Newsletter
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STOP PRESS **** DON'T FORGET THE CHRISTMAS PARTY **** FRIDAY
DECEMBER 6 AT 166 STATION ROAD, NW4 **** STARTS 7.30 P.M. **** TICKETS
75p ADULTS, 50p UNDER-14S **** REFRESHMENTS INCLUDED ****
Don't forget too that last-minute contributions to the Tombola are welcomed by Dorothy Newbury.
January Lecture
The next HADAS lecture, on 7 January 1975 will be by Mrs. M. U. and
Mr. W. T. Jones, who will discuss the dig which has been going on for
the last nine years at Mucking, Essex. It is one of the largest
excavations in Britain, and because of the sequence of occupation, one
of the most important.
The Mucking sites were discovered as a result of cropmarks
observed in 50 acres of barley grown on Thames terrace gravel.
Professor St. Joseph, Director of Aerial Photography at Cambridge,
recorded the cropmarks in the dry summer of 1959. Almost as soon as he
had published a photograph showing an especially dense complex of sites
their destruction by gravel quarrying had begun.
Since September 1965 excavation has been almost continuous. It
is now organised by the Mucking Excavation Committee (within the
Committee for Thurrock Archaeology), with support from many
institutions, local firms and individuals.
The cropmarks provide a palimpsest of such features as ditches
and pits -- underground traces which survive from ancient landscapes.
When plough soil and sub soil has been stripped of, these should show
up as soil marks in the gravel. Work so far indicates that they have a
range of 3,000 years, from Neolithic to early Saxon. Flints extend
occupation back to the Mesolithic, while a medieval windmill and later
field ditches are the only recent features.
Mrs. Jones will describe the site and settlement material, Mr Jones the cemetery material.
Looking Ahead
In case you haven't got the list of future lectures by you, here again of the details for your new diary:
Tuesday Feb. 4
| - The Lunt Roman Fort, Warwicks - Excavation and reconstruction - Brian Hobley
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Tuesday March 4
| - Medieval Jewellery and Pottery - John Cherry
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Tuesday April 1
| - Are We Fair to Neanderthal Man? - Desmond Collins
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Tuesday May 6
| - Annual General Meeting
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All meetings take place at Central Library, The Burroughs, NW4 and start at 8.00p.m. with coffee and biscuits.
HADAS Building Survey
The Society survey of buildings which might be included in the
revised Statutory List of Buildings of Architectural and Historic
Interest has now been completed.
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As described in newsletters 41 and 42, this survey began as a
result of an invitation from the Borough Planning Officer to put
forward recommendations which he, in turn, could place before the
officers now conducting, for the Department of the Environment, a
revision of the Statutory List for our Borough. Some 25 members
volunteered to help with the survey. The Borough was sub-divided into
eighteen areas; during the last three months each volunteer has studied
the buildings in his or her area.
When these studies were completed, the Research Committee took
over. It went into fairly continuous session, sifting all the
information provided by the volunteers and working out the final
recommendations, which were sent on 13 November to the Borough Planning
Office.
Our recommendations were put forward in 4 parts. Part I
consisted of buildings never before Listed, which HADAS now recommended
for Listing. It contained some 43 buildings or groups, and included the
suggestion that one Conservation Area – Moss Hall Crescent, North
Finchley -- should be extended; and that all buildings in the original
Hampstead Garden Suburb, planned by Sir Raymond Unwin and Sir Edwin
Lutyens and built between 1907-14, be Listed.
Buildings which had once been on the old Supplementary List,
now extinct, provided Part II of our recommendations. Here 57 buildings
were recommended for statutory Listing.
Part III contained the details of street furniture, as distinct
from buildings. HADAS hopes this category will be given particular
consideration because it contributes so much to the history of the
area. Hitherto street furniture has not been Listed in this Borough,
but there is a precedent -- a Victorian post-box has been Listed
recently in neighbouring Camden. We suggested Listing a number of
milestones, 6 cattle troughs, 2 drinking fountains, some boundary
stones and some historic post-boxes. We are glad to report that in his
acknowledgement of the receipt of our recommendations, the Borough
Planning Officer says that "the review of the Statutory List will
include consideration of those items referred to in Part III of your
survey which I noted includes considerable historical detail".
