Dr. Fred Meynen - Programme Secretary:
01372 372930
This calendar includes Leatherhead Museum events and
activities.
Fred is also Chairman of the Friends of Leatherhead Museum.
for other
recent years, see current programme page
Edwina is a well known local historian, editor, researcher
and compiler of a History of Leatherhead, a town at the
Crossroads. She has recorded local personalities many of whom
are featured in her lecture.
Francis Frith lived in the 19C, becoming the world's first
specialist photographic publisher, setting out to photograph
towns and villages in the UK. David Edney is an accredited
lecturer for the Francis Frith Archives.
March 2010 - visit for Friends, stewards and History
Society to the Lightbox Gallery/museum and the Mosque, both
in Woking.
As Honorary Secretary of the Society established over 150
years ago he will describe its current activities. These
include publications, and lectures as well as excavations and
surveys at prehistoric and Roman sites.
1st April 2010 Museum reopens
The history of the Long House, Sir Frederick Milner and
The Ex-Services Welfare Society and Combat Stress.
How the Surrey countryside was affected by the coming of
the Anglo Saxons. Lifestyle of the people in communities -
farms, villages, religion, agriculture and trade.
VISIT - Wednesday 16th June, 10.30am - St Mary's Church,
Stoke d'Abernon
A guided visit to this historic church dating from the
early Middle Ages. Many unique features including brasses
from the 14th century. Donations welcome.
VISIT - Saturday, 10th July, 10.30am - Day Visit to
Historic Places in REIGATE
This will start with a visit to the premises of the
Holmesdale Natural History Club which has a small museum.
Then a chance to see the famous caves and the castle site.
Following a lunch break, a visit to The Priory Museum.
Restricted parking spaces makes car-sharing vital.
Application forms for these visits are enclosed with the
May Newsletter. Please apply early.
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Our first meeting of the 2010-11 season. All are
welcome. Entrance £1. Coffee from 7.30pm, lecture at
8pm in the Abraham Dixon Hall at the Letherhead
Institute. Gordon is the President of our Local
History Society and is a member of the Surrey
Industrial History Group. He is the author of the
book Surrey and the Motor, published in 2005
Yes, that is a policeman about his duty ...
Please display a poster
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Ron Fowler of Great Bookham will talk about his
flourishing business and his life in the Trade.
Alan Hall lives in Leatherhead. He is secretary of the
Roman Studies Group and honorary local secretary of the
Surrey Archaeological Society.
17th December Members' Evening - Presentations by Members
on My Favourite Building
The evening will be informal with bistro-style seating,
wine and canapés followed by coffee and mince pies. It will
be hosted by the Master of Ceremonies Brian Hennegan and will
end with a raffle. If you would like to take part with a
short talk on your favourite building please get in touch
with me. The evening is a social occasion with the accent on
informality and conviviality! Guests and friends of members
will be very welcome.
15th January 2010 The
Famous and Infamous of Leatherhead by Edwina Vardey
The January lecture, The Famous and Infamous of
Leatherhead, was given by Edwina Vardey, a well-known
local historian and author of the book History of
Leatherhead, a Town at the Crossroads. The lecture came
as a welcome break after a period of cold wintery weather and
described how Edwina came across these personalities while
researching her book 20 years ago. Some of the legends, such
as Charles Wesley, the founder of Methodism, preaching under
a cedar tree in front of Kingston House in 1791, were
unfounded and other trails ended in a cul-de-sac or dead-end.
Leatherhead has always been a "commuter centre"
in past times when travel was often difficult and hazardous.
A local man called Happy Jack living in Brick Bat Alley when
arrested for being drunk and disorderly told the magistrate
he would "go abroad" and live in Bookham.
In 1524 Elinour Rumming, sometimes associated with the Running
Horse, was fined for selling ale at excessive prices and
was the subject of a bawdy ballad, 36 verses in length, by
John Skelton and later set to music by Ralph
Vaughan-Williams.
The Mansion in Little Queen Street, now Church Street,
housed Robert Cheseman, yeoman falconer to Henry VIII, and
was subject of a painting by Hans Holbein, the Dutch artist.
Queen Elizabeth I visited Edmund Tilney at the Mansion in
1591, Tilney being Master of the Revels for 30 years and
censor and publisher of performance plays including Comedy of
Errors, and it is surprising that no portrait of him can be
found; another cul-de-sac!
