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Salon: Issue 298
13 May 2013

Next issue: 3 June 2013


The Society of Antiquaries of London Online Newsletter (Salon) is a fortnightly digest of news from the heritage sector. It focuses on the activities of the Society and the contribution that the Society's Fellows make to public life. Like the intellectual salons of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, it aims to amuse and to stimulate debate as well as to inform. A copy of Salon’s editorial policy can be found on the Society’s website. News and feedback for publication in Salon should be addressed to the Editor, Christopher Catling.
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Inside this issue

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Forthcoming meetings

At Thursday meetings, tea is served from 4.15pm, and meetings start promptly at 5pm

16 May 2013: ‘The Traprain Treasure: new light on a Late Roman silver hoard’, by Fraser Hunter, FSA, and Kenneth Painter, FSA
The hoard of late Roman silver from Traprain Law (East Lothian), found in 1919, is the finest example of a so-called ‘Hacksilber’ hoard, consisting of the bent, crushed and broken pieces of a number of vessels. An international collaborative research project co-ordinated by the speakers is now providing fresh insights into this important find. The interpretation of such hoards has long been debated. For many years they were seen as barbarian loot, but the speakers' research has revealed other intriguing possibilities, casting new light on the late Roman economy, the late Roman army and its links to people beyond the formal boundaries of Empire. The lecture will look at the various lives of this hoard, from the original range of high-quality elite silver to the processes leading to its fragmentation, movement beyond the Roman frontier and burial in a ‘barbarian’ power centre.

30 May 2013: ‘Climate and environment and the Indus civilisation: new Insights from the “Land, Water, and Settlement” project’, by Cameron Petrie
There has been considerable debate about the role of environment and climate in the development and decline of the urban phase of the Indus civilisation, which thrived on the plains of Pakistan and western India during the third millennium BC. Recent research by a collaborative University of Cambridge and Banaras Hindu University team is revealing new insights into these processes that are contributing to a fundamental change in the way that we understand this ancient society and the transformations that it underwent.

6 June 2013: Summer Soirée
Fellow Janet Owen, whose biography of Sir John Lubbock has just been published, will talk about the relationship between Lubbock, Darwin and other prominent scientists of their day and examine the parts they played in promoting new ideas in the intellectual ferment that resulted from the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) and Lubbock’s own Pre-historic Times (1872). Michael Archer, former conservator in the British Museum’s Clocks and Watches Department, will talk about the Society’s clocks, including the Benjamin Gray and Justin Vulliamy Regulator located in the Society’s entrance hall. Admission to the Pimms and wine reception that follows at 6pm is by ticket only (£10, from the Society’s Executive Assistant).

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14 July 2013: Fellows’ Day at Kelmscott Manor


Tickets for Fellows’ Day cost £15 (£7 for children under 16) and should be booked by 21 June 2103 by contacting the Kelmscott Manor staff.

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Public lectures


20 May 2013: ‘Historical Archaeology on Mauritius: Colonial Insights from the Indian Ocean World’, by Krish Seetah
Starting at 1pm, the lecture is free but it is advisable to book in advance by emailing the Society’s Executive Assistant.

Lamp flame Anniversary meeting, 23 April 2013


In the ballot held on 23 April 2013, Fellows Geoffrey Bond, Paul Drury, Gillian Hey, Heather Sebire and Barbara Yorke were elected to serve as new members of Council, joining the fifteen existing members of Council who stood again and were duly elected. John Creighton was re-elected as Director, Brian Ayers as Hon Secretary, Maurice Howard as President and Stephen Johnson as Treasurer (shown above with red roses and the Society's St George's Day flag). The full list of Council members can be seen on the Society’s website.

Our Treasurer Stephen Johnson made a presentation reporting in general terms on the Society’s financial performance over the last eighteen months. Because the new financial year (now April to March, rather than January to December) has only just ended, audited figures will not be available for some time. Stephen said that a meeting would be held in November to present the figures, and that this would provide an opportunity for Fellows to put questions to members of the Finance Committee. He also said that the committee was about to embark on an examination of the Society’s core costs to produce a business plan for the period 2014—19, looking at ways to increase the Society’s income and drive down costs. Stephen’s presentation is available for viewing on YouTube.

Our General Secretary, John Lewis, spoke next, outlining the Society’s broad strategy for the same period, which, he said, was to ‘refocus on the Fellowship: increase engagement and improve communications; focus on the core activities of conservation, research and dissemination and ensure that these activities are for the public benefit; make the Society public-facing; and improve the Society's finances by greater efficiency and increased fundraising’.

John also said that the Conservation Management Plan for Kelmscott Manor would be published for consultation very soon, and that a new website would go live in the autumn, promising that this would be faster, provide far more information and serve as the basis for improved communications between Fellows and Burlington House staff. Finally, he said that a major review of the Society’s Statutes was under way in order to modernise the Society’s governance. John’s presentation is also available for viewing on YouTube.

Finally, our President, Maurice Howard, delivered his Presidential address on the theme of ‘The Society: art and science’, giving a number of examples of the ways in which scientific research has thrown new light on works of art, including royal portraits from the Society’s picture collection. Again, the presentation can be seen on YouTube.

Also on YouTube: Piety in Peril


Salon readers will have gathered from the above report that the Society has harnessed another social media resource in order to keep everyone informed about events at Burlington House: Renée LaDue, our Communications Officer, has set up a SocAntiquaries YouTube page for videos of Society meetings and seminars.

Among the first videos to be available on the site are the presentations made by contributors to the ‘Piety in Peril’ conference held at Burlington House on 26 April 2013 to consider the challenges facing everyone involved in church conservation and archaeology over the next few years. The meeting was packed to capacity and the papers evoked a lively discussion. It was interesting to note that about half of those attending the conference were members of Diocesan Advisory Councils (DACs), the Church of England’s equivalent to local authority planning control, and are therefore actively engaged in decision making with regard to changes to church fabric.

The overall conclusion of the seminar was that the rate at which churches are being made redundant has slowed and the situation is nowhere near as bad as had once been feared (see the presentation by our Fellow Linda Monkton on the facts and figures), but that the revival in church use posed its own conservation problems, as DACs face a torrent of plans for church re-ordering, in order to adapt church buildings to new forms of worship and to use by the wider community, requiring toilets, kitchens, meeting rooms and more flexible spaces (see the presentation by our Fellow Richard Halsey). Money for church conservation has become tighter than ever, the one beacon of hope being the Heritage Lottery Fund (see the presentation by Ian Morrison, Head of Historic Environment at HLF, on grants for places of worship).

Burlington House as a venue for corporate or private events and meetings


Our Treasurer and General Secretary both made the point in their Anniversary Meeting presentations that income from hiring out the ground-floor rooms at Burlington House is a vital source of financial support for the Society’s work, and an area of activity with great potential for growth. Fellows and Salon readers can help by spreading the word amongst friends and colleagues, especially those who work in the commercial world, about how atmospheric and special our rooms are — rich in history and atmosphere, full of historical objects and paintings that have been seen in museums and galleries around the world — and how exceptionally competitive the rates are for such a central London location.

The fully accessible conference suite — which includes the Entrance Hall, Meeting Room and Council Room — can be hired for £564 (half-day) or £1,062 (full day), with special rates for Fellows and for charities. Hirers benefit from state-of-the-art presentation facilities with a 145-inch digital projector, a mobile plasma screen, video conferencing, audio-visual equipment support and vehicle access. Meetings can be recorded, making the facilities ideal for training seminars, AGMs and award presentations.

Food and drink options range from light lunches and buffets to a full waiter service, with food and wines beautifully presented for boardroom meetings or private functions. The Society can also offer accommodation for meeting participants at the four-star Cavendish Hotel on nearby Jermyn Street at a discount of 10 per cent on the normal rates.

Jupiter Asset Management recently held a seminar in the Society’s Meeting Room and the organisers said afterwards that: ‘The Antiquaries is an extremely interesting and convenient venue for hosting our events. Our clients enjoy looking at the paintings and always receive a warm welcome and excellent service from the staff.’

Please contact our Executive Assistant, Jola Zdunek, by phone (020 7479 7080) or by email to make room hire enquiries. You can also find more information on the Society’s website.