The final part of the HADAS recommendations was a
miscellaneous section which we called "buildings to which HADAS wishes
to draw the Borough's attention". We did not definitely recommend the
buildings in this section for Listing. It contained some buildings of
historical significance but a little architectural merit -- for
instance, the Central Public Health Laboratory in Colindale. This was
the first Government Lymph Establishment, opened in June 1907, from
which all vaccine used for public vaccinations in England and Wales was
distributed. The building still retains the original calf houses, now
used for other purposes.
Part IV also contained details of buildings which are examples
of notable architects' work and therefore have a place in the history
of architecture -- for instance, a house in Barnet Lane designed by
Edwin Lutyens, in his "country house" style, for Victorian author Silas
Hocking; and examples of particular building periods. In this part,
too, we are asked that the Department of the Environment's attention be
particularly drawn to Barnet High Street, where remains of Medieval,
seventeenth and eighteenth century buildings may still lie concealed
behind modern facades.
HADAS is much indebted to the members who took part in the
survey. Many did detailed documentary research and provided, in
addition to the recommendations which have gone forward, a mass of
other material, including photographs, of interesting buildings all
over the Borough. All this information will be incorporated in the
Society's Buildings Index, making it a larger and more effective source
of reference.
Mycenae Rich in Gold
Raymond Lowe reports on the November 5th lecture.
Having been asked to forego the pleasures of Guy Fawkes, which
always smacks of a pre-Christian Nordi religious ritual, we were well
rewarded by Mrs. Wallace-Zeuner. Seldom have so many members (a record
104) been so entertained and informed in such a delightful manner.
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We were first shown two replicas of the famous Vapheio gold cups
with their scenes of bulls and athletes. They were passed round the
room while we were skilfully led to through the legend and history of
the city and the Trojan War, a story which, if it were contemporary,
would find its place in the News of the World.
The various folk movements which affected the Minoan and
Mycenean empires were briefly touched on and the history of the digs
which began with Heinrich Schliemann, one of the fathers of
archaeology, and now continues with the work of Lord William Taylour.
All this was given in a very lively manner. The slides, all taken on by
Mrs. Wallace-Zeuner (haven't we all suffered from site descriptions by
lecturers who have never seen the sites in question?) were better than
she admitted. They showed the site, grave circle A, the Lion Gate, the
cyclopean walls, the stele and the grave goods. They were accompanied
by a commentary which covered architecture, weaponry, strategy,
pottery, fashion and the astonishing gold work of the Greek Bronze Age.
It ended with a well-deserved round of applause for a
remarkable lady. Maps and examples of four types of Mycenean pottery
were available afterwards for inspection -- "don't put them the your
ditty bag" she warned us. We didn't.
College Farm, Finchley
Newsletter 45 described the threat hanging over College Farm; here are some details of its history.
There has been a farm on this site (app. TQ 247 895) since
medieval times. Originally it was a sheep farm, known in the 18th/early
nineteenth century as Sheephouse Farm.
In 1868 Sheephouse was bought by G. T. Barham, who had founded
the Express Dairy Company four years previously. The old buildings were
demolished in 1882 and the new buildings were opened in 1883. The plans
suggest that the new buildings occupy precisely the same site as the
old. The architect of the new farm was Frederick Chancellor, whose main
interest was ecclesiastical building; he was diocesan surveyor to St.
Albans for many years. The tender accepted for the building of college
farm was for £4942.
From the outset College Farm (presumably so named because the
nearest large building in 1883 would have been Christ's College,
Finchley) was something of a public relations exercise. It was not
intended to produce milk in quantity; but in its use of the latest
equipment and the most hygienic methods it was to be a model of what a
dairy serving a growing urban population ought to be.
When Barham first bought it, the farm consisted of 120 acres.
He kept 110 acres in permanent pasture or meadow and 10 acres in
arable. The pasture, dressed liberally with horse and cow manure, gave
two crops a year. A feature of the farm was its large oak-fenced stack
yard, to the east of the main 5-gable red-brick complex. The yard
enclosed 6 large ricks, each containing 40 to 50 tons of hay.
