BASINGSTOKE ARCHAEOLOGICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY Newsletter 209 November 2014 CONTENTS Page 2 Christmas Party A Look Ahead - or Back? Page 3 BAHS 2015 Trip to Northern Cyprus Page 4 Fieldwork Report Page 7 Homeless Shed Page 8 BAHS Trip to Parliament Page 9 The Transformation of Victorian Basingstoke Page 10 Archaeology Along the Wootton St Lawrence Pipeline Page 12 Revising THE VICTORIA COUNTY HISTORY Page 14 Hampshire Cultural Trust Page 15 More Goodbyes to Good Friends: Jean Heath and Tim Herrington Page 17 From BAHS To Australia Page 18 BASINGSTOKE RACES What are these spots? See page 5. 7.30 pm, Thursday 11 December 2014 at Church Cottage £3 per person (Includes finger buffet and first glass of wine or soft drink) For anyone who likes dressing up, we are planning a Medieval theme this year, thinking ahead to the Magna Carta anniversary. Ideas welcome. Please let Penny know in advance if you are coming (01256 321423 or [email protected]), though you can collect & pay for your ticket on the door on the night. And please let her know if you can offer to prepare or supply buffet food. A LOOK AHEAD - OR BACK? Following Luke Winter’s talk on Rebuilding the Past on 14th May, we are planning a visit to The Centre for Ancient Technology at Cranbourne on the following Saturday, 16th May. More details later. We are also hoping to visit the Museum of London in the Spring. 2 BAHS 2015 Trip To Northern Cyprus We are considering a week-long trip to Northern Cyprus for early May 2015. We would have Ian Williams (part-time Cyprus resident) as our guide and would be using his contacts to get a good deal on accommodation and transport. We would fly from Stansted and would hire mini-buses in Cyprus to get around. The likely cost is around £500 plus food and drink. Northern Cyprus has more than enough historical sites to fill a week, and the spectrum includes Bronze Age and Roman sites, together with later Crusader and Venetian castles. As well as all of this, Northern Cyprus is relatively under- developed and offers a glimpse of a Mediterranean lifestyle that has disappeared elsewhere. The provisional programme is as follows: Weds 6th May Travel to Cyprus Thurs 7th May Kyrenia, including Kyrenia castle. Bellapais and St Hilarion Castle Fri 8th May Karpaz and St Andrew’s monastery Sat 9th May Guzelyurt Museum, Soli, and Vouni Sun 10th May Nicosia, Agia Sofia/Selimiye Mosque, Great Han Mon 11th May Famagusta, Enkomi, St Barnabas and Salami Tues 12th May Lambousa, Lapithos and the Necropolis of Karm Weds 13th May Return home In order to secure flights and accommodation at these rates we would need to decide whether to go ahead by the end of the first week in January. If you think you would be interested in coming along on this trip, please contact either Ian Williams (01256 462688) or Mark Peryer (email: [email protected]). 3 Fieldwork Report Mark Peryer – Tel: 01256 780502, email: [email protected] The day after my return from the society’s Fenland trip I was walking along the canal towpath into Newbury to go to the bank when I spotted something going on in Victoria Park. An information table was set up and I could see a Wessex Archaeology Land Rover so I wandered over to find a test pit dig in progress. I started talking to the various archaeologists who were very excited about the micro-liths they were turning up. Phil Harding was there, and we had a brief discussion about the fact that it was just a stone’s throw over the dual carriageway from the Faraday Close type site (Mesolithic). Phil was convinced that the reason that they were turning up the microliths was the use of fine sieves, and wondered what other evidence had been missed in the past. This was to be a portent for the summer. Basing House During July and August Southampton University were busy excavating the “New House” site at Basing House. Several of our members helped Nicole Beale and her team with their recovery of the western end of the building. Sadly, they seemed to be retracing the work carried out by the Duke of Bolton at the turn of the 20th century, but it was useful to get things recorded. One of the primary motivations for the dig was to provide a training experi- ence for the Southampton students, and I’m pleased to report that working alongside BAHS members was viewed as a positive experience for both staff and students. Nicole hopes to be back at Basing House next year and we have made it clear that we can do some pre-work to