Ballot results 2 May 2013


As a result of the ballot held on 2 May 2013, we welcome the following newly elected Fellows of our Society:
  • David Jacques, Associate Lecturer in Classics and Archaeology, Open University
  • Colin McKenzie, Director of the Charleston Trust
  • Jennifer Anne Baird, Lecturer in Archaeology, Birkbeck College, University of London
  • Ben Cowell, Deputy Director, External Affairs, National Trust
  • Valentine Walsh, paintings conservator
  • Mike Dobson, Administrator, University of Exeter, and an authority on the army of the Roman Republic
  • John Toy, clergyman, retired Canon Chancellor and Librarian of York Minster
  • William Eisler, Curator, Musée Monetaire Cantonal, Lausanne
  • Stephen George Upex, archaeologist and academic, specialising in the transition from Roman to Anglo-Saxon land use


Launch of the Friends of Kelmscott Manor scheme


Our Fellow Loyd Grossman has been enrolled as the first Founding Friend of Kelmscott Manor, and more than forty further Founding Friends have joined him in supporting the new scheme since its launch at the end of April 2013. Everyone who enrols as a friend before March 2015 will be regarded as a ‘Founding Friend’ and receive a specially commissioned lapel pin, the design of which is based on a detail from a brass rubbing made by William Morris of a medieval memorial in the church at Great Coxwell, eight miles from Kelmscott Manor. The brass commemorates ‘William Morys and his wife Johayne’; the coincidence of their names delighted Morris, and the detail inspired several of his designs.

Membership rates start at £30 (concessions as low as £15); the benefits include unlimited free entry to the house and grounds, a free guidebook, free lectures at Kelmscott Manor and at the Society’s London apartments, and 10 per cent discounts in the Kelmscott Manor shop and tearoom. Friends will receive an annual newsletter and regular mailings designed to engage them in the life of the Manor and specific conservation projects. Friends’ membership can also be purchased as a gift — the perfect present for the Morris, Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts enthusiasts among your friends and family.

Sarah Parker, Property Manager of Kelmscott Manor, says: ‘We hope the Friends scheme will strengthen our ties with our supporters, the local community and beyond, whilst preserving this internationally important landmark and collection for future generations.’

You can become a Founding Friend at the Kelmscott Manor ticket office or by telephoning 01367 252486; 9am to 5pm, Tuesday to Saturday. Kelmscott Manor is open to the public from 11am to 5pm on Wednesdays and Saturdays until 31 October 2013, with group visits on Thursdays.

The Manor’s Twitter account (@KelmscottManor) is updated regularly by Lucy Kender, the Manor’s new Visitor Experience Assistant, and our Communications Officer, Renée LaDue.


Crusade 1: Smithfield Market



As many Salon readers are surely aware, SAVE Britain’s Heritage thought it had achieved an important victory when consent to demolish the General Market, Fish Market and Red House at London's Smithfield Market was turned down after a planning inquiry in 2008. Communities Secretary Hazel Blears stated at the time that these buildings made a significant contribution to the character and appearance of Farringdon and the surrounding area. Our Fellow Adam Wilkinson, who led the four-year ‘don’t butcher Smithfield’ campaign for SAVE, looked forward to these characterful buildings playing a central role in a Covent Garden-style revival of Smithfield. Imagine SAVE’s distress then when the new plans that emerged for the site in October 2012 proved to be just as potentially destructive of the existing structures as the rejected plans.


The new plans involve what Clem Cecil of SAVE calls a ‘scoop-out job’; that is to say, retaining the three facades that line the edges of the site, but demolishing all the buildings behind (shown in red above) to create what the architects describe as ‘low-rise pavilions’ to accommodate new office space.

Architecture critic Oliver Wainwright says the new scheme (see above) ‘will leave only a flimsy skin of heritage, a picturesque skirt of Victoriana around the base of yet another slab of generic commercial development’.

SAVE has put out an appeal to everyone who cares about these buildings and wants to see them preserved to write ‘a strong note of objection to the Corporation of London, addressed to planning officer Gemma Delves, quoting planning application numbers 13/00150/FULEIA, 13/00155/LBC and 13/00156/CAC’.

The main grounds for objection are that the proposal entails the loss of a major landmark building, including its splendid market halls and roofs; will cause substantial harm to the Smithfield conservation area and surrounding conservation areas, as well as to the adjacent Grade II* listed Meat Market and Grade II listed Poultry Market; that important views will be lost, including those from the Holborn Viaduct; that the buildings have never been market tested (as recommended by the Planning Inspector’s Report following the Public Inquiry in 2008) to estbalish that they are needed; that there is an alternative conservation-led scheme for the site backed up by a viable business plan; that there is no convincing justification for demolition (the National Planning Framework paragraph 132 says that 'Heritage assets are irreplaceable, any harm or loss should require convincing justification); and that the condition of the buildings, which have been deliberately neglected, is not a justification for demolition (‘Where there is evidence of deliberate neglect of or damage to a heritage asset the deteriorated state of the heritage asset should not be taken into account in any decision’: National Planning Framework paragraph 132).

Our Fellow Marcus Binney, President of SAVE, says that in his view ‘this will be the worst mutilation of Victorian buildings in thirty years’. For further information and images, see SAVE’s website and its Facebook page.



Crusade 2: Prince Henry’s Room


Our Fellows Paula Henderson and Claire Gapper write to say that: ‘The small half-timber gateway to Inner Temple at 17 Fleet Street is a remarkable survival of the Great Fire of 1666. The room on the first floor is known as Prince Henry’s Room because of the Prince of Wales feathers and the initials “P H” featured in its exceptionally fine plasterwork ceiling. The building certainly dates to the early years of the seventeenth century. In 1969 the care of Prince Henry’s Room was transferred from the Greater London Council to the Corporation of London, which opened it to the public. An exhibition on Samuel Pepys was installed; Pepys was born not far away and spent many happy hours “drinking and singing” in the room, when it was known as the Fountain Tavern.

‘In December 2012, the Corporation’s Culture Heritage and Libraries Committee declared the room “surplus” and transferred its care to its Property Investment Group, which is actively seeking a tenant. In recent correspondence to us they wrote that the room is no longer available for cultural purposes and that they do not have the financial resources to facilitate visits. Surely whatever rent they could get for this small room could not possibly be as important as the good will that is engendered by making it accessible to those who wish to see an all-too-rare relic of early Stuart life amidst a sea of commercial development.

‘Along with other interested parties (including the Samuel Pepys Club, who paid for the restoration of the room and who have used it for recitals, readings and other events related to seventeenth-century London), we are hoping to convince the Corporation that this room should be made available to interested, scholarly groups at least on an occasional basis. If any Fellows have suggestions or would like to join our campaign, please let us know.’



Crusade 3: Wansdyke under threat


Fellow Helen Geake is concerned about plans by Bath and North East Somerset Council to allow development of a site that includes part of the hugely important Anglo-Saxon Wansdyke earthwork. Helen urges Fellows to comment on the proposals, even though the official deadline has passed.

The proposal (see pages 6 and 7 of the consultation document) concerns a new 300-home housing estate and primary school planned for what is currently an open field immediately to the south of the Wansdyke. To create access to the site, a new road is proposed that will cut through and remove a section of the dyke and, with the associated roundabout, destroy the open landscape context of the monument. ‘Topographically this is an important part of the Wansdyke’, says Helen, ‘the last bit you can clearly see before it disappears and its route becomes difficult to trace, partly because it was badly messed up by nineteenth-century Fuller’s Earth diggings.’

Wansdyke is, of course, a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Recent research, led by our Fellow Andrew Reynolds and Alex Langlands, suggests that it originated in the Middle Saxon period, marks the boundary between Wessex and Mercia and is thus comparable to Offa’s Dyke. Even so, says Helen, ‘there is no consensus as to its date, cultural milieu or even the strategies and methodologies for studying and understanding it, so as we haven’t even formulated the right questions to ask, it’s clearly the wrong time to build over one of the most enigmatic bits!’



