THE MUSEUM The Museum is still suffering considerable The exhibition of the Museum's collection of inconvenience from structural problems and so samplers and embroidered pictures was to far it has proved possible only to relocate the coincide with the publication of a fully illustrated Biological Records Office on the ground floor in catalogue of the collection written by Rosemary an area which was formerly occupied by a small Ewles, a former member of staff. Two of the store off the Education Room and by the smaller exhibitions were held in both the Museum and the of the two Geology Galleries. The work of the Milton Keynes Exhibition Gallery, those on 18th Museum is likely to be made extremely difficult Century Gardens in and of the over the next year or two. Museum's collection of British Studio Ceramics.

A Museum Visitors Survey has been under• The Past Project under Hal taken using a standard questionnaire produced by Dalwood continued for the whole year but ends in Data & Research Services of Milton Keynes who March 1988. Apart from continuing a pro• processed the forms by computer. The survey was gramme of fieldwalking they carried out an carried out from 30March to 16April and from 13 excavation on the site of the old police houses in July to 7 August and in total 493 visitors were Walton Street, Aylesbury and further details of interviewed. The main aims of the survey were to this are given in the archaeological notes. When try to discover where people visiting the Museum some pliosaur bones were found on the came from and what they thought of the Museum. Watermead development site in Aylesbury a As was anticipated it showed that a majority of limited excavation was carried out by the Project visitors are local and are most probably County team. This was a locally important find. The ratepayers. Over 500Jo were ratepayers of bones are of a carnivorous reptile the size of a District Council and over 80% small whale which lived in the seas covering most lived within 25 miles of Aylesbury. Over 80% said of southern Britain in Jurassic times. Whilst they were likely to visit the Museum again and individual bones of pliosaurs have been found in were satisfied with the displays in their own the Vale before a spread of associated bones such interest areas. It was however obvious that people as this is unusual. In addition tape recordings were found it difficult to find the Museum due to the made of some older inhabitants and in December lack of direction signs in Aylesbury and that a booklet Aylesbury Remembered was published. publicity was not proving satisfactory. The work done under this MSC scheme has been invaluable. During the year most of the temporary exhibi• tions were initiated by the Museum staff. The The number of visitors to the Museum during most successful undoubtedly being one displaying the year was 29549; this compares with 36439 in photographs of the Vale and Chilterns in the 1986. There is no apparent reason for this as the 1890s from a private collection of glass plate temporary exhibitions have if anything been more negatives which had never been displayed before. interesting than the previous year. C.N.G.

COUNTY RECORD OFFICE Extracts from the Report of the County Archivist

There was a small but significant increase in reasons. However, staffing problems in the the Office's establishment, but full searchroom were ended by the appointment of a implementation was deferred for financial production assistant. Meanwhile the backlog of 230 cataloguing grew and the storage problem books for the Drake family's Shardeloes estate, became more acute. 1746-1768, was acquired with help from the Purchase Grant Fund administered by the There was a total of 108 accessions during the Victoria & Albert Museum. The second is year. A further large consignment of records of already in the Record Office. Among other the former Aylesbury Borough Council was estate and family records received were letters received, dating from 1917 (the date of the home from George Church, a transported town's charter) to the 1950s. Among other convict from Olney; an account roll for the Colet official records deposited were some County estate in , 1514-15; a royal grant of Planning Officer's files relating to the the manor of Taplow, 1614; and a pre-enclosure establishment of Milton Keynes, and some First map of , 1819. Finally, an album World War records of the Royal Bucks Hussars. presented by Miss P. Appleby of Amersham deserves special mention, containing as it does a The ecclesiastical parishes of Horton, unique record of the activities of the Women's Wooburn and Gerrards Cross deposited their Land Army in Bucks during the Second World older records and nineteen other parishes made War. additional deposits. The Horton registers begin in 1571, Wooburn's only in 1653, but the parish As usual, listing was concentrated on recent has a wealth of material from the late accessions, including several from last year, but seventeenth century onwards, much of it relating a number of large accessions remain to be dealt to poor relief; there is also a rare parish census of with. Cumulated indexes to the published lists of 1801. accessions for 1976-1985 were completed and await typing. The conservators battled on. 636 Webster & Cannon Ltd, builders, of paper documents were repaired or flattened, and Aylesbury, passed over their surviving older de-acidified. 