Another notable person living in the 17th Century was Sir
Thomas Bloodworth of Thorncroft Manor, a man described by
Samuel Pepys in his diary as a "silly man and a mean
man". He was Lord Mayor of London during the Plague and
the Great Fire in 1660 and was visited in Leatherhead by
another notable person, Judge Jeffreys, who was married to
Bloodworth's daughter. Judge Jeffreys was the "hanging
judge", so called because of his harsh treatment of the
Duke of Monmouth's Rebels during the Civil War of 1685, when
the victims were hanged in groups.
Before the arrival of the railways, stage coaches were a
form of travel, the Swan Hotel acting as a staging point
where travellers rested and the horses were changed. In 1806
a coach carrying Princess Caroline, wife of the Prince
Regent, overturned outside the Swan and one of her ladies was
killed.
Henry Collier of Middle Lane lost his life in the Titanic
disaster in 1912 and was the subject of a recent exhibition
and publication at our local museum. His wife and daughter
were ultimately saved. Famous writers associated with the
Leatherhead area were Fanny Burney of Westhumble, Jane
Austen, who visited her mother's first cousin in Bookham, and
Anthony Hope [Hawkins], who wrote The Prisoner of Zenda
in 1894 and is buried in the Parish Churchyard. Edwina went
on to mention two other famous ladies of Leatherhead.
Emmeline Pankhurst, the suffragette, was held in Leatherhead
Police Station in 1913, accused of conspiring to place
gunpowder in the tea pavilion of Walton Heath Golf Club.
The birth control pioneer Doctor Marie Stopes, living in
Belmont Road, was fined in WW1 for not observing the
blackout. Later she married H Verdon Roe, the aircraft
designer, and moved to Norbury Park, where it is said he
asked her permission to return home! A notable benefactor was
Abraham Dixon, who donated The Institute in 1893, providing
"education and recreation" for the citizens. He
lived at Cherkley Court, later occupied by Lord Beaverbrook,
Minister of Aircraft Production in WW2. Donald Campbell lived
in Priors Ford, now Campbell Court, and the driving wheel of
Bluebird 7 is now in the Leatherhead museum. Mentioning Sir
Michael Caine, a current famous resident of Leatherhead,
Patron of the Theatre and the Drama Festival, Edwina
concluded a fascinating and informative lecture.
The next lecture is on February 19 Francis Frith, the
Photographer by David Edney at The Institute, top of
High Street Leatherhead, lecture 8pm. Visitors £2.
Dr Fred Meynen
Photographer Francis Frith was the subject of the
society's illustrated lecture on February 19 and our speaker
was David Edney, who explained just how he became an
accredited lecturer for the Francis Frith Archives over five
years ago and has never regretted it.
Frith was a Victorian pioneer photographer of the Middle
East and many towns in the UK. He was born in Derbyshire in
1822. He attended Quaker schools before he started in the
cutlery business, leaving in 1850 to start a photographic
studio known as Frith & Hayward in Liverpool.
A successful grocer, and later printer, Frith fostered an
interest in photography, becoming a founding member of the
Liverpool Photographic Society in 1853. Frith sold his
companies in 1855 in order to dedicate himself to photography
He journeyed to the Middle East on three occasions, the
first of which was a trip to Egypt in 1856 with very large
cameras (16" x 20"). During his visits he often
adopted the local costume, thus enabling him to take pictures
of the inhabitants more easily.
When he had finished his travels in the Middle East in
1859, he opened the firm of Francis Frith & Co in
Reigate, as the world's first specialist photographic
publisher.
In 1860 he married Mary Ann Rolling and embarked upon a
colossal project - to photograph every town and village in
the UK and, in particular, notable historical or interesting
sights. As success came he hired people to help and set about
establishing his postcard company, a firm that became one of
the largest photographic studios in the world. Within a few
years, over 2,000 shops throughout the UK were selling his
postcards. Frith died in 1898 at his villa in France. His
family continued the firm, which was finally sold in 1968 and
closed in 1970.
Following closure of the business, Bill Jay, one of
Britain's first photography historians, identified the
archive as being nationally important and "at
risk". Jay managed to persuade Rothmans, the tobacco
company, to purchase the archive to ensure its safety. Frith
was re-launched in 1976 as The
Francis Frith Collection with the intention of making the
Frith photographs available to as wide an audience as
possible. A year later John Buck, a Rothmans executive,
bought the archive and has continued to run it as an
independent business ever since from premises near Salisbury.
