining links with Finchley’s rural past. What will replace, in the dairy buildings and the fields around them, those contentedly chewing beasts which brought life back into perspective for many a tired commuter returning home from a day in the rat-race? We wish we knew the answer — but at the moment the whole subject seems to be shrouded in silence.

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Christmas Party

The HADAS Christmas party has now become an annual event — and, if members reactions in previous years are anything to go by, a highly popular one. It provides an excellent chance for “old” members to meet and natter; and for new members to break the ice and get into the swing of the Society. So roll up at 166 Station Road, NW4, at 7.30p.m. on Friday 6 December to meet old friends and make new ones.

Entertainment will include competitions, a raffle for a home-made Christmas cake and a tombola — where every ticket wins a prize.

Tickets, which include refreshments, will be £0.75 adults and £0.50 Under-14s — on sale at the door. The food will be home-made; and an excellent HADAS punch, concocted on site to our special recipe, is always one of the attractions.

Offers of help with the party are always welcome — particularly contributions or gifts for the Tombola (to Dorothy Newbury) or bring them to the November lecture); or offers to help with catering (to Joan Bird).

Members with transport problems should let Christine Arnott know; she will do her best to arrange lifts. she would do her best to arrange lifts.

Brockley Hill Pottery Weekend

Another HADAS date for you to note is the weekend November 23/24, when a further work-in on the finds from the Brockley Hill Roman Pottery digs of 1939-56 will take place, thanks to Mr John Enderby, at the Teahouse, Northway, NW11, from 10.00 a.m.-5.00 p.m. on both days.

Members who have taken part in previous weekends will know that this provides a rare opportunity to handle Roman Pottery and really get the feel of it. All volunteers will be welcome, especially those with some knowledge of the subject or skill in drawing.

HADAS writes a new chapter

The first weekend in October 1974, saw HADAS make a bit of its own history — when 43 members took off on the Society’s first-ever weekend outing. This event is described below by Anne Thompson.

The headquarters of the Hendon and District Archaeological Society moved quite suddenly to Attingham Park Adult Education College in Shropshire during the weekend of October 4-6, when the Society took over part of what had once been the eighteenth century home of the Earls of Berwick. This fine Mansion, built by George Steuart in 1785, with its restful country park setting and elegant interiors (including “second-hand” drawing room furniture which belonged to Napoleon’s Sister Pauline Borghese) was an ideal base for expeditions into the surrounding countryside.

The programme was planned to suit all interests. Many of us specially enjoyed Wroxeter, first a Roman legionary fortress and then developed as the tribal capital of the Cornovii. There we had the benefit of a very lucid guided tour and later slides and a talk from Mr Toms, Warden of Attingham and also, by a happy chance, Secretary of the Shropshire Archaeological Society. He is also one of the leading diggers, under Dr Graham Webster, of Wroxeter – Roman Viroconium.

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The site is outstanding in two ways. It has been unoccupied since Saxon times, and it is the only site of a Roman City bought by the Department of the Environment to ensure uninterrupted excavation. In themselves the baths, gymnasium and market square already excavated are impressive, especially in conjunction with the wealth of finds which can be seen at Rowley’s House Museum in Shrewsbury (literally piles of Samian bowls found exactly as they were stacked in the market shops before sudden destruction by fire c 170 AD).

Perhaps even more interesting is the evidence now coming to light of numerous timber buildings on the ruins of the baths and market, with at least 10 different occupation layers. Future excavations at Wroxeter may help to solve many problems which still exist about the growth of and life in Romano-British towns.

The streets of Shrewsbury and Much Wenlock, with its priory, gave us a glimpse of medieval Shropshire; while the historians cast longing glances at the hill-forts of Wenlock Edge — which, however, must await exploration another time.

Sunday was industrial archaeology day, centering on Ironbridge Gorge. Here we saw the famous Iron Bridge, first of its kind in the world, and visited the very beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. In this steep sided valley Abraham Darby first used coke to smelt iron ore, and thereby changed the face of the industrial world. Coalbrookdale itself retains intact its atmosphere of an iron-making village community, and its Quaker iron-makers are buried in a small cemetery high above on the valley side. We climbed into Darby’s own furnace; and in the nearby Museum saw recorded the development of the district and fine examples of cast iron in its heyday.

A museum of a different kind was the 42-acre woodland site of Blists Hill, where industrial monuments are preserved in natural settings. Here we marvelled at the work put in by enthusiastic local volunteers who act as guides at the Museum and are reconstructing much of the machinery. One big task is re-making the famous Hay Inclined Plane, a railroad system for raising canal boats 207 feet up and down between canal and river without having to use 27 locks.

For the technically minded their were blast furnaces, mining machinery and beam engines, as well as a pottery and the printing shop. Natural bitumen had been accidentally discovered in 1787 in the course of tunnelling. We were able to explore part of the resulting “Tar Tunnel”, a source of bitumen for medicine and industry, and could picture the poor workers “like the imps described by Dante as gathering with a hook the souls of the damned in a sea of pitch” as one contemporary Italian said. The tar is now a trickle – luckily for us.

All thanks for this full and interesting weekend to Jeremy Clynes, whose idea it was, and to Dorothy Newbury, Eric Grant and Colin and Ann Evans, who helped Jeremy organise it. May it be the first of many weekend ventures for HADAS.

Local Press Cuttings

Our indefatigable Librarian, George Ingram, has come up with an idea on which he hopes members may help. The local newspapers — such as the Hampstead and Highgate Express, the Hendon Times, the Finchley Press, and the Barnet Press — often carry interesting material on aspects of local history. Mr Ingram would like to be able to keep, in the HADAS book box, cuttings of such items.

He would also like to maintain a press cuttings book of local press reports of the Society’s activities.

Would any members who normally take one of the above papers be prepared to read them each week from this point of view, and to let Mr Ingram have cuttings of any item which may be of interest? Cuttings could be photocopied and returned if necessary. If you think you could help, please give Mr Ingram a ring and tell him which paper you are prepared to “watch”.

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The sort of cuttings (in addition to actual mentions of HADAS) which would be useful to include: articles on the history of old buildings or their threatened redevelopment; material on people connected with the district e.g. Bulwer Lytton in Totteridge, Warwick the Kingmaker in Hadley, Richard Cromwell in East Finchley, etc; reproductions of old prints, postcards and photos; information which throws light on the history of street names; or details of the closing of old established businesses.

In order to make his HADAS press book as full as possible, cuttings about the Society back to its foundation in 1961 will be most gratefully received. These, too, will be photocopied and the original returned to the lender if required.

New season of lectures

The opening meeting of the Society’s 1974-5 lecture season was held on 1 October at Central Library. On this occasion our Society was, for the first time, host to the Camden History Society, which hopes to start an archaeological section of its own soon and thought that HADAS might be able to offer a few tips. So we staged an evening during which three of our members spoke on different aspect of archaeology in the Borough of Barnet; and we were happy to welcome a number of Camden visitors in the audience, which totalled about 75.

Percy Reboul set the ball rolling with a talk about the techniques, problems and joys of churchyard recording, based on the experience which he and other recorders have had during their long-term survey of the tombstones in Hendon St. Mary’s Churchyard.

He spoke of methods of card-indexing each tombstone; of the difficulty of avoiding duplication of work because old tombstones are not in neat rows; of the kind of tools needed — spades, forks, secateurs, sickles and a metal probe; and of the light which different inscriptions throw on the history of the area and the lives of the people commemorated.