360 were guarded and filed, while records, dating from 1885. Other business 16large maps and 8 parchment documents were records included a collection of sale particulars repaired. The largest single task was the repair of from the High Wycombe area, 1887-1961, and a the seventeenth-century papers of Sir Robert plumber's estimate book for the Winslow area, Clayton. 1891-1920. Personal visits during the year totalled 2611 The court rolls and other manorial documents (2645 in 1986). Postal enquiries amounted to 719 deposited with the Buckinghamshire Archaeo• (706). A total of2576 (2735) telephone calls were logical Society were transferred to the Record logged, of which 1186 (1172) were enquiries. Office. Over a hundred manors are represented. 13,473 (13,452) items were produced, including There are particularly good runs of rolls for 2122 (1692) rolls of microfilm. Chalfont St Peter, Chesham, Hartwell, , Iver and Stone. The House Manuscripts Trust In June the trustees appointed a qualified A substantial body of Westbury estate deeds archivist to catalogue the Verney archives, was deposited through the British Records concentrating on the estate records stored in the Association. The greater part dates from the Paper Room, rather than the more celebrated early eighteenth century, but there are extracts correspondence, which is available on microfilm from earlier records. The first of two account in the Record Office. REVIEWS Aldbury: the Open Village. A portrait of country This is an account, designed and published by life. Jean Davis, pp. 170, 43 plates, 5 maps. Jean its author, ofthelifeoftheinhabitants of Aldbury Davis, Little , Aldbury, 1987. £5.95. from the Middle Ages to the present day, focusing 231 on the first half of the nineteenth century, for 45 'acre' or 'half acre' strips. The parish possessed which exceptionally abundant records survive• Town Houses for widows, and the Church House registers, vestry minutes, accounts, diaries, for the poorest of the poor. The seventh Earl of letters, surveys, engravings and Peter de Wint's Bridgewater, who arrived in 1803, ensured by water-colours. Physical changes in the village, its vigorous rebuilding that there was a house for fields, woods and commons are traced through every family and a few to spare, despite the rising maps, terriers and the Tithe Award. population. The arrangements for 'roundsmen' (surplus labourers allocated to farmers by the Uniquely among parishes of the Icknield Belt overseers) are discussed, but there are no beneath the Chiltern escarpment, Aldbury was corresponding particulars of work provided by not enclosed, even when the General Enclosure the surveyors of the highways. Act of 1845 facilitated this. There were fifteen owners at that time, and the dead hand of the The churchwardens' books are a treasure; they Pendley estate was probably enough to frustrate record work on the church fabric and furnishings, enclosure; further, the advantage to Asbridge and the sundial (recently stolen) and the lychgate, and Stocks would have been slight. Hence while the purchase of a pitch-pipe and tune books. Mrs (1856) and (1865) were Davis lovingly describes the singing, lined out by given new roads, regular fields and compact farm the parish clerk from the lowest deck of the three• units, the medieval topography of Aldbury decker pulpit, the woodwind players ('Nebuchad• survived, and with it a wealth of minor place nezzar's band') and the bread dole, which was not names (unfortunately not indexed). However, for for 'those that go to Meetings'. Yet one Baptist two centuries the manorial courts had not supplied the bread, another tended the church controlled the open fields, and even regulation by clock and a third repaired the pulpit cloth and the the Vestry is not evidenced after 1757, though curtains. One wishes that more could have been stinting of the uplands commons was maintained said of the inner life of the Baptists, who have by the agreement of the major occupiers. All the been near the heart of the community for three copyholds had been converted into freehold by a centuries; the account is sympathetic but, perhaps private Act in 1691, thus loosening what had been of necessity, viewed mostly from the outside. a very stable social structure. In the same year the old manor house, presumably the successor to the This most welcome book throws light on Saxon 'old burh' which gave the place its name, numerous aspects of village life: the shops and was sold as scrap, following eight years of inns; the straw-plait industry and the Friendly litigation leading to the annulment of the heiress's Societies, both safeguards against destitution; the clandestine marriage. Her second marriage was growth of poaching during the Bleak Years; the hardly 'bigamous' (p. 30); she successfully took belated coming of education, and, in contrast, the the risk of treating the first marriage as void ab brilliant literary, artistic and craft traditions of initio, before obtaining, probably by bribery, a Stocks; the effects of the canal and the survival of declaratory decree to this effect. very diverse common rights.