Crusade 4: help find the top ten most endangered Victorian or Edwardian buildings


The Victorian Society has just launched its annual campaign to draw attention to Victorian or Edwardian buildings at risk by asking people to nominate buildings in their area for its top ten list. Chris Costelloe, Director of the Victorian Society, said: ‘wide-ranging council cuts mean certain building types are particularly under threat — for example, we would like to hear about libraries, town halls or swimming pools now facing an uncertain future’. The VicSoc argues that, even if the money is not there yet for restoration or conversion, much can be done to protect unused buildings from weather and vandalism, until such time as the economy picks up again.

The deadline for nominations is 5 July 2013 and a Top Ten will be published in the autumn. Buildings can be nominated via the VicSoc website or by sending an email to campaign co-ordinator Sophie Sainty.


Crusade 5: the Jordan Lead Codices



Biblical scholars and archaeologists are calling on the Jordanian Government to allow them access to the so-called Jordan Lead Codices so that they can be evaluated and their dating and significance better understood. The codices, small books cast in lead, are said to have been found in a cave in northern Jordan and first came to the world’s attention in 2011.

Such is the secrecy surrounding the finds that nobody can be certain whether these are fakes or genuine artefacts with the potential to throw important light on the origins and history of the Christian Church. Members of the Society for Old Testament Study published an open letter in The Times on 1 August 2012, saying ‘We ask the authorities in Amman to make an immediate and detailed statement about the finds and their intentions regarding them’, but there has been no response, and it is feared that the story of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were not made available for study for fifty years after their discovery, is about to be repeated.

The Biblical scholar and historian Dr Margaret Barker is inclined to think they are genuine. She writes: ‘the books vary in size from a bit bigger than a bank card to almost the size of a paperback book. Most were sealed with rings on all four sides, but some are now broken open. They have about seven or eight pages, but it is hard to count because the metal has been compressed. There is writing on them, some in Hebrew letters, some in Greek, but mostly in Palaeo-Hebrew letters, the script used before about 500 BC, considered sacred and still used in the time of Jesus on coins and in some of the Dead Sea Scroll. The pages were cast in moulds so the letters stand above the surface. They are decorated with various symbols. Dating lead is very difficult, but the few items tested show that their surface is unlikely to have been disturbed for about 1,800 years. It is unlikely that the collection is forged since there are very few who have the knowledge of early Hebrew Christianity needed to make such items. Forgeries imitate something already known, and nothing like these lead books has ever been found.

‘The likely location of the finds is an area where there were early Christian communities, and indeed, communities who antedated the Christians as a distinct group and from whom Jesus emerged as their leader. The symbolism on the codices is consistent with what is known of such early proto Christians. None of their “art” has survived, but there are plenty of texts which describe their symbols and show what their art would have been.’

The more one reads of Margaret’s arguments, the more one is persuaded that these are very important artefacts that deserve proper study; you can download an article, originally published in the Methodist Recorder, setting out what is known about the codices from her website.



The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act: defeat of orphan rights amendment


In the final days of the last parliamentary session, an amendment to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill put forward by our Fellow Baron (Alan) Howarth of Newport, the former Labour arts minister (above), was defeated in the House of Lords last week. The amendment would have allowed museums and archives to digitise and publish so-called ‘orphan works’ without paying copyright fees until a rights holder stepped forward to lay claim to the material.

The National Museums Directors’ Conference estimates that 50 million so-called orphan works are held by museums, archives and educational institutions in England, these being works (principally photographic images) deposited with various collections that have no known copyright owner. Alan Howarth’s amendment would have allowed curators to create access to the material and pay copyright fees retrospectively, if a copyright holder could substantiate their claim.

The defeat of the amendment means that museums will now have to pay in advance for the use of orphan images, a move that Merlin Hay, Earl of Erroll, described in the debate as a ‘covert tax’. Baroness (Tessa) Blackstone of Stoke Newington, Chairman of the British Library Board, said that plans for upfront payments were ‘extremely damaging’, while Lord Howarth said that paying in advance would be ‘an impossible, as well as an inappropriate, burden’.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills issued a statement saying that: ‘Remuneration should be payable, at the time of use, for orphan works and it should be at a rate appropriate to the type of work and type of use. Not requiring payment of remuneration is unfair to rights holders and, in a commercial environment, it risks under-cutting the market for non-orphan works.’



Heritage changes in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act


The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act went on to receive Royal Assent on 26 April, and it introduces a number of new measures for the protection and management of heritage assets. These include the requirement for List descriptions to state which parts of the heritage asset are significant and which parts can be regarded as not being of special architectural or historic interest; the introduction of new Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreements, a system of Local and National Listed Building Consent Orders and of Certificates of Lawfulness of Works to Listed Buildings (all three of which are designed to exempt certain types of work to listed buildings from the need to obtain Listed Building Consent); the removal of the need to apply for both Conservation Area Consent and planning permission (the latter will serve both purposes in future); and the right to seek a Certificate of Immunity from listing at any time (not necessarily, as in the past, in connection with a planning application).

The proposals are in two groups: the first are reforms that flow from the draft Heritage Protection Bill of 2008, and were then picked up as recommendations in the Penfold Review (Part A) carried out by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The second group of reforms emerged from the DCMS consultation held in summer 2012 on proposed reforms, some of which were also contained in the Penfold Review (Part B) and some of which stemmed from an extensive pre-consultation exercise conducted by English Heritage. Most of the proposals will be the subject of detailed secondary legislation and are thus not yet in force, though the listing proposals (requiring the significance of heritage assets to be defined) become active on 26 June.



Geffrye Museum told to think again about demolishing the Marquis of Lansdowne pub


An expansion scheme drawn up by David Chipperfield Architects on behalf of the Geffrye Museum that involved bulldozing a 175-year-old pub has been rejected by Hackney Council’s planning committee by seven votes to two. The pub would have been demolished to create the space for a new two-storey gallery, library, collections store, restaurant and conference facility. The council said the benefits of the replacement building were ‘not of sufficient merit to justify the loss of the public house’, citing also potential damage to the Grade I listed almshouse that houses the museum.

Will Palin, a trustee of the Spitalfields Trust, which led the campaign to save the pub, said: ‘Local people feel very strongly about the few historic buildings that are left in the area. People were shocked by the plans; they felt the museum was out of touch’. Will Palin accused the museum of ‘constantly trying to denigrate the building ... it’s a quintessential building from Hackney of the 1830s. It was buildings like these that made the area what it was’.



New on the web


The Church of Norway has published an English-language version of its database of more than 1,600 church buildings, including some of Norway’s most important cultural heritage sites.

The Church Buildings Council has published the papers given at a symposium held last year to discuss ‘Current challenges to church monuments’.

The team behind the Personal Histories Project have posted a video clip from Tony Robinson’s recent visit to the University of Cambridge where he talked about his life in television and archaeology. The video is dedicated to the memory of our late Fellow Thurstan Shaw, husband of Pamela Jane Smith, founder of the Personal Histories Project.



New Year Honours: call for heritage sector nominations


Do you know anyone who deserves recognition for their service to the heritage? Of course you do, so why not consider nominating them for an honour as a way of thanking them for their dedication. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport is keen to receive nominations from the sectors that fall within their remit, including the creative industries, art, music, film, museums, tourism, libraries, heritage, archaeology and broadcasting.

It is often assumed that nomination is reserved exclusively for people whose service has been given in a voluntary capacity but that is not the case: you can also nominate people for outstanding achievement in their professional lives. The key criterion is ‘have they made a difference in their field of work or community’. Further information is on the Gov.UK website.



Scottish merger consultation


On 8 May 2013, Scotland’s Culture Secretary, Fiona Hyslop, made the long-expected announcement that Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland are to merge to form a new Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB). At the same time, the Culture Secretary launched a twelve-week consultation on the ‘first-ever overarching strategy for the historic environment in Scotland’. This provides an opportunity for the public to comment on the purpose and vision of the merged body, and on a strategy that is ‘intended to ensure Scotland’s historic environment is understood, valued, enjoyed and enhanced ... and increases its contribution to economic growth in Scotland’.

