The Campaign Group is delighted with progress, and exceptionally grateful to those Fellows who have made donations and pledges since we launched the campaign in May this year. If you have contributed recently – thank you!

Kelmscott Manor has hitherto been preserved as a wonderful, but somewhat static, shrine to William Morris and his family. The current project will respect this heritage, while revitalising the Manor into a working exposition of the Society’s own dynamic engagement with the past through history, art, architecture, archaeology and ancient landscapes. This refreshed interpretation aims to take as its starting-point the very reasons why Morris himself loved the house and its setting.

For those of you who have not already made a commitment, we hope that you might consider supporting the project when you receive the Society’s subscription reminder in the autumn mailing. If one third of the Fellowship were prepared to donate £125 a year for for years, or £10 per month for 50 months, we could achieve £500,000 towards our fundraising target. And, dare I say, if you felt you could do more we would be delighted to welcome you as either a Benefactor (£5,000), or a Principal Benefactor (£15,000).

We are conscious that our plans for Kelmscott are ambitious, but this is a rare opportunity to help safeguard and enhance the future of an internationally-renowned historic house – one with strong links to the Society and its aims.

If you are inclined to support this appeal, please do so today (visit the website for more information) or contact Head of Development Dominic Wallis on +44 (0)20 7479 7092 or by email at dwallis@sal.org.uk with details of how you can help.

~ Martin Levy, FSA
Chairman
Kelmscott Manor Campaign Group
Image: Campaign Group at Burlington House

The Society has the largest antiquarian library in the country, with a collection spanning items from the 10th century to present day, reflecting 300 years of research and scholarship into the history and material remains of Great Britain and other countries.

Aimed at early-career researchers and students currently undertaking or about to begin postgraduate studies, participants will spend the day learning about our collections and resources that can help them with their research. They will hear from Fellows of the Society who are experts in their respective fields and have the opportunity to network with other early-career researchers and postgraduate students. The Library will be open late to encourage participants to spend time exploring our collections.

Please share this event with colleagues or students who may be interested. More information about the day, including how to register, can be found on our website (www.sal.org.uk/events). Lunch provided! Free, but advanced registration is required.

Click here for a printable A4 flyer.


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Symbolic Codes From Personal Heraldry to Corporate Logos
A Public Symposium by the Society of Antiquaries of London (6 November)

This conference will consider ways in which identity since c. 1100 has been, and continues to be, expressed in outward visible formats, principally heraldry. The opening address will be delivered by Dr Claire Boudreau, Chief Herald of Canada. In this 150th anniversary year of the nation’s confederation, Dr Boudreau will explore how Canada has integrated imperial, European, and native emblems to help establish its own visual symbolic identity. Dr Boudreau will also discuss the challenges facing the Canadian Heraldic Authority with regard to competing forms of symbolic identity in the 21st century. The formal part of the proceedings will end with a round-table discussion (including Elizabeth Roads, Snawdoun Herald at the Court of the Lord Lyon) on 'Branding or Blazon? Examining the Role of Heraldry in a Corporate World Dominated by Logos'.

There will be an opportunity to view a special display of the Society of Antiquaries of London’s rare heraldic manuscripts and to buy some of its heraldic publications. Lunch will be provided and the day will end with a wine reception.

More information, including booking, is available on our website: www.sal.org.uk/events.

Treve Rosoman FSA, historian of house interiors and London architecture, died in October. An appreciation appears in Fellows Remembered below.
 
The section also contains further notices on the late Stephen Croad FSA and the late Bridget Allchin FSA.
 
The correct age of the late Robert Thompson FSA, wrongly given In the last Salon, was 73. 
 
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I noted previously that three distinguished Fellows had been honoured by the British Academy, namely Eszter Bánffy FSA, John Gowlett FSA and James Stevens Curl FSA. They received the British Academy President’s Medal reward for ‘outstanding service to the cause of the humanities and social sciences’. I introduced errors in reporting the latter’s award, for which I apologise. The citation reads:
 
‘Professor James Stevens Curl (University of Ulster) for his contribution to the study of the History of Architecture in Britain and Ireland.’
 
He is Emeritus Professor of the History of Architecture, de Montfort University, Leicester, and Visiting Professor, Ulster University.
 