cut back undergrowth so that the excavations can move to virgin territory in the New House area. Dig Basing! September saw the Dig Basing community archaeology project, which we ran in collaboration with Chris Elmer. We started the digging with a briefing on a Friday evening that included drinks, nibbles and a chance to socialise. Everyone seemed to enjoy being told how to dig and record a test pit, not to 4 mention receiving a health and safety briefing. The next day we got 5 test pits going in gardens scattered around Basing, with a mix of residents and BAHS volunteers digging and recording. A finds processing centre was set up in Cow Byre at the Basing House visitors’ centre and by lunch time the first bags of finds were beginning to filter in. By the Sunday morning we had 7 pits in progress across the village. At the end of the first weekend 4 pits had bottomed out and had been back filled, and 3 were left to be continued, either during the week or the following weekend. The next weekend saw four pits completed but with quite a backlog of finds processing opening up. Dig Basing – Location of the 2014 Test Pits 5 The test pits were mostly dug along in gardens along The Street in Basing, but there were a few others that were in other parts of the village. The pits themselves did not necessarily strike archaeological gold, but one definitely located the tow path of the Basingstoke Canal in Redbridge lane, another located a drainage channel in a garden close to the Loddon, and one opposite the Crown produced lots of the type of building rubble familiar to those who have worked at Basing House and the Grange. The finds that came up represented a cross section of the dateable spectrum with microliths, Iron Age pottery, through to modern day plastic toys. In many cases the finds were mixed up and unstratified, suggesting agricultural activity. With some extra work from Dr Jude Jones from Southampton University and Ginny, we have now processed all the finds after trying to analyse and generally make sense of what was found, we presented the results to those who took part in the project at a celebration on the 30th October. The project seemed to go down well with those Basing residents who took part, and Chris Elmer is studying the impact of the project as part of his PhD research so there is more to come on that side as well. I’d like to thank all the BAHS members who took part, either digging or supervising. In particular, David Whiter who acted as our contact man in Basing and Ian Waite who jumped in to sort out the logistics for the project with his usual level of practicality whilst I was elsewhere on business. There were many lessons learnt on how to run a project like this, but the primary one was that we must do it again, next year. 6 Hill Fort Atlas The Hill Fort Atlas project has now got underway with a visit to the “other” Oliver’s Battery at Abbotstone, just north of Alresford. The survey was a pilot, intended to work out how to fill in the survey form and to try to find the best way to do the surveys. One finding is that areas of these forts tend to be covered with undergrowth, so this is more of a winter activity than previously thought. Penny Martin has compiled a list of Hill Forts in our area and over the coming winter months there will be several surveys. Contact Penny if you would like to get involved. Email: [email protected] F.O.A.M. There will be a F.O.A.M. event at Odiham Castle on Saturday 22nd Novem- ber. This will be led by one of the rangers from the Basingstoke Canal Society and is a follow up to the work that we have done in previous years to keep the site under control and free from undergrowth. If you would like to take part, please contact me for more details. Personal Column … Homeless Shed (GSOH) WLTM Loving Landowner We are looking for someone with some space to provide a loving home to the Society’s field work store shed. Currently, we are using a shed in Mary Oliver’s garden, but sadly it has reached the end of its life and since Mary’s garden is in a conservation area it is going to cost us about £180 to make a planning application to erect a new one. If you are reading this and you have a corner of your garden which could provide a home for our storage shed, then I’d like to hear from you. Mark Peryer – 01256 780502 7 BAHS TRIP TO PARLIAMENT FRIDAY 5 SEPTEMBER 2014 Margaret Porter Our day at Parliament started with a tour of the Parliamentary Archives which are held in the Victoria Tower.