The third and last of the symbolic dreams of In 1871 fifteen old surnames accounted for over Joseph Mayett, in which the wheat was both a quarter of the population, then approaching its ripened and cleansed of weeds by a flameless fire, maximum. By 1987 these comprised only a tenth was located in the fields of 'Alder bury'; clearly of the village electorate. Inflated house prices the second syllable was sometimes heard as late as threaten their continuance, and the future of 1830. Aldbury is in the hands of people who work in London. They will doubtless cherish the stocks We now have a fascinating account of closely and the pond and defend the Green belt, but can interwoven families and their homes, which is not they preserve the spirit of the village? likely to be superseded. Life at the rectory, and its A.H.J.B. architectural history, are traced in particular detail; the glebe farm of 32 acres was dispersed in 232 Aylesbury Remembered. Conversations with This reviewer must declare an interest in the Aylesbury Residents. Aylesbury Past last, and express his gratitude to Dr Reed for Project, pp. 73. Buckinghamshire County making so much material so much more easily Museum & Community Programmes Agency. accessible. A great deal can be learned from it ISBN 0 860059 449 1. 1987 about the internal arrangements of houses and the names and uses of various rooms. They allow firm This is a fascinating little book, for although it conclusions about which rooms were heated, is about the not-so-distant past it gives glimpses of where people were sleeping in ground floor a way of life that is now completely vanished. parlours, and where they were still living in the What is particularly striking is the modesty of traditional way in open halls. Indeed this is poeple's expectations, and the very strong perhaps the one area where a statistical analysis is influence of home life on young people's possible; the sample is big enough (just), since the standards. exercise is not dependent on sub-sampling, and the data is less subject to the limitations of which Modesty of expectations is illustrated by the Dr Reed rightly warns us in his introduction. accourtt of how one mother used to buy honey from a big stone jar when it had gone sugary on A few of the houses concerned are still the top and was therefore going cheap. This standing. One of them is Little Shardeloes (No. meant that the children were allowed to spread it 140), where, however, there has been so much on the bread themselves, as thickly as they liked, alteration that no attempt to trace the footsteps of instead of mother rationing it out. It was a real the appraisers is likely to succeed. The Saracen's treat. Head, also in Amersham, where John Day (No. 139) was innkeeper, might be more rewarding, but Everyone expected to work hard because they in general such exercises are disappointing. saw their parents do so, and keeping up with the J oneses meant, not having a new car or two tellies, The introduction gives a useful account of the but being clean and tidy and deserving of respect. economic and social background of the These taped interviews evoke a very compre• inventories in town and country, and altogether hensive picture of Aylesbury the market town in the volume paints a clear and detailed picture of the first half of the century, and incidentally the physical setting of people's lives. reveal much about some very lively characters who are still there today. Dr Reed is not quite correct in saying that this A.C.T. book contains 'all of the probate inventories relating to Buckinghamshire that were once in the Buckinghamshire Probate Inventories 1661- records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury 1714. Ed. Michael Reed, pp. xxiv + 330. and which are now both accessible and legible'. At Buckinghamshire Record Society No. 24, 1988. least one is omitted: PROB 2/869, the inventory ISBN 0 901 198 21 9. £18 from The Han. of Jane Harrison of Coleshill, dated 1673. She Secretary, B.R.S., c/o County Record Office, was a spinster lady living in a one-room cottage, County Offices, Aylesbury, Bucks. with perhaps a lean-to scullery and a loft.