Other Fellows were also rewarded by the British Academy:
 
Joyce Reynolds FSA (University of Cambridge) received the Kenyon Medal, ‘for her lifetime's contribution to the research and study of Roman epigraphy’.
 
Kate Bennett FSA (University of Oxford) received the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize, for John Aubrey: Brief Lives with an Apparatus for the Lives of our English Mathematical Writers (Volume I & II) (2015). Reviewing the work, Michael Hunter FSA wrote that ‘This monumental edition is a triumph … unsurpassed for its scholarly rigour.’
 
Two further prizes are associated with Fellows. The Derek Allen Prize (Numismatics), which commemorates Derek Allen FSA, was awarded to Michael Crawford (University College London) ‘for his significant contribution to the study of Roman numismatics’. The biennial Landscape Archaeology Medal, established following the decision of John Coles FSA, was awarded to Tom Williamson (University of East Anglia) ‘for his significant contribution to the study of landscape history and archaeology’.
 
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In June Andrew Oddy FSA was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society for services to numismatics. The award was recognition in particular for his chairing the Scientific Research Committee which published the proceedings of four conferences on the application of science to numismatics, and for being a member of a small group of amateur numismatists interested in the origins of Islamic Coinage (The Seventh Century Syrian Numismatic Round Table), who have published the proceedings of five conferences on early Islamic Coins. 



Under the heading ‘Jolly good fellows’, Jill Franklin FSA sent us this photo (above), taken at a supper to celebrate the admission of Delia Gaze FSA, art historian, to the Society’s fellowship on 5 October. Gaze is seated centre, with seven of her medievalist sponsors: Kathryn Morrison FSA, Lindy Grant FSA, Ron Baxter FSA, Phillip Lankester FSA, Rose Walker FSA, Jill Franklin FSA and Eric Fernie FSA. Phil Dixon FSA, John Goodall FSA, James King FSA and John McNeill FSA, says Franklin, ‘joined us in spirit!’

On the Ocean: The Mediterranean and the Atlantic from Prehistory to AD 1500, is Sir Barry Cunliffe FSA’s fourth substantial book about early Europe and its wider contacts with the word Ocean in its title. This one focuses on the sea and boats and, says the blurb, explores the story of the development of seafaring on the Mediterranean and the Atlantic from early prehistory to about AD 1500. It begins with Middle Palaeolithic hunter gatherers in the eastern Mediterranean building simple vessels to cross to Crete, and ends in the early years of the 16th century with sailors from Spain, Portugal and England establishing the limits of the ocean from Labrador to Patagonia. Oxford University Press offers a 30% discount on purchases from its website, with discount code AAFLYG6.
 
Ruth Bernard Yeazell has reviewed Jane Austen at Home: A Biography, by Lucy Worsley FSA, in the New York Review of Books (28 September). The book, writes Yeazell, ‘offers an engagingly written account of a woman far more alert to hard economic realities than the original keepers of her image liked to acknowledge.’ Worsley (‘a rather gushing host of history shows on British TV’) is ‘particularly good at cutting through the aura of cozy charm that sometimes threatens to suffocate Austen’s story.’ She is ‘less persuasive, however, on the subject of Austen’s writing.’

English Without Boundaries: Reading English from China to Canada, edited by Jane Roberts FSA and Trudi L. Darby, brings together research on English, says the blurb, ‘from the Anglo-Saxons to Big Data’. It contains selected papers from the 2016 conference of the International Association of University Professors of English, with contributions from China, Finland, Israel, Italy, Japan and Portugal, as well as from Canada, the UK and the United States. Fellows with an interest in 19th-century Winchester, Roberts tells Salon, could find Michael Tomko's ‘Keats and the Politics of Gothic Beauty’ of interest. Cambridge Scholars Publishing offers a 20% discount on purchases from its website, with discount code boundaries20.
 
Simon Jenkins FSA has been interviewed for the Sunday Times about ‘My hols’ (8 October). ‘I’ve undertaken some huge tours of the UK,’ he says, ‘researching our churches, country houses, cathedrals, views and now stations, and each was hugely rewarding. I’m a Londoner, but what it teaches you is how utterly spoilt this city is. You can’t defend the money and power that is poured into the capital.’
 