The Institute for Archaeologists (IfA) has welcomed the consultation, and in particular the Scottish Government’s recognition in the strategy document of the value and contribution of the historic environment to society and the economy, the proposal to create a Culture and Heritage department within the Scottish Government and the ‘commitment to the long‐term maintenance of current Historic Scotland and RCAHMS functions in a new NDPB’.

The public consultation on the strategy will run until 31 July 2013. For more information, see the Scottish Government website.



News of Fellows


Belatedly catching up with what most Salon readers probably already know, our Fellow Gill Hey, as well as having been elected a member of the Society’s Council last month, has also taken over the reins at Oxford Archaeology (OA), the UK’s largest archaeological unit, where she was appointed Chief Executive after Fellow David Jennings’ appointment as Chief Executive of York Archaeological Trust. Gill has been with OA since 1986 and she has a particular research interest in British Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement and landscape.

As our Fellow Mike Pitts noted in the most recent issue of British Archaeology, Gill’s appointment means that she joins Fellows Taryn Nixon (Chief Executive of MOLA) and Diana Murray (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of England) and, until her recent resignation, Sue Davies (Wessex Archaeology) as women heading up major heritage organisations, in marked contrast to the industrial and commercial world, where women chief executives are rare: only three FTSE 100 companies in the UK are led by women and only twenty-one of the top 500 in the US.

Mike also points out that all three of our Society’s Vice Presidents were women (at the time Mike wrote they were Philippa Glanville, Margaret Richardson and Gillian Andrews, but Gillian has since retired) and that the CBA’s President (Fellow Kate Pretty) and Vice Presidents (Fellows Marilyn Palmer and Emma Plunkett Dillon and Helen Maclagan) are also women. The statistics for women in education show that female archaeology students outnumber male, but that women make up 43 per cent of academic staff and only 19 per cent of professors, with only one of the UK’s leading archaeology departments having a woman as head (Fellow Lin Foxhall, at Leicester).

In Wales, Fellow Bill Britnell retires from his role of Director of the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust at the end of May, after twenty-eight years, during which time he has played a crucial role in developing the Trust from its early days as a ‘rescue’ unit in the 1970s to its current position managing curatorial archaeology services for Powys, Wrexham, Flintshire, Denbighshire, eastern Conwy and the Brecon Beacons National Park, and as a contracting unit which covers these areas and also works in other parts of Wales and in England.

Fellow Paul Belford takes over as the new Director of the Trust in June after what he describes as ‘three very enjoyable years with Nexus Heritage’, prior to which he was the Head of Archaeology at Ironbridge for ten years. Paul says that ‘this is an exciting time for the Trust, with a number of new and ongoing projects dealing with a variety of prehistoric and later sites and landscapes. For example, in the impressive Neolithic ritual landscape in the Walton Basin (eastern Radnorshire), the Trust is working with local communities in both characterising the field evidence and addressing management issues related to agricultural regimes.

At the Trust’s very own hillfort — Beacon Ring (near Welshpool) — work continues on vegetation clearance and investigation in an innovative partnership with the Powys Probation Trust.’ He adds that archaeology in Wales is going through a period of change, with the roles of Cadw and the RCAHMW under review, and an impending Welsh Historic Environment Bill, and that he is hoping to develop more public heritage projects in the future, and will be forging closer links with other heritage organisations in Wales and beyond. Paul has a new work email address and you can follow him on Twitter and on his blog.



Request for help with research


Fellow Sally Foster is researching the work of the V&A in Scotland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly in relation to the creation of exhibitions of plaster casts of ‘Celtic’ sculpture. For copyright reasons, Sally needs to track down any living descendants of Mr Robert F Martin, officer in the Circulation Department of the V&A in the 1890s to 1920s. Please email Sally if you are able to help.



Feedback


Fellow Peter Boyden is very grateful to everyone who responded to his heraldic enquiry in the last issue of Salon. The arms depicted turn out to be those of Murray Richardson, which, Peter says, ‘does make sense as he paid for the painting of the chancel walls and ceiling in the church in which the arms appear’.

In ‘Royal burial places and papal enclaves’, in the last issue Salon’s editor summarised two recent papers by our Fellow Tim Tatton Brown and managed to create, in error, a new English pope — Hadrian V — with the unlikely name (for an Englishman) of Cardinal Ottobuono. Hadrian V was, of course, born in Liguria. He came to England in 1265 as papal legate, sent by Pope Clement IV to help resolve the conflict between Henry III and his barons led by Simon de Montfort. As Fellow David Luscombe points out, the so-called ‘legate’s peace’ (Ottobuono's policy) brought an end to the barons’ war in 1267.

As for ‘that monster’, as our Fellow Edward Chaney refers to Henry VIII, part of his tomb (the black marble sarcophagus) did survive, and now forms the upper part of Nelson’s monument in St Paul’s (for further thoughts on the fate of Henry VIII’s intended monument, Edward commends his article in Apollo, CXXXIV (October 1991), on ‘Henry VIII’s tombs: ‘plus Catholique que le pape’, pp 234—8, or (preferably) the revised, but unillustrated chapter 2 of The Evolution of the Grand Tour: Anglo-Italian cultural relations since the Renaissance (Routledge, 2nd edn, 2000), pp 41—57. (Folk music fans might like to know that Edward’s daughter, Olivia Chaney, is performing a live session on Mark Radcliffe's Folk Show on 22 May 2013 on Radio 2 at 7pm — not to be missed.)

Fellow Joanna Story reminds us that there is yet a further link between Richard III and Henry VIII and lost royal burial places, which is that Cardinal Wolsey died at Leicester Abbey on 29 November 1530, under arrest and being escorted from York to London to answer charges of treason. He was buried in the abbey graveyard and the site of his grave is also now lost. For more on this see Fellow Richard Buckley’s paper on ‘The archaeology of Leicester Abbey’ in Leicester Abbey: medieval history, archaeology and manuscript studies, edited by Joanna Story, Jill Bourne and Richard Buckley, 2006.

Perhaps Richard Buckley will eventually lead the hunt for Wolsey’s burial place, but in the mean time, he and his team at University of Leicester Archaeological Services have announced that they have applied to the Ministry of Justice for an exhumation licence and to Leicester City Council to extend their excavation at Grey Friars to exhume a 600-year-old lead-lined stone coffin that ‘potentially contains the remains of Sir William Moton, believed to have been buried at Grey Friars church in 1362’. Richard said that the four-week excavation, due to start in July if permission is forthcoming, ‘will provide an opportunity to confirm the plan of the east end of the Grey Friars church to learn more about its dating and architecture, and give us the chance to investigate other burials known to be inside the building’.

The former school, where the excavation is due to take place, will be converted into a Richard III heritage centre. Leicester Cathedral, meanwhile, has published its design brief for the re-interment of the remains of ‘Richard III’.

Fellow David Palliser reminds us that Henry VIII was not the only monarch whose instructions regarding his tomb and burial place were ignored after his death. In ‘Royal mausolea in the long fourteenth century (1272—1422)’ (W M Ormrod (ed) 2004, Fourteenth-century England III, pp 1—16, Woodbridge: Boydell), David discusses the invention in the fourteenth century of the tradition of using Westminster Abbey as the burial place of English monarchs, pointing out that, prior to this, monarchs liked to be buried alone, or with their immediate family members, in the churches that they had founded or patronised. Those kings who chose Westminster as their burial place appear to have done so as a way of emphasising dynastic continuity and the legitimacy of their reign — something that Edward III made explicit in his will when he expressed the wish to be buried ‘among our ancestors, the kings of England of famous memory’, a theme that is reflected in the imagery and epitaphs on Edward III’s tomb.

Richard II wanted to be buried at Westminster, in the same tomb as his wife, Anne, who had predeceased him and had already been buried there, but it was not until 1413, thirteen years after his death in 1400, that his wish was fulfilled, Henry IV having initially interred his predecessor at King’s Langley, Hertfordshire. Henry IV himself chose Canterbury, perhaps intending to inaugurate a new royal mausoleum, but Henry V turned his back on this idea with his own Westminster Abbey burial. Henry VI was first buried at Chertsey Abbey, and ended up at St George’s Chapel at Windsor, though he may well have wanted to be buried at Eton or King’s College, Cambridge. All told, royal burial is a fascinating topic, well worth a book: no doubt at least one of our Fellows is already busy writing it.