Probate inventories are among the most The reader should be aware, moreover, that valuable classes of records, listing as they do-or other Buckinghamshire inventories for the period at least should-all the moveable goods in a man's exist, some at Aylesbury, some at Lincoln. Their house at the time of his death, and usually inclusion would make any statistical conclusions indicating in which room each item was to be just that much more valid. Aylesbury and found. The sequence in which the rooms are listed Lincoln also have a number of earlier has much to say about the layout of the house. inventories, so the statement that 'none survive They are therefore valuable alike to social and for Buckinghamshire before 1660' needs to be economic historians and to students of verna• understood as referring only to those in the cular-and sometimes even polite-architecture. Public Record Office. 233 It would be valuable to know how many Stell's An Inventory of Chapels and Meeting• Buckinghamshire inventories survive that are not Houses in Central (HMSO, 1986) in legible, or not accessible, or both. There is a hint county fascicules we have an authoritative of contradiction in saying, first that 'there are so survey of nonconformist architecture in the many remaining . . . as to make selection county. Incidentally all the fascicules for the essential', and then that all those legible and counties contained in the parent volume still accessible have been transcribed. cost in aggregate less than the whole volume.

The glossary is a monument to out-of-the-way We must be very grateful for this work of erudition, which makes it the more surprising to deep scholarship, but for reasons of economy find 'tumbrill' and 'unguentum album' among much of Mr Stell's work on the nineteenth the Unidentified Words. century has been either curtailed or excluded altogether. I had the privilege of commenting An index would have been more than useful. on the typescript some years ago and the Indeed, the lack of one makes the material difference between the two is marked. This has difficult to use. led to some criticism by other reviewers of the J.C.T. main volume, but the fact that this volume (and fascicules) has been issued at all is a matter of Fawley, Buckinghamshire. Geoffrey Tyack, profound relief. Indeed one hears rumours that pp. 16, illustrated. Fawley PCC, 1986. no more volumes will be published which would be most unfortunate. This booklet, available from the church and intended as a guide for visitors, is sub-titled 'A 'Chapel crawling' is infinitely more difficult short history of the Church and Parish', but the than 'church crawling'. Obtaining access is parish is dealt with in less than a page, and it is rarely easy as chapels are invariably locked really a history of the church. Mr Tyack is an (Friends Meeting-Houses usually being a architectural historian, and he has given us a glorious exception) and this volume will be good, dear account of how the layout, furnish• a very great help. Buckinghamshire is a county ings and decoration have changed over the with a long tradition of nonconformity and centuries to reflected changing attitudes to some of the finest early meeting-houses are to worship, or the whim of the patron. We may be found within its borders. They range from deplore much that our ancestors did to churches, the late seventeenth-century Keech's Meeting• but it is itself of considerable interest as a record of House in Winslow and the very well known these things. Jordans Friends Meeting-House to the superbly situated isolated Hill Strict Baptist Non-Conformist Chapels and Meeting-Houses: Chapel of 1792. Later, in the nineteenth Buckinghamshire. Royal Commission on century a more aggressive architecture appears, Historical Monuments, pp. 30, plates and including the extraordinarily quirky Primitive numerous figures. HMSO, 1986. ISBN Methodist Chapel in and James 0 11300 006 5. £1.95. Weir's bizarre Italianate Methodist Church in Aylesbury of 1893 (not included in the present Until recently the only easily obtained fascicule). information on nonconformist architecture in Buckinghamshire was to be found in the This variety is illustrated by well-chosen excellent Shire Publication Discovering Chapels photographs and Mr Stell's own line drawings and Meeting-Houses by David A. Barton (1975) as well as high-quality plans and elevations. or some local guides such as Robert Huxter's There is a brief introduction which sketches in full history of Jordans Friends Meeting-House, the historic background to Buckinghamshire Jordans Meeting (1987). Now through the nonconformity. Obviously for a fuller history enlightened decision of the Royal Commission in central England the main volume would have on Historic Monuments to publish Christopher to be consulted. 