Newsletter
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HADAS SUMMER DIARY
Tuesday 8 May Lecture: WALTHAM ABBEY GUNPOWDER MILLS Norman Paul (originally scheduled for April).
Saturday 9 June Outing: CANTERBURY with Micky Cohen and Micky Watkins, booking form with full details enclosed.
Tuesday 12 June ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING Enclosed are Minutes of last year’s AGM, Notice of the AGM on 12th June 2001, Annual Report & Accounts, and proposed alterations to the Constitution. Followed by a talk and slides on some of our activities over the past 40 years.
Saturday 14 July Outing: CRANBORNE CHASE near Salisbury with Tessa Smith and Sheila Woodward
Saturday 11 August Outing: WALTHAM ABBEY GUNPOWDER MILLS with Stewart Wild
There is a question mark about the present destinations of our July and August outings due to the restrictions of the Foot & Mouth epidemic. The outing organisers are monitoring the situation and, if necessary, alternative destinations will be arranged and details posted in the Newsletter.
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LONDON ARCHAEOLOGICAL ARCHIVE AND RESEARCH CENTRE (LAARC) Report by Andy Simpson
Members of the HADAS Committee and other members of the digging and research teams attended a most useful meeting at Avenue House on 29th March. We were pleased to meet Hedley Swain, Head of Early London Department at the Museum of London, and his colleague John Shepherd, Head of the Museum of London’s Archaeological Archive. Hedley had kindly offered to talk to us about the services that the recently established LAARC could offer. It will cover material from the Museum’s own excavations in the City through MoLAS, and excavations resulting from PPG16 requirements from all thirty- two London Boroughs. Other archives and material from the LAMAS, City of London Archaeological Society (COLAS) and Islington societies may be added to the collections held there. The new archaeological archive is the largest of its kind in Europe, intended as a store for presently existing archives and a sustainable home for material produced through future excavations. It is aimed at a whole variety of audiences, including schools, archaeological professionals, amateurs, students and teachers, as a centre of research, with the goal of 100% public access to the collection and the information required about it. Present building improvements should be completed by June this year and a formal launch of their public access facilities will take place in January 2002. The refurbished and extended canal-side building at Eagle Wharf Road features 12 kilometres of archives shelving to carry material from 4,500 sites so far, with room for another twenty years of material at the present rate of acquisition. Collections management is vital – even simple steps such as use of standard box sizes (12 at present) and careful packing and re-boxing of material can provide valuable extra space, as those dealing with HADAS material at Avenue House can verify. Study areas will be located adjacent to storage bays. Access will be free, by prior appointment, with generous opening hours: 7am to 9pm, Monday to Friday, plus two Saturdays per month from 10am to 4pm. There is a large Visitor Centre doubling as an 80-seat conference/meeting room. The LAARC will be located on the first floor of the Eagle Wharf Road premises, and the Museum of London Social History collections on the ground floor will include vehicles and street furniture, largeobjects including timbers, and architectural stonework and ironwork. Hedley Swain has since written to Brian Wrigley thanking us for a useful meeting. He would welcome HADAS’ involvement through using the archive for research, or members volunteering to help with finds processing, analysis, or possibly a specific project staffed by HADAS members, and he is open to suggestions on what facilities or services should be provided. Although primarily intended for storage of MoL/PPG16 generated material, LAARC is happy to discuss deposition of relevant London archaeological material from other sources, bearing in mind local interests when some material may be better curated locally, and the best interests of archaeology overall. They are willing to offer advice on any storage and archive standards required, including copyright and photographic access. I am sure all HADAS members wish the new project success; the Society and several individual members made donations some time ago and it is hoped that many members will find the Archive of help and, indeed, be of help to LAARC themselves.