Lives remembered: Barrie Dobson FBA, FSA (3 November 1931—29 March 2013)

The following obituary for our late Fellow Barrie Dobson, written by our Fellow Christopher Dyer, first appeared in the Guardian, while the final paragraph of this version comes from the obituary published in The Times on 19 April 2013.

Barrie Dobson, who has died at the age of eighty-one, was a distinguished medieval historian and, in particular, an expert on the church and its clergy, mainly between 1350 and 1500. He made the period accessible to students, and showed the relevance of the Middle Ages to our own times. Some of his forays outside church history were partly designed to help students (and their teachers) to explore attractive subjects for which the original sources were not easily accessible. His Rymes of Robyn Hood (1977, with John Taylor) printed the original texts of the ballads and plays that are our principal source of information about the popular hero; and in The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 (1971) he collected and translated documents previously available only in their original Latin and French. Barrie was not very sympathetic towards the rebels of 1381 and was keen to demonstrate the complexities of the rising’s causes and aims.

An interest in Jewish history, which began when Barrie was a student in Oxford, was stimulated by his move in 1964 to teach at York University. The Jews of Medieval York and the Massacre of March 1190 (1974) was a carefully documented account of the anti-Semitic campaign led by aristocratic ruffians that culminated in the mass suicide and massacre of Jews in twelfth-century York. They had sought refuge in the royal castle but were betrayed by the officials who were supposed to protect them. Barrie argued that violent racial and religious hatred, given particular political and social circumstances, could arise even in tolerant and well-governed England. And in 1977, amid the modern troubles of northern cities, he wrote an influential essay, Urban Decline in Late Medieval England, which showed that towns in that period had economic problems, but also suffered from a reluctance of civic leaders to accept the burdens of office.

Barrie was born in Stockton-on-Tees, Yorkshire, and his northern roots were a major influence. He spent his boyhood at Mickleton, North Yorkshire, and went to school at Castle Barnard, Co Durham (though he spent some early years in Brazil, where his father worked on the railways), before going on to Wadham College, Oxford. He wrote an excellent book, Durham Priory 1400—1450 (1973), based on his doctoral thesis, which explored the religious and social importance of that great monastery. Much of his later work, reflected in his collected papers Church and Society in the Medieval North of England (1996), demonstrated the political importance of the bishops and clergy in the region. The patronage of the leading churchmen gave many openings, in government and in academic life, for ambitious young men from the north.

His own career may look like a conventional progression from Oxford to a lectureship at St Andrews University, a succession of posts at York and then appointment as Professor of Medieval History at Cambridge from 1988 until his retirement in 1999. In fact, his moves required some agonising decisions. Leaving a thriving centre of medieval history at St Andrews, where he was very happy, to take a post at the new University of York was a leap into the unknown. He was strongly advised against joining this fledgling institution, which at the outset lacked even a decent library, but York suited him. He felt at home in the north of England and found much work to do in the archives of the church and city of York. The new university became in the long run a leader, in which historians and the centre for medieval studies played a prominent role. Barrie was much admired and held in great affection, becoming professor of history in 1977 and deputy vice-chancellor in 1984. He was proud of his role in founding an archaeology department, which now thrives.

At Cambridge, he threw himself into teaching, making contact with the scattered medievalists and writing, though he did not have the same scope as at York for moulding the university. Among other honours, in 1988 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy and in 1991 he became president of the Ecclesiastical History Society. When he retired in 1999 Barrie was presented not with the customary single volume of essays, but with three.

Barrie’s effectiveness as an academic leader owed much to his generosity of spirit. He gave his time, attention and energy to a wide range of academic causes; among other offices, he was president of the Surtees Society, the Jewish Historical Society of England and the Ecclesiastical History Society, as well as chairman of the York Archaeological Trust, a member of the York Glaziers Trust and general editor of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series. Such duties were carried out with a grace that disguised the effort involved. He was enthusiastic about jazz, cinema — he helped to found the York Film Theatre — and walking, particularly in the Lake District.



Lives Remembered: Peter Ladson Drewett FSA (2 September 1947—1 April 2013)


Salon’s editor is very grateful to our Fellow John Manley (aided by Fellows David Rudling and Henry Cleere, by Peter’s widow, Lys Drewett, and by Brian Bates and Jose Oliver) for the following obituary and for the photograph of Peter Drewett (left), digging at Black Patch, East Sussex, in the 1970s.

Peter Drewett was at the forefront of the development of the discipline of archaeology in the formative last three decades of the twentieth century. Institutionally he was at its intellectual epicentre, teaching and researching at the London Institute of Archaeology (now part of UCL) from 1973 until 2004, when he left to become the first Professor of Archaeology at the University of Sussex. He will be especially remembered for his excavations on major prehistoric sites in Sussex, though he also found time to excavate several sites in the Caribbean, making a lasting contribution to the archaeology of that region. He will also be remembered fondly by thousands of students and volunteers whose lives he both touched and transformed, instilling in them a passionate curiosity for the past alongside guidance and support when it was required.

As a youngster in Croydon Peter became involved in local archaeology at a very early age and directed excavations while still at school. He attended his first lecture (on Roman pottery) as a twelve-year-old member of the Croydon Natural History and Scientific Society on 20 October 1959, and was still a member more than fifty years later. Involvement with that Society gave his professional work a strong empirical character and encouraged in him a deep and life-long respect for the role of volunteers in archaeology.

Peter’s very first excavation was under the direction of a local schoolmaster on a moated site at Godstone. He quickly went on to dig under our Fellow Henry Cleere at Bardown, a Roman ironworks, in East Sussex. This was the start of a lifelong involvement with the archaeology of Sussex. Further schoolboy and student volunteering led him to work with Peter Fowler at Fyfield Down and Geoff Wainwright at Durrington Walls. These three prominent excavators were major influences on Peter early in his career, while a fourth archaeologist made a sartorial impact: for a short period in his youth Peter followed Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s example of distinguishing himself as excavation director by wearing a tie on site.

Professionally, after a short stint at the Department of Environment, where he was an Assistant Inspector of Ancient Monuments at the age of twenty-two, Peter moved to the Institute, where he developed a dual role as Lecturer (later Reader) in Prehistoric Archaeology and as founder and Director of the Sussex Archaeological Field Unit (later the Field Archaeology Unit). The latter gave him an attractive ‘hands-on’ role, growing to a full-time staff of nine and employing up to 100 site workers during the summer field seasons. Overall Peter managed some 200 projects in Sussex, raising about £1.6 million in research grants. The projects that he will perhaps be best remembered for are his pioneering work on Neolithic causewayed camps (which he approached from a landscape perspective), the excavation of a Late Bronze Age farmstead at Black Patch (his interpretation of the function of several round-houses here has become one of the most cited papers in British prehistory: Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, Vol 48, 1982, pp 321—400) and the investigation of a number of long, oval and round barrows at Alfriston, North Marden and West Heath. His Sussex involvement also included the far-sighted (and now much copied) idea of the ‘Prim Tech’ camp for Institute students on the Experimental Archaeology Course, founded in 1982 as a way of introducing them to the practical realities of later prehistoric life and still going strong to this day.

Between 1985 and 2002, as Director of the Barbados Archaeological Survey, Peter excavated a number of pre-colonial sites on Barbados, such as Heywoods (later Port Saint Charles), Silver Sands and Hillcrest. He also carried out excavations and surveys on the British Virgin Islands, including the island-wide survey of Tortola that led to the in-depth excavations at the Belmont site, and the discovery of a symbolically sited ceremonial court. His involvement in the Caribbean included much needed advice on cultural heritage management, and he provided legislative guidance to the governments of the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands and Barbados. Peter’s research in the Caribbean led to the publication of two books: Prehistoric Barbados (1991) and Prehistoric Settlements in the Caribbean: fieldwork in Barbados, Tortola and the Cayman Islands (2000). After an investigation of Neolithic sites on Lantau Island, Hong Kong, in the mid-1990s he also assisted the Government of Hong Kong in terms of improving its procedure relating to the issuing of permits to archaeologists.