Paul Bahn FSA has edited Archaeology: The Whole Story, a fat illustrated guide to the ancient world. It has, says the blurb, comprehensive coverage of the most important archaeological sites, placed in the context of key social and cultural developments. There are short ‘historical timelines’ throughout the book, which is arranged in six period chapters from Deep Prehistory (4 million–10,000BC) to The Modern World (AD1600–present). Contributors include Philip Duke FSA, David Gill FSA, Jane McIntosh FSA and Paul Pettitt FSA.
 
On 7 October a car crashed into pedestrians at the end of Exhibition Road, the quasi-pedestrianised street that separates the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum, to the west, from the Victoria and Albert Museum to the east. Fears that the incident might have been terrorism linked were soon dispelled when it emerged as a case of very bad driving. Nine people were taken to hospital, and a man in in his 40s was arrested. Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A, said Exhibition Road should be fully pedestrianised.



In the last Salon Philippa Glanville FSA reported that Peter Marsden FSA had been admitted to the Freedom of the City of London. These photos (above) and his comments arrived just too late, and I’m pleased to include them here: ‘I was at the Guildhall Museum in the 1960s as the City's archaeologist, investigating about 90 sites during the post-War redevelopment of London, when opportunities for discovering its past were huge and successful. I was supported by a fantastic team of volunteers. There were no health and safety restrictions then. I often simply dug on bombed sites where, if I could not find the owner to give permission, I was ready with slick answers if they appeared and complained (none did). Our tools were largely funded by selling scrap lead that had flowed down the drains of a bombed printing works. The results of the investigations helped to outline the story of London's beginning and development over 2,000 years. I then moved to the Museum of London, then to the Dover Bronze Age Boat project, and then to Henry VIII's ship Mary Rose. Having vowed to “keep the Queen's peace” and tell the Lord Mayor if I find anyone behaving illegally (which may raise difficulties from Devon), it seems that I am not now allowed to drive sheep across London Bridge. However, my family did celebrate the presentation occasion with champagne at the top of The Shard building overlooking the Bridge and the fantastic views of what I still think is “my City”.’
 
Martin Brown FSA has prepared First World War Fieldworks in England, a thematic study for Historic England. The goal was to provide a national context for this class of field monument, and the project is part of HE’s contribution to the national Centenary Partnership Programme remembering the Great War. It is hoped the study will promote protection through discovery and the identification of the most significant remains. In addition, the report may inform formal national designation, local listing and the protection of previously unrecognised remains through planning and management agreements. The study can be downloaded for free.
 
The Sunday Times (15 October) reports that the Army is planning to cut funding for 15 of its regimental museums. A document said to have been seen by the paper listed a museum in Wales, five in England and six in Scotland from which an annual total £1.8 million would be withdrawn, possibly as soon as 2022.
 
The General In Winter, by Frances Harris FSA, is an account of 'the glories of the Age of Anne,’ by which England and Scotland were united and Britain was established as a European and a global power. Harris shows these events, says the blurb, as the achievement of two men above all: Queen Anne's captain-general, John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, and her Lord Treasurer, Sidney, first Earl of Godolphin. The historical narrative joins a tale of love and friendship between these men and Marlborough's wife, Sarah. The book, Harris tells Salon, has ‘a particular focus on Holywell House, St Albans, a survival of the Abbey, which with the garden Marlborough created there, was as much a headquarters of the famous ministerial partnership as the palaces and greater houses in which it was played out.’

President Trump announced that he is withdrawing the United States from UNESCO. Any financial savings will partly come from the U.S.’s debts, as it is said to be $550,000 behind in its obligations, and has not been a voting member of its central decision-making body since 2013. A spokeswoman for the State Department complained of UNESCO’s ‘long-documented anti-Israel bias’. ‘Trump’s ultimate goal’, said the Los Angeles Times, ‘is to withdraw the U.S. from crucial international organizations and obligations, reflecting his dangerous mix of isolationism and national chauvinism. It’s also petty.’ ‘It is a very sad day,’ said Peter Stone FSA, UNESCO Chair in Cultural Property Protection and Peace at Newcastle University. ‘UNESCO is there, and the whole of the UN is there, to try to bring the world together. If a major player decides to leave, that weakens both the country and UNESCO.’
 
