British Academy Reflections on Archaeology

Some Fellows have expressed disappointment that the Society’s response to the British Academy’s Reflections on Archaeology, as reported in issue 383, was not more positive. However, the report in did not properly reflect the Society’s response as presented at the launch event by our Director Prof Christopher Scull. The Society agrees that archaeology needs a common voice, but believes that the discipline and its institutions bear a collective responsibility to be more openly and fully engaged with our fellow citizens if we expect them, and government, to listen. We are committed to working with the British Academy and other partners to this end. The full text of the Society’s response can be read from our website. 
 

Fixing Our Broken Housing Market

The Society's Policy Committee was pleased to have the opportunity to comment on the Department for Communities and Local Government’s Housing White Paper, Fixing Our Broken Housing Market.

'The Society of Antiquaries is supportive of initiatives to improve the housing sector in Britain, and the Government’s desire to ‘build many more houses, of the type people want to live in, in the places they want to live’. Research by Historic England has shown that people value historic environments as places to live, and that it gives them a sense of place, a sense of pride and a sense of belonging. We particularly welcome the aim to deliver quicker and more effective processing and determination of planning applications, by ‘boosting local authority capacity and capability'. A robust planning system is vital for ensuring sustainable development, which must include the protection of the historic environment, and the desire to take steps ‘to secure the financial sustainability of planning departments’ and ‘ensure that the planning system has the skilled professionals it needs’ is to be applauded. We have noted with dismay, however, the reduction in the numbers of archaeologists and other heritage professionals in Local Authority planning teams in recent years, on which we made comments in our response to the Future of Local Government Archaeology Services Report. Although we are pleased to see that the Government will 'continue to support the existing principle that developers are required to mitigate the impacts of development in their area,’ (2.28), we have grave concerns that measures introduced in this White Paper will undermine the spirit of these principles as set out in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF 2012). The current proposals to make seemingly small changes to the wording of the Framework will have the potential to cause significant harm to historic environment resources, some of which lie buried and as yet undetected, by changing the balance of evidence in favour of development over protection. NPPF will become unworkable if it is subjected to small-scale amendments which collectively have the effect of watering down the Government’s commitment to the protection of the historic and natural environment.

'Our disquiet is reinforced by the frequent references in the White Paper to ‘onerous planning conditions’ and ‘unnecessary delays’ without an indication of the character of these alleged obstacles. Without a clearer statement from the Government about its support for heritage as part of its plans for sustainable development, these obstacles will be viewed by some as including the legitimate and justifiable need for the protection of the historic environment or for its investigation in advance of development.'

Read the Society's full response on the website.

Watch the President's Address from 27 April 2017 from our website.

Council Membership, 2017-18

Many Fellows make an invaluable contribution on Council and in the various Committees which provide specialist advice to Council. This year four Council members are retiring, all of whom have played an important role in promoting the Society’s affairs. They are Stephanie Moser, John Hines, John Cattell and our Treasurer Stephen Johnson. All four have been immensely supportive, in particular as members of the Policy Committee, and we are grateful for the contributions they have made to this new initiative. Stephen Johnson, in particular, has made important contributions to the work of the Society. Not only has he been acted as Chair of the Policy Committee, but he has also served the Society for two terms as our Treasurer. This is a role that requires a considerable commitment of time and energy, and he has fulfilled in an exemplary fashion. Somehow, amidst all this, he also found the time to provide the lead on our Charter and Statute reform and bring that to a successful conclusion.

We would also like to welcome the following new members of Council:

• Stephen Lloyd Dunmore, BA OBE FSA, (Treasurer): Stephen’s career, which began in English Heritage, took him from there to a leadership role in various public bodies. He has been the Accounting Officer for public finance at both regional and national level, culminating in his role as CEO of the New Opportunities Fund, and the Big Lottery Fund, distributing about half of the ‘good causes’ income from the National Lottery. Since his retirement from that position in 2008, he has been Interim Chief Executive of a number of charitable bodies. He is currently helping to set up the new Charity Funding Regulator. Stephen joined Council in 2015, and has rejoined the Finance Committee, of which he had also been a member from 2008 to 2014.
• Alan Brian Lloyd, BA, MA, DPhil FSA: Alan was formerly Professor of Classics & Ancient History, specialising in Egyptology, at Swansea University, past Editor of the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology and is currently President of the Egypt Exploration Society. Besides being a distinguished academic and scholar, his career reflects skill areas specified as important to Council's functioning. Particularly, as Director of Swansea University's Egypt Centre, he played a lead role in its planning and management, including exhibitions,  displays and interpretation. Under his guidance the Centre was made relevant to a wider spectrum of potential 'users', both from within the University and academe and importantly the wider community across Wales. This approach closely reflects the Society's endeavours to broaden its own profile and mission.
• John Michael Maddison, BA, PhD, Hon. Doctor of Arts, FSA: John served as Architectural Advisor to the Victorian Society and then Historic Buildings Representative to the National Trust in East Anglia, where he was responsible for the care, presentation and interpretation of outstanding country houses and their collections. He has pursued a freelance career since 1994, combining this with an active role on the committees of public bodies. As Chair of the Fabric Advisory Committee of Norwich Cathedral, he was involved in commissioning distinguished new visitor buildings by Hopkins Architects. As Chair of the Governing Body of what is now Norwich University of the Arts, he helped the institution achieve degree-awarding powers. He is a long-standing member of the Kelmscott Committee and gave his time as joint author of the Kelmscott Manor Conservation Management Plan, a document that contributed to the Society’s successful application for Stage I Development Funding from HLF.
• Dr Elizabeth Mary Hallam Smith, CB, Ph.D, FSA, FRSA, FRHistS: Elizabeth's career in public service, as the Director of  Information Services and Librarian at the House of Lords and before that the Director of Public Services at TNA, provided her with extensive experience in overseeing, planning and delivering public, research and advisory services in a challenging political environment. She has managed major archive, manuscript and print collections and works of art; sat on the Society's Library and Publications Committees; and served on Council and as a VP from 1996-2002. She has had extensive involvement with fundraising and grant applications. The author of many publications on historical and archival topics, Elizabeth is currently working on the history of St Stephen's Chapel cloister and undercroft, in support of restoration and renewal planning for the Houses of Parliament. She holds honorary research posts at UEA and York and is based in the House of Commons Architecture and Heritage Team. 

 

President Gill Andrews and Chairman of the Kelmscott Manor Campaign Group Martin Levy, FSA, have written to the Fellows asking them to support the Kelmscott and Morris: Past, Present and Future project. This is the first major programme of repairs to the Manor since the 1960s and the largest project the Society has ever undertaken. The project will broaden the appeal of the Manor by explaining the site’s significance and sharing the excitement that it engendered in William Morris.

History, art, architecture archaeology and ancient landscapes are the academic disciplines at the heart of our Society, and Morris's thoughts and ideals in these areas were informed by his time at Kelmscott Manor. 
 
The appeal to Fellows is the first phase of the fundraising campaign  We are also applying to Trusts and Foundations and aim to have the project’s £1.5m shortfall in place, or pledged, by March 2018. Your involvement and support is extremely important to us.
 
If you would like to discuss the Kelmscott Manor campaign please contact Head of Development Dominic Wallis at dwallis@sal.org.uk 020 7479 7092. Download our campaign brochure to find out more.
 

 
‘Heritage is not simply about our past, it’s vital to creating places for the future in which people want to live and invest. Heritage is a major industry in its own right with heritage construction alone worth £9.7 billion in England. Importantly during an election campaign, heritage is also a vote winner. People love heritage – nearly four times more people visited heritage attractions in 2016 than attended league and championship football matches. In uncertain times, all politicians should see the value in ensuring that the heritage sector can tell our nation’s stories and support social cohesion, rootedness and identity.’
 
Political parties are asked to:

• Make the best of Brexit for heritage
• Maintain and improve heritage protection
• Attract more investment and engagement in heritage, and build sector skills and capacity
• Effect positive fiscal change for heritage
• Continue to back heritage Lottery funding

The Museums Association has also published a manifesto of key priorities for the next government, of which it finds five:

• Maintain free entry to museums
• Sustain public investment and mitigate the impact of cuts by increasing Arts Council England’s National Portfolio scheme
• Negotiate a Brexit deal that works for museums, including no additional tourism barriers, no new restrictions to the exchange of expertise, objects or specimens, and protections for existing staff 
• Deliver the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s museums review, which is due to be published, and prioritise publishing a museums strategy in the new parliament
• Simplify business rates.