Paddy Musgrove followed with a discussion of hedgerow dating and its place in “reading” the landscape — a subject on which he has made himself the Society’s expert. He outlined the theory of Dr. Max Hooper of the Nature Conservancy, based on an examination of 227 dateable hedges, from which Dr Hooper has evolved this equation:

Age of hedge = the average number of species of trees and shrubs in each 30 yard length x 110 + 30

Therefore a hedge averaging five species in three 30 yard lengths would give: 110 x 5 + 30 = 580 years.

Finally, Ted Sammes described the Society’s longest dig, at Church Terrace, Hendon, which finished last July. It had, as was hoped, provided some evidence of actual artefacts to back up the documentary indications of Hendon’s Saxon past.

Like the other speakers, Mr Sammes showed many interesting slides; and an exhibition of finds, photos and reproductions of early maps was on show at the back of the hall. The slides of finds were particularly interesting; they included eighteenth century imitation porcelain, pottery and wine bottles; coins and tokens; clay tobacco pipes going back to 1620; tin-glazed wares, a 16th century cooking pot, pins of varying dates, a 15th/16th century lobed cup from Surrey, other medieval sherds and chaff-tempered ware dated AD 700-1050.

One specially interesting find was a bronze double-headed spiral pin of a type which some experts place in the sixth century, while others think it is 8th/9th century. Whichever is right, this pin falls within that Dark Age period whose existence in Hendon HADAS has been particularly anxious to establish.

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Local History Conference

The London and Middlesex Archaeology Society, to which HADAS is affiliated, runs two special conferences a year. One in March, is on London archaeology; the other, each November, is on local history.

This year’s Local History Conference will be held on Saturday November 16th, at the Livery Hall of Guildhall, EC2. Doors open at 1.30 to allow time to see the exhibits mounted by local societies. Proceedings begin at 2.30.

The main talk will be by Margaret Gelling, on “New Approaches to the Study of Place Names”. It is likely to be of special interest to archaeologists because of recent attempts to correlate place-name study with the increasing body of actual evidence being found by Dark Age archaeologists. One result of this correlation has been to throw serious doubt on the theory that names ending in -ings (e.g. Hastings) or -ingham (e,g. Buckingham) belong to the early years of Saxon infiltration.

Admission to the Conference is by ticket from the Hon. Sec., Local History Committee — £0.40 including tea.

College Farm, Finchley

It was with much regret that we heard last week that the Museum of Dairying at College Farm has been broken up and the objects were removed. The Museum has been a pleasure to generations of schoolchildren and local residents. Many of the objects were of local interest and linked with the history of Finchley over the last century. HADAS had written in September 1973 both to Mr Walter Nell of the Express Dairy Co (who built up the collection in the Museum) and to Barnet Council about the possibility of retaining the Museum locally.

A question mark now hangs over the future of the farm buildings themselves. The Finchley Society, like HADAS, wishes to preserve them if possible; and at their suggestion HADAS recently submitted to the Historic Buildings Division of the GLC a note on the history of College Farm, with the suggestion that the buildings be Listed as of historic interest. In the next Newsletter to we hope to publish extracts from this historical note.

Fire Insurance Plates

By Ted Sammes.

Today, in case of fire, we take for granted the availability of the Fire Brigade; but this has not always been so. The Great Fire of London was followed, in 1667, by a Royal Proclamation for the rebuilding of London which decreed that there should be no more building in wood. The Fire had brought great losses to the citizens; it stimulated active arrangements against future losses by fire. By the turn-of-the-century, 3 fire offices were in business in London. These increased in number during the eighteenth century, but their stability was affected by the South Sea Bubble in 1720. They tended to be small in size and local in operation, due to lack of communication between towns.

As few streets were named or houses numbered, it was necessary for an individual Fire Insurance Society to be able to locate and quickly check that the property on fire was actually insured by them before using its fire-fighting team. It was obviously in the interests of the insurance company to extinguish the fire, and therefore each had its own symbol or wall mark. These plates were fixed to the front of the building in a prominent position, and early ones were numbered. If the insurance lapsed, the plate was removed.

The keeping of so many individual brigades was uneconomic. In 1826 the Sun Fire Office, the Royal Exchange Assurance, the London Assurance and the Phoenix Fire Office agreed to combine their brigades when necessary. The London Fire Engine Establishment was founded in 1833; in 1866 this was passed to the Metropolitan Board of Works and later at to the LCC and the GLC.

Fire marks can be found on old buildings and many are decorative. One of the earliest is the Hand in Hand (1692). During the main period of use (1680-1880) over 150 companies issued plates in copper, zinc, lead, and in sheet iron. They were usually embossed and when painted must have stood out from the walls very clearly.

I am compiling a list of these marks in the Borough of Barnet and have located the following Hendon:

Royal Insurance at 36 Bell Lane, 5-6 Burroughs Gardens, 67 The Burroughs.

Sun Insurance at 2-4 Shirehall Lane.

If you know any others, please record their location and send details, preferably in writing, to Ted Sammes.

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November Lecture

Although the November lecture will coincide with Guy Fawkes night, we urge members to forego the delights of fireworks in favour of the pleasure of hearing Portia Wallace-Zeuner talk to us about Mycenae.

Mrs. Wallace-Zeuner is a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute. She did research in dendrochronology at the Institute of Archaeology and published her findings in the Institute Bulletin. She has been a tutor in the Extra-mural Departments of London and Oxford universities for fifteen years.

Her present day field-work centres of archaeological sites in the Mediterranean doing Museum research and photography for current courses. She has studied sites in France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Tunisia, including the islands of Crete, Delos, Sicily and Sardinia.

5 November will be a HADAS meeting you can’t afford to miss. Come to the Central Library, at 8.00 for coffee, followed by the lecture.

The other dates in this winter’s programme will be:

Friday Dec. 6 – Christmas Party, 166 Station Road, NW4. Starts 7.30 p.m.

Tuesday Jan. 7 – Mucking, Essex, Crop-mark Sites – M. U. and W. T. Jones

Tuesday Feb. 4 – The Lunt Roman Fort, Warwicks – Excavation and reconstruction – Brian Hobley

Tuesday March 4 – Medieval Jewellery and Pottery – John Cherry

Tuesday April 1 – Are We Fair to Neanderthal Man? – Desmond Collins
Digging and Pottery Processing

Digging has begun on the latest HADAS site — Fuller Street, Church Road, Hendon, NW4. The site, which is behind a large advertisement hoarding on the right of Church Road going west from Brent Street, has been partially gridded. Work has started on a trial trench 1 metre wide, running North-South across the middle of the site.

Unfortunately the trench crosses a concrete yard, so a certain amount of concrete-bashing has had to be done before diggers could get down to the gentler and more expert techniques of trowelling. However, sufficient space has now been cleared to allow between six and ten members to work on the site. Digging takes place every Sunday (weather permitting) from 10.00 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.

At the same time processing of finds from the Church Terrace dig it goes on, also every Sunday from 10.00 a.m. to 5.30, in the temporary workshop which the Borough has lent us behind the PDSA building on the corner of Church Road and Church End.

This means there is work for everyone, either digging or helping with pottery, wet or fine, every Sunday; many hands are needed and will be made very welcome. Please come as often as you can. If you don’t find anyone at the workshop, walk down to the dig — or vice versa.

No digging or processing on Sunday October the 6th, due to the HADAS weekend visit to Shropshire. No work, either, on Saturdays at present. This situation may change if the trial trench at Fuller Street produces any interesting finds.