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College Farm
As part of the preparations for the forthcoming Ted Sammes archive project, the HADAS finds stored at College Farm have been given a good sort-out recently, continuing the gradual (and much needed) tidy-up of the HADAS storage area at the farm, undertaken by members of the digging team over the past few months. The West Heath material, including flints and post-hole casts, has been grouped together, as has the Church Terrace and Church End Farm material, with some selective re-boxing due to deterioration of original packaging materials. Museum of London standard finds boxes, sourced by Bill Bass, are now being used at College Farm as well as for the material stored at Avenue House. Other material at the farm includes Pipers Green Lane, Brockley Hill, Roman finds and post-medieval material such as coffin plates from East Barnet. It is planned to gradually continue this process as part of the preparations for new storage premises, which we hope to acquire shortly.
PLANNING APPLICATIONS IN THE NORTHERN AREA Bill Bass
1263-1275 High Road, Whetstone, London, N20
This block of buildings, comprising an ex-baker’s, hospice shop, tailor’s and other outlets on the junction of the High Road and Totteridge Lane, is about to be demolished and the site re-developed by Waitrose who own the adjacent supermarket. There is an archaeological condition to investigate the standing building and land before building. The site stands opposite 1264 High Road where HADAS found evidence of occupation going back to the medieval period.
Tapster Street and Moon Lane, Barnet, Herts
The application to develop this site for residential use has an archaeological condition, as this area lies just to the east of Barnet Parish Church and the surrounding medieval occupation.
Hampstead Garden Suburb Archive
The Handlist to above archive will have been launched by the time you receive this newsletter. This work was instigated by the late Brigid Grafton Green who, as long-standing HADAS members will recall vividly, was our Secretary for several years. The Society has made a corporate donation towards this important publication, but members who wish to make a contribution as individuals, in memory of Brigid, should send cheques, payable to HGS Archive Trust, to Dr Ann Saunders, 3 Meadway Gate, NW11 7LA.
EXCAVATIONS AT BROCKLEY HILL Tessa Smith
Andy Norton and his team from the Oxford Archaeological Unit have been digging at the corner of Brockley Hill and Spur Road, Edgware for some weeks in very waterlogged conditions. They have exposed a metalling surface, part of Roman Watling Street, as well as several drainage ditches and a row of postholes for a possible Roman fenced area. As well as this, two Roman coins and a possible stylus have gone to Oxford for analysis. Hopefully, HADAS will be able to obtain a copy of the report when it comes out.
Further up Brockley Hill, on the west, Harrow, side of Watling Street, in the grounds of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Ben Ford of the Oxford Group has excavated the area of Brockley House. When the house when built last century, the footings sliced through a Roman kiln, and the Oxford unit have found much Roman pottery which is also currently being processed in Oxford and, again, we hope to get a copy of the report in due course. Our thanks go to Rob Whytehead of English Heritage who informed us of these excavations.
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MEET THE MEMBERS
We have persuaded some of our members to share their thoughts and experiences in our common passion, archaeology…
BILL FIRTH
I had the usual boyhood interest in trains; in fact I had an extensive model railway, but I was interested in all forms of transport and the infrastructure. This led to a wider interest in industrial history and then industrial archaeology (IA). In the mid 1970s, as our children were about to leave home, my wife said that we must develop some new interests, some of which should be individual ones so that neither of us would always be reliant on the other. In the event, I joined the Greater London Industrial Society, GLIAS, in 1975 and, having become an active member, was elected to the committee in 1977. I took on the post of Publicity Officer in 1978 and held this post before volunteering to become secretary when that position became vacant in 1989. After ten years I decided to take a break and resigned but I have still not been fully replaced, however, I am decreasingly involved and there is hope of a successor. One of GLIAS aims, which has never been fully achieved, was to have a correspondent in each London Borough who would keep a watching brief on IA in their area. I agreed to take on Barnet and, to pursue this, I joined HADAS in 1976. At the time HADAS, led by Paul Carter, a somewhat mysterious figure who, about that time, just disappeared from the IA scene, had done some recording of IA sites in the borough and Brigid Grafton Green, who was not only secretary but a promoter of many HADAS activities, was keen for this to continue. Unlike most of the boroughs nearer inner London, Barnet has never been an industrial area, although there are (have been) important sites, and industrial archaeology has not been a major activity for HADAS. One early project was the photographing of the Schweppes factory in West Hendon before it was demolished. We were also involved in a small way with the author of a history of the company. We have had one major success in achieving the listing of all the historic buildings at Hendon Aerodrome after the Ministry of Defence proposed to demolish the Grahame-White hangar which was the only building listed at that time. The campaign lasted some 12 months. Over the years we have produced a number of gazetteers for various purposes. Unfortunately the number of entries has decreased each time as industrial sites have been redeveloped.One other activity is the monitoring of Borough planning applications for the redevelopment of industrial sites and to make representations when necessary but, although many sites may be of local significance, it is generally difficult to make a ease for retention or re-use in a wider London or national context. Apart from the recording of industrial sites, which is in the hands of a comparatively small Recording Group, GLIAS organises a series of winter lectures and summer IA walks. These are the popular activities. If any HADAS member would like to know more I would be glad to give them more detail and give them a membership application form.