 
The show will feature new research by archaeologists and new discoveries by metal detectorists, which, say the two museums in a press release, ‘will challenge our perceptions of what it means to be Viking.’ The exhibition comes at a time of debate about the extent of Viking settlement in Britain, with a major DNA study claiming to find no evidence for such settlement, while others point to archaeological and historical support. It will also open just weeks after the death of Breandán Ó Ríordáin, famed for major excavations at a Viking port in Dublin (see below).
 
Rediscover the Legend is in York from 19 May 19 to 5 November, and will then tour to the University of Nottingham Museum, the Atkinson, Southport, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Norwich Castle Museum.
 

 
‘Taking to the keyboard to write a review for Fellows of the latest Damien Hirst extravaganza feels a brave thing to do. As reported in the last Salon, the exhibition, staged in the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dongana in Venice, has divided art critics more or less along the opinion fault lines of their publications: the Times hated it; the Guardian, Observer and Independent loved it. I deliberately haven’t re-read any of these reviews in capturing my own reactions.
 
‘Going to the exhibition was serendipitous, a stolen weekend in Venice after a meeting at Landmark’s peerless Villa Saraceno. The meeting was to catch up on UNESCO’s threat to place the World Heritage Site of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto on the UNESCO Endangered Heritage List, due to ongoing and inappropriate regional development. Some Fellows might remember the earlier battle to prevent the unnecessary motorway link that forges through this ancient region, passing 1km or so north of Villa Saraceno (now built, and largely empty). Today the threat is more to Vicenza itself, where, incredibly, plans include a high speed train passing in a tunnel beneath Palladio’s Villa Capra “La Rotunda”, and an extension to the US military base just outside the city.
 
‘So the chance to see both Palazzo Grassi on the Grand Canal, triumphantly restored in recent years, and Hirst’s Treasures was to be grasped. My interest was further piqued because Treasures seemed squarely on the theme of a keynote panel debate I was assembling for the events programme surrounding Inspiring Landmarks, a summer exhibition of contemporary art inspired by our buildings. The title of the debate (Lifting the Bell Jar: Heritage & Contemporary Art – Where Next?) steals a phrase from Robert Hewison: heritage, he wrote in The Heritage Industry (1987), ‘has enclosed the late 20th century in a bell jar into which no ideas can enter, and, just as crucially, from which none can escape’. Thirty years on, has anything changed? Treasures addresses these very issues head on.
 
‘My own relationship with Hirst’s work has been up and down. I dismissed his early work on paper – and then accidentally came face to face with “that shark” and its title, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991), and was genuinely moved. His pharmaceutical cabinets (1992) and dots (1988+) I dismissed; his pupating and dying butterflies (2012) revolted me, as did the flayed flank of Verity (2012) on the Ilfracombe waterfront – though her unflinching pose with scales and sword I found worth reflecting upon. Hirst’s bling, diamond-encrusted skull, For the Love of God (2007), also prompted deeper resonances. Either way, I didn’t approach the vaporetto stop for Palazzo Grassi as an ardent fan.
 
‘The exhibition guide begins with lines from Ariel’s haunting, taunting air to Ferdinand in The Tempest, “Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes; Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange.” It’s easy to skim over this familiar stanza, yet it sets the tone for a Shakespearean suspension of disbelief that drifts like a miasma across the whole exhibition. 
 
‘Whether we like it or not, we live in a post-Modern era of meta-irony and fake-everything, and here we enter a vortex of shifting perspectives. This is an exhibition of fake history for an era of fake news, and it challenges us not to be po-faced, to share the joke and the breathtaking craftsmanship, and to acknowledge and address Hirst’s challenge to examine our own aesthetic and historicist gaze. The entire exhibition is a trompe l’oeil of fact, fabric, history and provenance – and yet it produces objects of genuine beauty evoking genuine depth of response. I found it enthralling and worthy of deeper interrogation.
 
‘These are the objets de vertu of our time – and should the awareness that they are eminently marketable detract from that appreciation? Their visual impact has been well described by other reviewers and does not need to be rehearsed again here. It was the swirling ideas that fascinate me here, and what they say about our own place in time.
 