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Digging Needs

Have members any of the following which they would be prepared to add to the Society’s equipment:

Metal meat skewers (for stringing out trenches);

Seed trays, tomato boxes or other shallow, stout boxes (for use as finds trays);

The strong, cube-shaped cardboard boxes in which Xerox copying paper comes (for storing pottery);

Old nail varnish bottles (with brush attached) — ideal for vanishing pottery markings.

Any of these will be gratefully received by our Hon. Secretary, who will arrange collection if necessary.

And a bigger need

Has any member a small piece of land, with access from a road, on which they will be prepared to house a caravan from time to time? We have the chance to buy a second-hand caravan to use as site headquarters, but it will not always be in use on site. We hesitate to buy until we can be sure that when we are not digging, we have a place where the caravan can rest.

Again, any suggestions to our Hon. Secretary.

Roman Cirencester

A note from A. V. Turner.

Following the HADAS visit to Cirencester in August, 1973, I wrote to Corinium Museum to inquire why, and at what period, so many English towns — such as Winchester, Gloucester, etc., had had the suffix “cester” or “chester” added to their names.

Members may be interested to see the explanation given me by David Viner, Curator of Corinium Museum. He says:

“Corinium is the Latinised form of the native British name Caer-Coryn, which means “town on the highest part” (the Churn, the river on which Cirencester a stands, is the highest source of the Thames). It was a regional tribal capital, hence Corinium Dobunnorum – “Corinium of the Dobunni”. The British “Caer” becomes Saxon “caestre”, hence Coryn-caestre, then Cyrenceastre and Cirencester.”

From this it appears there the word merely means “town” or “city” and was added by the Saxons to the previous names of places established during the Roman occupation.

Footnote: Ekwall’s DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH PLACE NAMES carries this entry on the old English word “ceastre”: an early loan-word from Latin castra, which means “a city or walled town, originally one that had been a Roman Station”. This is the actual meaning of many place names; but in other cases the meaning must have been “prehistoric fort” generally. The Northumbrian names in -chester, for instance, cannot all denote old Roman stations. The usual form in place-names is -chester; but –caster is regular in some districts. Owing to Norman influence, -chester often becomes –cester or even -ceter, as in Exeter.”

Outing to Warwickshire

Report by Joanna Wade.

The last of the season’s outings — if you don’t count the special weekend in Shropshire this month — took place on 14 September and was a great success. We arrived at Wormleighton in beautifully sunny weather which remained the whole day, and walked into the gatehouse of the manor, built by the Spencers in 1519 but now mostly destroyed. In 1506 the Spencers had bought, for £2,000, the large pastoral estate, which included the site of a village that had been de-populated in 1499. They themselves built another small village on the other side of the Church from the deserted one. There are still houses on the second site today.

Eric Grant, without whose help I would never have been able to understand the tantalisingly un-excavated bumps, guided us round of the site. Standing in the main street as we approached were some friendly bullocks, which followed us to the manor moat and, I am afraid, distracted many of us from the proper appreciation of the fishpond and stew ponds. The older and newer villages were both fascinating to the visit, and I was sorry to leave so soon. Lunch was on Burton Dassett Hill, with views of Warwickshire and Oxfordshire on all sides.

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Afterwards we drove over Edge Hill, site of the Civil War battle of 1642, to Compton Wynyates — a beautifully mellow and friendly house (built in 1480, altered in 1520 and deprived of its moat after the Civil War) with twisted chimneys, a peaceful inner courtyard and topiary-ed hedges in the garden. Inside we saw the room where Sir William Compton’s friend Henry VIII slept, and a room in the roof with three exits, used to hide a priest and containing a makeshift altar carved roughly with crosses.

After tea in Shipston we returned to London, having thanked Eric Grant, who had compered this trip, and the organisers of the other outings in this very successful season and not least Mrs. Newbury, who co-ordinated all the efforts.

A 1974 find

Is anyone short of a man’s raincoat, light navy in colour, with a pair of leather gloves in the pocket? Found on the coach after our July outing to Danebury and still unclaimed. Ring Dorothy Newbury if it is yours.

Church Farm House Museum

The exhibition at present showing at the Museum (it closes on October 13th) on Blue Underglaze Printed Earthenware is well worth a visit by anyone interested either in pottery or in the history and artefacts of the more recent past.

The heyday of “Staffordshire Blue”, as it’s commonly called, was c 1795-1845. The exhibition shows a cross-section of the wares produced between these years, starting with the chinoiserie influence, followed by the vogue for topographical scenes and then finally the use of patterns of every kind.

When Staffordshire Blue was first produced (probably by John Turner of Lane End in the Potteries) cobalt was the only chemical base sufficiently stable to give reliable colour results when fired at high temperatures — and cobalt produces blue pottery. Later, about 1835, as knowledge of chemical process is improved, other colours — red, purple, green and brown — also became common.

The exhibition displays blue ware vessels of many forms and uses; there is a case devoted to colours other than blue; and a fascinating case illustrates the whole process of transfer printing.

One of the finest pieces is a small multi-coloured plate, in greens, mauves and yellows, by Spode (the first potter really to popularised Staffordshire Blue, and the most consistent producer of wares of high quality). It is dated 1815 and shows as its central scene a group of “bottle” kilns for firing pottery. It illustrates how this ware, as well as being pleasing in itself, throws a light on social conditions, topography and even industrial processes.

The exhibition catalogue contains a valuable list of ten books or articles which are “recommended reading” on Staffordshire Blue.

The Museum looks like providing a continuous feast for members this autumn. Staffordshire Blue will be followed by Old Middlesex Maps (October 19th-November 24th); and then Old Houses of the Borough (November 20th-January 5th).

HADAS book box

With winter meetings about to start, members are reminded that HADAS now has its own book box, in the capable hands of George Ingram. There are well over 100 volumes, which is too many to bring to each lecture. Mr Ingram will, however, provide a selection each month; and will be happy to supply any member with information about the books available. Consult him at meetings or ring him.

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Recent Bookbox accessions include

Notes on Nonsuch, a lost Tudor Palace (from Mary Macalaster)

Camden History Review No. 1 (from Brigid Grafton Green)

The London Archaeologist (quarterly) winter 1968 to spring 1974 (all Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 1-6) (from Mrs. Worby)

Rescue News, Nos. 2-5 (also from Mrs. Worby)

HADAS Farm Survey

By Rosalind Batchelor.

The Industrial Archaeology Group is at present concentrating on a survey of farm buildings in the Borough of Barnet. The main aim of the project is to identify, visit and record farms which are still active, although buildings known once to have been farms but now serving some other purpose have also been included.

Research suggests that there are at least 20 working farms in Barnet today. In addition there are many riding stables, plant nurseries and golf clubs which occupy old farm buildings. Most of these are to be found, not surprisingly, in the “green belt” of the Borough, near High Barnet, Totteridge and Mill Hill. Tithe Award Maps of 1843 indicate that farms were spread fairly evenly throughout the Borough; many which were in built-up areas have now disappeared without trace.

It is hoped to visit each farm and record systematically with sketch plans and photographs the layout of the farm and design of its buildings, together with any information about its activities, past and present.

So far progress has been rather slow, especially as nearly all the members of the group also working on the Historic Buildings Survey. However, it is hoped that visits to farms can begin in earnest in the autumn. Anyone interested in helping will be most welcome. The only requirements are a pencil and camera, a knowledge of shutting gates and a lack of fear of cows, horses and mud!