From the 1890s, the number of cows in a milk usually averaged
40 the year round. 30-40 acres were used as pasture for these animals,
the other 70-80 acres being mown.
Precise records and accounting were one of the rules. In 1890
the Farm produced 28,184 gallons of milk, from a herd composed half of
Guernseys and half of Shorthorns and Kerrys. As cows went dry they were
retired to another Express farm and replaced by newly calved cows. The
average yield per cow was about 587 gallons. The money value of each
cow's milk at 4d a quart was approximately £37 for 10 months in milk.
The farm had its own laboratory, on one side of the entrance
hall. The office was on the other side. In the upper part of the
building were dormitories for the men. The main part of the building
consisted of the byre and a large milking parlour, the walls of which
were Minton-tiled.
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The name of each cow appeared on its stall along with the cards and rosettes it had won at shows.
Later the east end of the building was adapted for use by the
ponies which drew the milk floats. Another Express Dairy Farm at nearby
Fryth was also used for Welsh ponies. Pony-drawn floats were finally
taken out of service in 1957. The last pony, aged 20, died in 1972. The
year before he had appeared, by special invitation, at the Horse of the
Year Show, accompanied by the last of the Dairy's team of ten farriers,
then aged 95.
The farm had extensive outbuildings in which forage was
chaffed, roots (mainly mangels, from the 10 acres of arable) were
pulped and food mixed. The chaff-cutter, root-pulper and cake-crusher
were driven by a steam engine. Mangel tops and cabbage supplied green
food until after Christmas.
Across the cobbled yard to the south of the main building was a
model dairy. Originally this had a thatched roof and a wide overhanging
eaves for coolness. Today it still remains but it is now tiled. It too
was Minton-tiled inside and originally had slate benches and white
porcelain milk-pans. From the first, however, it was little used as a
dairy. In fact it quickly became a focal point for Victorian family
outings, and was famous for the watercress teas served in it. The
watercress was also local, from the beds in the Mutton Brook just south
of the farm. Public events were publicly celebrated at the farm -- for
instance, Edward VII's Coronation was marked by a "crumpet and country
dance party".
College Farm was a place where both the general public and the
trade could go to see milk production at its best. Up to the Second
World War it had a European reputation among the dairy managers. It was
celebrated for its sales of pedigree Guernseys; it became, in the
1920s, London's first TT dairy, setting the standard for all the
Express Dairy Company's suppliers. The preparation of the farm for
certification necessitated some physical changes, and it was closed for
a short time and reopened in 1921 in its new status by Dame Margaret
Lloyd George. Until 1963 the dairy housed the first milk-bottling plant
used in the London area (and possibly the first in Britain). The change
to mechanical bottling was made, as an experiment, in the mid-1920s and
was an unqualified success. The plant remained in use till 1963, when
it was demolished as uneconomic. Less successful -- but still in the
van of progress -- was the installation in 1929 of the first "Sealcone"
machine outside the U.S. (i.e. the use of waxed cartons for milk).
The farm survived, but on a reduced scale, after the second
war. In 1946 a pure Ayrshire herd was installed. Each member of the
herd was named – Hannah, May, etc -- and every calf born since took his
mother's name and a number; for instance "Hannah" in 1972 was Hannah
45.
By then the lessons of up-to-date and hygienic dairying which
College Farm had pioneered had been well learnt, but the farm continued
to serve a useful educational function for the public and for school
parties in particular. A Museum of Dairying had been built up by Mr
Walter Nell, a nephew of George Barham. This, with its collection of
early equipment and its exhibits showing the distribution and marketing
of milk -- there was a complete dairy shop of the turn-of-the-century
-- was a great attraction. Up to Spring 1974 some 10 cows remained in
residence; and as late as 1973 you couldn't book at short notice to
visit the dairy because it was already booked months ahead by parties.
Where now for College Farm? The departure of the cows last
spring and the more recent dismantling of the museum and its local
treasures have broken one of the last remaining links with Finchley's
rural past. What will replace, in the dairy buildings and the fields
around them, those contentedly chewing beasts which brought life back
into perspective for many a tired commuter returning home from a day in
the rat-race? We wish we knew the answer -- but at the moment the whole
subject seems to be shrouded in silence.