Newsletter

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October Lecture

The first lecture for Winter 1975/1976 will be on Tuesday 7 October. Mr Geoffrey Toms, M.A. from Attingham Park, Shropshire Adult Education College, and secretary of Shropshire Archaeological Society is coming to talk to us on Archaeology in that county and particularly Wroxeter. Many members will remember visiting the Roman Settlement there during our Shropshire weekend last October, and the first class talk and slides given by Mr Toms. He has been associated with the direction of the excavations over a number of years. This will be an excellent lecture — don’t miss it.

In AD 48, the line of advance of the 12th and 14th legions reached the River Severn, and a base camp from which to subdue the Welsh tribes was established. Viroconium, the civil settlement on the site, where Watling Street crosses the Severn, probably dates from AD 75. By the middle of the second century AD the city had become very prosperous and was the fourth largest in the country. Gradual decay from the second half of the third century led to final abandonment.
Location of Lectures

For the benefit of our many new members, lectures — usually accompanied by slides — are held on the first Tuesday of each month in the Winter (except December), at Hendon Library, The Burroughs, NW4 at 8.00p.m. We start with coffee and biscuits — £0.05. The lecture commences about 8.20 to 8.30. Members are welcome to bring friends for one lecture, but if they wish to come to subsequent lectures they should be encouraged to become members of the Society. Buses 83 and 143 pass the door, 113 and 240 pass a few minutes’ walk away, and Hendon Central Underground is ten minutes’ walk. Will new members please introduce themselves to any committee member present.
Beware the Treasure Hunters

By Paddy Musgrove.

Every archaeologist is on the lookout for chance finds. A scatter of gravel or sherds in a ploughed field can lead to the discovery of a Roman road or villa. Sometimes the articles found can have an intrinsic interest or value, such as the rare type of Neolithic jade axe, recently founded by a small boy in Hendon (July Newsletter), or the staggering horde of church silver found near Peterborough (Sunday Times, 14 September). Dated back to the third century, the latter is by far the earliest church plate found anywhere in the world, and it has been estimated that the lucky finder may collect £70,000 as an award for treasure trove.

The possibility of financial gain has swollen the numbers of amateur and professional “treasure hunters”, now with their own clubs, publications, and specialist dealers who promote the sale of metal detectors and other equipment. Regrettably one such dealer recently received favourable publicity in the Barnet Press. Although most supporters of treasure hunting profess high ethical standards of behaviour, this one had no such scruples. Claiming to have found “hundreds” of valuable items, some dating back to the first century, within a 10 mile radius of Potters Bar, he advocates research to establish the sites of old settlements. He then advises: “Once you find a good site, you don’t even tell your best friend where it is.”
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100,000 metal detectors are in use in this country, mostly in the hands of unskilled and irresponsible people. Their use on our beaches to find holiday-makers’ lost coins is a comparatively innocent occupation, although even here finds of archaeological importance have occurred, only a fraction of which can have been reported. The pillaging of protected sites has, however, reached such a stage that the government is considering raising the fine for such activities from £20 to £400. The usefulness of this can, however, be judged by the fact that although over 100 such sites have been damaged, in the past ten years there have been only half-a-dozen successful prosecutions. And what of the hundreds of thousands of sites which are not “protected” or even yet discovered?

Excavation of a site, whether by a skilled archaeologist or by a vandal with a metal detector, is an irrevocable act. The archaeologist, however, accumulates knowledge and publishes it. The treasure hunter destroys for ever the possibility of useful investigation. At best, he fails to record the actions he has taken; at worst, he conceals them.

Each of us can play an important part in ensuring that chance finds, however made, are properly noted and protected. By being known in our neighbourhoods as HADAS members, we may well be approached for identification of objects or for advice. Information so gained can then be passed on to the Society so that appropriate action can be taken.
The September Outing

A report by Ted Sammes.

There was good support for the last day-outing of the season which was to West Kent, and it was a pity that the organisers Ann and Colin Evans were prevented by other commitments from being present to enjoy the day.

We set off on a sunny morning and stopped for a coffee break at Badgers Mount. First visit to was to Knole, one of the largest private houses in England. It was begun by Thomas Bouchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1456, and was greatly extended about 1603 by Thomas Sackville in whose family it to remained until being given into the care of the National Trust.

The house has three courtyards and after passing these we entered the very impressive great hall. In the state rooms we saw a large collection of pictures, rare furniture, rugs and tapestries. The silver was possibly the greatest attraction, both where used to ornament firedogs and that in the Kings Room where the furniture was heavily covered with patterned silver.

Time was next allotted to eating our lunch, and for those of us who were elected for the fresh air we found that nice though the deer might look, they had very aggressive ways of getting fed!

The Roman Villa at Lullingstone was next stop, and after a few introductory remarks we were free to wander and look at the site and the exhibits. The fourth century mosaic pavements were very fine and an even better impression was gained of these and the villa as a whole when we climbed the stairs to the upper floor of the exhibition. The painting of the water nymphs in the deep room came in for some discussion, as also did the simple display of roofing (Imbrex and Tegula).

Our final visit was to Eynsford Castle, probably first built about 1088. Much of the massive curtain wall is still standing but in a very much heightened condition. In the centre we saw the remains of the undercrofts of the solar and great hall — a small and easily comprehended castle. Tea was provided in the village hall by the local Women’s Institute and consisted home-made fare — this was voted a winner. After tea some of the party visited the church, parts of which have Norman work but is more obviously 13th to 14th century. As we left the rain started, surely a day could not have been better timed?
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Down on the Farm

Shire Album 10: Old Farm Buildings, 32 pp booklet by Nigel Harvey, MA., ARICS., 45p.

Many members will have become familiar in recent years with Shire Publications “Discovering” series, particularly in their excellent Regional Archaeologies. What may not be so well known are the Shire “Albums”, devoted to topographical and rural themes and presented in a mixture of photos, prints, engravings and text. We are happy to say that the latest of these, No. 10 is by a HADAS member of long standing, Mr Nigel Harvey. It is on the subject of Old Farm Buildings, on which Mr Harvey is a considerable expert. His full-length History of Farm Buildings in England and Wales (published 1970) is already considered a standard work, and he was for many years advisor on farm buildings to the Ministry of Agriculture and then to the Agricultural Research Council.

His present booklet covers barns, granaries, cartsheds, cattle buildings and urban cowhouses, dairies, stables, piggeries, dovecots and oasthouses, finishing off with some notes on “how the farmhouse fitted together.” There is also a “further reading” list, and a list of places to visit to see old farm buildings at their best. The booklet is lavishly illustrated with photos of high quality and interesting prints. Altogether a good buy.

Some of the other Shire “Album” series might also interest members: Vintage Farm Machines; Fire-marks; Canals and Canal Architecture; Old Farm Tools; Old British Livestock; Bottles and Bottle Collecting; Haunted Houses; Canal Barges and Narrow Boats; and Pillow Lace and Bobbins.

Mr Harvey has kindly presented a copy of “Old Farm Buildings” to the HADAS book box, for which the Society is most grateful.
Type-fossil of the 1930s

What would you choose as the type-structure of the late 1930s — the sort of thing which, when an archaeologist of the future excavate a twentieth-century site, will make him pinpoint it with near certainty to the years 1938-41 in the same way that a prehistorian, coming upon a round barrow, begins at once to mutter “Early Bronze Age” and to discuss Beaker cultures?

HADAS’s experience this summer suggests that the Anderson shelter will be the characteristic building. Already it is starting to crop up surprisingly often as a “find”. In July we were invited to inspect a “structure” found in the front garden of a house in The Burroughs, NW4, by a patriotic citizen intent on putting her front garden down to cabbages. This proved to be a concrete rectangle, about 6 ft by 4 ft, with walls standing some 18 in. high, and sunk to a depth of 3 1/2 ft. below ground surface. The thing above everything else which gave it away, however, was the fluted surface of the exterior wall.

A few weeks later an excited resident of a house in Cotswold Gardens, NW2, telephoned to say that in the dry spell his sons, playing in the back garden, had warn both grass and away to such an extent that walls were appearing where once the grass had been. He started to describe the walls which sounded interesting until the adjective “fluted” again crept into the conversation — and then the measurements, material and wall-type all came together to produce another Anderson. We predict that this particular enquiry is going to crop up at regular intervals from now on.
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Woodlands Dig

The excavation commenced on Sunday 17 August, 2 three-metre square trenches been opened at right angles to the Golders Green Road. Both have produced dark gritty medieval pottery and a small piece of Surrey ware in trench 2. At a depth of 32-50 cms a compacted uneven road surface has been reached. This will be fully uncovered before going any deeper. Because of the limited number of diggers that can be accommodated, diggers are asked to ring Alec Jeakins beforehand. There will be no digging on Sunday 28 September.
Exhibition News

Newsletter 53 reported a forthcoming exhibition in which HADAS members are playing a large part — the Suburb Heritage exhibition to be mounted soon in Hampstead Garden Suburb in celebration of European Architectural Heritage Year.