234 Reading the Buckinghamshire fascicule, the In Buckinghamshire several chapels have architectural evolution in the county becomes been converted into houses, including the clear, starting from a simple domestic style, and General Baptist at Ford and the Congrega• evolving in the late eighteenth century into tional Chapel at North Crawley. This should more overtly 'architectural' treatments. These preserve the exteriors, but not the interiors, included in the first quarter of the nineteenth some of which have qualities of dignity and century the simple pediment fronts with arched inner calm that is very precious. A happier windows as in the Wesleyan Chapel in Newport solution for a disused chapel is its preservation Pagnell or the two good chapels in Stony unaltered. Waddesdon Hill Strict Baptist has Stratford. At Great Missenden in 1838 a full been donated to the admirable Friends of stucco pilastered and pedimented temple facade Friendless Churches following its purchase by was applied. Elsewhere the simpler more descendants of its founding fathers, aided by restrained architecture continued, but by the the Buckinghamshire Historic Buildings Trust, mid nineteenth century more architectural for just such a purpose. But clearly the best way variety emerged with Gothic, neo-Byzantine of preserving chapels is for them to continue in and other styles that reflected the growing the use for which they were built. Mr Stell's confidence and respectability of noncon• excellent and very informative volume should, formism. It is a fascinating story and with the 'it is to be hoped, open the eyes of many to the decline of nonconformism and the merging of richness of this county's nonconformist some denominations, such as the Congre• heritage. gationalists and Presbyterians to form the Martin Andrew United Reformed Church, the future of many chapels is problematic.

THE SOCIETY Membership Council ex-officio. Co-opted was Ted Bull The Society learnt with regret of the deaths of (Newsletter Editor and Meeting Organizer). The Mrs E. L. Baines, mother of our Vice-President President made a presentation, at the AGM Arnold Baines, Mrs Peggy Davies, wife of Max party, to Colin Briggs on his resignation after Davies, who gave much to the Society during assisting no fewer than five of the Society's Hon. the latter's time as Hon. Secretary, Miss G. M. Treasurers in looking after the Society finances De Fraine, C. W. Edmans, Mrs I. Trelawney• over more than a quarter of a century. His place Irving, whose husband had been an active Vice• has been taken by Charles Morland, also of the President after the war, Dr V. E. Lloyd-Hart, County Treasurer's Department. author of Health in the Vale of Aylesbury and John Wilkes and The Foundling Hospital at We thank Miss Marjorie Devereux for her Aylesbury 1759-68, H. E. Waterton and Ted many services to the Society over many years on White. her relinquishing the job of Hon. Membership Secretary. On the books at the end of 1987, there were 367 ordinary members, 128 family memberships, 2 Bucks County Council juniors (exclusive of those in family Library & Museum Sub-Committee memberships) and 16 affiliated bodies. Society representatives were Elliott Viney, FSA, Dr A. H. J. Baines, FSA and Dr R. P. Council Hagerty. Council met five times. John Collier-Wright was elected chairman. Under the Rules as With current financial stringency, it is amended at the AGM 1987, Tony Elcoate necessary to space out work to palliate structural (Natural History Section) and Christopher problems in the Museum building. Meanwhile, Gowing (Museum Curator) became members of with the shutting of parts of the building, there are 235 severe shortages of work and storage spaces. The Pagnell Historical Society, Dr Arnold Baines, loss of storage places elsewhere will be only FSA outlined the results of his recent research partially compensated by occupation of the into 'The Origins of Newport Pagnell'. building at Great Missenden. In consequence, the 31 January: David Allen, native of Wolverton Museum, with the consent of the Society where and archaeologist formerly at the Museum, appropriate, is giving or loaning various large talked about his other long-standing interest items that it could not display, such as agricultural 'The Railway Network of Buckinghamshire'. implements and structural timbers, to other museums in the county. 28 February: Christopher Stell, a leading expert on the Non-conformist movement, spoke Financial stringency also means that no about 'Buckinghamshire Meeting Houses'. improvement is likely in the near future in the 14 March: Dr D. F. Renn, one of the foremost present arrangements for rescue archaeology in authorities, lectured on 'English Castles'. the county. That these arrangements are 9 May: At the Misbourne Centre, Elliott Viney, inadequate has been shown by the County Field FSA gave a talk on 'The Church Monuments Archaeologist's inability, due to lack of qualified of Bucks'. long-term assistance, to cover watching briefs on 14 November: Brian Simmonds talked about his several development sites, some of which would study of local industries in 'From Ducks and have been aided financially by grants from the Lace to Boots and Rivets'. developers. The Liberty Trust made a grant of £180 to the Museum for dating of material from 5 December: Alan Raistrick described his interest the excavation of a kiln at Ley Hill, Chesham. in 'Tanning-the Unknown Industry'.