The society's next meeting will be on March 19, with a
talk on The Work of the Surrey Archaeological Society by
David Calow.
Goff Powell
At our March meeting, David Calow described the work of
the Surrey Archaeological Society, of which he is the
honorary secretary. The county society is one of several
founded in the 1850s, when many Victorians used their
increased leisure and literacy to engage in new scientific
pursuits.
He pointed out the similarities to our own society,
founded nearly a century later: we're both charities, with a
museum and a web-site, we have published books, newsletters
and research journals, and have regular meetings and visits
all year round.
We organise an annual lecture by a national expert - this
year's will be on Friday, June 4 at the Menuhin Hall, Stoke
D'Abernon. Dr Jonathan Foyle, chief executive of the World
Monuments Fund Britain, will talk on England's Lost
Renaissance: Italian Influences on Court Architecture,
focussing on the early part of Henry VIII's reign. Tickets
cost £12 (including a glass of wine) and doors open at
6.30pm. Covering a much wider area than ourselves, the Surrey
Archaeological Society has about five times as many members.
Museum A turnover of about £65,000 a
year means that it can publish more extensively than us
(their annual journal ran to 400 illustrated pages and
included 22 articles, as well as a separate 64-page Surrey
History).
It has 22 committees, management, library, meetings,
historic buildings and village and other local history
research, including 135 people, all volunteers. It is
serviced by just two part-time paid staff in the office and
library on the upper floor of Castle Arch in Guildford; the
museum below is run by the Borough Council.
The society owns about 10,000 documents, 6,000 books and
1,000 large boxes of artefacts, including the finds from the
society's first excavation at Chertsey Abbey It collaborates
with 20 different heritage and countryside groups,
particularly the National Trust and the County Council's
History Centre at Woking. The centre there houses the sites
and monuments record, has digitised all the tithe maps and is
currently transcribing the details of land ownership.
Our speaker demonstrated how much history could be
encompassed in one view by showing a photograph of the
landscape south-east of Guildford. This included everything
from a site where mesolithic flints had been found and an
Iron Age hillfort, to the routes of an early canal and
railway and that of a WWI Zeppelin, one of whose bombs blew
off a lavatory door, to the embarrassment of the occupant.
The society's members have included many nationally
important figures (local examples being Tony Lowther and John
Harvey) and it has made equally important discoveries in
excavations at Ashtead Roman villa, Ewell Roman town and the
Iron Age farm and Saxon burials at Hawks Hill, Fetcham.
Another member, Tony Clark, had developed the science of
resistivity to "see beneath the soil". Mr Calow
demonstrated the loping trot required to operate a modern
portable magnetometer.
The Surrey Archaeological Society was instrumental in
having the law on Treasure Trove modernised and in the
introduction of the portable antiquities scheme. After
extensive consultation, the society published a research
framework summarising what was known and what questions
needed to be answered. For example, how did heath-lands
develop? What caused the similarities and differences between
Surrey and Sussex? What was the effect of the proximity of
London?
Mr Calow challenged us by asking: "What was the grand
mystery of Leatherhead?"
As examples of work now in progress sponsored by the
Surrey Archaeological Society, he showed us images of the
identification of many prehistoric field systems and
enclosures overlain by Roman occupation, the revision of
dates for the occupation of Iron Age hill forts, and a field
at Flexford, north of the Hog's Back, which showed nothing
from the air or on the surface until molehills all over it
produced Roman pottery. An iron-working forge was excavated,
together with a curious arrangement of pedestal vases,
probably ritual magic like that still employed by itinerant
blacksmiths in Africa.
Tree-ring dating of timber houses had produced some
remarkable results and helped with the analysis of styles of
carpentry across the county
The little-known royal palace at Woking is being excavated,
and test-pitting is in progress to identify the origins of
Old Woking.
Analysis of the debris around the site of Alexander Raby's
iron mill at Downside near Cobham has revealed very early
experiments with steel alloying there.
At Sayers Croft near Ewhurst, 30 huts and air raid
shelters built for Second World War evacuees still were in
use for education purposes. The effect of evacuation on later
generations is being studied.
At our annual meeting on April 16, Peter Tarplee will be
talking about Milner House, Leatherhead: the story of the
Long House, Sir Frederick Milner, the Ex-Service Welfare
Society and Combat Stress.
Derek Renn
At our April annual meeting by president Gordon Knowles,
the executive committee was re-elected with new treasurer
David Lokkerbol and membership secretary David Wall.