Contact Rosalind Batchelor or Alec Jeakins.

Paid Your Subscription Yet?

The Hon. Treasurer would be happy to receive any outstanding subscriptions for the current year, which began 1 April 1974. Rates:

Full membership – £1.00

Under 18 – 65p

Senior Citizen – 75p
Subscriptions should be sent to Jeremy Clynes.

New members

The ramifications of HADAS have taken an international turn recently. Last week a South African, Mrs. Lucy Waldbaum, who last autumn spent a morning on the Church Terrace dig and at Church Farm House Museum, wrote from Johannesburg to say she and ten members of her local archaeological society were coming here in October and that Hendon and the Museum were a “must” on their programme. The Borough Librarian has kindly agreed to open the Museum specially one Sunday morning for their visit.

The same week a letter arrived from St. Lucia, West Indies, from an 81 year old gentleman, born in Hendon, who wants to join HADAS. He had seen the catalogue of Archaeology in the Borough exhibition. “I am familiar with the terrain you are excavating”, he wrote, “and lived for some years near the parish church. Since living in the West Indies, I have developed an interest in archaeology and history and helped to establish a local society, of which I’m now President. Of course our field here is very different from yours, as we deal mainly with Amerindian remains.”

Naturally we’re delighted to have a member from so far afield. Meantime, since we last welcome new members in the May newsletter, 32 new colleagues have enrolled. We would like to wish them real enjoyment in the various activities of our Society. They come from all parts of the Borough and outside it: Edgware, East Barnet, Hendon, Finchley, Cricklewood, Friern Barnet, Colindale, Golders Green, Garden Suburb, North Finchley, Totteridge, Mill Hill, Highgate and Chiswick.

Newsletter

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Programme for next winter

The Programme Committee has recently been hard at work arranging a varied series of lectures for 1974-5. All meetings (except the Christmas party) will be at Central Library, The Burroughs, NW4, on the first Tuesday of the month, starting at 8.00p.m. Coffee first, followed by the lecture.

The first meeting is on Tuesday 1 October, when HADAS will play host to the Camden History Society. A number of Camden History members hope to attend, so if you find an “unknown” sitting beside you, do making him — or her — welcome.

Camden have asked us to demonstrate what a local archaeological society like HADAS does, so we shall provide a cross-section of our outdoor activities. If you are a new HADAS member, this meeting will fill in the scene for you, too; while for members of longer standing, trying to keep in touch with the many-sided activities of our Society today, this is also your chance!

Ted Sammes will talk about the Church End excavation, Paddy Musgrove will discuss intricacies of hedgerow dating and Percy Reboul will describe the fascinations of churchyard surveys. All with slides.

And, for your diary, this is the rest of the 1974-5 programme:

Tuesday Nov. 5 – Mycenae – Capital City of the ancient Greeks – Portia Wakllace Zeuner, F.R.A.I.

Friday Dec. 6 – Christmas Party, 166 Station Road, NW4. Starts 7.30 p.m.

Tuesday Jan. 7 – Mucking, Essex, Crop-mark Sites – M. U. and W. T. Jones

Tuesday Feb. 4 – The Lunt Roman Fort, Warwicks – Excavation and reconstruction – Brian Hobley

Tuesday March 4 – Medieval Jewellery and Pottery – John Cherry

Tuesday April 1 – Are We Fair to Neanderthal Man? – Desmond Collins
Final Summer Outing

This will be on Saturday 14 September, with visits to Wormleighton deserted medieval village, Compton Wyngates and the Rollright Stones.

Very few places are left, so apply quickly. Will members who have booked verbally please complete the enclosed booking form and send immediately, with remittance, to Dorothy Newbury.

Operation Tombola

At this year’s Christmas party we hope to raise funds for the Society by running a Tombola. Dorothy Newbury, the tombola past-master, will be in charge.

Will members prepared to help please start now collecting small eye-catching objects? Every tombola ticket draws something, so we need a lot of prizes. Mrs. Newbury will welcome tombola gifts at the October and November meetings.

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Study of “An Hedgesyde”

A note by Paddy Musgrove.

The Battle of Barnet was fought on Easter Day, 1471: “upon Gladmore Heath , halfe a mile from Barnet”. We are told this by John Weever, in 1631. Other writers, including Sir John Paston, have confirmed the exact distance. And Sir John was in a position to know. He had taken part in the battle and was writing to his mother only four days later. We may therefore assume that the Medieval Manor House of Old Fold — the moated site of which is now the eighteenth green of Old Fold Manor Golf Club — was in the middle of that bloody and fluid battle.

Edward Walford (Greater London, 1882) tells us that some of Warwick the Kingmaker’s men are said to have sheltered in the building on the previous night. Whether this is true or not, we know, from the official Yorkist account (the Historie of the Arrivall of Edward IV), written within six weeks of the Battle, that when Edward had reached Barnet on the evening of April 13th he found “under an hedgesyde were redy assembled a great people, in array, of th’Erle of Warwike”.

Local tradition has it that this hedge still exists on the golf course and that it follows the line of a public right-of-way running NW to the present St. Albans Road from the footpath guide post at TQ 2412 9771.

In order to establish if this particular hedgerow could possibly have been in existence 500 years ago, Mrs. Isabelle Cruickshank and I recently carried out a survey, based on the methods evolved by Dr Max Hooper and described in the March, 1974, Newsletter.

Going NW from the guide-post, we found that the first 110 yards of the hedge was sparse and seems to have been recently planted or re-planted, as it consisted almost entirely of young oaks. From point 2405 9778 on, three consecutive 30 yard stretches were examined.

A section contained 5 different species. Common Hawthorn, Midland Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Pedunculate Oak were present in all three. In addition, the first section contained Field Maple, while the second and third both contained Ash. There were also many Hawthorn hybrids in all three sections. The presence of Midland Hawthorn (Crataegus laevigata) in this area could in itself suggest antiquity.

At one point, where the hedge widened out into a spinney, 4 additional species were found, namely Sycamore, Crack Willow, Wild Plum and Silver Birch. This area may have been separately planted as a copse and therefore was ignored for statistical purposes. Only species directly on the hedge-line were considered and consequently our dating is likely to be conservative. Our conclusions were:

1. On the basis of Dr. Hooper’s equation, the median date of hedge-planting is the late fourteenth century.

2. The hedge is likely to have been well-established at the time of the Battle of Barnet.

3. It is possible that local tradition just come to be correct.

Semi-Detached Suburbia

Report by Celia Gould.

On August 17th a small but dedicated HADAS band, led by Alec Jeakins, met to trace the growth of Edgware over the last of century. Despite the arrival of a single-track GNR line from Finsbury Park in 1867 (long since disused) and trams from Cricklewood in 1904, major development in Edgware can really be dated to the opening of the extension of the Northern Line tube from Golders Green, exactly 50 years ago — in August, 1924. Between 1921-31 the population rose from 1576 to 17500.

If one man could truly lay claim to having been the “architect” of the present-day Edgware, it is George Cross, an ambitious young estate agent who sensed that the area was ripe for development as early as 1910. Expansion quickened dramatically with the arrival of the tube. In 1926 Cross, in conjunction with the architect A. J. Butcher, developed 85 acres of the Canons Park Estate, where houses, expensive for their day, ranged from £1500 to £3500. In the eighteenth century this estate had belonged to the Duke of Chandos. The pillars of his ducal gateway still survive, and on the site of his huge mansion, built in 1712 at a cost of £250,000 and demolished some 40 years later, now stands the North London Collegiate School.