Christopher Gowing, after 27 years as Curator Outings of the County Museum, retired at the end of the Six outings were arranged by the President. year. The President on behalf of the Society 16 May: Lincoln. Cathedral and Castle. Belton presented him with a framed Duncan map, House, Grantham (NT). Sunny. showing Bucks constituencies after the 1832 20 June: Derbyshire. Melbourne Hall and garden Reform Acts, in appreciation of the way he has (Marquess of Lothian), church and vestiges of improved the Museum and ensured the friendly castle. Hardwick Hall (NT). Sunny. operation of the 1957 agreement between the Society and the County Council. 18 July: Kent. Knole House (NT) Penshurst Place (Lord de L'Isle). Torrential rain. We thank Miss Jill Royston, who retired from 15 August: Dorset. Maiden Castle by Dorchester. the post of Keeper of Biology and Geology in the SherborneCastle(S. Wingfield-Digby). Warm Museum, for her help to the Natural History and sunny. Section over many years. We welcome Mrs Kate 19 September: Winchester. Cathedral and city. Rowland, her successor. Wet. 10 October: Bucks Church Crawl. Haddenham, Cicely Baker Prize for Historical Research , , Chilton, Four proposals have been accepted for the Long Crendon, , , current competition, for which completed entries Quain ton. Cold and wet, but a good day never• must be received by the end of 1988. theless.

Lecture Series Seven lectures were organized by Ted Bull and were held on Saturday afternoons, usually at the Environmental County Museum. During the year, 141 planning applications were dealt with, the great majority for consent to 17 January: At the Middleton Centre, Newport demolish, alter, or change the use of a Listed Pagnell, in conjunction with the Newport Building or its ancillary buildings. 236 Objection was again registered to change of use going assistance to the County Field to offices of the Derby Arms in StMary's Square, Archaeologist in post-excavation and other Aylesbury, an objection upheld by the Minister. fascinating and useful tasks. Comment was made to the appropriate District Council in 25 other cases. It is good to record that Publications Hartwell House has been leased for use as a hotel We congratulate the Han. Editor, John and that the renovation is in the hands of Eric Chenevix Trench, on being elected Fellow of the Throssell, FRIBA who is a member of Council. Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA). He is also the architect responsible for the Waddesdon Hill Strict Baptist Chapel now in the Society Monograph No. 1 (1987), Roman care of the Friends of Friendless Churches. Milton Keynes. Excavations and Fieldwork 1971-82, edited by Dennis Mynard, was County Museum Archaeological Group published in April. To date around 200 copies The Group assisted in excavations at have been sold. Desborough Castle, Ley Hill and Magiovinium (on the site where a motel/service station is to be Records ofBucking hamshire Volume 27 ( 1985) built alongside the A5T). was distributed during May and Spring and Autumn Newsletters during the year with the help The Group continues to meet on Tuesdays in of the Corps of Deliverers whom we thank for the County Museum beavering away in its on- continuing support.