This is just to remind members that the exhibition will take place at the Henrietta Barnett Junior School, Bigwood Road, NW11, from 27 October to 1 November. It will be open each weekday from 2 p.m. until 9.00p.m. and on Saturday, 1 November from 10.00a.m. to 9 p.m., and should be well worth a visit.

The main emphasis will be on the architecture of the Suburb, with displays of house plans by the early architects — and house plans at the turn-of-the-century were hand-coloured, meticulously drawn in great detail and altogether more interesting to look at house plans today. There will also be biographical material on architects such has Sir Raymond Unwin, the “father of town planning”, Sir Edwin Lutyens, acknowledged as the greatest English architect of this century, Baillie Scott, with his close links with the Arts and Crafts movement, and many others. The more general history of the early Suburb will also be shown, with information about the Suburb’s founder, Henrietta Barnett, and the circle of co-founders who helped her to launch the venture.

This autumn will also see a display by HADAS at the Turret Gallery, 37 Friern Barnet Road, N11. The gallery has been kindly lent to us by the Barnet Borough Arts Council, to which HADAS is affiliated. The gallery has an attractive shop front on Friern Barnet Road, and we plan to display archaeological material from various parts of the Borough in the windows. On Saturdays we hope to man the shop, so that inquirers will be able to come in and get any details they want about the Society. Helen Gordon and Paddy Musgrove will be organising this exhibition, and will be very glad to hear from any members who would like to help, either with setting up or with stewarding on Saturday mornings.
The American War of Independence

By Christine Arnott. In view of the bicentenary of the start of the American War of Independence (1775-1783), there is currently a fascinating and comprehensive exhibition at the British Museum. Maps, manuscripts, cartoons and prints combine to illustrate graphically the history of the war and the attitudes of contemporaries. The skirmish between Redcoats and Minutemen at Lexington in 1775 that sparked off of the rebellion, ended in a revolution. All this is covered by the exhibition in at the King’s Library at the British Museum. It is open until 11 November and I urge you to visit it. A fully illustrated catalogue is available, also facsimilies and slides.
Subscriptions Reminder

Our Treasurer asks all members who have not yet paid their 1975/6 subscriptions to do so at once. The rates for the year from 1 April are: full membership, £1; under 18, £0.65; senior citizen, £0.75. Subscriptions should be sent to Jeremy Clynes.
Assyrian Palace Reliefs

Members may be pleased to hear that the booklet on the Assyrian Palace reliefs —

NOTE: the rest of this paragraph disappears off the bottom of the page.

Newsletter

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The Winter Programme

At this time of year diaries come out and members begin to plan activities for the coming winter. To start with, therefore, here is a run-down on what he Programme Committee has in store for us all the first Tuesday evening of each month from October to April next:
Oct. 7 – Archaeology in Shropshire – Geoffrey Toms
including Wroxeter Roman site
Nov. 4 – World Archaeology – Dr. John Alexander
Jan. 6 – Napoleonic Defences – Andrew Saunders
and Martello Towers
Feb. 3 – Medieval York – P. V. Addyman
Mar. 2 – Vernacular Architecture – Joan Harding
Apr. 6 – There was no road to Petra – Betty Hellings-Jackson

A good and varied programme, we hope you will agree. It has been chosen with the particular aim of providing something for everyone, because in a Society as large as ours people have many diverse interests.

Meetings, which take place at Central Library, The Burroughs, NW4, will start at 8.00p.m. and the lecture will be preceded by coffee and biscuits. In addition to the above programme, there will be in December usual Christmas “happening” — details to be announced later.

As well as attending HADAS lectures, many members sign on for one or another of the courses in archaeology, local history or allied subjects which are provided by the University Extra-mural Department or WEAs in the area. Here are brief details of some of the courses available:

EXTERNAL DIPLOMA IN ARCHAEOLOGY (London University: 4 years). YEAR 1 (Archaeology of Palaeolothic and Mesolithic Man) — Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute, Wednesdays, 7.30-9.30p.m.; lecturer Desmond Collins. YEAR 2 (Archaeology of Western Asia), same Institute, same time, Thursdays, lecturer D. Price Williams. There are no local courses for the year 3 (Prehistoric Europe) and 4 (various options), but these can be taken centrally at the Institute of Archaeology or at other non-local centres.

CERTIFICATE IN FIELD ARCHAEOLOGY (London University: 3 years). No local courses; all 3 years can be taken further afield.

DIPLOMA IN LOCAL HISTORY (London University: 4 years). No local courses; can be taken centrally at Senate House, Malet Street, WC1.

TUTORIAL CLASSES: the following local courses start in either of the week of September 21st or 28th; evening courses at either 7.30 or 8.00p.m.; cost £3-4; lecturers various; most courses are of 24-28 meetings:
Peoples of the Old Testament – Barnet College, Monday evenings
Archaeology of Western Europe, 1000 BC-1000 AD – Camden Institute, Thursday evenings
Greek civilisation – QE Girls’ School Barnet, Tuesday evenings
Londinium and Roman Britain – Middlesex Poly, Hendon, Wednesday evenings
Aspects of the Greek Arts – Edgware library, Monday evenings
Romans in the West – Barnet WEA, Friday mornings
Romans in the West – Friern Barnet WEA, Thursday mornings
Life in Regency and Victorian England – Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute, Monday evenings
Legacy of the Anglo Saxons – H.G.S. Institute, Wednesday evenings
Late Victorian and Edwardian England – East Barnet Central library, Thursday evenings
The Victorians – Friern Barnet Library, Monday evenings
Victorian London – St. Margaret’s Parish Hall Edgware, Wednesday evenings

Further details of courses may be obtained from the Hon. Secretary.

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Summer Tailpiece

Having started with plans for the winter, we must now remind members that summer isn’t over yet. There are still two events to come in the 1975 summer programme.

On Saturday 13 September, the last one-day outing of the season will be to Knole and Lullingstone. The Roman Villa at Lullingstone will be well known to many HADAS members, but it is hoped that a fresh approach to the villa and its excavation will be provided, since our guide will be Lt. Col. G. W. Meates, who directed the original dig.

Knole House, a National Trust property, dates from 1456 in its earliest phase. It is set in fine parkland and the state rooms contain a large selection of seventeenth century furniture. An application form, which should be returned as soon as possible to Dorothy Newbury, is enclosed with this letter.

September 26-28 will see the Society taking coach for its second long weekend, this time at Hadrian’s Wall. Dorothy Newbury has filled all 48 available places at the moment, but sometimes there are cancellations. If any members would like to put their names on the waiting list, Dorothy will be delighted — she likes to have someone up her sleeve for an emergency.
Landscapes and Documents

By Colin Evans.

Recently, I was fortunate to attend an archaeological field surveying course tutored by Christopher Taylor of the Royal Commission for Historical Monuments. During the week, apart from providing a thorough grounding in basic surveying techniques and field archaeology, Chris took the opportunity of exposing us to his ideas and theories “total archaeology” (or “landscape history”). Using this technique, he feels that adequate interpretations of the sites may be made by competent field archaeologists who are “part geologist, geomorphologist, geographer, botanist, archaeologist, historian, archivist, architectural historian and much else,” and who also make themselves thoroughly familiar with all aspects of the sites. Such interpretations can either do away with the need for excavations altogether, or reduce excavation to a series of small incisive trenches designed to answer specific questions posed by the field archaeologist.

The result of a sunny secluded week of lectures, visits, surveying deserted villages and exposure to Chris’s forceful personality and logic was, for myself as least, complete conversion, and I now view with some suspicion those archaeologists who find it necessary to indulge in expensive open-area excavations of huge tracts of land, often in that process producing more questions than are answered.

The problem is that few of us, unless occupied with it full time, could hope to reach the required level of competency in all the stipulated fields. It is also doubtful if the technique of landscape history would be totally successful if applied to a multi-occupation site in a modern town centre.

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Chris Taylor set down his views in a paper presented to a conference of adult education tutors held in Bury St. Edmunds in May 1972, arranged in the hope of bringing to about closer co-operation between historians and archaeologists. This paper — “Total archaeology or studies in the history of landscape” — has been reprinted, with six others given at the conference, in a paperback called “Landscapes and Documents.”

The conference did not entirely achieve its aims, but the book must be judged successful. It contains some stimulating reading which, while keeping to the main topic of the interaction of archaeology and history, sheds light on such intricacies as assarted fields, “Hooper’s Hedgerow Hypothesis,” “Italian” Bradford and Shropshire plate railways. Many will find this book worthwhile, if slightly overpriced at £1.50.

“Landscapes and Documents,” edit. Alan Rogers and Trevor Rowley, is published by the Bedford Square Press for the Standing Conference for Local History.
Show Summer

By Jeremy Clynes. By mid-September HADAS will, in the space of three months, have mounted six exhibitions in different parts of the Borough — quite a record when you consider how much work and planning goes into even a small exhibition.