Presenting the committee's report, the chairman and
archaeology secretary, David Hartley, again appealed for
members to fill the vacant post of museum curator, publicity
officer, records secretary and Bookham archivist.
Very substantial donations from the Friends of the Museum
and a grant from the Surrey County Council's Local
Partnerships Scheme had paid for new carpets and for a new
entrance giving easy access to the museum for the disabled
from the garden. The Surrey Museums Consultative Committee
had paid half the cost of new display panels.
A resolution (by the respective trustees of the two
charities) to merge the Leatherhead Museum and History Centre
with the society was accepted unanimously for submission to
the Charities Commission.
Mr Hartley thanked the lecturers and visits committee for
theirefforts, nearly 500 people had attended the events., A
laptop and digital projector had been purchased for
Power-point presentations. A list of members willing to give
talks had been published. Frank Haslam, website manager,
reported that www.leatherheadlocalhistoryorg.uk was getting
250 hits a month, one quarter coming from overseas.
Peter Tarplee's new Early Industries of the
Leatherhead District would be launched at the
Leatherhead Museum at 7.30pm on May 25, which would also be
an extra opportunity to see the new display of local
industrial history objects upstairs.
Presenting the accounts, David Lokkerbol drew attention to
the fall in income from investments compared with past years
due to the continuing worldwide financial crisis. Recovery
was not yet in sight, and an increase in subscription was
overdue. After some discussion, a £3 increase was accepted.
Immediately following the meeting, Peter Tarplee talked
about Milner House in Ermyn Way, Ashtead,
starting by demolishing the myth that it was connected with
the local carpet shop. Then called the Long House, it had
been built for Daniel Pidgeon in 1892: Pigeon's initials were
displayed on the stonework and lead-work outside as well as
on internal fittings.
After he died on holiday at Aswan, his widow leased the
house to tenants, beginning with the Klinker family, piano
importers and Abraham Dixon, while Cherkley Court was being
restored after a fire in 1893.
The Right Hon Sir Frederick Milner (1849-1931) had been a
Member of Parliament and Privy Councillor, but was forced to
retire in 1906 by increasing deafness.
He fought tirelessly to improve the treatment of injured
troops returning from the wars. One result was the creation
of the Ministry of Pensions, with whom Milner conducted an
incessant paper war.
He founded a hostel in Beckenham, set up a number of
village settlements and started the Ex-Services Welfare
Society. His particular interest was in
"shell-shocked" servicemen, who often faced
execution by firing squad for failing to obey orders; at best
they would be confined in pauper lunatic asylums for life.
In 1926 the Ex-Services Welfare Society bought the Long
House as its second rest and treatment Centre, renaming it
The Sir Frederick Milner Home and turning it round so that
the front door became the back. Cottages were built nearby
for married couples. No special medical care was given, but
the sheltered environment included a market garden and
workshops, operated on commercial lines and paying a living
wage.
The society bought the patent for making electrically
heated blankets and pads (initially invented for tubercular
patients) and continued to make them under the trade name
Thermega until 1981, when the workshops were also making and
packing flare parachutes for Schermuly.
The factory was then modernised by Remploy (a nationwide
organisation set up by the Government) to produce electrical
and electronic equipment and assemble and pack other goods,
but was closed in 2008. Milner House is now a private nursing
home.
However, Tyrwhitt House (named after Milner's successor,
Admiral Sir Reginald Yorke Tyrwhitt) in Oaklawn Road nearby,
still provides treatment for what is now called Combat
Stress.
At our next meeting, on Friday May 21,author Chris Howkins
will be telling us how the Surrey countryside was affected by
the coming of the Anglo-Saxons; the lifestyle and landscape.
We meet in the Abraham Dixon Hall of the Letherhead Institute
at 7.30 for 8pm.
Visitors are welcome.
Derek Renn
The presenter for the last in the Spring series of monthly
talks was Chris Howkins, known by many in the audience for
his books and his courses on a wide range of subjects. His
topic on this occasion was centred on the people of Surrey
during the post-Roman period.
In contrast with the earlier Roman era, there is very
little evidence to enable historians to visualise what
conditions could have been like in those dark days. Scanty
archaeological data and the virtual absence of written
records make it hard to create a picture of conditions as
they were. Nevertheless our lecturer, drawing on his studies
over many years gave us some vivid insights into how the
people of Surrey might have lived their lives: what they did,
what they believed in and how they earned their livelihoods.