‘Time here is placed in reverse: the sleight of hand that exhibits declared replicas of “undamaged original,” are also exhibited elsewhere as “aged” by coral and shells in a time loop of chicken-and-egg. Our own museum gaze is challenged (and Hirst’s dots and butterflies developed?) in the serried ranks of museum cases, such as “metal currency forms recovered from the wreckage, developed from the blades and agricultural tools,” these distressed “gold” coins in fact made of powder-coated aluminium. Replication of sculpture in the exhibition is justified by appeal to the ancients’ practice of doing the same. The scale of the larger works is the closest we will come to appreciating the ancient Colossi – prepare for awe at the first exhibit at Grassi. The joke extends right down to the tiny “provenance” stamps on the drawings of some of the objects in the style of a Renaissance master.
 
‘The catalogue entry for Five Grecian Nudes, torsos in pink marble, incorporates their fake (…or is it? Look up the catalogue – I couldn’t spot them) inclusion in the International Surrealist Exhibition (1936), complete with Photoshopped photograph of their presence at that exhibition (in the photo lower right, Five Grecian Nudes can be seen in the background through three of Five Antique Torsos). But still, the torsos prompt us to consider the universality, and variation, of their ideal forms and meanings. The exhibition guide, with its witty, disingenuous, superficially eclectic and spuriously erudite entries, is as much a part of this exhibition’s substance (or is it fakery) as the works themselves.
 
‘The skill of the workshop team that lies behind these “marvels” is also astounding, in the execution of the coral, of the Museum Specimen of Giant Clam Shell. You also sense the sheer fun they must all have had brainstorming the exhibition, and I wanted to know more about these shadowy figures enabling Hirst’s vision. At Grassi, there is a room of lovely pencil drawings by different hands as if by Renaissance masters, each sheet stamped with apparent marks of provenance and ownership – but look more closely and you see that these also include the logos of brands like Audi and Toyota. I’m sure I only got a fraction of the jokes and references, but does that matter? I feel the same reading The Wasteland, but both lead to reflection on themes that are worth addressing. Treasures is all a knowing joke: those who are willing to go along with the joke should suspend their disbelief and see where it takes them.
 
‘It doesn’t all work; I’m not sure it warrants sprawling across two vast galleries, and were it not for the pleasure of walking across the Academia Bridge and revisiting Santa Maria della Salute, there are few extra insights to be gained by visiting both sites. That the artist has now become The Collector is a knowing, possibly even self-deprecating, trope: the bronze Bust of the Collector (a self-portrait half encrusted with red coral in Room 12, Grassi, photo upper left) is a rather thrilling echo of a dissolute emperor, but the Collector with Friend (a life-size Hirst hand in hand with Mickey Mouse, both coral encrusted, in Room 6, Dogana) takes the conceit too far. This is meta-history, meta-art, theme-park art that still draws gasps of wonder and appreciation.

'In addressing the question of Heritage & Contemporary Art – Where Next?, I hope the exhibition is a one-off, but I also believe Hirst has pulled off a genuinely significant and possibly agenda-setting achievement. Those who can take the joke will find much to delight and amuse and ponder. And anyway, everyone always needs an excuse to go back to Venice.’
 
Photo upper right: Hydra & Kali at Dogano, a time loop: the ‘original as retrieved from the Wreck of the Unbelievable,’ beside its ‘museum replication.’ Photos by Caroline Stanford.

• Inspiring Landmarks is a free art exhibition at the Truman Brewery in Spitalfields, London (29 June–4 July), featuring three contemporary artists inspired by historic buildings across Britain which have been restored and let out for holidays. Artists Kurt Jackson, Ed Kluz and Prue Cooper, says the Landmark Trust, have ‘known and stayed in our buildings over many years, translating their experiences into their art.’ Details online.
 

 
‘One PAS result’, he writes, ‘deserves notice. In 1999, a metal detectorist, Steve Bolger, reported a discovery at Breamore to Sally Worrell FSA, then the Finds Liaison Officer for the county. It turned out to be an inscribed Greek pail made in the late fifth or sixth century AD, only the third found in the country. Hampshire County Council very helpfully provided funding for geophysical survey to be done in the field where the pail was found, and for a trial excavation which proved that there was a cemetery. Finance for larger-scale work could not be raised, but Sally’s persistence led to Time Team becoming interested, and undertaking one of their three-day televised investigations, with some remarkable results. Sally and I have now published these in the latest Archaeological Journal. This is a case of a responsible detectorist making a report which has led to further work that will now have international recognition.’
 