As well as taking our usual stalls at the 3-day Finchley Carnival and the 2-day Friern Barnet Summer Show, we accepted the offer of a “one-day stand” at Woodhouse School fete in July. As far as possible we tried to match our displays to each district: for instance, the survey of the Finchley Manor moat was shown at Finchley Carnival and the St. James’s dig provided the centrepiece at Friern Barnet Show.

The largest of the summer exhibitions is on now at Burnt Oak Library, where the Borough Librarian has kindly given our space and the use of some equipment for a Roman Edgware display. This was originally intended just for Edgware Week, but the Library has kindly agreed to let it stay up for three weeks until September 13th. All material shown was found locally — either at Brockley Hill, in the Pipers Green Lane cremation or during the HADAS dig at Thirleby Road a site only a stone’s throw away from the Library. Any member who missed the original Roman Hendon Exhibition in 1971, when the material was first shown, will find a visit now to Burnt Oak Library well worthwhile.

We shall also have a stall at Edgware Carnival on 30 August; and on 6 September we have been invited to mount a display at the Henry Burden Hall in Hendon. Anyone who would like to help with this last event is asked to get in touch with Dorothy Newbury.

As well as keeping news of HADAS activities in the public eye, these exhibitions have been financially rewarding. At the first three we sold £18 worth of publications and, directly or indirectly gained some 19 new members. That’s why a vote of thanks is due to all who have helped with planning and manning the shows and — and why we hope for more of this kind of activity.
Dig News

The dig at St. James the Great, Friern Barnet, is now closed and the trenches have been partially back-filled. On 7 September it is hoped to mount a small exhibit of maps, photographs and finds inside the Church for the information of parishioners. And Trewick will report further upon the results of the dig in a forthcoming Newsletter.

The dig on the Woodlands site (corner of Golders Green Road/North Circular) began on August 16th. Two trenches have been opened at right angles to Golders Green Road and slightly further north than the original trial trench cut by HADAS in 1968. Digging will continue every Sunday (not Saturdays) until further notice. Members who would like to dig are asked first to phone Alec Jeakins.

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Edgware in History

Part II of a “potted” history prepared for the Edgware Week programme.

Agriculture has, with communications, been a big factor in the history of Edgware. Though parts of the area may have been farmed in Iron Age and Roman times, the greater part of the parish was forested until the twelfth century. Between the 1100 and 1250 assarting — the reclamation of woodland — went on apace, so that a survey of 1277 gives these figures: the demesne lands of the manor contained 357 acres of arable, 6 1/2 acres of meadow and 90 acres of woodland. The remaining land, about 1084 acres, was farmed by smallholders.

Between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries the pattern of farming changed: by 1845 7% of land was arable, 86 1/2% was meadow or pasture and only 18 acres of woodland remained. By 1791, in fact, London was chiefly supplied with hay by the fields around Edgware, “so it was no uncommon thing to see 100 loads of hay go up to London on a market day and each team bring back a load of dung for dressing the land.”

Edgware apparently had no manor house. The farm at Edgwarebury seems to have served as centre of the manor, although the manor court was held at the George Inn (demolished 1931). Today Bury Farm (part seventeenth part eighteenth century building, with the nineteenth century additions) is one of the oldest and also one of the few Listed buildings in the district. It has connections with Dick Turpin — if you can describe stealing the silver, raping the farmer’s daughter and pouring boiling water over her father as “having connections.”

First mention of Edgware manor occurs in 1216, when Eleanor, Countess of Salisbury, is “to hold her manor of Edgware in peace.” Subsequently the estate passed through various hands, being finally granted to All Souls College in 1441, by whom it has been held ever since. From the thirteenth century the manor included the greater part of Edgware parish.

Edgware Boys, a separate manor, lay along the east boundary of Edgware in a long, narrow oval. It belonged to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, possibly as early as 1231, although the first mention of it as a separate manor is in 1397, when it consisted of 288 acres. The Knights held it until the Dissolution, since when it has had various owners. It, too, had no manor house; but the parish church of Edgware, St. Margaret’s, was in the gift of the Knights and then of the subsequent owners of Edgware Boys until 1926. The tower of St. Margaret’s is the oldest part — probably 15th century. The rest of the church was rebuilt in 1763 and 1845, with editions in 1927.

Only at the beginning (with the Roman Pottery kilns) and at the end does industry figure in Edgware’s history. In 1919 a firm of manufacturing engineers struck 2 million Mons stars and victory medals in Edgware, and during World War II 94 1/2 million metal parts of gas masks were made.

In 1607 Edgware had its own market, but this was discontinued by the 1790s. In 1810 lack of amusement for the inhabitants induced some local tradesmen to organise a fair in August. There were shows, booths, and stalls in Bakers Croft, a field north-east of Edgware bridge, and the Fair became an annual event until about 1855.

The Carnival which will form part of this year’s Edgware Week will therefore be in the historic tradition — though we doubt if it will include quite the same diversions as those that amused our forebears of 150 years ago: “wheeling barrows blindfolded for a new hat, jumping in sacks for a smock frock, grinning through horse collars for tobacco and climbing a lofty pole for a shoulder of mutton.”

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HADAS and the Mesolithic

By Daphne Lorimer.

In spring, 1973, HADAS member Alec Jeakins made an exciting surface find of a collection of flint blades on Hampstead Heath (for obvious reasons the precise locality must, at present, remain unpublished).

The blades were seen by Desmond Collins, whose recent lecture to the Society on Neanderthal Man many members will have heard. He cautiously (because of their relatively small number) expressed the opinion that the blades could possibly indicate the presence of a Mesolithic site — the first in this part of London.

In April this year HADAS approached Mr. Enderby, of the Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute, and Mr Collins with the suggestion that an excavation be mounted on the site, linked with a short course of six lectures at the Institute on the Mesolithic period. This suggestion was favourably received; Mr Collins agreed both to give the lectures and to act as Director of the dig, and Mr. Enderby arranged for London University Extra-mural Department to sponsor the lectures.

Next Ted Sammes obtained the agreement of the Director of the recently formed Inner London Archaeological Unit, John Hinchliffe, as the site was just within the territory in which his Unit operates. The final hurdle was to gain the consent of the GLC to a dig on one of their best-known public open spaces. This was obtained on June 19th, when the Area Manager, J. D. Hancock, agreed in principle to HADAS’s “exciting proposal for an archaeological dig” — always provided the diggers respected the nesting sites of the blackcap, which finds the area favourable as — we hope — did Mesolithic man.

This project breaks new ground (if you can bear the pun) for HADAS in more ways than one. It will be our first opportunity to undertake a prehistoric dig in our own area, while the combination of digging plus lecture course will provide each with an extra dimension. Both dig and course will take place next April and May, and more detailed arrangements will be announced later.
Current News From The Dig/Field Work Front

Next, news of a HADAS dig starting this month, in the garden of No. 1 Woodlands (OS grid ref TQ 241 885) on the East side of Golders Green Road at its junction with the North Circular.

This is a site on which HADAS had a brief weekend dig in October, 1968 when a single trench was cut. This produced a stretch of possible road metalling and a small amount of associated medieval pottery of mainly fourteenth century date. We shall now explore the area beyond the original trench.

Alec Jeakins will be in charge of the dig, which will start on the weekend of August 16th/17th and will continue at weekends thereafter. Members interested in taking part should get in touch either with Alec or with the Hon. Secretary for further details.

It was hoped to investigate two other sites on the north-south line of Golders Green Road/Brent Street at the same time as Woodlands: the Brent Bridge Hotel and the empty site beside the White Swan. Whether we shall be able to start these in mid-August also will depend on a whether demolition is complete at Brent Bridge and upon the outcome of negotiations for permission to dig at the White Swan.
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ST. JAMES THE GREAT, FRIERN BARNET. And Trewick reports that natural as been reached all over the excavated area. Back-filling is about to begin and should be completed by mid-August. A summary of the information uncovered on the site will appear in a later Newsletter.

PARISH BOUNDARY SURVEY. Christine Arnott and Paddy Musgrove report that this is continuing and new recruits are gradually being introduced. An account of the summer’s work will be given in an autumn Newsletter.
Norwich in July

As reported by Nell Penny.

The best comment I heard on the HADAS expedition to Norwich was that of a new member with whom I took tea. He said the “walkabout” had been so interesting that he was going back to the city for more.

We reached Norwich at noon on a pleasantly warm dry day. The ubiquitous car and coach park, until recently a cattle market, was on the site of the outer bailey of the Castle. Someone had to build a castle on the steep hill rising above the tidal River Wensum: it was the Normans who did it in 1130 and they threw up a motte for good measure. The facade of the Keep is very new looking. It was refaced between 1834-9, exactly copying the Norman original.