I featured the William Morris Gallery’s new exhibition about May Morris in the last Salon. Lynn Hulse FSA writes to say that, as well as Thames and Hudson’s catalogue, the Friends of the William Morris Gallery have published a collection of 13 essays entitled May Morris: Art & Life. New Perspectives. Edited by Hulse, it includes pieces by herself and Annette Carruthers FSA. The book follows a conference in 2016 dedicated to May Morris (1862–1938), exploring her life and career as a designer, embroiderer, teacher and activist, as well as the pivotal role she played in preserving and shaping her father’s legacy.
 

Treve Rosoman FSA died on 4 October aged 69, ‘after a very swift attack of cancer’. He was a Curator with English Heritage from 1986 until retirement in 2013, when he continued as a consultant on historic interiors and Editor of the Regional Furniture Society’s Newsletter.
 
At English Heritage he was responsible for recreating the Art Deco interiors of Eltham Palace, and was part of the team conserving Sir Robert Taylor’s Danson Park, Bexhill. One of his tasks there was recreating a rococo/Chinoiserie wallpaper for Danson House, which had been acquired by English Heritage after being uninhabited for over 70 years.
 
On his LinkedIn page he wrote of himself that he had ‘always believed strongly in the publication of any research projects undertaken.’ His works included articles about Chiswick House in the Burlington Magazine (1985) and Furniture History (1986), London Wallpapers: Their Manufacture and Use, 1690–1840 (1992/2009), and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry for Peter Nicholson (1765–1844), an architectural writer and mathematician (2004). He was a contributor to The Intelligent Layman's British Furniture: 1600–2000 (2006).
 
He held a Visiting Fellowship at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.
 
Michael Turner FSA writes:
 
‘Treve had a background in the antique trade before joining English Heritage. He had a keen interest in the historic material culture of London's buildings, and was Curator of the English Heritage Architectural Study Collection, initially located in London and now accessible at Wrest Park, Bucks, composed of salvaged architectural details.
 
‘Treve's arrival on site visits was accompanied by the characteristic roar of his Harley Davidson. As a London properties curator he worked on many of English Heritage’s London properties, including Danson House, but the project of which he was most proud was the highly successful representation of Eltham Palace where, from 1992, Treve and I as Inspector collaborated in a fruitful partnership. Treve was responsible, with consultants, for the display and refurnishing of the 1930s Courtauld interiors.
 
‘It is impossible to summarise Treve’s areas of interest and expertise. He had a polymath’s insatiable thirst for knowledge. At Eltham he was keen to know how the building was decorated, furnished and used. How did the internal telephone and centralised vacuum cleaner work? What was Stephen Courtauld’s World War I army career? Where did they travel in their yacht? What cars did the Courtaulds drive? – how he loved finding out about the Courtaulds’ cars.
 
‘The success of Eltham’s restored interiors – the arrangement and choice of original objects, comparable antique pieces and modern reproductions of soft and hard furnishings where the originals were unavailable – is a testament to his scholarship, eye for detail, and knowledge of the practicalities of obtaining or commissioning furniture and fabrics. In Treve’s words, “we added colour to the black and white Country Life photographs”.
 
‘He was also an expert on London wallpapers for which he wrote an English Heritage catalogue first published in 1992, and extensively revised in 2009. They really were great times, which I was privileged to share with such a committed and knowledgeable colleague and friend.’
 
The William Hogarth Trust, of which Rosoman was a Trustee, has paid tribute to his ‘exceptional knowledge of historic interiors, their decoration, equipment and furnishing, along with the skill of sharing it without jargon or pretentiousness.’ He advised on the refurbishment of Hogarth’s House, and this summer he examined 18th-century wallpaper with a design of ruins at Boston Manor House in Brentford, as a contribution to a planned refurbishment project.
 
The photo shows Treve Rosoman in the 1990s, in the restored entrance hall of Eltham Palace.

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John Bold FSA has written this tribute to Stephen Croad FSA, who died in September aged 71.
 
‘Stephen Croad joined the National Monuments Record (NMR) in 1968. Though merged with the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments (England) five years before, the former National Buildings Record, under its new guise as the NMR, maintained its characteristic degree of separation and individuality of approach. Stephen came to embody the NMR’s buildings section.
 