DON COOPER
My name is Don Cooper and I’m 64 years old. My wife, Liz, and I joined HADAS in 1998. Previously I worked for the Smiths Group formerly Smiths Industries Plc for over forty years ending up as Director, Business Development for their Medical Group. I have always been interested in archaeology and in planning for my retirement I took the Birbeck College’s course “Field archaeology and the Romano-British period in Southern Britain” at evening class. This was to prove to myself that I could still write essays, as opposed to business reports and memos, and retain at least some of the information from the classroom! After I retired, I successfully applied to University College London (UCL) to do a full-time degree in General Archaeology. I am now about to do my final year exams (all prayers, incantations, memory enhancers welcome!!). UCL are introducing an MA in London Archaeology this year and, assuming appropriate grades, I have applied to do it part-time. I have excavated at Fishbourne Roman palace, Bignor Roman villa, Pisidian Antioch in Turkey, Ewell in Surrey and on a Bronze Age site on Leskernick Hill in Cornwall. Apart from studying and excavating, Liz and I like travelling, theatre and dining out, and divide our time between our house on the west coast of Ireland and living here in London. We find all the people at HADAS very friendly and greatly enjoy the lecture series — long may it continue. Don mentioned that the MA in London Archaeology at UCL will only run if there is sufficient take-up, and he suggests that, if anyone is interested in the subject, this is the year to do it!
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Jill Hooper joined us eighteen months ago and immediately got stuck into the practical side of the Society, becoming a regular on fieldwork projects. She would like to share her experience as a Birkbeck student…
JILL HOOPER
BIRKBECK SURVEY WEEK
One overcast and showery week in March, I joined ten other Birkbeck students in a turret room overlooking Tavistock Square to learn about surveying in archaeology. A week before, the pre-course reading list arrived, or should I say the 10-page trigonometry revision course! ! !! Apparently, Marek Ziebart (the course tutor) was inundated with emails from people thinking the course was not for them. I enlisted the help of a friend, who spent several hours patiently guiding me through the pages of gobbledegook and on the art of using a calculator. Thanks to Mike I arrived more prepared than most. Fear not, anyone who has been tempted to do the course – one person had not done any trig at school. Marek must be the most patient and good-humoured tutor to walk this earth; he led us each morning through the required maths, and set us loose each afternoon in the square for practical work. We divided into three groups with instructions to try and have one person with a sense of humour, one who was neat and one who sort of understood what we were doing. My group had the humour, neatness and two who KNEW what they were doing!, (and muddled along just fine). Levelling, benchmarks, temporary benchmarks, backsights, foresights, dumpys and staffs all became clear on day one. Eastings, northings, bearings, Pythagarus’ theorem, sine, cosine, tangent and theodolites became clearer as the week progressed. Each group had to mark out a triangle. Along the hypotenuse and at right angles to it four stakes at set distances were struck. Using the theodolites, features around the square were measured from two points on our original triangles. Back in the classroom, the castings and northings for each feature were calculated and plotted on transparent graph paper at the same scale as the ordnance survey map of the area. The object of all this was to correctly place our triangles on the ordnance survey grid. The importance of levelling and accurate placing on the ordnance survey grid, is so that future excavations and contractors know where and at what level important archaeology has been found in the past and therefore aid future planning in an area. I would highly recommend the course to anyone who is interested. The content is not as difficult as it appears at first sight. I learnt a tremendous amount about many aspects of archaeology, and had great fun. A sense of humour certainly helped, especially on the day, due to rain, that we did trigonometry all day!!! Jill has also recently been helping as a volunteer with a professional unit operating in London. Perhaps we could coax another article from her one of these days?