The Keep and new buildings in the inner bailey are the main city museum. I concentrated on the archaeological displays. There were introductory diorama: my ten year old granddaughter found them interesting. In one, Neolithic people were cooking and stretching hides against a backcloth of pleasant parkland in which mammoth and rhinoceri grazed peacefully. One case had real items and replicas from the Snettisham hoard of a metalsmith 2000 years ago. The discovery of this treasure in the 1950s by deep ploughing set every tractor driver in Norfolk looking for a similar lucky strike.

After lunch we divided ourselves between 2 guides provided by the Tourist Board. The guides are volunteers who attend winter lectures and take an examination. “B” party was led by an architect, employed by the city, so our tour had a pleasant flavour of “buildings for purposes.” We saw medieval and Tudor merchant houses. One with an arched gateway reminded us that wagons of cloth had rumbled through in the days of worsted making. Another was built in the fourteenth century of squared, or “knapped” flints. These are virtually indestructible and the walls have never needed repair. The last area of domestic architecture through which we walked was cobbled Elm Hill — a lovely hotch-potch of Tudor timber work and Georgian facades. The elm has been cured of Dutch elm disease by massive injections; the Briton’s Arms is being re-thatched with Broadland reeds.

Ecclesiastical Norwich has many monuments. The Cathedral and its precincts are what is left of a Benedictine monastery begun by Herbert de Losinga in 1096. Most of the splendid building is in the Norman style, but clerestory and cloisters or Early English.

I was equally attracted by the Nonconformist chapels. The simple Old Meeting House was built in the late seventeenth century by those “non-juror” clergy who could not accept the Act of Uniformity. The restrained use of oak furnishings made a very serene atmosphere. The Unitarians got Thomas Ivony to build them an octagonal chapel in the mid eighteenth century. When it was restored our guide designed the finial (it is not a weather vane) from a drawing contemporary with the new chapel.

I haven’t described London Street, a traffic artery which became a pleasant shopping precinct in 1967; our party hadn’t time to see the Market Place, Guildhall, or Maddermarket Theatre. But who can “do” Norwich in 4 1/2 hours? We did all manage to rendezvous at the Maid’s Head, another architectural hotch-potch, for a good tea.

We had seen and enjoyed enough to be very grateful to Pip Saunders, who had done that the essential fieldwork, and to Dorothy Newbury who is rapidly becoming a superb at logistic commander.
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Dates Ahead
Sat Sept. 13 – Lullingstone Roman villa and Knole
Fri Sept.26-Sun. Sept.28 Weekend at Hadrian’s Wall

For members who would like some preliminary reading about the Wall, here is a special book-list, which may be used in conjunction with the Roman Britain booklist in Newsletter No. 42:

Four guides published by the Ministry of Public Building and Works, all obtainable from HMSO:
I. – HADRIAN’S WALL, illus, 1973, 32 1/2p.
II. – CHESTERS ROMAN FORT, 1972, 15p.
III. – CORBRIDGE ROMAN STATION, 1973, 15 1/2p
IV. – HOUSESTEADS ROMAN FORT, 1972, 15p.

History trails: HADRIAN’S WALL. Series by Les Turnbull, pub. 1974.

I. – ARCHAEOLOGY OF HADRIAN’S WALL
II. – GUIDE TO BIRDOSWALD AND GILSLAND AREA.
III. – GUIDE TO HOUSESTEADS AND THE GREAT WHIN SILL.
IV. – GUIDE TO CHESTERS, CAWBURGH AND VINDOLANDA.

All at £0.80 each, available from Dillons, the University Bookshop, Malet Street, WC1.

Other publications (prices are those applying at the time of publication):

ALONG HADRIAN’S WALL, David Harrison, 1962, Cassel 21s. (Also available in Pan paperback, £0.60)

HANDBOOK TO THE ROMAN WALL, J. Collingwood Bruce, 1957, Harold Hill & Sons, 15s.

RESEARCH ON HADRIAN’S WALL, Eric Birley, 1961, Titus Wilson, Kendall,37s 6d.

HADRIAN, Stewart Perowne, 1963, Hodder & Stoughton, 25s.

MAP OF HADRIAN’S WALL, 2 in. to mile, Ordnance Survey, 70p.
The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme

HADAS was recently invited by Barnet Education Department to offer instruction and/or assessment to candidates for this Scheme. We accepted with pleasure, and one of our younger Committee members, JOANNA WADE, kindly volunteered to coordinate HADAS’s part in the Scheme. Here she describes what this is all about:

The Scheme, introduced in 1956, has since had over a million entrants. In the words of the information booklet, it “offers young people, both in the UK and in other Commonwealth countries, a challenge of endeavour and achievement through a balanced programme with a wide choice of leisure activities. Those involved are encouraged to develop existing interests or undertake something new.”

What seems particularly admirable about the Scheme to me, however, is that it tries to involve the whole community. The Duke of Edinburgh says:

“This scheme is intended to help both young people and those who take any interest in their welfare. It is designed as an introduction to leisure time activities, a challenge to the individual to personal achievement, and as a guide to those people and organisations concerned about the development of future citizens.”

Within the Scheme are three standards to choose from: bronze, silver and gold, each of increasingly strenuousness. You yourself choose what you are going to do under the broad headings of: service; expeditions; interests; design for living; physical activity. HADAS’s role will lie in the “Interests” section, to give a wider choice of hobby than school or youth club can offer.

I think that the Scheme is indeed very well-balanced, so that by the end you have not only broadened your mind and trained your body but you have also served others. The “Design for Living” part, moreover, (where you have a range of courses from Floral Design to Local Government) prepares you for a less glamourous but equally important side of life.
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It is obvious that the actual Award is only a small part of the benefit.

HADAS hopes to help in two ways: firstly, the Borough will be able to refer to us any young people who decide that they would like to include archaeology or local history among the “Interests.” Secondly, perhaps some of our own younger members (we have more than 30 within the Scheme’s age range) may like to take part in the Scheme. If any HADAS member under 25 is interested, you can get more information from LBB Youth Service, Town Hall, Friern Barnet, N11; or if you would like first to get in touch with me, (Joanna) I would be delighted to talk it over with you.
Edgware in History

At the end of August Edgware is having a festival week with music, carnival and other junketings. A HADAS member was asked to write a “potted” history of the area for the official programme. We thought the Newsletter might use it to, in two instalments. This is the first.

The name Edgware is said to come from the Saxon and to mean “Ecgi’s weir or fishing pool.” Who “Ecgi” was is unknown. The name first appears as “aegces wer” in a charter of possible tenth century date.

The extreme northwest of Edgware, however, has a claim to fame well before Saxon times. As HADAS readers will know, archaeological research uncovered the site of an important complex of Roman pottery kilns at Brockley Hill (Roman Sulloniacae) which was active from c. 70-160 AD. The kilns specialised in certain shapes of vessels made from local clay: tazze, flagons for liquids, bowls of various types and mortaria.

These last provide precise evidence of the importance in Roman times of the kiln site in this neck of the Middlesex woods; for Gallic potters working at Brockley Hill stamped their names and the word “fecit” on the rims of the mortaria which were then dispatched all over Roman Britain. Their remains had been found on sites from Scotland to Dorset and Essex to Wales, so at this early date bowls made in Edgware were in daily use in Romano-British kitchens.

Edgware’s story is one mainly of agriculture and communications. Perhaps the most important Roman contribution of all was the great Road which the Saxons called Watling Street and we know as Edgware Road. It shaped the western boundary of Edgware manor and parish and must have been a principle fact of life for Medieval, Tudor and later inhabitants. Edgware village lay strung out along it, from the bridge over the brook to the church, with until quite recent times only outlying farm settlements at Pipers Green and Edgwarebury.

Much of Edgware’s history comes from documents about the road — bills for repair of Edgware Bridge, grants for tolls and pavage and records of the turnpiking of the road in 1711. This was done ostensibly because “the road was almost impossible for six months of the year, being covered in winter 9 in. deep in mud;” but another important factor in the creation of the turnpike may have been that the Duke of Chandos had decided to build his great mansion at Canons, and wanted a good road for the passage of building materials.

Later Edgware history reflects transport improvements: in 1791 one stage and two other coaches passed daily to London and back; by 1839 there were nine coaches to London each weekday, seven carters and one wagon. By 1851 five horse buses ran daily to London. Then the railway took a hand. In 1867 a GNR branch line from Finsbury Park to Edgware opened: two years later it was paying its way. Finally in 1924 Edgware station, terminus of the Hampstead tube (now the Northern) opened.

Population figures show a like growth. In 1277 Edgware had 8 free and 52 customary tenants (i.e. subject to certain feudal duties). In 1547 the parish had 120 communicants; in 1642 the protestations oath was taken by 103 adult males. The first census in 1801 gives a total population of 412. The dramatic change comes with the 20th century: 1901, 868 people; 1961, 20,127.

(To be continued.)

Newsletter

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Summer and Autumn Plans

HADAS has a busy summer and autumn ahead. Apart from our programme of outings, culminating in the weekend trip to Hadrian’s Wall in September, a variety of other activities is planned in which members are warmly invited to take part.