An understanding of the landscape plays a crucial part
here. Geology, the various types of soil , the whereabouts of
hills and river basins; these help to provide a picture - to
pinpoint the location of woodlands, of fertile and infertile
places, hence the activities of local people in these
locations. Forests were a source of timber for building, for
fuel and for burning charcoal. In places land was cleared of
trees to provide space for crops and grazing. The settlements
that were created to house the people were given names that
have come down to the present day, and indeed the meaning of
these names gives us a great deal of information about the
lives of the Anglo-Saxons.
At many points in the talk there was a mention of local
place names. These provide much evidence of Saxon beliefs,
facts about their society and even their attitude to life. It
was a time when the pagan gods were being worshipped and when
certain objects were seen as having divine significance. Many
villages commemorated the gods such as TIW, THOR and WODEN.
In Surrey we have Tuesley, Thundersley and Wooton for
example.
Trees even had a divine importance: the elder was
personified as the female god, ELLEN, and Elstead remains to
remind us of this.
Animals played a vital part in the life of those days -
sheep for meat and wool, cattle for drawing the plough and
dogs for guarding the flocks and for herding. There is now
considerable knowledge about the likely breeds that existed
then. It appears that goats were both domestic and
sacrificial animals. Farms where goats were reared find their
way into place names - hence Garton and Gatwick.
Saxon society was orderly and family oriented. A good deal
is known about contemporary clothing which suggests the
garments being well made and colourful, sometimes with finely
crafted brooches for fastenings. Much controversy exists
about the language of the time. It hinges on the time it took
for the Celtic language of the British people to transform
into the speech which ultimately became English. Some
maintain that as much as eighty years could have elapsed
between the departure of the Romans and the adoption of the
new tongue. Others, Howkins amongst them, believe that it was
far more rapid. He instances the rapidity with which modern
day immigrants come to master the language of the host
country. He reminds us of the speed with which children pick
up new words, and he believes that economic necessity, the
need to trade and barter, forces the pace.
Many years of study have given Chris Howkins a great
knowledge of this subject in all its aspects and it was a
considerable feat therefore to have distilled so much of it
into a single lecture. As a result there followed a barrage
of questions, and requests to enlarge on many of his points.
Thus ended a memorable presentation.
John Wettern
The September lecture was given by our President Gordon
Knowles, the subject of his book entitled `Surrey and the
Motor' published in 2005. The county was involved with the
motor car since its introduction into Britain in the 1920s
and Gordon has traced its development and its influence on
motor design in the county through to the 1920s.
The motor developed from the pedal cycle as a form of
independent travel with roads being improved as a
consequence. Road building can be traced back to the first
turnpike in 1696, the last being built in 1836. Roads were
`dust bowls' in summer and mud in winter until the advent of
asphalt, produced in a plant at Dorking in 1908.
Pioneers in the county associated with the development of
the car were John Henry Knight of Farnham and Charles
Jarrett. Knight was instrumental in 1895 in repealing the
`Red Flag Act' where the motor vehicle, then the steam car,
had to be preceded 60 yards by a man holding a red flag. He
later founded the magazine The Autocar and The RAC. Jarrett
set up patrols on the Brighton road to warn motorists of
speed traps which then evolved into the AA. The event was
marked by the `Emancipation Run' which is still commemorated
in November to this day.
The first road vehicles were steam road locomotives, one
well known make being the Stanley Steamer made in the USA and
imported and serviced in Ashtead up to WW1. The first
practical vehicles using the internal combustion engine were
produced in Germany by Karl Benz in 1885 and Godfrey Daimler
in 1886. Initially Benz first car had three wheels while
Daimler's first car or `horseless carriage' had four wheels
with. the engine slung between the back wheels and having
tiller steering. John Knight built a Benz type car in 1895
initially with three wheels, later converting it to four with
a Trusty engine at the Reliance Works in Farnham in
1896.Coming from a wealthy family he was an engineer of many
parts inventing a patent digging machine and a trench mortar.
Notable Surrey car builders were The Dennis Brothers and
AC Cars neither volume car builders but still surviving 100
years later to this day. The Dennis factory moved from
Guildford High Street to the Rodboro building on the the
corner of Onslow and Bridge Streets, now a Wetherspoon pub
and the oldest purpose built multistorey car factory in the
world rescued and restored by Guildford Borough Council in
the 1990s.