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Next we visited the baroque church of St. Lawrence, where we saw the Duke’s pew, the Chandos Mausoleum, and the organ played by Handel when he was the Duke’s “chapel-master” at Canons.

We looked too at Cross’s “Premier Parade” of shops, dating from 1924; and at the Edgware Manor Estate, also developed by Cross in the 1920s. Finally, on the corner of Hale Lane and Broadfield Avenue, we saw a “modern” house, dated 1934 and originally refused planning permission because it was “too violent a contrast with the adjacent property”!

All thanks to Alec Jeakins for arranging this outing and opening our eyes to the finer points of suburbia.

RECOMMENDED READING: Suffolk Punch by George Cross: Semi-Detached London by Alec Jackson.

Book-list for the Medieval Period

Drawn up by Edward Sammes.

This list is a follow-up to that on Roman Pottery in Newsletter 42. The Medieval and post-Medieval periods were somewhat neglected until after the last war – the first A.G.M. of the Society for Medieval Archaeology, for instance, was only held in December 1957. Much material is also reported in the publications of the County and local Societies. The list below covers many aspects of the period; regrettably there are few low-priced books o the subject.

General

MEDIEVAL POTTERY OF THE OXFORD REGION, David A. Hinton, Ashmolean Museum, 1973, 21p. Small booklet illustrating 19 typical, fine pieces from 11th-15th century. Short paragraph describes each illustration.

MEDIEVAL ENGLISH POTTERY, Bernard Rackham, 2nd edit, revised J. G. Hurst, Faber, 1972, £6.50. Deals with the full pottery range of the period, well backed up with 96 full-page photos and 8 colour plates. Regrettably there are no drawings of pots nor is the humble cooking pot in much evidence.

MEDIEVAL TILES, Elizabeth S. Eames, British Museum, 1968. Price when published, 9s 6d. Comprehensive booklet on the decorated tile and on the use of shaped tiles to produce a mosaic.

(1) ANGLO-SAXON PENNIES and (2) VIKING COINS OF THE DANELAW. Both by Michael Dolley, British Museum, 1964/5, 25p each.

MEDIEVAL CATALOGUE, H.M.S.O. 1967, £3.15, by post £3.42. Gives details and illustrations of objects of everyday life in the Middle Ages from combs to cooking pots. Re-issue of an original printed in 1940.

MAP OF BRITAIN IN THE DARK AGES, pub. by the Ordnance Survey, 1966, 87 1/2p. Has an introductory text, an index of Dark Age sites and a map showing their location.

DESERTED MEDIEVAL VILLAGES, studies editted by M. Beresford and J. G. Hurst, Lutterworth Press, 1971, £8.00. Comprehensive survey with good diagrams, photos and an extensive bibliography.

Of Local Interest

MEDIEVAL ARCHAEOLOGY, Vol 5, 1961, The Kitchen Area of Northolt Manor, Middx. J. G. Hurst. Comprehensive report of 89 pages with good drawings of everyday wares of the period. This is our nearest well-documented site.

MEDIEVAL LONDON, Timothy Baker, Cassell, 1970, £2,75. General background to Medieval London and its surviving remains.

CHAUCER’S LONDON, Brian Spencer, London Museum, 1972. 30p. Originally produced for the exhibition of Medieval London, this is a good guide and introduction to the present Medieval Gallery.

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POTTERS AND KILNS IN MEDIEVAL HERTFORDSHIRE, Derek F. Benn, pub. by Herts Local History Council, 1964, price then 4s. A list of Herts kilns then known, with drawings; includes the 13th century Arkley kiln.

Mrs. M. Herbert

Members will be saddened to learn of the death of Mrs. M. Herbert, one of the founder members of HADAS. She had been unable for to join in the Society’s more active pursuits but she maintained her interest in Hendon history, enjoyed lectures and always came to exhibitions at Church Farm House Museum.

Her son, sorting her papers, found a HADAS Newsletter in which the Hon. Treasurer had appealed for trading stamps; alongside were some six books and two boxes of stamps. Dr Herbert kindly sent them to us, saying he felt sure his Mother had been collecting for HADAS. We hope to use the stamps to provide tools or a measuring tape for excavations, in which Mrs. Herbert took a lively interest.

Local Courses

Come September we usually give brief details of some of the many courses starting locally this autumn.

DIPLOMA IN ARCHAEOLOGY. First and second year courses at Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute. No local third or fourth year courses.

CERTIFICATE IN FIELD ARCHAEOLOGY. No local first or second year courses, but there is third year course at Barnet College.

DIPLOMA IN LOCAL HISTORY. No local courses.

TUTORIAL CLASSES in Greek and Roman Archaeology in Barnet, Friern Barnet, Golders Green and Hendon. The Hendon course continues the class HADAS helped to start four years ago. New members can be accepted.

TUTORIAL CLASSES on the Victorians and the History of London in East Barnet, Edgware, Friern Barnet; at H.G.S. Institute — two HADAS members will be lecturing – Stella Colwell on Genealogy and Palaeograophy and Philippa Bernard on Elizabethan England.

Further details of all classes from the Hon. Secretary.

Perhaps it’s appropriate to record here that we know of 7 HADAS members who hold the Diploma In Archaeology — there may be others. At least 14 members have done part of the Diploma. The Certificate has not been existence long enough for HADAS to notch up any holders: but at least one member is about to start his final year. Two HADAS members hold the Diploma in Local History.

Processing Finds

Finally, news of a short, non-local course: this is a “teaching exercise” organised by Harvey Sheldon on Monday evenings for five or six weeks starting in September, on the processing of finds from the initial stages onwards. The material used, mainly Roman, will come from digs in Southwark and at Old Ford.

The course will take place in the Southwark Archaeological Excavation Committee’s Warehouse beside the London Bridge. For precise date and time of starting, please ring now. Mr Sheldon asks us to say that HADAS members will be particularly welcome.

Another Cordial Invitation

This comes to HADAS members from the Railway and Canal Historical Society — to a lecture on Benjamin Outram, civil engineer. To be held at the Science Museum, South Kensington, at 5.00 p.m. on Saturday 5 October. Admission free, but by ticket, obtainable from Mr A. Roose.

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Thanking all diggers

As this Newsletter goes to press, the Society’s dig at Church Terrace comes to an end. It is the longest dig that HADAS has ever undertaken. Our first dig, in the 1960s (at Church End Farm, on the west side of Church End) went on for several seasons, but each season consisted only of a brief spell of summer work.

At Church Terrace we began on 26 May 1973, and continued every weekend and on many Wednesdays until the end of July 1974. In all, some 85 members worked on the site at one time or another — many, of course, only occasionally, but the figure of 85 is worth noting. It shows that more than 1/3 of are membership is prepared to participate to some extent in excavation.

Director Ted Sammes sends the Newsletter these comments on the dig:

“Now that the Church Terrace excavations have finished, it is appropriate for me to thank all the many helpers who have given their time, labour and thought at weekends and on Wednesdays in all weathers during the past year.

The spectrum of material recovered is very wide, ranging from a small scatter of Roman sherds through late Saxon up to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Of all the material found, the Saxon grass-tempered ware is possibly the most exciting, as is also the double-spiral-headed bronze pin. Some 18 examples of this are at present known in the country. Their distribution stretches from the Wash in a south-westerly direction. Dating of these pins is at present in dispute, but they could belong to the earlier periods of our site.”