The pictures show (top) a frieze and Greek inscription around the rim of the pail (‘Use this in good health, lady, for many happy years’), and the pail itself, missing only its base. The remains of six wooden buckets with copper-alloy fittings were also recovered. ‘An early Anglo-Saxon cemetery and archaeological survey at Breamore, Hampshire, 1999–2006,’ by David Hinton and Sally Worrell, is in the Archaeological Journal 174 (2017), 68–145.
 
Over at the British Museum, on 24 March a panel selected 20 treasures recorded under the 1996 Act (Keith Miller, reporting for the Telegraph, noted that a jug he hoped to contain Pimm's was in fact tea). We are asked to vote for our ‘favourite’ from a list selected on quasi-academic criteria: the finds should advance archaeological knowledge, should have been recovered in a way that is an example of best practice, and should add value to the national collection.
 
Among the pieces up for consideration are a Bronze Age gold cup from Ringlemere (chosen by Michael Lewis FSA), a small piece of gold Bronze Age jewellery from Downpatrick, Northern Ireland (Mike Heyworth FSA), a hoard of Iron Age gold from Winchester (Steve Trow FSA), the largest hoard of gold known from sixth-century Britain, from Binham, Norfolk (Tim Pestell FSA) and a tenth-century Viking hoard of silver from York (Heyworth again). Voting closes on 15 May.

• Lucy Ellis, Museum Collections Manager at the Society of Antiquaries of London, once worked for the Treasure team at the British Museum, and also for the PAS for a number of years. ‘If any Fellows have any specific queries or complaints about the treasure process,’ she writes, ‘I can be impartial and acknowledge its problems, but I can also explain the minutiae.’ Salon will be pleased to report.
 

 
This is a partnership scheme between Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, the Federation of Museums and Art Galleries of Wales, and PAS Cymru. The project, which has no direct analogy elsewhere in the UK, secured Heritage Lottery grant funding in October 2014 through the Collecting Cultures programme, and runs for five years.
 
It covers all the costs of acquiring treasure and non-treasure finds (over 300 years old). Between 2016 and 2018 six Community Archaeology Projects are working with local museums, metal-detecting clubs and communities, from a base at the Department of Archaeology and Numismatics, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, Cardiff, where Rhianydd Biebrach FSA is Project Officer. The first Community Archaeology project, The Lost Treasures of Swansea Bay (to which Madeleine Gray FSA is contributing) is run by Swansea Museum and inspired by a collection of finds made by a local detectorist. The photo shows members of the Swansea Heritage Metal Detecting Club.
 
Biebrach told the BBC that the majority of Welsh treasure was found in the Vale of Glamorgan, Monmouthshire, Wrexham and southern Pembrokeshire. ‘I think that reflects where historic population centres have been,’ she said, adding, ‘We have certainly noticed over the last few years that the amount of treasure finds reported in Wales has increased.’ ‘Hopefully,’ said Adam Gwilt FSA, Principal Curator of Prehistory at National Museum Wales, ‘people will feel that the archaeological heritage of Wales is as important as perhaps our ancient monuments and that we're caring for them for the future so that people in the future can enjoy them as well.’
 

 
The march came after years of excavations by Ó Ríordáin, and was aimed at the Corporation of Dublin, which wanted to build new headquarters in the middle of the remains. The protest succeeded: the site was given national protection, and excavation was allowed to continue. But it was a shallow victory, and the development began within weeks.
 
A B Ó Ríordáin’s father was a Co Galway school teacher with a strong interest in antiquities. When Breandán was a child, so many prehistoric stone axes had been reported from the area to the National Museum in Dublin, that the then Director, Adolf Mahr, visited the family. Adrienne Corless wrote in Irish Archaeology (2014) that the museum was forced to reduce its finders reward from 15 shillings to 5 shillings, and even returned axes to the senders.
 
Ó Ríordáin became what was then University College Galway’s first full-time archaeology student, and took a job as Assistant Keeper at the National Museum. In 1962 Joseph Raftery FSA, the museum’s then Director, asked him to investigate a site on Dublin’s High Street ahead of redevelopment by the city Corporation. ‘First,’ said Ó Ríordáin, as reported by Corless, ‘a beautiful antler comb turned up. Then more and more artefacts, of wood, leather, bone, glass, stone, silver, gold. A little trowel-scraping revealed the tops of astonishingly preserved wooden buildings in the soil. Whole house-floor-plans, pathways and fences came to light.’
 