Malcolm Stokes
According to our records, Malcolm Stokes joined HADAS in 1978. You may know his informative booklet A Walk along the ancient boundaries in Kenwood, (on sale from the HADAS book box as well as from the author). Several HADAS members have joined his annual walk/talk along the Kenwood boundaries – part of the Kenwood events calendar. Last year he masterminded an excellent millennium local history exhibition for the Highgate Scientific Society. As well as editing the Hornsey Historical Society Newsletters he finds time for parish boundary research and the following is from his paper ‘How old is Hornsey’s boundary?’ published in the Hornsey Historical bulletin 42, which he abridged to cover the areas in which HADAS has an interest. Malcolm has taken a fresh look at the recorded evidence and believes that his findings could be considered controversial, but welcomes comment/criticism/debate through the HADAS newsletter. We enjoy a hot debate too, so be our guest…
Before 1965, when the greater London boroughs were created, there was a strong link between Finchley (now included in the LBB Barnet) and Hornsey (now included in Haringey). Their common boundary is surprisingly new for two mediaeval parishes. Neither manor warranted a mention in Domesday Book. The land could not support a manor worth independent management or taxation. Indeed, there is no evidence that either Hornsey or Finchley existed as either independent manors or parishes before the thirteenth century although, no doubt, there were farmsteads and small settlements in the area. The close connection between Hornsey and Finchley lies in their common owner, the bishop of London, who found no need to differentiate between these possessions. The closeness of these two manors by the same owner allowed them to be bought as a single unit by Sir John Wollaston, (Victoria County History of Middlesex vi 56, 125; Marchams Hornsey Manor Court Rolls xiv, xvii; V.Pearl London and the Outbreak of the Puritan Revolution (1961) 328-331) a protestant Lord Mayor of London, after the sale of church lands as late as the seventeenth century under the Commonwealth. The bishop’s hunting park appears as an appendage on the enclosure map of Finchley and was called Hornsey Park, even where it protruded into Finchley parish.The park was in existence by 1226 (S.Madge Mediaeval records of Harringay 18, being the most significant feature in the area at that time. At the time of Domesday Book, the bishop of London held twenty-four manors. In most cases,it would seem reasonable to assume that the that the boundaries of these manors were determined when the king first granted them to their respective Lords. But the bishop’s lands extended over a large area, and the number of manors held varied a new ones were created from this tract and some were passed on to others, including the canons of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Finchley was seen to be part of Fulham manor and Hornsey part of Stepney manor. As the parish boundary between Hornsey and Finchley manors passed through the bishop of London’s hunting lodge in Haringey Park it was assumed that this was manorial boundary between Fulham and Stepney and would have a pre-Conquest date. On the other hand if Hornsey and Finchley had no independent existence as parishes or manors and were undivided before the thirteenth century, then it would make no difference to their common lord, the bishop, whether they were referred to as Hornsey or Finchley, and their affairs could be dealt with as conveniently for him and his bailiffs anywhere that his court might be held. The thirteenth century origins of Hornsey and Finchley The earliest written records for the area date from the thirteenth century. It has been suggested that Finchley manor formed part of the 50 hides in Fulham and elsewhere which Tyrhtel, bishop of Hereford, granted to Wealdheri, bishop of London in about 704. [V.C.H. Mdx vi 55; P.H.Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. 