Chairman's Notes

NEWSLETTER Dunstable District Local History Society No. 43 February 2015 Chairman’s Notes major initiative by your society in tion about Dunstable whenever they are A the past few months has been the found. Largely thanks to her we know so purchase of up-to-date technology for much more now about the complicated the research room in Priory House. relationships of the knights who took part PHOTOGRAPHIC RECORD in the great Dunstable tournament of 1309. When the room was first allocated to the Nearly all of them died in unpleasant ways society by Dunstable Council, we obtained in the troubled years that followed. a computer which was fit for purpose at the It was Kathryn who discovered, among time. But the world has moved on and there reports about the attempted escape by is now technology which is more suited to our Edward from his imprisonment at Berkeley needs. In particular, the society has a growing Nicola Turton with her Priory cake Castle, that two of the “great leaders of the collection of digitised photographs which company” which tried to rescue the deposed need to be stored in a searchable format. We have been finding it king had been arrested in Dunstable. John Norton and John Red- more and more difficult to hunt for required images, and we have mere, both Dominican friars, were found in Dunstable friary by the been relying too much on the local knowledge and memories of the Prior of Dunstable’s bailiffs and thrown into the Prior’s prison. The present committee. And we won’t always be here! story was included in the Medieval Dunstable book, still on sale at So we have invested in a new computer which will enable us to Priory House. run software capable of storing detailed information alongside the NEW BIOGRAPHY OF EDWARD II pictures. With the town changing so rapidly even the photos we Now Kathryn has published a new biography of Edward II (Amber- took last year around Boscombe Road and Court Drive are now ley Publishing £20) which gives an almost day-by-day account memories of a vanished Dunstable. They all need to be preserved. of Edward’s reign as revealed by contemporary documents. She The next step will be to relabel the present collection and install takes the Dunstable story a little further, revealing that in October the extra information. That will be a big job and could take many 1327 Norton and Redmere were transferred from Dunstable with months. But for starters the new images being regularly obtained two other men to the notorious Newgate prison in London. They can now be entered properly. petitioned King Edward III for release and Norton, at least, was suc- We have also purchased replacement parts for the sound system cessful...Kathryn has found that he was still alive in 1329. which we use for our meetings in the Methodist Church hall. The Another local sidelight in the book is that it was here in Dunstable equipment has been starting to give trouble and Ron Frith has that the invasion army, led by Queen Isabella and her lover Roger used his expertise as a former BBC electronics engineer to put Mortimer, joined forces with a large body of men led by the king’s things right. enemy, Thomas of Lancaster. Edward II was subsequently over- Money for these purchases has come from a bequest to the society thrown. Our town on the crossroads was such an important and from Maxene Amey, who discovered the famous Swan brooch when well-known venue in those times! helping with archaeological excavations on the site of the old Friary. PRIORY CAKE Her condition was that the money should be used specifically to I just have to share with the society the photo of one of our mem- provide equipment for the society’s use. bers, Nicola Turton, with a cake she made to celebrate the golden THE REIGN OF KING EDWARD II wedding of her parents, Julie Bray and Clive Hawes. They were One of the eminent historians who gave generous help to the medi- married at the Priory so an edible model of the church (in its post- eval project in Dunstable was Kathryn Warner, who is an expert on Reformation state) was entirely suitable. Nicola had to carry the the reign of King Edward II. She continues to transcribe the annals cake carefully on her lap all the way from her home in Basingstoke and documents of the period, and sends us snippets of informa- to the anniversary party in Priory House. It seems almost a shame that the cake was then eaten! continued overleaf DDLHS Newsletter No. 43 page 317 Chairman’s Notes continued WALLPAINTINGS REVISITED HISTORY DAY HISTORY DAY Experts continue to be fascinated by the historic wall This has prompted the theme for the town’s next paintings which were discovered in Charlie Cole’s history day, which will be at Priory House and the sur- cycle shop in High Street North and are now preserved rounding gardens on Saturday May 16. The title will be “The 1600s and All That”, which echoes that amusing in Priory House. Dr Andrea Kirkham, a leading wall- best-seller of our youth, “1066 and All That”. The painting historian, has been trying to work out when History Society will, of course, be involved. The murals the murals were painted, and has come to the fairly pre- once decorated what was probably a fairly low-life pub cise conclusion that the work must have been carried and feature one of the earliest depictions of tobacco out in around 1610. That places them in the Jacobean smoking. A health warning follows… Saturday 16 May period, rather than in Tudor times. John Buckledee Boudica Battle id the Romans finally defeat Queen Boudica and her “The last thing (Paulinus) would have wanted was a large force of Drebel army in an enormous battle at Dunstable? well-armed, blood-thirsty natives rampaging around the country- The site where two great armies met, and where thousands of Brit- side on a system of roads Rome had provided...By choosing a site ons were killed, has never been traced and its whereabouts has long just south of Dunstable the Roman army could place itself between been a subject for research. the rebel army and the Icknield Way.” Now archaeologist and local historian Barry Horne has put forward Barry Horne writes that the Watling Street, as it heads north, enters a theories that it happened at Dunstable to a conference, held by the pass roughly where the traffic lights are in Markyate, The pass becomes University of Warwick, which discussed various ideas about the more pronounced at the Packhorse public house. Turnpike Farm is location of the battle. roughly where the pass widens into the plain occupied by Manshead School. It is likely, he says, that the Roman Army was deployed in the REVOLTING QUEEN plain between the road to Caddington and Turnpike Farm. Queen Boudica led a revolt against Roman rule in AD 60, during which her followers sacked Colchester, London and St Albans, THE WATLING STREET PROJECT slaughtering thousands of Romans. They then marched north The conference has prompted a number of new investigations of up the Watling Street and were confronted by an army led by the the possible battleground at Dunstable, including metal detecting Roman general Paulinus, who had hurried south when told of the in the fields leading to the Manshead campus, and an informal rebellion. Although the Romans were heavily outnumbered, they group called The Watling Street Project has been set up. But so far achieved a great victory, killing (it is said) 80,000 Britons. nothing relevant has been discovered. There ought, at least, to be No-one knows where the battle took place, but it could have been traces of equipment abandoned by the British baggage trains in the at the foot of Blow’s Downs, where Manshead School now stands. Markyate/Friars Wash area when families, who had been following Boudica’s army, fled southwards. But such material might now be TRAPPED buried to a depth of a foot or so, and Barry Horne is suggesting that The only description of the battle was made by the Roman historian archaeological investigations be extended by drilling dozens of test Tacitus, who indicated that Paulinus chose a defensive site in front holes in fields close to the road. of a plain, where his men were protected at the sides by wooded hills. Barry’s theory is that the mass of Britons were restricted and A copy of his detailed article is available by contacting him on trapped in a narrowing pass in the Chilterns where they could not [email protected] make use of their superior numbers. This article is reprinted from the Dunstable Gazette, January 7, 2015. He has written a detailed article, published in South Midlands John Buckledee Archaeology, where he discusses how long the two armies could have taken to march towards each other and which confirms that a Dunstable confrontation was possible within the estimated time- scale. He describes what he thinks happened: “The Boudican army would have been spread out over many miles as they travelled up Watling Street. I estimate there would have been about 10,000 to the mile so an army of 40,000 might have covered three to four miles, much of this army being beyond the pass when the fighting started. This would have stacked the odds heavily in favour of the smaller Roman force. The best and keenest warriors would presumably have led the Iceni columns so once the Is this the site of a massive battle where the Romans slaughtered an army led by Roman army had beaten them the rest would have realised the game the British queen Boudica? The view is from the hills near Kensworth quarry, was up and fled in terror..

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