Statistical footnote

Anyone who saw the Church Terrace site will remember the whale-backed spoil-heap, ribboned with planks to take the barrows, which grew steadily in the centre of the site until two months ago.

The Council — who kindly agreed that the contractors should back-fill the spoil heap for us — estimated this to be 18 cubic metres in size. However, when the contractors came to move it they found it was in fact over 200 cubic yards — a surprising statistic when you recall that every inch of that heap was built up by HADAS enthusiasts wielding only trowel, shovel, bucket and barrow.

Pottery Processing

Just as night follows day, so processing of finds follows a successful dig.

Thanks to the kind co-operation of the Borough Architect and the Borough Estates Department, we have secured part of the old United Dairies premises at Church End, Hendon, for use as a processing workshop. This is the area immediately behind the present PDSA shop on the corner of Church Road and Church Terrace.

Here pottery sorting, washing and marking will continue. It is hoped to start the workshop in the weekend of August 10-11. Members prepared to help can obtain further details nearer the time from Paddy Musgrove.

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Future Digging

As mentioned in Newsletter No. 40, HADAS applied for other sites in the Church End Hendon development. The Borough has now kindly confirmed that next site will be in the area bounded on one side by Church Road and on two others by a Fuller Street and Sunny Gardens Road. The huts have already been moved to the new site.

It is hoped to grid the area in the weekend of August 31st/September 1st, and then to take out a preliminary trial trench across the site. Further work will depend on what evidence this trial trench produces.

Members who wish to help on the new site — which will be called Fuller Street — are asked to get in touch nearer the time with the Hon. Secretary, who will have more precise details.

Visit to Danebury and Rockbourne

A report by Eric Grant on the July 13th outing.

With the rain running down our necks and our feet dissolving into the Danebury turf, the question I wanted to ask our excellent site-guide was how the Iron Age inhabitants of Danebury survived the British climate in their timber and thatch huts whose traces are being found within the hill-fort. Perhaps they were better prepared than we imagine, for evidence from the excavations (which started in 1969) points to a civilised people living in ordered streets of dwellings and possessing the engineering ability to plan and construct the massive defences that still dominate the site.

The inner earthwork stands 3.5 metres high and encloses an area of 5.25 hectares (13 acres); its main feature of interest is the massive main gateway, guarded by an elaborate series of hornworks. The outer main gate shows a similar defence pattern. Thousands of beach pebbles were found by the excavators, representing the ammunition used by defending slingsmen.

The main period of construction of the fort was the second and first century BC, suggesting defence against other Iron Age peoples. A first century AD rebuilding of the main gate may well have been a hasty preparation against the Romans. Excavation within the Fort has shown a dense and complex pattern of streets, dwellings and pits, neatly picked out on the solid chalk sub-surface. Small finds included pottery, weaving equipment, iron currency bars and a Celtic gold stater.

The unrelenting rain drove us into Salisbury for lunch, and some of the more energetic members managed to “do” the town in less than an hour. Rockbourne Roman Villa was next stop, and to remind us of the Mediterranean culture we were examining, the sun shone forth with welcome brightness. Our west country guide led us in unhurried fashion through the temporal and spatial development of this large villa, accidentally discovered in 1943 and excavated since then by the late A. T. Morley Hewitt.

The villa was occupied from the 1st to the 5th centuries AD and consisted of several wings arranged round a courtyard. 73 rooms have so far been discovered (not all are exposed to view). Several had heating systems and a few had somewhat uninspiring mosaic floors. A vast collection of finds is displayed in the adjoining Museum, along with a notice advertising “Roman Coins for sale”.

After an excellent tea at Fordingbridge, a short debate resolved that we were too late to visit Oakley Down Barrow cemetery, but we were compensated with an unscheduled visit to Breamore Saxon Church, Where Ted Sammes’ careful guidance made us oblivious of the heavy rain.

On our return journey through the incipient industrial archaeology of the unfinished M3 we thanked Ann and Colin Evans for the thorough but unobtrusive organisation of the programme, while Dorothy Newbury, tireless as always, was again able to improve the Society’s funds by means of an impromptu raffle.

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A date for your diary in SEMI DETACHED EDGWARE

Alec Jeakins will lead a walk around this area on Saturday 17 August. Meet in the forecourt of Edgware Underground Station at 2.30p.m.

The itinerary will be based on a walk organised by the Victorian Society last April. It will consist of a tour of various types of suburban development – Canons Park, Edgware Manor Estate and the shops, offices, etc., that make up this 50-year-old suburb.

The walk will take about two hours. Tea is available in a cafe in the station forecourt. It will greatly help Alec to know roughly how many people to expect — so if you intend to join the walk, please ring him beforehand.

Building Survey

The HADAS buildings survey mentioned in Newsletter No. 41 is now under way in. 23 members are working on it. The Borough has been divided into eighteen areas, with one or two members responsible for studying each area and recommending to the main Committee possible buildings which should be listed.

It is hoped to complete the survey during the next three months. Then HADAS will forward suggestions for extra buildings for Listing to the Borough, to coincide with the Department of the Environment’s periodic up-dating of the Buildings List for Barnet.

One of the members who responded to our invitation to suggest buildings for listing writes: “There is a house which I have viewed with an anxious eye for several years now. It is either eighteenth or nineteenth century, shabby but interesting. It stands slightly back from the High Road a little way past Totteridge Lane, on the left going towards Barnet. There are trees in front screening it from the road. It is double-fronted with a portico, and is one of the very few houses left along that road of historical interest. Of course it may already be Listed. I hope so.”

The building is, in fact, Listed — it is The Limes, 1339 High Road, described in the List as “2-storey brown brick with red dressings, mid-eighteenth century. Porch with a pair of Greek Doric columns, fluted. The low fanlight with pointed in Gothic motif. Tile roof”.

If any member knows about the historical associations of The Limes, the Hon. Secretary would be very grateful for information. The present condition of the building has been a matter for worry for some time, and the Finchley Society has been keeping a special eye on it. We understand from them that there is to be an Enquiry into plans for its future early in September, and any details about past links with local families or notables would therefore be valuable.

And by the way — although 23 HADAS members are already working on the building survey, there is still room for more volunteers — and for more information about specific buildings which you think should be investigated. Suggestions or offers of help please to our Hon. Secretary.

A book-list for Roman Pottery

The weekend “work-ins” which HADAS has organised during the last few years on the finds from the early digs at Brockley Hill suggest that members interested in Roman Pottery might well find it useful to have a brief bibliography on the subject.

The following list is far from exhaustive, but it may serve as a starting point for those who want to go more deeply into this particular aspect of archaeology.

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GENERAL

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF ROMAN BRITAIN, R. G. Collingwood and Ian Richmond, revised edition, 1969, Methuen, £5.00.

This contains a rather general account of Roman Coarse Pottery and a chapter by B. R. Hartley on Samian Ware or Terra Sigillata”. This reassessment of Samian is particularly important, so much so that the chapter has also been published as a separate pamphlet by the Herts Archaeological Society (price £0.30).

STRUCTURE OF ROMANO-BRITISH POTTERY KILNS — CBA Research Report 5

ROMANO-BRITISH COARSE POTTERY — a student’s guide, CBA Research Report 6

These two booklets on unfortunately out of print. They can sometimes be found in libraries or picked up second-hand. Report 6 contains particularly useful glossaries of general terms used in pottery description, specific terms for types of fabric, names of classes of vessels and manufacturing techniques, and a list of stratified groups from British sites which are reliable for dating purposes. When in print No. 5 costs £0.15, No. 6 £0.28.