Peter’s work was always followed by prompt publication, and his love of archaeological fieldwork, in particular, lit up the pages of his best-selling book, Field Archaeology: an introduction (1999), which has seen multiple editions. Throughout his career Peter maintained a principled integrity and adhered to impeccable archaeological standards, at the same time exhibiting a remarkable ability to empathise with his students and co-workers.

Peter was also a champion of local societies and volunteers. He was a member of the Sussex Archaeological Society from 1973, serving as Chair of its governing body in the 1980s and again in the 2000s, rising latterly to the role of President. He was ever mindful of the great amateur tradition of the Sussex Archaeological Society espoused by such characters as the Curwens and George Holleyman, and sought to uphold the traditions of research and publication that had originated in the founding years of the Society in the mid-nineteenth century.

In his later years, he turned his attentions closer to home: the parish of Chalvington with Ripe, in the low weald of East Sussex. He contributed a ‘Brief History’ of Ripe to a charming local work, Portrait of a Parish (2012), a short piece that proved to be his last published work and that revealed an unexpected enthusiasm for the Romans, especially a villa estate that Peter thought lay in his neighbourhood. Undoubtedly this would have formed his next major contribution to the archaeology of Sussex. He now lies peacefully on the sunny side of the graveyard at Ripe Church, looking out over his family home and the South Downs, which he loved, keeping an eye on the next generation of archaeologists, some of whom will no doubt eventually investigate his putative villa estate.



Lives remembered: Anthony Swaine, FSA (1913—2013)


Salon’s editor is very grateful to our Fellow Richard Morrice for the following obituary and to Anthony Swaine Architecture for the portrait of Anthony (left).

Anthony Wells Swaine, who has died at the age of ninety-nine without ever really retiring from practice as an architect, was born in 1913. His background was artistic, his mother being an art teacher, and it was his step-grandfather, a priest in the Dutch Roman Catholic Church, who introduced him to architecture, visiting churches and explaining the importance of liturgy for design. When illness took him out of school, he spent more time with his grandfather until joining the College of Art in Margate. Showing a greater interest in architecture, he moved to the office of Harry H Stroud, an architect in general practice in Ramsgate. In 1931, after badgering Harold Anderson, the Cathedral Architect in Canterbury, he joined his office when only eighteen.

Anderson’s practice included work with historic buildings and, while Tony trained in the evenings, the work of the office gained him both knowledge of conservation and a facility with traditional design and detailing. His chance to move into practice on his own account, however, came as a result of the war, first as Clerk of Works at Canterbury Cathedral, then with much work carried out for the War Damage Commission. His is the rebuilding of the chancel at All Saints Church, Lydd, on the Romney Marsh (1958, following his conservation of the rest of the church, 1951—3). He also worked on repairs to St James, Bermondsey, where the spire had been shattered by vibrations. Meanwhile, on complaining to the then Chief Investigator in the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, S J Garton, that the list for Canterbury was lacking in terms of its coverage of medieval buildings, he found himself asked to assist Anthony Dale, later Garton’s successor, to revise that list in the light of his knowledge of the medieval city.  He moved on to produce the first lists for Rochester, Chatham, Tenterden, Whitstable and Sandwich.

Anthony is remembered in Canterbury, among other things, for having taken the photograph that showed the scale of the damage to the Whitefriars quarter of the city, following a night of fire-watching on the cathedral during the air raid on the night of 31 May 1942. In his eyes, the damage of the air raid was then compounded by the actions of the Town Clerk and City Engineer: ‘many buildings, although damaged, were left standing and capable of repair; however, whilst the ashes and cinders were still warm, the evil act of matricide was about to begin’. Anthony was there at the beginning of a debate about the form which new development should take, which has swung back and forth in Canterbury ever since.

His concern for historic buildings and areas led him in the 1960s to take over work in Faversham from David Nye of D E Nye & Partners on the restoration of buildings in the Market Place and in Abbey Street, for which funding had been available since 1962 (the ‘face-lift scheme’). This led in 1967 to work on Faversham Conserved, a report commissioned jointly by Faversham Borough Council and Kent County Council. His work on area conservation in Faversham was therefore contemporary with the comparable but much better known reports on Bath, Chester, Chichester and York, commissioned by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government at the time of the 1967 Civic Amenities Act; he was a little later to produce a similar report on Margate Old Town, a place which also owes a considerable debt to Tony.

Best known for his conservation work, he was also a capable architect in mid-twentieth-century variations of traditional styles and he was among those who re-used buildings and bits of buildings; he re-used parts of the gatehouse from Forester’s Hall, Canterbury, as an addition while repairing the Wealden hall in Ivy Lane and his own house in Deal was also something of a palimpsest. He helped save St Edmund’s Chapel in Dover, and Eastbridge Hospital in Canterbury was under his wing for many years. His work was not restricted to the south east of England; he lectured in Europe and advised on the restoration of the church of the Madonna dell’Orto in Venice after the 1966 floods. He was also a Trustee of the Ancient Monuments Society. His last major new work was the new chapel at the Priory in Minster-in-Thanet but he was still the inspecting architect at All Saints, Lydd, at the time of his death.

Anthony Swaine Architecture will continue to practise from The Bastion Tower, one of the surviving bastion towers, a remnant of the city walls of Canterbury.



Exhibitions


To 28 July 2013: ‘Afghanistan: hidden treasures from the National Museum’. This exhibition of ancient artefacts from the National Museum, Kabul, which started touring in 2008, having been at the British Museum in 2011, is now on show at Melbourne Museum until 28 July 2013. Some 230 objects excavated in the twentieth century from archaeological sites along the ancient Silk Road are on display, many of them thought to have been lost or destroyed during the conflict in Afghanistan, but recovered from vaults in 2013 where they had been hidden for safekeeping by museum staff. Our Fellow Dr Patrick Greene, CEO of Museum Victoria in Melbourne, says: ‘The National Museum in Kabul proudly states that a nation stays alive when its culture stays alive, and nothing demonstrates this more than these treasures, connecting us to Afghanistan’s cultural history when so many other artefacts from this time have been destroyed or lost.’ Further information can be found on the Museum Victoria website.

To 4 August 2013: ‘A Vision of England: etchings by William Monk (1863—1937)’, an exhibition at Chester’s Grosvenor Museum celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of a major Chester artist and a highly respected figure in the British Etching Revival, a movement that saw the rebirth of etching as an artistically creative form of printmaking. The exhibition demonstrates Monk’s technical brilliance, not least in the subtle manipulation of ink on the surface of the etched copper plate. His prints celebrate a vision of England that ranges from the quaint corners of picturesque Chester, through the age-old tradition of historic colleges (shown left is The Outer Gate, Winchester College, 1925), to the grandeur and vitality of metropolitan London. Our Fellow Peter Boughton, the Museum’s Keeper of Art, will lead a guided tour of the exhibition on 26 June as part of the exhibition’s programme of lectures and events. The museum is open Mon to Sat 10.30am to 5pm and Sun 1pm to 4pm, admission free.



Events


20 May 2013: ‘The Earls of Radnor and their Collections (1679—1758)’, a lecture by our Fellow Paul Holden, House and Collections Manager for the National Trust at Lanhydrock in Cornwall, to be given at 5.30pm in the Wallace Collection Lecture Theatre.

A recently discovered 1724 auction catalogue shows the splendour of the art collection housed in the fashionable residence in St James’s Square, London, of Charles Bodville Robartes (1660—1723), 2nd Earl of Radnor, a significant collector, connoisseur and patron of Dutch artists during the early Enlightenment period, a man whose collecting habits eventually led him to sell Wimpole Hall, his Cambridgeshire seat, to pay his debts. This paper, funded in part with a bursary from the National Trust under the aegis of the Understanding British Portraits network, will explore the nature of the collections and consider how they were formed and when they were dispersed. It will draw on extensive research conducted on the Robartes family archives in both London and Cornwall. Some of these collections, particularly the important library, paintings and fine furniture, can be readily identified at Lanhydrock House in Cornwall, the ancestral seat of the Robartes family, but now in the ownership of the National Trust.