The dig in the churchyard of State James the Great at Friern Barnet continues and will go on for several more weeks. It is being carefully documented, with Peter Clinch photographing each stage and Ann Trewick, who is in charge, now engaged on preparing plans and sections. William Morris is drawing the coffin-plates, etc, which have come to light. A small exhibit of maps, plans, photographs and drawings will be shown on the HADAS stand at the Friern Barnet Show in August.

A resistivity survey has begun on the open spaces at Brent Bridge Hotel, and should be finished in the next few weeks. When demolition of the hotel is complete and when the results of the meter survey has been assessed, the Research Committee will decide whether a dig should be mounted and what area it should cover. Unfortunately there were cellars, so it is unlikely to be worth excavating under the building itself.

A little further south, on the empty site next to the White Swan Public House on the west of Golders Green Road, it is hoped to start a small excavation in August. The dig must be confined to the strip out the front of this site as unfortunately some two years ago, before the site was fenced, a load of concrete was dumped about 15 yards in from the road frontage.

The Newsletter will carry further news about work on the White Swan and Brent Bridge Hotel sites as soon as it is available, as volunteer diggers will be much in demand.

On the field work side the parish boundary survey, announced in newsletters 50 and 52, is now under way. It is throwing up some interesting information — see, for instance, Paddy Musgrove’s notes one and “island” boundary stone later in this Newsletter. Members who would like to help with the survey are asked to get in touch with the organiser, Christine Arnott.

HADAS also proposes to seize every opportunity to display the results of its research to the public in various parts of the Borough. We have already mentioned the Friern Barnet Show in August. In addition in July we shall have a stand at the Parents-Teachers Association Medieval Fair at Woodhouse School; and one at Finchley Carnival where a record of the resistivity meter surveys and other research on Finchley Manor House, East End Road, will be shown. In September at the Henry Burden Hall, Egerton Gardens, NW4, material from the Church Terrace and a Burroughs Gardens digs will be on display.

This year Edgware is celebrating a special Edgware Week from 24-31 August. We hope to have a one-day stand in the marquee at the Carnival in Montrose Park. The Library authorities of the London Borough of Barnet have also kindly given permission for some of the Brockley Hill Roman pottery to be shown at Burnt Oak Library throughout Edgware Week. This is an opportunity HADAS particularly welcomes, as it means that the Brockley Hill material will be on show close to the very site on which much of it was manufactured in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. As many HADAS members who have worked on the pottery know, there are fine specimens of flagons, tazze, bowls and mortaria, not to mention many small finds, which can be displayed.

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This programme of exhibitions means much work for those members of the Society transport exhibition material, plan and set up displays and steward the stands. The more members prepared to help with these jobs — and even a couple of hours represents real help — the easier it is to spread the load, so if you have any time to offer get in touch with the various organisers, who are:

Woodhouse School (July 5). Jeremy Clynes.

Finchley Carnival (July 10-12). Paddy Musgrove.

Friern Barnet Summer Show (Aug. 15-16). Paddy Musgrove or Ann Trewick.

Carnival Day, Edgware (Aug.30). Jeremy Clynes.

Burnt Oak Library Exhibition of Brockley Hill material (setting up only, prob. On Aug. 22-23). Ann Trewick.

Henry Burden Hall (Sept. 6). Jeremy Clynes.

Or if it is easier to send your offer of help to our Hon. Secretary she will gratefully pass on the information.
Outings Ahead

On July 12th we break new ground with a visit to Norwich — a city which, in medieval times, was second only to London. Its historical wealth cannot be seen in a day, but we are engaging a local guide to show us as much as possible. An application form is enclosed. Please return it to Dorothy Newbury as soon as possible.

Please, also, check that you have the following dates in your diary:
Sat Sept. 13 – Lullingstone Roman villa and Knole
Sept. 26/27/28 – Weekend at Hadrian’s Wall
Clay Pipes for the Archaeologist

A review by Jeremy Clynes.

The recently published “Clay Pipes for the Archaeologist” by Adrian Oswald (British Archaeological Reports 14, 1975, obtainable directly from the publishers at 122 Banbury Road, Oxford, £3.80, post free) will no doubt be the standard work on this subject for many years to come.

Adrian Oswald, probably the leading specialist in the study of clay tobacco pipes, has in one book brought together the researches of a number of writers, updating these where necessary to provide, in his words, “a practical workhorse for the archaeologist”.

The book, which covers the whole British Isles, describes the introduction into Europe of both tobacco and the pipe; it outlines the organisation of the industry, as well as describing the process of pipe manufacture. It then discusses ways of dating pipes, giving a comprehensive typology and including decorated pipes. There is a good bibliography, and the last part of the book lists pipe-makers by areas.

Although this book will be invaluable to museum curators and to archaeologists in the field, it goes too deeply into the subject for the general reader, who would probably not want the list of pipe-makers which occupies 1/3 of the book; and at £3.80 the book is certainly not cheap.

As an introduction to the subject I would therefore recommend Oswald’s two previous works:

English Clay Tobacco Pipes — reprinted in 1967 as a separate pamphlet at 12s.6d, from the Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 3rd series vol. XXIII, 1960.

London Clay Tobacco Pipes — (in conjunction with David Atkinson) reprinted from J.B.A.A. 3rd series vol. XXXII, 1969.

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An Island Boundary Stone

The April newsletter referred to a mysterious boundary stone which once stood on island on the Finchley-Hendon border. PADDY MUSGROVE now reports that its position was approximately 120 yd North of Finchley Bridge (the Hendon Lane-Finchley Lane crossing of the Dollis Brook, close to the Great North Way). Indeed, it may still be there underground. The only trouble is that both the island and the lake in which it still stood have disappeared.

The existing mini-waterfall at Finchley Bridge marks the dam erected by a former occupier of Hendon Place. Edward Walford (Greater London, 1882) wrote: “The River Brent, which skirts the eastern side of the grounds, has been artificially widened so as to form a moderate lake, which, with the bridge by which it is crossed, adds not a little to the beauty of the Landscape”.

The Ordnance Surveys of 1863-69 and 1893-95 show both the lake and two islands. The former records a boathouse in the grounds of Hendon Place; the latter indicates the boundary stone on the more southerly of the islands. Both maps show the Finchley-Hendon border meandering through the lake, following the original course of the Brook. The modern boundary follows the present line of the Brook, which is that of the western limit of the old lake.

The open space of Brookside Walk has been created by the infilling of the lake, which originally extended from Finchley Bridge northwards to Waverley Grove and from the present line of the Brook eastwards to the bottoms of the gardens in Broughton Avenue.
Suburb Heritage Exhibition

This is, as all HADAS members will know, European Architectural Heritage Year. An exhibition to mark the fact will be held in Hampstead Garden Suburb — itself very much part of Britain’s architectural heritage, since it is the prototype of garden suburbs, which has been copied not only all over Britain but also in many countries overseas.

The Exhibition — to be called Suburb Heritage — will be sponsored by three Garden Suburb organisations — the New H.G.S. Trust, the Residents’ Association and the H.G.S. Institute. It will illustrate the early history and architecture of the Suburb and will include some of the original architects’ plans for houses and public buildings on the estate.

These plans carry names which are now famous – Edwin Lutyens, Raymond Unwin, Barry Parker, Baillie Scott, to mention but a few — although 60 or 70 years ago the designers were young and comparatively unknown. A collection of the plans, many in colour and showing a meticulous attention to detail, was found recently in a cellar off Victoria Street and was rescued and brought back to form part of the Suburb archives. They will be on show for the first time.

The exhibition — with which many HADAS members are helping — opens on 27 October in the Henrietta Barnett Junior School, Bigwood Road, NW11 and continues till 1 November. Their first visitor will be Sir John Murray Fox, Lord Mayor of London, himself is an ex-resident of the suburb. Opening times are: October 27-10.00a.m.-9.00p.m.; Saturday 1 November: 10.00a.m.-9.00p.m.
Photographic Competition

A photographic competition in which HADAS photographers are cordially invited to take part is being sponsored by the Hendon Times in connection with the Suburb Heritage exhibition.

Photographs, in black and white, can be of any building or group of buildings or of any building feature in the Garden Suburb which illustrates the place the area holds in our architectural heritage. The sort of building features envisaged are, for instance, the use of patterned brickwork, dormer windows, design of roofs or chimneys or the use of open space in relation to buildings.

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Each photograph should be accompanied by an entry form, obtainable either from the H.G.S. Institute (Central Square, NW11) or from the New H.G.S. Trust (862 Finchley Road, NW11). Entries close on 31 August 1975. The Hendon Times is offering a price of £5 for the winner, with subsidiary prices of £3 and £2.
Trip To Maiden Castle, 14 June 1975

Report by Christine Arnott.

After the extreme heat of previous days, 14th June dawned grey; but during the journey the sun came through and we picnicked at Maiden Castle in full sunshine, with a gentle breeze.