The team of archaeologists, labourers and volunteers pursued the Vikings around the city, up one street and down the next, for two decades. In 1979 Ó Ríordáin himself became Director of the National Museum. After retirement in 1988, he continued to work in the field until 2004.
 

Roger Highfield FSA, historian and Oxford tutor, died in April.
 
Venetia Newall FSA, folklorist, died in April.
 
Appreciations appear in Fellows Remembered below. The section also contains a further notice on the late Charlie Truman FSA.

*

As part of Scotland’s Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology, its capital city is celebrating with a ‘visitor experience’ of Edinburgh’s 101 Objects. Like many similar schemes, this draws inspiration from the successful British Museum, Radio 4 and book project led by Neil MacGregor FSA, A History of the World in 100 Objects. Items that can be seen at various sites in the city include the Stone of Destiny, a pocketbook made from the skin of William Burke (of murderers Burke and Hare infamy), a cabinet owned by Robert Louis Stevenson and a 1956 Festival Fringe programme. An in situ floor mosaic or Cockerell and Playfair’s failed Parthenon replica are perhaps pushing a definition of ‘object’, but the original idea seems strong enough to support any number of local interpretations.

 
‘I am about to be given a Festschrift,’ writes a delighted Peter Spufford FSA, ‘which comes 30 years after the Cambridge University Press published my Money and Its Use in Medieval Europe, which turned out to be the most influential of any of my books.’ Money in its Use in Medieval Europe, Three Decades On: Essays in Honour of Professor Peter Spufford is published on 26 May. Spufford’s 1988 book, says Spink London, ‘was a major landmark in the history of its subject. It has served as an inspiration for generations of scholars, many of whom have contributed to this volume.’ The 12 chapters build upon the Spufford’s themes, covering the use of money in various parts of Europe, Italian mint masters and bankers, debasement, and the use of silver ingots or credit instead of coins.

‘I worked for nearly 40 years as a specialist curator in a national museum,’ writes Gillian Varndell FSA to the Guardian (4 May), ‘and have watched with horror the increasing separation between management and specialist staff. Numerically the former have increased at the expense of the latter until they must account for the lion’s share of the wages bill. Without the expertise of curators, conservators, scientists and others there may be little left of value to market, advertise or share with a public which is already being sold short…’ Varndell, a former Curator of prehistoric archaeology at the British Museum, was apparently writing in the context of staff being asked to contribute a leaving gift for Sir Nicholas Serota, departing Director of Tate Modern.

 
The Yorkshire-based Ledgerstone Survey of England and Wales (LSEW) has received a Heritage Lottery Fund Sharing Heritage grant of £8,000, having ‘struggl[ed] for years to have recognition and [to] publicise the project’. Its aim is to help train volunteers to set up a new website, collect records of ledgerstones and publish a leaflet about the work. It hopes to record every ledgerstone in England and Wales, and a pilot project is studying ledgers in churches now out of use for regular worship and in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. Julian Litten FSA, Chair of LSEW, has developed a template tested by the Church Recorders of the National Association of the Decorative and Fine Arts for methodically recording the stones. LSEW is keen to engage volunteers, and a workshop is to be held in York on 7 October (see Other Forthcoming Heritage Events below). The photo shows recording in Bath Abbey.
 
On 22 April the Abbot of Mount St Joseph launched 60 at Roscrea: Celebrating the Roscrea Conference at Mt St Joseph Abbey, 1987–2017, edited by George Cunningham FSA. Divided into six sections, the book covers ‘Aspects of Mt St Joseph, Past and Present’; ‘A Carnival of Learning, the 50th Conference, April 2012’; ‘The Conference, 2012-2017’; ‘Reflections and Reminiscences from Conference Participants’; ‘Aspects of Irish Heritage as Explored, Promoted or Proposed at the Roscrea Conference’; and ‘The Cunningham Archive and Library at Coláiste Phobal, Ros Cré.’ Contributors include George Cunningham, Aideen Ireland FSA, Conleth Manning FSA, Michael Ryan FSA and Geraldine Stout FSA. Available from Roscrea People, Parkmore, Roscrea, Co Tipperary or parkmorepress@gmail.com.