CURRENT RESEARCH IN A ROMANO-BRITISH COARSE POTTERY CBA Research Report No. 10 pub. 1973, £4.00.

The most recent symposium of current knowledge on coarse pottery, and a “must” for any serious student. Of particular value Mrs. K. Hartley’s paper on the distribution of mortaria, D. P. S. Peacock’s and R. A. H. Farrar’s papers on black-burnished wares, Christopher Young on the Oxford Potteries and Vivien Swan’s reassessment of New Forest wares. From the Council for British Archaeology, 8, St. Andrew’s Place, NW1.

TYPES OF ROMAN COARSE POTTERY VESSELS IN NORTH BRITAIN by J. P. Gwilliam, originally published in Arch. Aeliana XXXV (1957), and reissued as a booklet in 1968 at 7/6d, obtainable from Oriel Press, 27, Risley Place, Newcastle upon Tyne.

ARRRETINE AND SAMIAN POTTERY by Catherine Johns, British Museum booklet, pub. 1971, price 40p.

Of Local Interest

The only known Roman kiln-site in the Borough of Barnet is at Brockley Hill. Material on this site has been published in:

TRANS. LONDON & MIDDX. ARCH. SOCIETY, 1938 (trial dig), 1948, 1949 (brief reference), 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956 and 1972. All except the last part out of print, although rare copies do become available. Information about copies of the Transactions and off-prints are attainable from Messrs. Phillimore, Shopwyke Hall, Chichester. 1938-56 concern the early digs and the Moxom Collection; 1972 deals with the 1970 excavations.

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL, VOL. 129 (1972), a Kiln of the Potter Doinus (1971 excavation) by S. A. Castle. Off-prints from this Journal, when available, obtainable from Miss W. E. Franklin, MBE.

LONDON ARCHAEOLOGIST, Vol. 2 Nos. 2 and 4, Trial Excavations (1972) in field 410, Brockley Hill, by S. A. Castle. Back copies obtainable from Sally Petchey, at 15p.

Also of local interest are reports on the Highgate Wood kiln-site digs. These are published in London Archaeologist, Spring 1969, Summer 1970 (vol. 1 No. 7), Winter 1971 (Vol. 1 No. 13).

Local History Archives, London Borough of Barnet

The Local History Collection, which took temporary refuge at Burnt Oak Library during the rebuilding of Central library, has now returned to occupy the first floor of the Hendon Catholic Social Centre, Egerton Gardens, NW4. All the Hendon local history material is there; but for the time being Finchley material remains at Finchley Central Library. A little Barnet material is at Chipping Barnet Library, but the main of material for Barnet stays at Herts County Record Office, County Hall, Hertford.

Members who wish to consult archives at Egerton Gardens are asked first to ring the Reference Library for an appointment.

Newsletter

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The buildings of Barnet

Next year will be European Architectural Heritage year. Perhaps you haven’t met that title before — but it is likely to become familiar between now and the end of 1975: all sorts of conservation and preservation schemes are being undertaken in connection with it.

A new HADAS project which starts this month — a survey of the buildings of the Borough of Barnet — was not, oddly enough, originally intended as our contribution to our Architectural Heritage Year, but it may well serve as such. What sparked off the HADAS survey was the information that the Borough’s statutory list of buildings of architectural and historic interest was about to have its periodic overhaul. We felt that was a proper moment to put forward recommendations for new inclusions in the List.

What precisely is the statutory List?

There are two kinds of protection for architectural and historic past, Scheduling and Listing. In this month’s issue of “Current Archaeology” one of our own Vice-Presidents, Andrew Saunders, (Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings at the Department of the Environment), explains the difference between them:

“Monuments of all periods and types, provided they are not churches in ecclesiastical use or buildings which are inhabited, and whose preservation is of national importance, are SCHEDULED under the Ancient Monuments Acts. Buildings of architectural and historic interest, whether inhabited or not, are LISTED and graded according to their importance. The distinction between scheduling and listing lies in the fact that decisions in respect of scheduled monuments are the direct responsibility of the Secretary of State; in the case of listed buildings where responsibility lies with the local authority.”

In fact, as with most things, it seems to boil down to a matter of money. The Secretary of State for the Environment pays compensation to the owner of a scheduled monument; the local authority pays compensation for a listed building.

Scheduled monuments in the borough of Barnet are rare: HADAS knows of only one, a field at Brockley Hill known to be the site of a number of Roman Pottery kilns.

At the end of 1973 the List of buildings for L.B.B. (originally drawn up in 1948, but often added to and subtract from since) contained twelve churches (no grading); one building in Grade I, and 171 buildings or groups in Grade II, of which 84 are in Hampstead Garden Suburb, as is the Grade I building, Sir Edwin Lutyen’s Institute.

There used to be, until a few years ago, a Supplement to the List, containing buildings of Grade III. Then Grade III was abolished. Some of its buildings have since been up-graded to II — like the late eighteenth century house called Whalebones in Wood Street, Barnet and Rosebank, once a Quaker Meeting House, on the Ridgeway at Mill Hill. The remaining former Grade III billings — 62 of them — now have no protection, and should clearly form one starting point for the HADAS survey.

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It may well be that other buildings which have never been on any list should now be considered. Members have already suggested, for instance, the Stonegrove Almshouses, the North Middlesex Golf clubhouse in Friern Barnet Lane, College Farm Finchley and Vine Cottage, Cricklewood Lane. If you have any pet building which you would like to see listed, please let us know. Mr Saunders points out that where nineteenth century buildings are concerned there must be some selection, and even more so with 20th century buildings; but he adds “virtually every building of the eighteenth century or earlier will be listed in one grade or another”.

It is hoped a team of about 30 members will undertake the survey, each of whom will look at the buildings in a specific bit of the Borough, preferably near his (or her) own home.

To start things off, a meeting will be held on 9 July (by kind invitation of Mrs. Freda Wilkinson). At this the project will be generally discussed; street maps of the various areas will be available, together with details of Listed buildings and of buildings which used to be on the Supplementary List. If you would like to attend, please let us Secretary know — you will be very welcome. Volunteers are needed for all parts of the borough; and particularly for Friern Barnet, East and New Barnet, Wood Street, Rowley and Arkley and Brockley Hill.

July, outing — a trip into Prehistory

For next outing on Saturday July 13th Colin and Ann Evans have arranged a trip to one of the most significant digs of recent years — Danebury Iron Age hill-fort, where excavation is under the direction of Professor Barry Cunliffe. Also on the programme is a visit to Rockbourne Roman Villa near Fordingbridge.

An application form is enclosed — please return it as soon as possible to Dorothy Newbury. Prompt confirmation of verbal bookings, with remittance, will be appreciated.

Industrial Archaeology

Two dates for the diaries of those members who are interested in this subject.

On Friday 19 July, there will be a meeting of the HADAS Industrial Archaeology Group at 8.00 p.m. at 166 Station Road, NW4. Members already working with the group or those who have not yet taken the plunge but would like to do so will be equally welcome. It will be much appreciated if those members who are going to attend would let Alec Jeakins know beforehand.

Until 22 September next there is an exhibition of Early Railway Prints from the collection of M. G. Powell at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Weekdays 10.00-6.00p.m., Sundays 2.30-6 p.m.