John Dennis was the inventor and his brother the marketing
manager, the firm producing cars built with a 6 hp d'Dion
engine and later moving into commercial vehicles, the first
of which in 1904 was a 25 cwt van built for Harrods. The
first Dennis fire engine was made in 1908 for the City of
Bradford fire department and later car production ceased in
1913. Since then the name Dennis has been associated with bus
and commercial vehicle production, the firm being subjected
to changes in ownership but always concentrating on building
vehicles to customer specifications on the current Guildford
Slyfield estate factory.
AC Cars were developed from the three wheeled
'autocarrier' in 1907 with a 5.6hp air cooled single cylinder
engine with chain drive to a single rear wheel ,the passenger
originally sitting in front of the driver in a wicker chair
but later sitting side by side. Designed by John Weller
production was at the Ferry Works in Thames Ditton and in
1913 an AC sports car was tested on the circuit at
Brooklands. Since then AC cars have been produced under
various owners, the current production being at Camberley and
in Malta making it the longest surviving car manufacturer in
the country.
There were many car manufacturers in Surrey during this
Edwardian period including 'cyclecars', simple vehicles with
brakes often as an extra. Some builders only made a single
car, others with a limited production. Names included Pilgrim
(Farnham), Trojan (Croydon and Kingston), Carlette
(Weybridge), Jappis(Wimbledon), Lagonda (Egham) and General,
an attempt at streamlining in 1902(Norbury).
Gordon concluded a fascinating and informative lecture by
mentioning Brooklands, a race and test track built in 1907 by
Hon Fortesque Locke King on his Weybridge estate. It had a
unique reinforced concrete construction with steep banking
and a rather bumpy surface. Many distance and speed record
attempts were made until the mid 1920s. The track is
associated with famous personalities including Percy Lambert,
the first to exceed 100mph in 1913 and Eldridge in
Mephistopheles who reached 145mph in the early twenties. The
race track was eventually closed at the outbreak of WW2 in
1939.
Fred Meynen
"JUST FISH" was the modest title of Ron Flower's
talk at our October meeting. Not so very long ago, every high
street had its branch of Mac Fisheries or an independent
fresh fishmonger.
Mac Fisheries is now only a memory and fishmongers - even
itinerant ones - a rarity.
Fish is now sold in supermarkets frozen and ready-packed
for cooking. Shops serving fish and chips - the original
"fast food" - survive, but fish is no longer a
cheap meal that it once was.
As a pupil at St Paul's School in Kingston, Mr Fowler
often bought chips for lunch in Jarvis's shop nearby and
enjoyed their bloaters for tea. He became fascinated watching
a lady filleting wet fish in another part of the shop. Ron
became a Saturday boy there, doing all the menial jobs of
cleaning the slabs, sweeping the floor and so on.
On leaving school he became an apprentice, which included
going out in a trawler and visiting the smokehouses in
Scotland where fish was prepared for transport all over
Britain. He saw mountains of fish being bulldozed into
containers and ground up for fishmeal and used as fertiliser,
to keep prices high enough for fishermen to earn a living.
On completing his apprenticeship, Ron was allowed to wear
along white coat. His son followed the same career, but
persuaded Ron to set up on his own in a Bookham shop, where
they both are to this day. It was an ideal position: dayboat
fish (like plaice and sole) caught in Cornwall would be in
his shop the same evening before the rest of the catch got to
the London's wholesale Billingsgate Market.
Fish is still wholesaled by the stone (14 lb) measure.
Half of any fish by weight was bone or skin, so buying whole
fish does not save money. Ron's shop had little other waste:
local restaurants usually bought any fish left at the end of
the day.
Mr Fowler is no ordinary fishmonger, though, he teaches at
various cookery schools (including Tante Marie and Gordon
Ramsay) and has appeared in several television series (a new
one for ITV is being filmed).
Ron is one of the very few certificated to sell certain
varieties of Scottish salmon. He had brought along more than
a dozen varieties of fresh fish, which he challenged us to
identify. None of his fish (except prawns) were frozen before
sale.
Today's favourite sea bass sold in his shop was line
caught, not imported frozen from Greece. He gave advice on
checking for freshness and quality, with anecdotes for each
variety.
Here are a few at random:
Cod (now twice as expensive as rainbow trout), can grow up
to 200 lbs. Its bones could be used as needles (with
"eye") and as fish hooks and used to produce a
brawn-like paste which was useful for chest
conditions.