 
Among those hoping to ‘save’ the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London, is the Georgian Group, which submitted a petition to this effect to the government on 19 April. Over 10,000 signatories included Charles Saumarez Smith FSA, historian Dan Cruickshank (pictured) and architect and TV presenter George Clarke. ‘A straightforward re-development of this site’, said the Trust, ‘is not the only option. The UK Heritage Building Preservation Trust (UKHBPT), which owns and manages Middleport Pottery in Stoke, has made an approach to the owner to acquire the site at market value. The foundry, if bought by UKHBPT, would be run on a similar model to Middleport, maintaining its cultural significance and public access, and keeping its use as a bell foundry where it has been in continuous operation for over 250 years.’

‘The old repair looked horrendous’, Deborah Howard FSA told the Art Newspaper, ‘as if a child had rolled up a piece of Plasticine.’ Howard has co-curated Madonnas and Miracles: the Holy Home in Renaissance Italy at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (until 4 June). One of the exhibits is a late Medieval majolica statuette of the Virgin and Child, made in Orvieto between 1350 and 1450. The sculpture is missing two limbs, and an earlier repair, which conservators removed, ‘looked more comical than spiritual’. Howard acknowledged the importance of a €2.33m EU grant ‘We simply could not have done this without the European Research Council Synergy Grant,’ she said, ‘adding that the chances of receiving the same sum from a UK government body were slim.’

 
Among continuing revelations from the field of early human evolution and fossil discoveries, a claim that people were in north America 130,000 years ago has caused considerable confusion among specialists. On the face of it, the evidence – mastodon bones apparently broken up with stones found close by, dated by uranium decay and published in Nature – looks sounds. However, accepting it brings implications that reach beyond the early colonisation of the Americas. Not only is this date over 100,000 years earlier than any previously accepted evidence from the continent, but the species would probably have Neanderthal or Denisovan, not Homo sapiens. John McNabb FSA, a Palaeolithic archaeologist at Southampton University, said in a video that his first reaction to the paper was, ‘something's wrong’ – ‘but if it does turn out to be true, it changes absolutely everything.’ From the Natural History Museum, Chris Stringer FSA said, ‘If the results stand up to further scrutiny, this does indeed change everything we thought we knew about the earliest human occupation of the Americas.’ But, he added, ‘Many of us will want to see supporting evidence of this ancient occupation from other sites, before we abandon the conventional model of a first arrival by modern humans within the last 15,000 years.’

Just as we are treated to a powerful, impressionistic documentary film about Gertrude Bell FSA, along comes another biographical book, the proceedings of a conference held at the British Academy in 2013. Gertrude Bell and Iraq: A life and Legacy is edited by Paul Collins FSA and Charles Tripp. With its multiple perspectives, its academic detail and references, and numerous photos from the Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University, the book has much to offer. Bell, say the editors, is an attractive subject for modern writers, but there remains ‘much to consider in evaluating the role she played in establishing the Iraqi state and her interests in Iraqi heritage.’ Other contributors include Lisa Cooper, author of In Search of Kings and Conquerors: Gertrude Bell and the Archaeology of the Middle East (2016), and an international panel of Iraq specialists.
 
Inadequacies in security and communication systems in the House of Commons have been claimed in the Sunday Times (7 May). During a violent attack outside the Palace on 22 March, wrote Andrew Gilligan, for a brief moment inside, plainclothes police acted in the belief that the lobby and chamber had been captured by terrorists, bringing ‘terror’ to ‘hundreds of people’. Police ‘thought we had been taken hostage and proceeded to batter the door down,’ said Tim Loughton FSA. ‘Wi-Fi in the chamber is not good at the best of times and with everyone trying to do it on their devices it was impossible. We were the last ones to know what was happening.’ A vote on the future of a major Restoration and Renewal project for the Palace of Westminster is awaited.

