ISSUE NO. 259 EDITED BY MICKY COHEN OCTOBER 1992
N.B. PLEASE ALTER the numbers on the AUGUST NEWSLETTER to No. 257 and on the SEPTEMBER NEWSLETTER to No. 258.
DIARY
TUESDAY 6th OCTOBER: ‘THE ROMAN POTTERY MANUFACTURING SITE IN HIGHGATE WOODS’ Excavation 1966 – 1978.
The opening lecture for the coming winter is by our old HADAS friend, HARVEY SHELDON. Harvey was Archaeology Officer for the Museum of London for many years, and in 1983 became Head of the Department of Greater London Archaeology until it ceased to exist last year. Harvey will talk about the excavation itself, the pottery finds and associated experimental work. He is at present writing it up for publication.
SATURDAY 10th OCTOBER: MINIMART MINIMART MINIMART !!
11.30 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. at St. Mary’s Church Hall, top of GREYHOUND HILL, HENDON, N.W.4
Please come along and buy, and bring your friends. If you are connected with any club or group, please send for an advertising slip to display or put one in your car – telephone 203 – 0950. We need the public to help us raise funds to meet the huge cost of our accommodation at Avenue House. Come for coffee or lunch – even if you don’t buy anything! And at the same time visit Church Farm House Museum (opposite) to see their excellent display of its history. The Museum is open 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.
PLEASE CONTACT SHEILA WOODWARD (FOOD STALL) on 952 – 3897 or TESSA SMITH (CATERING) on 958 – 9159, with your offers of food, and DOROTHY NEWBURY on 203 – 0950, if you can help on the day. Full details in September Newsletter leaflet.
TUESDAY 3rd NOVEMBER: LECTURE ‘ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS in advance of
A41 BYPASS at BERKHAMSTED/BOXMOOR’.
By MARE HALPIN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, HERTS ARCHAEOLOGICAL TRUST.
TUESDAY 1st or 8th DECEMBER : CHRISTMAS DINNER – see leaflet and application form enclosed.
JANUARY NO LECTURE
TUESDAY 2nd FEBRUARY : ‘ANCIENT NEAR-EASTERN CYLINDER SEALS’ By Dr. DOMINIQUE COLLON
STOP PRESS The INAUGURAL MEETING of THE FRIENDS of CHURCH FARM HOUSE MUSEUM will be held on 21st OCTOBER,1992, at 8 p.m. at the MUSEUM.
REMINDER!!! MEMBERSHIP SUBSCRIPTIONS DUE APRIL 1992!! As OVER 40 MEMBERS have still not renewed their membership, I am enclosing REMINDERS of subs. due.
If you have paid by the time you receive this, I apologise in advance.
P.S. Would anyone like to take over my ‘ex-job` I resigned last May
PHYLLIS FLETCHER (EX-MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY)
NOTES ON WEEKEND IN DORSET AUGUST 1992 Deirdre Barrie
First weekend trip with HADAS: Wait excitedly at Hendon for coach. Note individual amounts of luggage range from toothbrush in top pocket to sets of matching cases, each of which can barely be lifted. (Interestedly note table later, in boot of coach. No kitchen sink, though).
First stop Avebury. Lifetime’s ambition fulfilled. Neglect free coffee (not easy for Scot) to complete sun-wise perambulation of stones. (Worriedly eye people in dark glasses and strange clothes going widdershins). Stone circle huge: Village in middle: (Shop crammed with Celtic crafts, even.)
Arrive Sherborne Study Centre modern building, comfortable single rooms. City reminiscent of Bath – mellow stone, tree-clad heights. Tour of Abbey given lovingly by Rector. Magnificent roof.
Trepidation. Hear dinner to be served in barn. Barn? Relic of farm previously on study centre site? Black rafters covered in owl droppings? Stamped earthen floor? Reality golden parquet, smiling staff, delicious meal, excellent wine.
Comfortable night’s sleep. Odd locks on rooms. Member of party locks self out.
Morning – self-service breakfast. Much joyous self-serving. To quote Tony Hancock, “all you can see is their arms coming round the sides.” Ten-slice nuclear-powered toaster. Staff still smiling.