1 June 2013: The Summer Symposium of ASPRoM (the Association for the Study and Preservation of Roman Mosaics) will be held from 2pm to 5.30pm in the Council Room (K2.29), King’s Building, Strand Campus, King’s College London. The speakers are Fellows Jenny Hall (‘Roman London and its mosaics’) and Steve Cosh (‘The mosaics of Roman London’) plus N Schibille (‘The chemistry of Roman and Byzantine glass mosaics’) and Will Wootton (‘Conserving and managing mosaics in Libya’). Further information is available on the Association’s website. Those wishing to attend should contact Dr Will Wootton.

4 June 2013: ‘Policing the Past, Protecting the Future’. Led by Fellow Mark Harrison, of English Heritage, this Rewley House training course on the increasingly worrying topic of heritage crime offers practical training and advice for those who might find themselves involved in dealing with such problems. The course will cover the legislative framework, partnership development, identifying the threats to heritage assets and their settings, preventative measures, enforcement and interventions, and an overview of the way in which English Heritage, the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, local authorities and Community Safety Partnerships are responding to this escalating threat. For further details see the Oxford Department for Continuing Education website.

6 and 7 June 2013: ‘Ice Age Art and Landscape’: ICOMOS-UK Summer Meeting at Creswell Crags, in collaboration with the Creswell Heritage Trust, offering expert insights and tours of the Palaeolithic cave art and the associated prehistoric landscapes. Further details are on the ICOMOS-UK website.

20 to 21 June: ‘Autour des manuscrits de l’abbaye de Cadouin’, a free colloquium on the manuscripts of the tenth- to fifteenth–century Cistercian abbey at Cadouin, to mark the launch of the exhibition on the same subject curated by our Fellow Alison Stone and organised by the Archives départementales de la Dordogne (17 June to 20 September 2013). For further information, contact Bernard Reviriego.

21 June 2013: ‘Heritage Conservation and Tourism: who benefits; who pays?’ ICOMOS-UK Cultural Tourism Committee is to stage this one-day seminar in Brighton to look at the relationship between conservation and tourism in a challenging economic climate where ideally tourism should protect and invest in the historic environment but all too often exploits heritage as if it were a ‘free’ resource. The day will review good practice and creative solutions at different scales: historic towns and quarters, sites and monuments, buildings and attractions. Full details and a booking form are available on the ICOMOS-UK website.

21 and 22 June 2013: ‘London and the Emergence of a European Art Market (c 1780—1820)’, a National Gallery/Getty Research Institute collaborative conference. For further information about the programme and to make a booking, see the National Gallery website.

24 and 25 June 2013: ‘Croatia at the Crossroads’, a two-day international archaeological conference to be held at Europe House, 32 Smith Square, London SW1P 3EU, which will explore the connections between Croatia and neighbouring and more distant peoples and cultures from the earliest times up to the medieval period. Attendance at the conference is free, though advance registration is required via the conference website, where you will also find information on the long and impressive list of speakers (including a number of Fellows) and abstracts of the papers they will give, featuring material stemming from a wide range of academic archaeological projects that have been conducted in Croatia over the last twenty years.

25 June 2013: ‘Imagery and Cult at the Shrine of St Edward the Confessor’, by our Fellow Nicola Coldstream, a meeting of the Westminster History Club to which all are welcome (tickets are £10 each at the door) at 7pm in the Lord Mayor’s Reception Rooms, Floor 18, Westminster City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, London WI.

Edward the Confessor, who died in January 1066, inadvertently provided the pretext for the Norman Conquest and was canonised in 1161. His memory was revered by Henry III, who provided a new abbey church at Westminster as the theatrical setting for the Confessor’s shrine. Henry was buried near the saint, as were generations of his successors, garlanding the shrine with a series of magnificent royal tombs. But the visual influence of the saint’s cult spread far beyond the shrine behind the high altar so that the abbey church is steeped in imagery relating to the Confessor. Tombs and imagery tell a fascinating story of cult, piety and propaganda, which this talk will tease out from among the Poets and the Great Men.

4 to 6 July 2013, Summer School: local history in the towns, organised by the Institute of Historical Research in association with the Victoria County History and the Centre for Metropolitan History. An illustrious team of experts from the National Archives, the London Metropolitan Archives, English Heritage, the History of Parliament, the Survey of London and the VCH, as well as from universities throughout the UK, will explore the historical, archaeological, art historical and architectural evidence for British towns of all sorts. The school is open to all those keen to expand or update their skills in local history research. Through practical advice and example, students of the school will learn how to broaden and enrich their own local history projects, as well as having the opportunity to meet specialists and other researchers and to discuss their own work. The school will include sessions on ‘Sources and Approaches’, ‘People and Households’, ‘Space, Topography and the Built Environment’, ‘Urban Institutions’, ‘Business’ and ‘Pleasure’.

To view the full programme and register online, see the IHR website. The IHR website also has information on a variety of research training courses, including free online courses on such subjects as palaeography, internet sources for British history and designing databases for historical research.

21 and 22 September 2013: ‘Medicine and Mortality 1300—1900’. Several Fellows are among the speakers at this weekend conference devoted to the domestic rituals around human health, sickness, medicine and the rituals and trappings of death through the ages. For further details, see the Weald and Downland Museum’s website.

2 and 3 November 2013: ‘A Question of Conflicts: the archaeology of warriors, weaponry and warfare in Wessex’, the CBA Wessex Annual Conference, in St Barbara's Hall, Larkhill, Salisbury. Topics to include prehistoric warfare and hill forts, the coming of the Romans, Saxon and Viking Wessex, civil and medieval wars, the Mary Rose and the Armada, the Channel Islands, training and preparation for war on Salisbury Plain and the south coast, the Fromelles Project (naming the dead) and the aerial war and the cold war — a forgotten conflict? The speakers will include our Fellows Margaret Cox, Josh Pollard, Julian Richards and Richard Osgood. On Sunday 3 November there will be a tour of archaeological and historical sites within the Salisbury Plain training area that are not usually open to the public. Further details from the CBA Wessex website.

9 November 2013: ‘150 Years of Roman Yorkshire’, at Temple Hall, York St John University. As part of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society (YAS), the Roman Antiquities Section of the YAS, the YAS and the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies jointly present a day-conference with papers by leading experts that will review past understanding and present current research. Cost: £19 for the day (RAS, YAS and SPRS members £17). For a booking form and further information please see the YAS website.




Launch of the Later Prehistoric Finds Group


The Later Prehistoric Finds Group is a new organisation for all those who are interested in the material culture of later prehistory, with a principal focus on the British Bronze and Iron Ages. The idea for the group emerged out of the European Iron Age Artefacts Symposium, held at the University of Leicester in October 2012, where it was felt that exciting research was currently being carried out on prehistoric portable artefacts and that it would be helpful if those who are involved could meet regularly to share information and ideas.

The group’s first meeting was held at the British Museum in April 2013, and a second meeting is planned for the autumn/winter, with a mix of short papers, discussions, artefact handling and gallery tours. The group and its meetings are open to all. For updates, see the group’s website and Facebook page. Send an email if you would like to receive the free newsletter that will be published over the summer.




Books by Fellows: Wendy: the lives and loves of a dragon


Better known as a historian of musical instruments, our Fellow Jeremy Montagu, Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, has ventured into fiction with ‘a frivolous but, I hope, entertaining book’ about the efforts of Wendy, a good Welsh dragon who lives on Pendragon hill in Llandraig who goes on a journey to visit dragon friends and relations all over the world in search of jobs and partners for her six children. Jeremy promises ‘lots of jokes (some musical, some antiquarian), many puns and numerous unpolitically correct remarks about bankers, politicians and others’. He warns that the book is not suitable for vegetarians, due to Wendy’s fondness for snacking on the odd unwary passer-by, but hopes that it will appeal to those who enjoy light reading between bouts of work and on bus and plane journeys: to read a sample chapter or download it to your e-reader, see the Amazon website.




Books by Fellows: Early Medieval Art and Archaeology in the Northern World


If the weight of a Festschrift is any indication of the respect in which the recipient is held, our Fellow James Graham-Campbell is clearly held in very high regard, this 948-page volume consisting of two journals’ worth of papers, forty-two in number, all by leading scholars in the field of early medieval art and archaeology, twenty-nine of the contributors being Fellows of our Society.