‘The public library of photographs in Savile Row, London, meticulously arranged in red boxes by county and civil parish, was Stephen’s domain. But as Head of the Architectural Record (1981–94), he was responsible for far more: the vast store of records in the basement and elsewhere pertaining to architectural investigations carried out throughout the country by the Commission and others, and the large collections of photographs purchased or acquired by gift or bequest. This was a treasure trove for the researcher, crucial evidence for conservation and preservation, protection through listing, serious historical enquiry and analysis, and straightforward illustration for publications and television. Stephen believed that the library was also used for research by at least one well-turned out country-house burglar. It was a first port of call for anyone with a serious interest in the built heritage.
 
‘Stephen was born in Bridgwater, an only child, the son of Lionel, a golf-course groundsman, and Dorothy, a school secretary. It was his mother, together with the history and art teachers at his grammar school, who encouraged his enthusiasm for art and architecture. He indulged this productively by first cycling and later driving with a friend to visit, sketch and photograph local buildings. Through his art teacher he became aware of impressionist and post-impressionist painting, and by extension the Courtauld Gallery. So the Courtauld Institute became the obvious place to study, once he had achieved, with some difficulty and more than one attempt, the requisite Latin O-level. It must have been a culture shock to go at that time from a provincial grammar school to the cultural hub directed by Sir Anthony Blunt FSA. But he made the transition, applied himself very successfully, made many friends and graduated in 1967. It was no surprise to him in 1979 when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher outed Blunt in Parliament as a spy: “we all knew about that – Guy Burgess’s suitcase was still in the basement”.
 
‘Stephen was a paraplegic wheelchair-user following a devastating car accident in 1969, which kept him in hospital in Sheffield for six months and a regular visitor to Stoke Mandeville thereafter. He was not expected to survive, and indeed heard the doctors explaining this to his parents. Stephen recalled regaining consciousness; seeing so many medical staff around his bed, he thought they were probably over-staffed with not enough to do. That he recovered at all and was able to enjoy a very successful career, greatly respected by all his peers, with a very large circle of friends and a wide range of interests, is a tribute to those hospital staff and also to his own indomitability and great courage. He would not be deflected from what he wanted to do – come back to work with buildings – and live an independent life. He achieved both of these with great success, overcoming everyday impediments which would have sapped the morale and strength (he always used a manual wheelchair) of the hardiest of the able bodied. He was a keen theatre-goer, having himself acted successfully in the sixth form, a follower of cricket, particularly Somerset – the eternal bridesmaids of the County Championship – and an avid, omnivorous reader. He had a great love of animals and wildlife.
 
‘In the NMR Stephen was ever-present, always helpful and extremely knowledgeable. One of our colleagues recalls his “keen curiosity to help to the point of nosiness, wheeling across the library to ask what it was you were investigating, and his extraordinary visual memory. More than once he took a look at the pictures of the building I had out and said something along the lines of ‘Oh, that looks like X [obscure building elsewhere], have you looked at that?’, which of course I hadn’t. Computers still can’t match that.”
 
‘He was a natural cataloguer. If he had become post-Courtauld an expert on paintings rather than buildings, he would have produced the catalogue raisonné of a hitherto under-studied British painter. He was dedicated to the public service of providing an accurate and accessible basis of information for people to use for whatever purpose they had in mind. He was always generous and encouraging to a loyal and devoted staff, and so eminently decent and even-handed, he was able to get on with everybody. Although conservative, valuing tradition, public service and avoiding change, he was not religious, and never had any desire to be a spokesperson for any ideology, even disability equality – it was a non-issue for him; he was a very private man who did not burden others with his difficulties.
 
‘Visitors who did not know him might shout, believing him to be deaf, or speak very slowly and clearly, but Stephen was clear sighted, with a sharp intelligence, a witty pricker of pomposity and never sentimental – though he did have a tendency, when not out and about, to hide behind his desk. Always ready to listen and advise, he did not like being talked at or hectored, and the characteristic slide down the wheelchair began as ennui set in and he became almost horizontal until rescued by an alert colleague. His wheelchair at least offered Stephen an excuse to send others in his stead to boring departmental gatherings, at which activities were reported and justified which he regarded as self-evidently valuable.
 
‘Stephen’s meticulous approach to cataloguing and to historical accuracy was manifest in numerous publications. He was from 1994 until 2011 the assistant (and book reviews) editor of the Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society – self effacing and preferring the back room he avoided the actual editorship, but his contribution to the AMS was nevertheless immense. He first published in the Transactions in 1989 on the architectural records of the RCHM(E), following this in 1992 with an essay on the early years of the National Buildings Record.
 