Coach hurtles towards Dorchester. Cerne Giant hill figure. Eyes bulge. How has splendid, potent Celt survived uncensored all this time? Dubious souvenirs: horse brasses, keyholder. (Hang keys there?)
Arrive Maiden Castle. Distant hill massive, lowering, impressive. Mr. Putnam’s tour under Wuthering Heights conditions. Quotes theory Castle meant to lower, impress, etc. Earlier hill fort enlarged; “new” fort POWER STATEMENT. Large, difficult to defend. (Thinks: maiden Castle = Iron Age Chieftain’s Porsche?)
Weather worsens rapidly. Party strung out like ants on ploughed ridge. Flapping waterproofs donned with difficulty in gale. Umbrellas mortally wounded. Woman goes native, sheds shoes. (Bare feet better grip on wet grass. Please check with charging Highland warriors.) Other luckless lady hurts ankle, nobly succoured by aptly-named Rick.
In all, Castle colossal, magnificent, unique, unforgettable. (Uh oh, not visited in proper state of cool scientific detachment.)
All reel damply down to coach. (Soaked people from Swannery will swim up.) Down to lush vale, Abbotsbury Tithe Barn. Splendid stone-buttressed building spared by Henry VIII/locals because useful.
Inside, cool, dim, cathedral-like. Barn guide ghoulishly elaborates on Edgar Allen Poe veterinary instruments. Flee up ladder to gallery of dairy equipment. Clamber down to find guide demonically demonstrating mantrap, using stave. Massive clang. Very high OUCH factor. (Leg could be broken.) Limping least damage. Hirpling ex-poachers noticed by evil squire, constables, etc.
Downpour. Runner sent to summon coach and driver. Cry goes up: driver discovered in back of barn. (This Mystery Man, not like usual drivers, makes knowledgeable, throwaway remarks. Redundant doctor, pilot? Archaeologist extraneous to big museum’s needs?)
Damply to Dorchester Museum. (Dorothy’s visit timed just right.) Cast-iron galleries, Relics of T. Hardy. Half party and guide suddenly zoom out of sight. Hurtle ahead to Roman Villa. Dorothy knows all, sees all, unites flocks. Roman Villa sad tale of early excavations abandoned to moulder.
Admire Roman amphitheatre, built on top of earlier earthworks. (Voice of Colonial cit. in Roman days: “New theatre’s failed. Always knew it would not do well. Now, if you’d ever seen a real show in Rome … “)
Home to Sherborne Study Centre. Dry out. Dinner just as good as last night. No-one locks self out. Someone locks self in, instead. Dramatic ladder rescue.
Sunday. HADAS party mills about, waiting for coach. Man appears with dowsing rods. Demonstration over subterranean drain. Two thirds of those who try can do. (‘Mystery Man coach driver def. best.)
To Somerset Levels, Peat Moors Visitors’ Centre, Westhay. Coffee and good lunch in shifts at Willow Tearooms. Test local cider. Eyes swivel independently. Sing in rain.
Admire little dark Soay sheep. Sheep consume lush “Good King Henry” from kind hands of Dr. Margaret Cox. Tale of how peat consumption must be curtailed. Once little men with spades and black boats on bogs. Now monster machines scrape it all up. Special Dr. Bulleid Centenary Display (the very hut!) Mock-up sections of varying styles of ancient wooden trackways to stumble over. Smoky Iron Pge but contains chatty pseudo Celts in checked trews. (Almost as comfy as Hebridean “black house”… till you come home wounded or want to have a baby.)
Grey skies and spattered windows. Glastonbury. Party scatter to visit abbey, Tribunal, King -Arthur’s Tomb, teashops. Choose agricultural museum. Sadness of lost skills. (Ancestors did this.)
Coach obliged to halt at Stonehenge on return route (calls of nature.) Stones loom in greyness. Moon to self about how once approached across trackless, psychologically impressive plains. Now place littered with road, underpass, fences, loos, skips, drink stalls, tourists. (“All men kill the thing they love.”)
Home to dark, wet, shiny Hendon. Experience of a lifetime! wonderful memories of West Country in sun and shade! How can we persuade Dorothy to mastermind yet one more?