The Richard III Society, defender of the king’s reputation which they suppose to have been wrongly painted by history and Shakespeare, may not be anticipating two new productions of their namesake’s play with unqualified relish. Phillipa Langley and John Ashdown-Hill FSA hoped to find the king’s grave and prove his unblemished frame and character. In this respect, their sleuthing success, aided by Leicester University archaeologists under the direction of Richard Buckley FSA, backfired. While it proved Richard III did not have a withered arm or a limp, it revealed that the man had scoliosis, which could have manifested itself, in his naked corpse thrown over a horse, as a ‘rib hump’; and wounds in the bones showed some felt the need to violently attack the king even after his death. Hull Truck Theatre and Northern Broadsides co-production features Mat Fraser in the title role of Shakespeare’s play (Hull 4–27 May, moving to Halifax). ‘We decided that we’d make a feature of the deformity I’ve got,’ Fraser told the Guardian, ‘rather than inventing new ones.’ ‘This will be a Richard with short arms and no hump,’ added the actor whose mother was prescribed thalidomide. ‘My theory is that Richard almost certainly had some issues with body hatred.’ Leicester Cathedral, the site of the king’s modern grave, is to stage the play in July. ‘We will need to be sensitive,’ Ben Horslen of theatre company Antic Disposition told the Guardian, ‘but I think [the production] is a good opportunity to open up a discussion.’ The play, he added, ‘is about a man who lies and deflects and deceives his way into a position of massive power. We don’t have to look too far to see what is going on with that.’

Roger Highfield FSA died on 13 April aged 95. He was elected a Fellow of the Society in May 1983. He was Tutor in History at Merton College, Oxford from 1951 until he retired in 1989, serving nearly 40 years as College Archivist and as Fellow Librarian. He co-authored A History of Merton (1997) with a former student, Geoffrey Martin.
 
The college says he first came to Merton in 1948 as a Harmsworth Senior Scholar after study at Magdalen College and service in the Royal Artillery. His own doctoral study and early publications were on the later Medieval English church. He was awarded the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 1989 for his research on later medieval Spain. ‘He will be remembered by generations of Merton historians’, says the college, ‘with affection as an exacting but warm-hearted tutor and by all Mertonians as one of the defining figures of the College’s 20th-century history.’
 
The funeral is at 1 pm on 9 May at the Oxford Crematorium, Bayswater Road, OX3 9RZ, followed by a Service of Thanksgiving at 2.45 pm in the College Chapel. Colleagues and friends are welcome to attend both services. A Memorial Service will be held later in the year.
 
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Treve Rosoman FSA wonders if portraits qualify as memorials to Fellows? Absolutely!
 
He spotted this painting said to be of Edward Solly FSA (1729–92), by Pompeo Batoni, in the recent BADA Antiques Fair in Duke of York Square, London, on the stand of the Parker Gallery (which noted ‘a lot of interest’ in the portrait). ‘It is a splendid painting from the mid 18th century,’ writes Rosoman, ‘and until recently was unknown by Batoni specialists. Sadly I know nothing about Solly other than they were in the later 18th century until now a Dorset family.’
 
Who is the proud gentleman with quills and books? Google unearths at least three 19th-century Solly Fellows. A Richard Horsman Solly FSA gave a London address in 1820. John Evans FSA quoted a ‘late Mr S Solly FSA’ in his Ancient Bronze Implements (1881), with reference to a dagger blade excavated in Dorset in 1845, and the British Archaeological Association listed among its members in 1846 an S Reynolds Solly FSA (King’s Langley, Hertfordshire), possibly the same man. Edward Solly FSA (1819–86) was a chemist, book collector and founder of the Folklore Society. In addition, an Edward Solly (1776–1844) was a Berlin-based merchant with an outstanding collection of Trecento and Quattrocento paintings, and the 1846 BAA also listed an Edward Solly (London). But none of these could be the man in the portrait, who died in the year of the August Insurrection in Paris. Any ideas?
 

 
‘When I was Director of the Museum in the 1990s we commissioned the then little-known architect Daniel Libeskind to build new galleries on this site. He produced The Spiral, which, though an angular design, was formed by a continuous wall that spiralled upwards. Cole's design for a spiral tower was first published in John Physick's The Victoria and Albert Museum: The History of its Building (1982, fig 181), and Libeskind developed this idea in a modernist manner. It proved highly controversial, but most architectural critics were strongly in favour of the plan. After a great deal of work and some nail-biting, we got planning permission for the new Spiral from Kensington and Chelsea, but unfortunately most of the V&A Trustees were unenthusiastic. This made fund-raising extremely difficult and essentially killed off the project. Henry Cole's first Spiral also remained on the drawing board due to lack of funding. A great opportunity missed twice?’

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