Pollack (Cornish Cod) sells out locally there to the
summer holiday trade, and the French pay more than the
English for mackerel.
The tiny male monkfish is a parasite, attaching itself to
a female's bloodstream. After fertilising her eggs, the male
goes to another hostess.
A crab takes four years (and a lobster seven) to grow to
one pound weight.
Derek Renn
Roman roads interest many people, as the large audience
for our November meeting clearly showed
Our speaker, Alan Hall, is secretary of the Roman Studies
Group of the Surrey Archaeological Society and had carried
out research on the local roads for his MA degree.
As he explained, the Romans didn't give their roads names.
Stane (Anglo-Saxon for stone) Street (way) was a later name,
and even more recent was Pibble Lane.
Stane Street could be traced from London Bridge through
Streatham (a place-name often found on.the line of a Roman
road) to Ewell, the line being mainly marked today by the
A24.
Until recently the position of the road between the Organ
Inn and North Hohnwood was uncertain. Thereafter Stane Street
could be followed (particularly along the A29 through Ockley)
to Chichester, a Roman town, and the coast and harbours
beyond.
The speaker described the literature on the road, from
Hilaire Belloc's fanciful ideas, Captain Grant's accurate
survey, Stanley Winbolt's excavations and Ivan Margary's
"Roman Ways in the Weald" ground-breaking in more
ways than one.
A Roman road-book (the "Antonine Itinerary")
directed the traveller from Londinium to Noviomagnum
(Chichester) in a roundabout way via Silchester and
Winchester. Recently a direct Roman road from Winchester to
London had been traced through Hampshire but its route beyond
Farnham was uncertain.
Although Roman roads were remarkably correctly aligned
between their final destinations, they were not absolutely
straight. They wavered by a few degrees between each pair of
high points used for surveying, and to avoid steep slopes
(like Box Hill).
At present the line of Stane Street between Juniper Hill
and North Hohnwood is unknown.
The Mole was probably forded at Burford (hence the name:
"Bridge" came later).
Many test pits dug all over the Denbies hillside produced
nothing, but old maps showed a straight alignment along the
valley bottom into the Mole gap.
Alan described each of the local excavations across the
line of Stane Street from the cutting of the M25 (still
crossed by a right of way bridge here) and another to bury a
gas pipeline, the leasing of an Epsom allotment for
archaeology rather than horticulture, and testpits in private
gardens (he recommended 1.5 metres square to give enough
elbow-room). Where still complete, the road was eight metres
(20 Roman feet) wide, built of flint covered in pebbly
gravel, set wherever possible on solid chalk, not London clay
or sand. Chalk and clay are slippery when wet: flints give a
surer footing. A certain standard of proof of a road was
necessary: alignments suggested by extending the known line
had proved incorrect. Hedges could be deceptive, but old
photographs could show terraces up to three metres high which
had been ploughed out later.
Mr Hall's research had shown that Roman road construction
here followed a line marked by a plough. Side ditches for
drainage were not universal: often there was only one ditch
on the uphill side of a terraceway, or the ditches were the
result of quarrying for roadmetal. Slight changes of
alignment occurred not only at major adjustments but also at
intermediate (usually high) points of the route.
Blanks drawn in Ewell Ewe (where he was working with Frank
Pemberton) might indicate a double z-bend here, perhaps for
reasons related to the lakes and ponds. Stane Street was
disused by the fourth century AD.
Among his answers to the many questions put to him, the
speaker said that there were Roman stone bridges in northern
England. At Alfoldean, there were traces ofthe wooden bridge
by which Stane. Street crossed the River Arun. Roads sand
below the surface because of natural action (blown or
washed-down soil and leaves, disturbance by earthworms, as
Charles Darwin had demonstrated on the site of the Abinger
villa). Responsible detectorists might help by detecting
metal finds (an iron axle-pin of the first century AD had
been found near Cherkley Court many years ago).
He was doubtful about the purpose of the side road to the
Ashtead villa. Its very light construction suggested to him
that it was a temporary trackway built to allow the removal
of robbed stone, tiles and bricks.
Members may, bring their friends to our informal social
evening on December 17. The first meeting of 2011 will be on
Friday January 21 when Martin Warwick will tell us about his
involvement with Early British Computers. We meet in the main
hall of the Letherhead (CORR) Institute on the third Friday
of each month; coffee/tea at 7.30pm followed by a talk at
8pm. Visitors are always most welcome.
Derek Renn