NATURAL HISTORY SECTION

Our year has involved the usual pattern of in• an appreciative audience at the Museum a talk door and outdoor meetings. Three Committee with slide illustrations on small animals. meetings have been held, at the home of Mr and 11 April: Following the Section's annual meet• Mrs H. Bradburn, and we are grateful to them ing, Mrs Rosemary Cashmore told how she re• for providing the rendezvous. A note of the corded the flora in the parish of Haddenham year's programme is given below. and her excellent photography was evident by 10 January: The first meeting of the year was a the slides shown. lecture at the County Museum given by Mr Vic• 23 May: Many hours of heavy rain ceased ab• tor Scott. His subject 'Wildlife in the Vardar ruptly as the few members present, with Dr River Valley', proved to be very interesting and Keith Porter as leader, set off to learn about the as well as the natural aspect one's knowledge of rich flora of the Otmoor reserve. Additionally, geography of that part of the Balkans was im• a nightingale was heard and a cuckoo seen. proved. 20 June: Warden Rodney Simms showed the ten 21 February: Common, Black-headed and Les• members present the successive colonisation of ser Black-backed Gulls; Shelduck, Gadwall, the Pitstone Fen reserve by flora following Widgeon, Pochard, Teal, Ruddy Duck, Gol• quarrying operations. The party later visited the deneye, Pintail, Mallard, Smew and Tufted new College Lake reserve project due to be Duck; Canada and Greylag Goose; Great opened in 1988. Crested Grebe, Mute Swan and Heron were seen at Willen Lake, Milton Keynes, by the nine 11 July: An 11 a.m. start proved fortunate for members present. Expert guidance was af• this visit to Bernwood Forest to see butterflies forded by John Phillips and Ian Richardson of with Mrs Beryl Hulbert as guide. A number of the Development Corporation. sightings of the Purple Emperor, as well as 21 March: Dr John Phillipson of gave White Admiral, Large Skipper, Ringlet, Mar- 237 ble White, Meadow Brown, Small Skipper, Calocera viscosa, Calvatia excipuliformis, Col• Speckled Wood, Large White, Common Blue lybia maculata, C. peronata, Coprinus comatus, and Small Tortoiseshell, made it a worthwhile Cortinarius crocolitus, Fornes fomentarius, visit. Hydnum repandum, Hypholoma fasciculare, 22 August: Eight members went to Dinton Pas• H. sublateritium,, Hypoxylon fragiforme, Lac• tures Country Park, Hurst, near Reading, to see caria amethystina, Lactarius rufus, Lycoperdon the wildflower nursery and to have a tour of the perlatum, L. pyriforme, Marasmius oreades, park conducted by Jo Fuller. The purpose of the Phallus impudicus, Rhytisma, Russula mairei, nursery is to produce wild flowers that grow R. ochroleuca, Trametes gibbosa, T. versicolor, only within 10 miles' radius of the park. Tremella encephala, Xylaria hypoxylon. 5 September: Alan Cook, warden of Weston 7 November: Results of some excellent photo• Turville reservoir reserve, as well as indicating graphy were seen by members when slides were the reserve's flora and explaining conservation shown to accompany a lecture on Dragonflies measures, pointed out the recently uncovered by Stephen Cham. Using the lap dissolve run-off built in 1833 for a water level 12 feet technique he was able to bring to those present higher than it is now. every detail in the lives of these fascinating cre• atures. 3 October: The annual search for fungi took place in Halton Woods, Victor Scott leading the 12 December: A large audience was not disap• party. Very dry ground yielded only a few good pointed when Victor Scott gave another of his specimens, but a large number was identified, high-standard talks, the subject being Mount including Amanita rubescens, Armillaria mel- Olympus in Greece and its flora. 1 lea, Boletus chrysenteron, Bulgaria inquinans,

238