Enough of the avoirdupois; what about the content? The essays are divided by subject into four groups, on 'Objects', 'Hoards', 'Places' and ‘Style, Symbol and Meaning’, and they are remarkable for their wide geographical scope, which ranges from Iceland to Spain and from Ireland to eastern Europe: so, for example, Wendy Davies’s essay on ‘Treasure: a view from the south’ turns out not to be written from the perspective of someone ensconced in the British Museum or University College London, but in Léon, in northern Spain, where the contents of the treasury at San Isodoro spark a consideration of Viking contacts with the Iberian peninsula. Then there is the cultural range: ‘the Northern World’ in this case embraces Anglo-Saxon, Norse/Viking and ‘Celtic’ art and archaeology and, as the editors say in their introduction, this is because James ‘is responsible in many ways for bringing these [scholarly] communities together’.

And for those readers who are not part of one or all of these communities? What can the ‘lay’ reader get from this double volume? The answer is the witty and affectionate ‘Foreword’ by Fellow David Wilson and the ‘Endnote’ by Fellow Negley Harte, both of which attempt to pin down the mercurial character of James Graham-Campbell whilst also being important contributions to the social history of archaeology in the 1970s to 1990s: here you will learn about such sociable institutions as the Houseman Room at UCL (still going strong as the university’s senior common room, but perhaps not quite the hive of cross-disciplinary intellectual debate that it was in the 1970s) and of the lively goings on at meetings of the Crabtree Foundation, of which James is, apparently, Keeper of the Cudgel and which, like our own Cocked Hats, manages to combine conviviality with serious research.

Negley Harte ends the Festschrift with the story of how, on one Crabtree Research Foundation trip to Portugal some years ago, James lost all his possessions when the car he had hired was broken into. Returning to Heathrow without passport or luggage and wearing borrowed clothes, he was uncertain how he would be received by immigration officials. He certainly did not expect the warm reception he received as soon as he began to explain his plight: it turned out that the immigration official knew exactly who he was, being himself a graduate of the Institute of Archaeology (another of James’s haunts).

Early Medieval Art and Archaeology in the Northern World: studies in honour of James Graham-Campbell, edited by Andrew Reynolds and Leslie Webster; ISBN 9789994235038; The Northern World Vol. 58, Brill, 2013




Books by Fellows: Irish Gothic Architecture


Edited by our Fellow Roger Stalley, this volume looks at the ways in which Gothic constructional techniques and ornamentation were introduced to Ireland in the thirteenth century, largely based on English practice and in striking contrast to the building methods and architectural styles that had gone before. The book examines the ways in which Gothic was adapted over time, resulting in a distinctively Irish Gothic style, and the meaning and value attributed to this style in later ages, in a land where Hiberno-Romanesque is a more obvious candidate for the title of 'Irish national style' — though, as Roger Stalley makes clear in his analysis of Cashel Cathedral, this icon of Irishness derives its character from an intriguing and unconventional blend of Gothic and pre-Norman.

English suppression of Irish religious institutions in the 1530s saw the mass despoliation of churches and monasteries, leaving Ireland a land of medieval ruins. The book examines the legacy of this period in terms both of the immediate consequences — the recycling of materials, the conversion of former monasteries into hospitals, schools, forts and private residences — and the longer term impact — the rediscovery of Ireland’s Gothic heritage by Irish antiquaries and architects in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the influence of these medieval buildings on the Irish Gothic Revival, and the design of such nineteenth-century buildings as Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral in Cork and St Colman’s at Cobh. The book ends by asking questions about the future of Ireland’s many Gothic ruins (amply illustrated), their significance and value, the best ways of preserving them and, given their sheer number, how the funds can be found for their preservation.

Irish Gothic Architecture: construction, decay and reinvention, edited by Roger Stalley; ISBN 9781905569700; Wordwell, 2012




Books by Fellows: Curating Human Remains


Several Fellows have contributed to this edited volume in the Newcastle University ‘Heritage Matters’ series, consisting of an introduction to the complex issues surrounding the excavation, study and curation of human remains in the UK and fourteen essays by policy makers, curators and field archaeologists on the way they practice and interpret Government policy. The essays look at related issues, such as the use of human remains in teaching and the question of storage for human remains — or rather the lack of it.

One has to say that reading this book leaves you with a vague sense of unease — not about human remains, but about the fact that such a book as this is even necessary. What is all the fuss about? Is there really a problem about archaeological study of himan remains, or is this an issue invented by underemployed bureaucrats for our over-regulated age?

After all, there is no evidence to suggest that archaeologists are anything but respectful of the human remains they work with and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the public trusts archaeologists and fully understands the value of studying ancient human remains — witness the press coverage of the Richard III discoveries and such popular TV shows Meet the Ancestors Revisited, presented by our Fellow Julian Richards and currently showing on BBC4.

Coming very close to agreeing with this point of view is the essay by Fellows Mike Parker Pearson, Mike Pitts and Duncan Sayer in which they examine the legal and procedural history relating to the archaeological recovery of human remains and their subsequent analysis and curation. The authors make it clear that the current situation has been forced upon archaeology as a result of mid-nineteenth-century legislation intended to regulate cemeteries and burial grounds.

This is a far from satisfactory situtaion: they go as far as to call it ‘a crisis’. All three have played an important role in lobbying the Government for a change and they explain what they have done with what result. They argue that many aspects of current policy are counterproductive (screening the excavation of human remains from public view is resented by the public and is a major obstruction to public engagement and education, for example). Their message is: don’t accept what the ‘dozens of regulating authorities, laws and guidances’ seek to impose; there is a unique and very important relationship between archaeology and human remains and we must work to ensure that that is not hampered'.

This is a cause worth supporting; but it may take some time; while we are waiting, this book contains sensible guidance on how to care for the dead in ways that will not frighten the bureaucrats and will still allow the rest of us to get on with the serious business of learning from our dead.

Curating Human Remains: caring for the dead in the United Kingdom, edited by Myra Giesen; ISBN 9781843838067; Boydell & Brewer, 2013



Vacancies


University of Cambridge, Research Associate in the Faculty of Classics (Roman archaeology)
Salary £27,854 to £36,298 pa; closing date 24 May 2013

The Faculty of Classics seeks a Research Associate (Roman archaeology) for the period 1 September 2013 to 28 February 2018 to assist our Fellow Martin Millett on a series of fieldwork and other archaeological publication projects during his tenure as head of the university’s School of Arts and Humanities. The post is open to those with a PhD in Roman archaeology and a primary research interest in the archaeology of the western Roman Empire; candidates will need experience in academic editing, in using archaeological texts in modern western European languages, in using computer graphics (eg, Illustrator, CAD) and GIS (eg, ArcMap) programs, in archaeological excavation and post-excavation analysis, in archaeological survey (geophysical and topographical) and be willing to develop skills in new survey equipment and software.

Further particulars may be obtained from the Faculty of Classics’ website.

University of Cambridge: Course Director, Masters in Building History
Salary in the range £37,382—£47,314; closing date 30 May 2013

The Cambridge Faculty of Architecture and History of Art is seeking to appoint a full-time Course Director for the Masters in Building History course. This is a two-year, part-time Master’s course, launched in October 2011 by the Department of Architecture and the Department of History of Art in collaboration with English Heritage and the Institute of Continuing Education.

Candidates must have the ability to teach approaches to the analysis and interpretation of architectural fabric alongside traditional research skills and methods. He or she will be expected to have extensive experience of the analysis and interpretation of architectural fabric and to be able to demonstrate this both verbally and by evidence in the form of publications and reports.

For further details of the post, please see the Cambridge Architecture Department’s website.

Waddesdon, Chief Executive; closing date 31 May 2013
Search consultants Odgers Berndtson are advertising for a chief executive with a ‘broad understanding of heritage and conservation, a love of historic assets and a deep sympathy for the environment’ to shape Waddesdon’s ‘cultural strategy, deliver major initiatives and extend its influence to audiences in the UK and internationally ... further developing and translating the vision for Waddesdon as a centre of cultural, arts, heritage, environmental and educational significance’.



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