After lunch we climbed through the successive defensive embankments and ditches and the intricacies of the entrance to the heights commanding the surrounding country. From this magnificent vantage point Ted Sammes gave us the outline details of the site, describing the original much smaller causewayed camp of the Neolithic period, around 3,000 BC; the long barrow that was constructed towards the end of this phase; and the child burials found at the eastern end.

Approximately the same area was utilised by Iron Age peoples About 350 BC. They enclosed it with a single rampart and a ditch. About 150 BC it was extensively enlarged, further ramparts and ditches being added and the entrances strengthened. There was more remodelling around 75 BC. These processes continued until AD 44 when the Fort was attacked by the Legio II Augusta under the Roman general Vespasian (later Emperor Vespasian) who stormed the east gate with attendant carnage and destruction, as was graphically brought to light by Mortimer Wheeler’s excavations.

There is no further knowledge of the fort as a defensive unit after this time, although a small Romano-Celtic temple was built inside the northern part about 367 AD. After a walk round the top of the “walls” surrounding the area, Ted Sammes led us to the footings of this temple, speculating on the ceremonies that took place on this hill-top with its stupendous views.

It was doubly interesting later on to see in Dorchester Museum some of the objects from the Maiden Castle excavations: they ranged from the macabre — Celtic vertebrae pierced by a Roman ballista ball — to the domestic: weaving equipment with loom weights and combs. For numismatists there was a splendid collection of Roman coins.

Finally, Dorothy Newbury had arranged a welcome and refreshing tea at Judge Jeffrey’s Restaurant. We were all deeply grateful to Ted Sammes for shepherding us, explaining sites and calling attention to the monuments we passed en route – Figsbury Ring, Ackling and Bokerley Dykes, the round barrow cemetery on Oakley Down and the clear line of the Roman Road cutting through it. A full programme, a splendid outing, a glorious day weatherwise and first-rate HADAS staff work.
An Unique Chance Find In Hendon

As this Newsletter was in preparation there came the news of an exciting find. Mr. J. M. Lewis, a school teacher in Hendon, rang up saying that one of his younger pupils had come to school with “a pretty stone” which had been found on the surface of a back garden in Kings Close, Hendon.

Mr Lewis thought it was more than a “pretty Stone” and had it taken forthwith to the British Museum, where it was identified as a Neolithic jade axe, 22 cm long and dated around 3,000 BC. According to Museum records, it is the first of its kind to be found in the London area. Ted Sammes adds that it must be one of only a dozen jade axes known in Britain; nearest similar find in the south-east was in Canterbury.

At the moment the axe is being studied at the British Museum; as soon as it is returned, HADAS has been promised a chance to draw, photograph and record it for the LAMAS archaeological finds index.

Newsletter

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The 14th Annual General Meeting

This meeting of the Society took place on 6 May at Central Library. Vice-President Mrs. Rosa Freedman presided, welcoming the 67 members who attended and recalling that she had been present at the foundation meeting of the society, 14 years before. Then she had been asked to persuade Hendon Borough Council to lend us “some buckets and spades”. We had come a long way since then, and she felt that the Borough of Barnet could count itself lucky in possessing such an active archaeological society.

The various Reports which followed Mrs. Freedman’s opening remarks illustrated the many facets of this activity. Brian Jarman reported an increase in membership — now at 270, and all-time high; and an increasing attendance at lectures and outings. Jeremy Clynes introduced a Balance Sheet showing a healthy bank balance of nearly £600 and a surplus of £190 odd for 1974/5. Ted Sammes described past and current excavations, surveys of buildings, work on pottery and other finds and numerous smaller projects. All in all, these reports painted a picture of a vigorous and thriving Society whose members are prepared to work for it in many ways.

There were some warning notes, of course. Mr. Clynes mentioned that £200 of our bank balance is already “bespoke” for projects in the early part of this year; Mr Sammes commented on the problems of publishing the results of research, the need — so long felt — for a permanent HQ and the importance of members increasing their knowledge and skill by attending the many archaeological classes available in the London area.

Three special resolutions, which had been circulated to members of prior to the meeting, were passed. These provided a tidying-up operation which brought the HADAS Constitution into line with the Society’s present practise.

The following Officers and Committee were elected for 1975-6:
Chairman – Mr. Brian Jarman
Vice-Chairman – Mr. E. Sammes
Hon. Secretary – Mrs. B. Grafton Green
Hon. Treasurer – Mr. J. Clynes

Committee: Mrs. C. Arnott, Mr. M. Bird, Mr. G. M. T. Corlet, Mr. J. Enderby, Miss E. Holliday, Mr. G. Ingram, Mrs. D. Lorimer, Mrs. D. Newbury, Mrs. N. Penny, Miss Ann Trewick, Miss J. Wade, Mrs. F. Wilkinson, Mr. E. Wookey.
Dates For Your Diary

Saturday 14 June: the next outing to Maiden Castle and Dorchester. An application form is enclosed, please return it to Mrs. Newbury as soon as possible.

The archaeological riches of Maiden Castle will need little introduction to HADAS members — it is one of the most famous sites in Southern Britain, with a spectacular Iron Age hill-fort covering 45 acres, the just-visible remains of a in Neolithic long barrow and a Romano-British temple. The archaeological span of the site is from c. 2500 BC to 370 AD. Dorchester — the Casterbridge of Hardy’s novels — contains many Hardy links, including the novelist’s former home, as well as the lodgings of Judge Jeffreys.

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Saturday 12 July — outing to Norwich

Saturday 13 September — outing to Lullingstone and Knole.
And a Special Date

Friday 26 September — Sunday 28 September.

Last autumn’s weekend in Shropshire so whetted member’s appetites for going further afield that the Programme Committee has had no peace until a further weekend has been arranged.

This will take place on the above dates, and will be to Hadrian’s Wall — the first long trip HADAS has so far made. An application form is enclosed and members are urged to complete it and return it to Dorothy Newbury as soon as possible, since arrangements have to be made well in advance because of problems of accommodation, guides, etc.

We hope to see most of the famous “sides” of the Wall – Housesteads fort, the Carrowburgh Mithraeum, the new excavations at Vindolanda, now being carried on under the directorship of Robin Birley, the baths at Chesters, Corbridge fort and museum and the excellent Roman Museum at Newcastle University. We feel it will be an outstanding weekend which will go down in HADAS annals.
Hampstead Walk

On Saturday 28 June HADAS is invited to join a Camden History Society walk around North End, Hampstead. Part of the walk will, in fact, take place in our own Borough, as we shall cross the Camden/Barnet boundary at Wyldes Farm.

This hospitable invitation from the Camden History Society arises from their visit to us last October, when they joined us at the opening lecture of the HADAS winter season. The walk will start from Jack Straw’s Castle at 3.00 p.m. The HADAS contingent will be limited to 20 members, as we are being given a cup of tea by the present owner of Wyldes and there is a limit to the number that can be accommodated. If you would like to join the walk, would you please let a Brigid Grafton Green know by 20 June at latest. The first 20 members to apply will be the lucky ones.

The walk will take in the grounds of the house of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (the house itself, alas, was demolished some years ago), the Bull and Bush, Golders Hill Park, Pavlova’s house and Byron Cottage, and will finish at Wyldes. (Any HADAS member who does not know something of a history of Wyldes is in bad need of HADAS Occasional Paper No. 2, “The Blue Plaques of Barnet”: get one, price £0.40, from our Treasurer, Jeremy Clynes, who wrote the Wyldes entry in the booklet!)
Subscription reminder

And, talking of our Treasurer, he has a message for members who have not yet paid to their 1975/6 subscription. It’s very simple: please do! The rates for this year, which began a 1 April, 1975, are:
Full membership – £1.00
Under 18 – 65p
Senior Citizen – 75p

Subscriptions should be sent to Jeremy Clynes.
Domesday Book

A fresh translation of Domesday Book, county by county and in a cheap edition, is an event to be welcomed by all local historians. As a source of information about a local land tenure, population, agricultural resources and comparative values in 1086 Domesday is unique and irreplaceable. The only printed Latin text, until some three months ago, was set up in 1783 by Abraham Farley.

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Now Phiilimore has started publication, under the editorship of Dr. John Morris, of the complete Latin text with a modern English translation alongside. Huntingdon, Middlesex and Surrey are already in print. Other counties will follow until the whole publication is complete in — it is hoped — 1979.

This is a new translation of the Domesday entry for the Manor of Hendon, in the Middlesex Hundred of Gore:

The Abbot of St. Peter’s* holds HENDON. It answers for 25 hides. Land for sixteen ploughs. Ten hides belong to the Lordship; three ploughs there. The villagers have eight ploughs; a further five possible. A priest has one virgate; three villagers, a half hide each; seven villagers, one virgate each; sixteen villagers, half a virgate each; twelve smallholders who hold half a hide; six cottages; one slave. Meadow for two oxen; woodland, 1,000 pigs, and 10s. too. Total value £8; when acquired the same; before 1066 £12. This manor lay and lies in the lordship of St. Peter’s Church.

i.e. Abbot of Westminster.