1785; Eng. Hist. Docs.i, ed. D. Whitelock, p. 449; V.C.H. Mdx. v. 96, 105.] Although Finchley was called a manor in 1374, [Cal. Pat. 1370-4, 462-3], it continued to be treated as part of Fulham until its transfer to the bishop’s lordship of Hornsey in 1491. [V.C.H. Mdx. vi; S.C. 2/189/1 m. 2d.] This is an example of the confused relationship between these two holdings. In 1294 the bishop of London claimed to have possessed Hornsey as a member of his manor of Stepney from time immemorial. Also in 1294, the bishop of London claimed that his predecessors had exercised rights over Finchley as a member of Fulham ‘time out of mind’. [V.C.H. Mdx. Vi, 55; Plac. de Quo. Warr (Rec. Corn.), 475]. This implies that there was a division between Finchley and Hornsey by 1294, as separate land holdings. The churches and parishes in Hornsey and Finchley Many ecclesiastical parishes were created in the thirteenth century. It would appear that the bishop of London, as lord of the manors of Finchley and Hornsey, founded both parishes in the thirteenth century at a time when he had been making frequent use of his hunting lodge. The church at Finchley was first recorded in 1274 [V.CH. Mdx. vi. 82; Cal. Pat. 1272-81, p.41]. The church at Hornsey was first recorded in 1291 [V.C.H. Mdx. vi. 172; Tax. Eccl. Rec. Corn. 17] and a priest in 1302 (Madge, Med. Rec. of Harringay 76-7, 91]. So it seems that the manors and parishes of Finchley and Hornsey emerged in the late thirteenth century out of a large tract of land long held by the bishops of London. It appears that Finchley and Hornsey’ were created from the rump of this tract of land when endowments of land had left a straggling remnant of a more extensive area. This view is supported by the fact that the common boundary between Finchley and Hornsey was not created until much later. The boundary across Finchley common 1816 The boundary between Finchley and Hornsey offers some clues to Hornsey’s origin because it can be most accurately dated being the most recent. Finchley common amounted to some 900 acres of open ground when it was enclosed in 1816. [V.C.H. vi, 47; M.R.O., EA/FIN]. It had previously been more extensive and called Finchley wood. In the sixteenth century there were disputes between the parishes bordering the common, including Friern Barnet, but no parish boundary existed as a line across the common before 1816 when it was enclosed by Act of Parliament, which created the boundary here between Finchley and Hornsey parishes. The straight boundary line drawn on the map then, survives today as the boundary between the Greater London Boroughs of Barnet and Haringey marked on the ground by the eastern fence of Islington and St. Pancras cemetery. The boundary across the bishop’s hunting park 1738 To the south of Finchley common lay the bishop of London’s hunting park. Here the parish boundary between Finchley and Hornsey was determined in 1738 when the site of the bishop’s hunting lodge was used as a boundary marker. Writing in 1938, Madge refuted the suggestion in Lloyd’s History of Highgate that the lodge was built in A.D. 1068 – 1080 by stating that “the parochial boundaries at this point have been overlooked by writers; these suggest an earlier period, the remoteness of which can be revealed by an archaeological examination of the site.” [Madge, The Early Records of Harringay alias Hornsey, 46]. Madge assumed that the church, parish and its boundaries were much older. He repeated this a year later, writing, “There is little doubt that before the Conquest all the woods in this neighbourhood formed one great woodland area divided only by the parish boundaries of Hornsey, Finchley, Islington and St. Pancras”. [S.J. Madge, The Mediaeval Records of Harringay alias Hornsey, 18]. However, on 14th February 1738, an agreement was signed between the churchwardens and inhabitants of the parishes of Finchley and Hornsey and signed by the rector of Hornsey, to mark their common boundary across the bishop’s park. [Guildhall MS. 12417]. They placed a stone by Hampstead Lane (still to be seen in Kenwood grounds). [Malcolm Stokes, A Walk along ancient boundaries in Kenwood]. From the stone at Hampstead Lane the boundary was decided to go in a straight-line to another stone to be set up in Stray Field. Very significantly there are no ground features to indicate a boundary, neither natural such as streams or ridges, nor man¬made such as roads or field boundaries. In the Finchley Tithe Award of 1861 each of the fields along this part of the boundary with Hornsey is described as -part of the .. field”. With many local manors (at Hendon or Hampstead, for example) being named in Domesday Book it becomes easy to assume that other medieval parishes and manors are as old. On the other hand it is clear that the creation and subdivision of manors was a continuing process that began before the Norman Conquest but continued for several centuries after.