‘From 1996–2000 he produced annual accounts of significant findings from emergency recording, initially throughout the UK and latterly concentrating on England and Wales. He was an expert on London and wrote notable essays on the Carreras factory (1996), the “temple of tobacco” in Camden Town where 3,000 staff produced 1,300 cigarettes per minute (Black Cat and Craven A – said to be kind to the lips and harmless to the throat), and on the transformation of the Thames and the Port of London (2005).
 
‘The latter followed his two immensely valuable books on the river: London’s Bridges (1983) – from Tower Bridge to Teddington Lock – and Liquid History: The Thames through Time (2003) (republished and retitled in 2016 as The Thames through Time: Liquid History), which went the other way, from Staines to Yantlet Creek, delimited by the London Stones, ancient boundary markers of the jurisdiction of the City of London. Both of these books take the catalogue form – historic and contemporary photographs from the NMR collections accompanied by succinct accounts of buildings and landscape. Liquid History in particular is a beautifully produced book (by Batsford) featuring the very best of London’s photographers over 150 years. Stephen was responsible also in collaboration with Secretary Peter Fowler FSA for much of the work on an account of the first 75 years of the RCHM(E), published in its Annual Review (1983–84), which according to his co-author was intended to be definitive. A further catalogue of NMR photographs with descriptive extended captions was published (with an introduction by Sir John Summerson FSA) in 1991 as 50 Years of the National Buildings Record, accompanying an anniversary exhibition at the V&A. Stephen was not named on the title page since this was a collaborative effort, but the foreword by Secretary Tom Hassall FSA gave the game away in thanking Stephen for conceiving and co-ordinating the exhibition and publication. Here once more was the assistant editor doing most of the work.
 
‘The removal of the headquarters of the Royal Commission and much of the library to Swindon in 1994 was far from universally welcomed. Stephen became Head of the small, surviving London office, remaining until he was able to take early retirement in 1996. He was active thereafter, moving home to Somerset where he continued independent life in a new flat, built to his specifications, overlooking the River Tone in Taunton, full of books and papers, supported by his network of old friends and many new ones. He became an active member of the Somerset Vernacular Buildings Research Group (Chairman 2005–07) and continued editing, summarising survey reports and reviewing books for the Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society, of which he was a Trustee, until declining health curtailed activities. His great contributions to scholarship and public service were fully recognised nationally. He was one of the first members of the Committee of the National Inventory of War Memorials (from 1989), a member of the Council of the London Topographical Society (from 1996), and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (2000). He was appointed MBE in 1997.
 
‘In later years Stephen’s life became constrained, although he remained independent, stoical, uncomplaining and cheerful (on the telephone) to the last. He began to find the use of the car too difficult, then, after a period in hospital, was not able to re-establish computer use and email contact. He continued to write letters and cards, was abreast of all recent publications and news and enjoyed very long telephone conversations at prescribed times. Stephen was greatly loved, a notion which he would have found embarrassing and inappropriate, and highly respected. His was one of the great enabling contributions to English architectural history and public life. We are in his debt.’

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The Times (3 October) has published an obituary of Bridget Allchin FSA, who died in June (see Salon 390 and 392). Headlined ‘Intrepid and sometimes belligerent archaeologist renowned for her work in south Asia — and for making a cracking curry,’ the obituary leads with the story of her year-long drive through India, Pakistan and Afghanistan in 1951. Knowing she was pregnant, ‘she rearranged her travel plans only to make sure that she was near a hospital in Bangalore when her baby was due. She then packed the child in a sling on her back and continued her fieldwork.’
 
She spent much of her childhood, says the Times, on a sheep farm in Dumfriesshire, which she ran with her mother when her father went to serve as a doctor in India during the Second World War. After the war her parents moved to South Africa. ‘As she was underage she was obliged to go with them, but was deeply unhappy until they allowed her to continue her studies at the University of Cape Town. She took flying lessons from a Battle of Britain pilot and, resisting offers of marriage, saved all her money to return to London to study archaeology.’
 
In 1990 Bridget and her husband the late Raymond Allchin FSA built a house near Cambridge ‘that was crammed with archaeological items, while the textiles Allchin collected from all over the world filled an enormous linen press. A connoisseur of Indian cooking, she was renowned for making great curry, often served to visiting archaeologists.’

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