Notes: hide — a unit of land measurement, usually reckoned at 120 acres, but sometimes different; or a unit of tax assessment.

virgate — a fraction of a hide, usually 1/4.

woodland, 1,000 pigs — may mean sufficient woodland to pasture 1,000 pigs; or woodland on which 1,000 pigs are paid for right of pasture.

In hardback, the three counties so far published each cost £2.50; in a paperback, £1.25. Should be obtainable from any good bookseller; or direct from Phillimore, Shopwyke Hall, Chichester, Sussex.
The May Outing

A report by Paddy Musgrove.

On May 17th the Southend Arterial Road was flooded. Colin and Ann Evans are therefore to be congratulated, not only for their excellent planning of the Society’s outing to Mucking and neighbourhood, but also for having had the foresight to select a gravel site. Even those without wellingtons remained dry-shod.

Following the discovery by air photography of a palimpsest of crop-marked features, nine years rescue digging just ahead of the gravel quarrier’s equipment on the 100 ft terrace has revealed occupation over a period of 4,000 years.

Escorted by the site director, Mrs. M. U. Jones, and other site workers, members were able to view Iron Age round huts and sunken Saxon huts at various stages of excavation. At first sight the large expanse of bared gravel seemed devoid of detail, but soon members were busily identifying unexcavated features by differences of soiled colour and texture — a useful exercise for diggers!

Mucking’s importance is reflected in the interest which it generates overseas, from whence come about half its volunteers. At present there are enthusiasts from the United States, the Netherlands and Poland.

We were treated to hot drinks on site and also to a small exhibition of finds. Literature was eagerly bought and, let it be recorded, at gratifyingly reasonable prices.

Next visited was Thurrock Local History Museum, where further finds from Mucking were to be seen and where the displays and captions could serve as an example to many more pretentious establishments. It is truly a local museum illustrating the development of the area from earliest times down to the latest factory.

At Prittlewell Priory we were escorted by its Keeper, Mr. D. G. MacLeod, around this interesting Cluniac foundation which dates from about 1110 AD. Here time was all too short. Our final visit was to Southchurch Hall (thirteenth or fourteenth century) where excavation is in progress. The grounds have been heavily landscaped in recent times (but without record) so reconstruction of the earliest features is providing many problems. We saw exposed chalk walling which may be part of a gatehouse: but such massive masonry seemed out of keeping with the existing manor house.

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Parish Boundary Survey

The April Newsletter announced this new field-work project: a survey on of the parish boundaries of our Borough, with the object of listing and indexing all boundary stones which remain.

Christine Arnott is acting as organiser of the project; she has already collected the nucleus of a group of volunteers. A pilot survey of a small area of the Hendon/Hampstead boundary has been made, as a preliminary to formulating the guidelines on which the whole survey will be conducted.

If you would like to help when the full survey gets under way, please let Christine Arnott know now so that she can keep you informed of developments.
Hundreds And Hundreds Of Postcards

If you have any interest at all in the history of the last 70 years in any part of the Borough of Barnet, then there is probably something for you in the present exhibition at Church Farm House Museum ( “Postcard Views of the Borough” — open till 20 June next.)

Row upon serried row of postcards provide new slants on the recent history of Totteridge, Hadley, Arkley, High Barnet, Whetstone, East and New Barnet, Friern Barnet, Childs Hill and Cricklewood, North Finchley, East Finchley and Golders Green. Particularly well represented in numbers of cards are Mill Hill, Church End Finchley and Church End Hendon (one of the two Church End Hendon displays contains 200 cards).

Here you will see the River Brent as a charming, meandering country stream complete with waterfalls; and roads which you may now think of as car-lined commuter tracks appear as recently as 60 years ago in the guise of tree-lined country lanes. There are a few cards dated to the late 1890s, but the majority belong to this century and are shown in date order, so that they illustrate how development accelerated between 1900 and the 1930s.

The only criticism to be made of this excellent exhibition is that the sheer massed effect of so many postcards provides more detail than the mind can cope with at one sitting. This is an exhibition which should be visited and revisited so that it can be studied in small doses. And don’t believe all the postcards tell you; some of the captions printed on the actual cards are highly inaccurate. Several cards described the Hampstead Garden Suburb as Hampstead Garden City: the very thing it wasn’t. While the men who planned them 70 years ago would never recognise Meadway Gate at the top of Hoop Lane, NW11 under its title of “Meadgate”, nor the entrance to Big Wood, Temple Fortune Hill, as “Woodgate”.
New Members

It’s some time — in fact, not since last October — that there has been a paragraph in the Newsletter about our new members. Since then 42 new colleagues have joined the Society; the Newsletter has great pleasure in welcoming them, and hopes that they will enjoy participating in may HADAS activities. They are:

Mrs. Lucille Armstrong, Golders Green; Mr. Batchelor, North Finchley; Mrs. Beevor, Hendon; Miss Linda Clackson, Edgware; Stephen Conrad, Mill Hill; Miss Glenys Davies, Muswell Hill; Mrs. Dean, Willesden; Dennis Devereux, Hendon; P. W. Foster, Mill Hill; Vincent Foster, Funchley; Canon Gilmore, Friern Barnet; Mrs. Griffith, Mill Hill; Mr. & Mrs. Heathfield, N. Finchley; H. M. Hoather, Whetstone; Miss Holburn, Stanmore; Mrs. Holtman, Hendon; Miss Howel, Garden Suburb; A. R. Hudson, Totteridge; Mrs. Hughes, Arnos Grove; Mrs. And Miss Loewi, and Dr. & Mrs. Maclagan, Garden Suburb; Miss Catherine Norris, N. Finchley; Miss Janet Norton, Barnet; Mrs. Dawn Orr, Garden Suburb; Mrs. Pares, New Barnet; A. J. Peacock, Hendon; R. F. Penney, Finchley; Mrs. Porges, Finchley; Mrs. Pritchard, Hampstead; Miss Helen Rowland, N. Finchley; Ms. Mary Salton, Totteridge; R. R. Shah, Hendon; Mrs. Shulman, Golders Green; Mrs. Solomons, Finchley; Mrs. Mary Turner, East Barnet; Mr. & Mrs. Wagland, Colindale; Mr. & Mrs. Stuart Winter, New Barnet.

Newsletter

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Digging News

The HADAS dig in the churchyard of St. James the Great at Friern Barnet continues each Saturday — sometimes in the teeth of gales, snow, sleet and hail — and Ann Trewick sends us this report:

In the March Newsletter the brickwork in trenches A and B was described. This has now definitely proved to be a vault. Its entrance, which is in trench B, has been damaged, possibly when a drain was laid near it. It has good barrel-vaulting and is now in the process of being cleared of soil.

Trench A, which lies nearer the Church, has been extended towards the Church so that the east wall foundations can be examined. About 70 cm below present ground level the roof of another vault has been uncovered. It, too, is damaged and has not yet been uncovered. A brass coffin plate has also been found, beautifully engraved and dated 1746. Further details of this will be given in a later Newsletter.

Members who wish to take part in the dig are asked to get in touch with Ann Trewick.
The May Outing

This will take place on Saturday 17 May; an application form is enclosed. If you would like to join the trip you are urged to send the form to Mrs. Newbury without delay.

The main objective of the outing will be the excavations at Mucking, about which Mr And Mrs. Jones talked to us last January. In addition to a conducted tour of this most interesting multi-period site there will be a visit to Thurrock Museum to see the finds from it, as well as stops at the twelfth century Cluniac Priory of Prittlewell and the fourteenth century moated Southchurch Hall.

Other outings this summer will be:
Sat June 14 – Maiden Castle and Dorchester
Sat. July 12 – Norwich
Sat Sept. 13 – Lullingstone Roman villa and Knole
Brushing up on Digging

A leaflet, “Notes for New Diggers “, comes with this Newsletter. We hope it will interest all our members.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that you are all “new diggers”. Many of you are seasoned hands at excavation; while others, though joining in many of our activities, preferred to opt out of the kneeling-mat-and-trowel routine.

All the same, we thought there was something for everyone in this lucid and practical exposition (a reprint of an article which appeared originally in the London Archaeologist) of what happens on an excavation site, with particular reference to how it affects the amateur archaeologist.

A number of new members in our rapidly growing Society have not yet had an opportunity to sample digging at first hand; others go on HADAS outings to various digs and may well be glad to brush up on the methods that they see being employed.

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Perish the thought that any HADAS member would ever commit the sins which were described to us recently by an archaeologist colleague who had welcomed a party of visitors to his Iron Age site. “I couldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it happen”, he said. One over-large gentleman walked so close to the edge of a trench that the side started to crumble under him, and he had to leap wildly for safety. He made it — but honestly I was more worried by the fact that one of my best sections was ruined.

“To cap that, three girls walked slap across a shallow trench. Two of my most patient trowellers had been working on it for six hours, showing up a beautiful pattern of pits and ditches — only to have it ploughed up before their very eyes.”