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OTHER SOCIETIES’ EVENTS – Eric Morgan’s monthly selection of alternatives to TV!
Thurs 3 May Bangs, Grinds & Splinters – Industries of the Lee navigation. Talk: Jim Lewis. Venue: London Canal Museum, 12-13 New Wharf Rd, Kings X, N1. £2.50 (£1.25 concessions) 7.30pm
Sat 5 May EARTH SCIENCE BOOK FAIR Venue: University College, Gower St, WC1. 10am
Wed 9 May Barnet Local History Society, talk by Alan Greening: The Draper’s Tale – William Gardiner of Hertford Venue: Wyburn Room, Wesley Hall, Stapytton Rd, Bamet, 8pm
Wed 9 May Hornsey Historical Society, talk by Ruth Hazeldine Eating Winter with a Spoon Venue: Union Church Hall, corner Ferme Pk Rd/Weston Park, N8, non-members £1 8pm
Wed 16 May Willesden Local History Soc’y, talk by M McGirr The Growth of Paddington & Environs Venue: Willesden Suite, Library Centre, 95 High Rd, NW10. 8pm
Wed 16 May Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery, talk & renditions! by Terry Lomas Music Hall Artistes buried at KGC & other London cemeteries Venue: Dissenters Chapel, KGC, W10. £3. 7.30pm
Thurs 17 May Hampstead Scientific Society, talk by Dr Christopher Walker (British Museum) Numbers in Mesopotamia Venue: Crypt Room, St John’s Church, Church Row, NW3 8.15pm
Friday 18 May City of London Archaeological Society, talk by John Newman Recent Discoveries at Sutton Hoo Venue: St Olave’s Parish Hall, Mark Lane, EC3 7pm
Friday 18 May Enfield Archaeological Society, talk by Jon Cotton, (MoLAS) Retrieving London’s Prehistory Venue: Jubilee Hall, 2 Parsonage Lane, (Nr Chase Side), Enfield £1. 8pm
Fri 18 May Wembley History Society, talk + models by Roger Pattenden Model Maker’s Tale (local historic buildings) Venue: St Andrew’s Church Hall, Church Lane, Kingsbury, NW9. Visitors: £1. 7.30pm
Sat 19 May ENFIELD TRANSPORT BAZAAR – with free bus rides around local scenic areas. Venue: St Paul’s Centre, corner Church St/Old Park Ave), Enfield Town. 11am – 4pm
Sun 20 May WALK & TOUR OF UNCOMPLETED NORTHERN LINE EXTENSIONS with Jim Blake. Advance booking only £5 to North London Transport Society, 8 The Rowans, London N13 5AD. Meeting at: Finsbury Park Station 10.30am (till 7pm)
Wed 23 May Edmonton Hundred Historical Society, talk by Major Peter Horsefall: The Palace of Westminster Venue: Jubilee Hall, 2 Parsonage Lane, Chase Side, Enfield. 8pm
Thurs 31 May The Finchley Society, talk by Anne Lalaguna Cherry Tree Wood Venue: Drawing Room, Avenue House, East End Rd, N3 8pm