And so to Bath

A report of the HADAS June outing by Nell Penny.

I should have read more about Roman Britain and the decline of the empire before writing this report of the Society’s trip to Bath on June 15. It seems incredible that knowledge of a large Roman settlement should have disappeared almost until 1871. In the fifth century the Avon flooded in spectacular fashion, depositing fifteen feet of alluvium on the abandoned Roman bath houses. Saxon and Medieval inhabitants built unwittingly above an elaboration of conduits, baths and hypocausts, which had been constructed to use the hot water of a spring gushing at 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

In the middle ages, Bath had some reputation as a mineral spa, but its real flowering was in the 18th century. Beau Nash organised a social framework for the visitors; Ralph Allen ran a postal service and developed the quarrying of Bath stone; and the great architects Woods, father and son, designed streets like the Royal Crescent which made Bath a social centre second only to London.

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Ted Sammes conducted a “walkabout” for us from the coach park. Our pleasure in this civilised way of seeing the city was increased by his tactful use of his wide knowledge. We were left to see what we wished of the “all of a piece” Perpendicular architecture of the Abbey. I enjoyed the propriety of the 18th century wall inscriptions, such as the tribute to Alicia, Countess of Errol “in whom was combined every virtue that could adorn human nature” and a rare tribute to a “matchless mother-in-law”.

Then the official guide led us round the excavated parts of the Roman baths and we saw the Museum of Roman finds. There was time to admire the Pump Room and – if we were brave enough – to taste the waters, before we walked on to the Assembly Rooms.

These Rooms raise the question of what part restoration should play in exploring the past. The rooms were left a shell by bomb damage in 1942. Today they are as brand new and as they were in 1771, but only the delicate crystal chandeliers are original. The clothes in the Museum of Costume are, however, original — and excellent examples of aristocratic dress since 1674. Each generation preserves only what it considers to be the best, but it would be interesting to see what the ordinary people wore — complete with smell and dirt.

After tea in immaculate eighteenth century surroundings we returned to the coach through Bath’s incomparable squares and streets. The lovely light of a summer afternoon helped us to appreciate the perfection of this piece of eighteenth century town planning. Classical archaeologists may feel frustrated about the Roman treasures buried under the later work, but the final impression must be that Bath belongs to the Woods and to Jane Austen’s heroines.

As the coach ate the homeward miles Dorothy Newbury organised a raffle. Even the 48 losers felt that our pleasure in the outing had been made possible by her tireless organisation and by Ted Sammes’ faultless and unobtrusive advance planning.

Forthcoming Exhibitions – Volunteers needed

At Finchley Carnival and Friern Barnet Summer Show this year HADAS will mount small exhibits to encourage interest in the Society. The theme will be the use of artefacts in archaeological dating.

Volunteers – who need not be archaeological experts — are needed to man the stalls. If you can spare an afternoon or an evening, please ring Paddy Musgrove. The days are July 11-12-13 for Finchley, August 16-17 for Friern Barnet.

Wanted – an old photograph

Has any HADAS member a photograph — or better still, a post card — showing Colindale Avenue in the days when it led up to the entrance gates of Hendon Airfield?

Clive Smith, who produced the photographic booklets on Golders Green, Mill Hill and Hendon which were mentioned in last Newsletter, is now working on a similar booklet about the aerodrome, but is having difficulty in finding a good early view of Colindale Avenue. Any reader who can help is asked to ring Mr Smith.

Bring round the milk

By Percy Reboul.

Daphne Lorimer’s article on dairy farming in Barnet was a timely reminder to me that archaeology is essentially about people. It also reminded me of what my father had told me of the time when, as a nine year old, he was a milk round boy with the A1 Dairies in Whetstone.

I thought his impressions of those times might interest other members; add a little to our knowledge of working people in Whetstone; and be a useful exercise in the dying art of precis!

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“We lived at 5 Clark’s Cottages, High Road, Whetstone, near the Black Bull pub. I started as a milk-delivery boy with the A1 Dairies in 1919. The job had to be done before school on weekdays and all day on Saturdays, Sundays and school holidays.

The dairy was owned by Mr de Rivas, and Teddy Parr ran the milk delivery side. John Green, who lived at Birley Road, was Rounds Manager; he was famous for the wonderful sheen on his brown boots — polished every day by his wife with Ronuk floor polish! The Dairy employed 4 hand and 3 horse-drawn floats, one of which was handled by my roundsman, Maurice Salter. The floats were made and liveried by Chandler’s of Lynton Road, East Barnet. Their colour scheme was red picked out in black and gold with gold lettering. An office and shop on the site was run by the Manageress, Miss Dench.

The farm stock comprised 8 horses, bought from a well-known local breeder, Tom Walls, and 30 cows, all of which were hand-milked twice a day. The cows were all grade A, that is, tuberculin tested — a rare thing then, as people were only just beginning to realise the importance of “clean” milk.

A TYPICAL DAY. I got up at 5.30 every day and was in the dairy 5.45 a.m. Maurice Salter arrived at 5.15 a.m. to bridle the horse and bring it to the loading bay. Our first job was to fill the quart, pint and half pint bottles from the churns, using a special ladle. Wax-card stoppers, with a punched disc in the middle, sealed each bottle. Bottles were then in their infancy and most milk was supplied to the customer in cans, which ranged from half pint to 2 quarts. The cans were stacked in a large box under the driver’s seat. We also filled 2d, 4d and 6d cartons of cream, allocated each day by Miss Dench. These went on the float with eggs, butter (by Salter and Stokes), cheap cooking margarine and Neville’s bread. At Christmas we also sold turkeys and chickens.

There were two deliveries every day, the first staring at 6.00 a.m. We served about 100 households around County Boundary, Station Road and New Barnet Station. Most customers had a “door book” which was filled in daily. Milk was then 3d a pint.

The first round finished at 8.15 a.m.; while the horse was being fed, we had our breakfast. By 9.30, the float was reloaded for the second delivery. This time, however, only churns were taken round and the milk measured into the customer’s own jugs. The bottles and cans from the first round were collected; second delivery finished about 2.30-3.00 p.m.

The worst part of the day now began – washing up. Boiling water was run from the boiler into large galvanised baths, ordinary washing soda added, and every bottle and can thoroughly hand-washed using a special bottle brush. A rinse in cold water and upside-down-to-dry completed the operation. Churns were washed with a special long handled brush, inverted and steam-sterilised from spouts leading off the boiler. Once a week all the brass on the churns was polished.

My pay was 4/6d a week, plus one pint of milk a day; the family couldn’t have made ends meet without it. During the holidays when I worked both rounds, the money increased to 6/- a week. Mr Salter and I had one week’s holiday a year; he must have worked a 72 hour week.

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS. In Winter, the floats were equipped with oil-filled lamps or candle lamps. Anticipating icy roads, the horses were fitted with special shoes by the Whetstone blacksmith, Mr. Baldwin. These shoes had two threaded holes into which “roughs” could go to stop slipping. When a new horse was employed, George Hart, the horse-keeper, accompanied us on the round till the horse was properly trained.

I well remember the disaster in 1922/3. In summer children from better-off homes used to visit the farm to watch the milking; afterwards they escorted the cows to their pasture at Brook Farm. This meant crossing the steam railway which ran through Totteridge to High Barnet. Two gates gave access to the line and a special signal showed when it was clear. Unfortunately a child opened the gates without checking the signal and 6 cows were killed by the train”