We crossed our fingers and assured ourselves that that could never have happened on a HADAS outing.
The April Lecture

A report by Trewick.

Are we fair to Neanderthal man? In a word, “No”.

This was the theme of the last full lecture of this winter. In a fact-packed hour Desmond Collins postulated the theory of neotony* to explain the evolution of Cro-Magnon Man, and thus Homo Sapiens, from Neanderthal Man.

With the help of slides he gave a fascinating lecture which covered the history of the discovery of the Neanderthalers and the fables which became attached to these most interesting and enigmatic ancestors of the modern man.

The impression one has of Neanderthal Man is of a heavy-browed, stooping individual, half-man, half-ape. This is the traditional idea, built up from a type-specimen found at La Chapelle aux Saintes. When it is realised that this character was over 40 when he died in — very old by the standards of his people — and that he suffered from acute osteo-arthritis, it becomes evident that a reappraisal of Neanderthal specimens was necessary. In the last ten years such a reassessment has been going on and it now appears that Neanderthal Man could be the immediate ancestor of Cro-Magnon Man and not a branch which became extinct. Intermediate types have been found in the Mount Carmel caves, and early Cro-Magnon cultures have been associated with late Neanderthal cultures.

So Neanderthal Man has been much maligned but at last he is being given his rightful place in the order of things. And how could one believe he is extinct when one can see some vestiges of Neanderthal Man still extant?

Our thanks go to Mr Collins for a very thought-provoking evening.

Neotony: the prolongation of juvenile or foetal characteristics into later life (which means that man is born with a skull still sufficiently soft at birth to be easy; and then has a very long learning period as compared with other mammals).

Finchley as it Was

HADAS member Clive Smith has done it again. Following on his successes with booklets of old photographs of Hendon, Mill Hill and Golders Green, he has now done the same thing for Finchley.

This 30-page booklet, complete with reproductions from the 1873 O.S. map of Finchley, consists of many fascinating early photographs accompanied by fat captions of facts. Pubs, houses, churches, street scenes, farms, horse-coaches — they are all here.

Obtainable from Mr Smith. Cost is £0.75, but HADAS members are offered a special price of £0.50, plus postage.

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Book-list for the Post-Medieval Period

In newsletters 42 and 43 were published book-lists for the Roman and Mediaeval periods. Below Edward Sammes suggests a post-Medieval book-list.

In this period come the beginnings of mass production and the Industrial Revolution. Whilst much is documented, vast gaps exist in our knowledge. The Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology, founded 1966, tries in its Journal (which reaches its 8th issue in 1974) to fill some of them.

Much of the pottery produced in the latter part of the period is the collector’s perquisite, and there are many books dealing with the fine pottery produced. These are expensive, but the Central Library in The Burroughs, NW4, has a good selection, including dictionaries of pottery marks. These are often helpful in dating sherds.

indicates a key publication.

DATED POST-MEDIEVAL POTTERY IN THE LONDON MUSEUM. F. Celoria. HMSO, 1966, 17 1/2p when published.

TREASURES OF THE ARMADA. R. Stenuit, Cardinal paperback 1974, £1.45.

ELIZABETHAN LONDON. Martin Holmes, Cassell 1969, £3.15.

BRICK BUILDING IN ENGLAND, MIDDLE AGES TO 1550. Jane A. Wright, John Baker 1972, £7.50.

A GUIDE TO THE COLLECTION OF TILES. Arthur Lane, HMSO 1060, £1.05 Describes and lists the tile collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

DUTCH TILES. C. H. de Jonge, Pall Mall Press 1971, £8. Very well illustrated. Some copies were recently on the remainder market at £4.50.

LONDON CLAY TOBACCO PIPES. David Atkinson and Adrian Oswald, Journal of the Archaeological Association, Vol. XXXII 1969, available as a reprint.

EVOLUTION AND CHRONOLOGY OF ENGLISH CLAY TOBACCO PIPES. Adrian Oswald, Archaeological Newsletter Vol. 7 Sept 1971 (in Central Reference Library).

CLAY PIPES FOR THE ARCHAEOLOGIST. Adrian Oswald, British Archaeological Reports 1975, £3.80. This is new and as yet unseen; it would be logical to expect it to incorporate material from Oswald’s many publications on clay pipes.

THE SO-CALLED BELLARMINE MASK. M. R. Holmes, Antiquaries Journal, XXXI 1951 pp 165-9 (in Central Reference Library).

STEINZUG. A catalogue in German, devoted mainly to stoneware. Cologne Museum 1971. Contains a small photograph of each pot mentioned.

THE FULHAM POTTERY. Occasional Paper No. 1, Fulham and Hammersmith Historical Society, March 1974, 50p.

LAMBETH STONEWARE. Rhoda Edwards, London Borough of Lambeth 1973, 95p plus postage.

ENGLISH DELFTWARE. F. H. Garner & M. Archer, Faber & Faber 1972, £7.50.

A GUIDE TO THE ARTEFACTS OF COLONIAL AMERICA. Ivor Noel Hume, Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1970, $10.00. Deals with all types of artefacts of the period and is well worth the trouble involved in borrowing a copy. Obtainable by post on invoice from Publications Sales Desk, Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia 23185, USA.

Various numbers of The Journal of Ceramic History are of interest, e.g. for chamber pots see No. 2 1968 by P. Amis, disguised under the title “Some Domestic Vessels of Southern Britain”, George Street Press, Stafford, 30p. Postage extra.

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THE GLASS WINE BOTTLE IN COLONIAL VIRGINIA. Ivor Noel Hume, Journal of Glass Studies, Vol. III 1961, Corning Museum of Glass, New York.

Bottles, after the two works by I. N. Hume already mentioned, 2 sections 9 & 10 in ENGLISH AND IRISH GLASS, Geoffrey Wills in the Guinness Signatures series 1968 are well illustrated.

JOSIAH WEDGWOOD. Richard Tames, Shire Publications Ltd in their Lifeline series, 1972, 40p.

TURKISH POTTERY. Contains pictures of coloured and glazed pottery made at Isnik, 15th-17th centuries, HMSO reprinted 1971, 25p.

HISPANO-MORESQUE POTTERY. Pictures and brief details of the period 14th-17th centuries, HMSO 1957, 22 1/2p.

A COLLECTORS HISTORY OF ENGLISH POTTERY. Griselda Lewis, Studio Vista, London, 1969, £4.20. A very useful picture book, available on loan from the Central Library.

Much useful information can also be obtained from a DISCOVERING ANTIQUES, a weekly journal which ran for 80 issues. Pub. Purnell, 1970 onwards. Also numbers of Country Life, the Connoisseur and the Illustrated London News can help, if one has time to browse.
Trip into Huntingdonshire

This, the first outing of the HADAS summer season, was by way of being an experiment. It was held on a Sunday, took only half-a-day and occurred on 20 April, about a month in advance of our normal outings. It’s good to be able to report that the experiment was an unqualified success, thanks mainly to the excellent staffwork by Daphne Lorimer and Dorothy Newbury.

They had planned an historically interesting afternoon through from Saxon to Industrial Archaeology. They supplied each member with excellent notes on what we would see, laid on guides and made sure we had a delicious tea (no easy task in rural Hunts late on a Sunday afternoon).

As a bonus, we had Spring. The sun shone, all the hedges were strengthening and all the buds bursting. The willows were already hidden in graceful golden veils, a hare went leaping through a field of young broad beans, cock pheasants showed of to their dowdy speckled little wives, the Ouse was full of specimens of homo sapiens messing about with boats, black-faced lambs capered around their mums and HADAS members, too, succumbed to that spring feeling. You should have seen 50 of them tearing round an earth-maze in the middle of a village green as if their lives depended on it. The locals must have thought that a coach load of zanies had descended on them.

Most odd coincidence of the day occurred when we got to the cafe in St. Ives for tea. The first thing we saw was that all the crockery had been purchased from, and was marked with the name of … guess what? The Brent Bridge Hotel, Hendon, NW4! “Just to make you feel at home”, said to Dorothy Newbury, as if it was all part of the service.
RECENT ACCESSIONS TO THE BOOK BOX

GEORGIAN HADLEY, W, H, Gelder, 1974

Clay Pipes for the Archaeologist, Adrian Oswald, 1975

Both the above were bought by the Society.

Everyday life in Roman Britain, M. & C. B. H. Quennell (given by H. Lawrence)

Buildings and Earthworks (Ward) (given by Miss R. Wells)

Excavations at Brockley Hill March-May 1973. Reprinted Trans LAMAS Vol. 25 (1974) (given by Miss A. Trewick)
CORRECTION

Jane Butler asks us to say that in her account of the Physic Well back to Barnet in the January newsletter there was an error in transcription. The date 1912, given up an analysis of the water by Dr Trinder should have been 1812.

NOTE – Correction to correction — it appeared in Newsletter 48 of February 1975.

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.