MEMBERS’ NEWS
FRANK MEYER and CRAIGIE BESWICK (now married) both past Members who always came to Lectures and Outings, are fit and well. Another Member, HELEN ADAM, met. them by chance in an hotel in Bournemouth. Theirs was a HADAS romance and MR MEYER is now nearly 90. They, with other Members, attended Mrs ROXAN’S Roman classes.
EDGAR LOEWY another Member of the Roman classes, and a regular attender at Lectures and Outings, died earlier this year. He and LILY LOEWY had given up Membership when he became ill.
ROBERT MICHEL and PAULA ALLEN – another HADAS romance – were married in Hendon on 12th September ROBERT was on the HADAS Committee for a time, and both attend our
Lectures and Outings. ROBERT caught the archaeology ‘bug’ years ago, left his job and went to Southampton University to get his degree in Archaeology. We wish them both a happy future, and look forward to their continued interest in the Society.
DR ANN SAUNDERS, our Member who has given us two fascinating lectures in the past, has given two talks on the radio recently, one on St. Paul’s and the other on the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire.
MOVING WITH THE TIMES from THE DAILY MAIL of 15th AUGUST,1992
” Motorists on the Al may be forgiven for rubbing their windscreens in disbelief when they spot ‘Established 1498′ on removal vans… Aberdeen Shore Porters’ Society, first mentioned in the Aberdeen Council Minutes of 20th June,1498.”
SITE WATCHING – THE FROZEN NORTHERN BOUNDARIES
Following a recent planning application by BROOK DALE LEISURE SITE for a ‘dry ski slope’ at Rowley Lane, Arkley, ENGLISH HERITAGE may recommend an archaeological assessment evaluation. This site, covers a large area which has not apparently been developed previous; it i also on the line of a suggested Roman road, the Viatores 167. No evidence of this was found when site-watching either the Three Rivers Pipeline (Newsletter No. 241) or previous HADAS investigations (LAMAS TRANSACTIONS 22, part 3). This area is further north, and may yield more positive evidence should an evaluation take place.
Other more temperate sites which have been the subject of recent planning applications in the Northern area, are listed below and may be of archaeological interest. Members living in the vicinity are asked to keep an eye on them and report anything of possible interest to BILL BASS on 081 – 449 – 0165. Thanks.
13 – 15 Moxon Street, High Barnet – 2 storey block of flats
38 Galley Lane, Arkley – single storey front extension
Cherry Tree Cottage, Barnet Road,Arkley – side extension
105 – 109 Station Road, New Barnet – block of flats
The Paddocks, Frith Lane, London, NW 7 – ten detached houses
45 Woodside Avenue, Finchley, N 12 – block of flats
SHORT COURSES ARRANGED BY UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD (DEPT. of CONTINUING EDUCATION)
SATURDAY DAY SCHOOLS at REWLEY HOUSE, OXFORD
Computing for Archaeologists : image processing £73.35 (Residential) £51.70 (Non-residential)
Science and Archaeology : artefact studies £23.50 (with lunch)., £18.00 (without lunch)
Archaeology of London : recent discoveries £92.00 .(Residential) £56.50 (Non-residential)
Ancient Philosophers and Archaeology in Asia Minor £23.50 (with lunch) £18.00 (without lunch)
Brittany : recent archaeological research £92.00 (Residential) £56.50 (Non-residential)
Aerial photographs (practical archaeology weekend) £71.70 (Residential) £48.90 (Non-residential)
The Archaeology Course Secretary, OUDCE, 1 Wellington Square,
Oxford, OX1 2JA. 2s soon as possible.
DAY CONFERENCE ON “LONDON – THE FIRST 2,000 YEARS” on SUNDAY, 25th OCTOBER Speakers from English Heritage,etc. Organised by “CITYSIGHTS” at LECTURE THEATRE
SCHOOL OF PHARMACY, BRUNSWICK SQUARE, WC 1 – £15. APPLICATIONS : 071 – 955 – 4791 from 12.30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
(24 hour Ansaphone : 081 – 806 – 4325)
