FOCUS on Industrial
Archaeology No. 68, June 2007
Living Landmarks:
People's Millions
A meeting with
Prof. Mick Aston
Meetings Reports
December 2006 —
January 2007 — Exploring the seabed of the
February — History of Milling
March — Calshot and the Flying Years
April — An idiosyncratic look at the British Canal System
May — Wiltshire in the age of steam
Conferences
AIA Ironbridge Weekend Conference on Roads
Flax & Hemp-based Industries in
South Eastern Region Industrial Archaeology Conference
2007
South West and West of
Reports
Twyford Waterworks Trust
Maritime Projects
HIAS Rescue and Restoration Section
Book Review
Miscellanea
Itchen Navigation
Replica Cody Aircraft to be built
SR locomotive Lord Nelson — the continuing story
Thomas Telford 250
English Heritage Car Project
Snippets — for those who missed them
Tail-enders
The ERIH is a project aimed at the promotion of
industrial heritage and culture through the networking of existing sites, with
appropriate interpretation, information and signposting to enhance their
tourism potential.
Recognised for its educational and hobby value,
industrial heritage has been viewed by the general tourist industry as a niche
market and the aim of the project is to widen the appeal and awareness of
industrial sites.
The concept is to obtain ‘Partners’ — usually Local
Authorities, National organisations, Universities etc. — and identify key industrial
heritage sites, known as ‘Anchor Points’. Other suitable sites in the area of
the Anchor Points are identified and a ‘
Trans-national ‘Themed Routes’ are to be developed,
encompassing Mining, Iron and Steel, Textiles, Production and Manufacture,
Application of Power, Transport and Communication, and Water. The idea is that
potential visitors can either follow the route of an industry they are
interested in or discover the industries in a particular area.
At present, participating countries are
In the longer term, if the idea is successful, it is
hoped to extend the Themed Routes world-wide and the ERIH organisation will
concentrate on advertising, overall marketing and quality control.
This project has the potential to transform the way
industrial heritage is perceived and greatly benefit industrial heritage sites
not only in visitor numbers but also in the authenticity with which they can portray
the industrial past. As ‘they’ say, watch this space.
More information can be seen on the ERIH web site, http://www.erih.de
(This information
has been taken from a booklet
“Living Landmarks: People's Millions”
Six projects will be competing for the £50m ‘Living Landmarks’ challenge, where
there will be a live televised vote on ITV in November. Bidders have already
been given £½m each to develop their submissions, which were to be handed into
the National Lottery's charitable arm, the Big Lottery Fund, by 31st May.
The six projects are:- Sherwood: The Living Legend — to transform historic Sherwood Forest
as a tourist attraction; Connect2 —
Transport charity Sustrans to help fund 50 or more local foot and cycle bridge
schemes across the UK; Eden project
climate change biome — a new attraction to teach people about the perils of
climate change; Waterlinks — 51
Somerset-based projects to open up rivers and canals to people, including
historic canal renovations and new canal locks; Black Country as an Urban Park — Four flagship developments at Dudley
(regeneration of the Wren’s Nest and Seven Sisters Mine), Sandwell, Walsall
(both linked by a new footpath) and Wolverhampton (creation of a walkway
alongside the canal network).
The sixth is closer to home and goes under the name of Inspired. This is a project based at
the
Apart from a couple of refurbished buildings which are
now the offices for the museum staff, the 221ha air base at Wroughton is little
changed from the days when it was used as a maintenance site during WWII. The
(information from the
New Civil Engineer,
A meeting with Professor Mick Aston (Angela Smith)
It’s strange how coincidences occur. In December’s Focus I wrote an article about Time Team’s archaeologist Mick Aston
having given his first extra-mural lecture in Birmingham in 1968 to a group of us
on one of Edwin Course's IA ‘weeks’ with Southampton University. Well, in February
Mick was giving a talk at
A “question-time” of nearly half-an-hour followed. One
person asked why there were so many Roman sites chosen on Time Team … was this because there were so many, above all other
types of sites, submitted. The answer was that the programme organisers want it
that way as they think that is what the viewers want, and gets the best viewing
figures. At least half of the programmes will be Roman excavations. Mick would
prefer more sites such as old houses, monasteries … and industrial archaeology:
something that is a bit different from yet another Roman villa. Another person
commented about the problem of recruiting younger people to archaeology. Mick
said that he is worried about the future for archaeology, but he has training
programmes to try and get youngsters interested in the subject before they old
enough to be “sidetracked” in their teens. He also has strong connections with
Angela Smith meets Mick Aston at a talk he gave in Winchester on February 27th, 2007
Afterwards I was able to have a brief chat with him and showed him the 1968 study tour programme (he instantly said “That was Dr Course, wasn't it”) which he was delighted to see as this gave him a definite date which he didn’t have previously. He asked his PA to make a note of the dates and she copied the programme on her digital camera. I showed Mick the December Focus and explained how the group had metamorphosed into HIAS, and he asked about Edwin. Mick only gives about 8 lectures a year so, if you ever see one advertised, my advice is make the effort to attend.
Meetings (report by
December's
meeting found us all gathered at the County Records Office in
Amongst the footage David showed us were pre-fabs being
erected on the Stanmore Council Estate just after the war for temporary
housing, until more substantial brick houses were built, featuring the Mayor of
Winchester posing with the new tenants, and handing over the keys. A 1930s film
of the construction of
January 2007 —
the New Year started with a talk by Rebecca Causer on Exploring the Seabed of the Isle of Wight. Rebecca works for the
Hampshire & Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology, a job she has been
involved in for two years. The H&WTMA was formed in 1991 to “identify, preserve and make people aware of
this fragile and mostly unseen heritage” with the backing of HCC and the
then Isle of Wight County Council. Rebecca went on to tell us about the
richness of our maritime archaeology situated around the Solent, and the
magnificent finds that have been discovered over the years including bones of a
buried mammoth, flint tools from the Mesolithic period, jars from Roman cargoes
and, of course, many wrecks which number about 4000 in the Solent alone.
Rebecca went on to tell us that the co-operation of the aggregate
industry in the Trust’s work is very important and is relied upon a lot for
marine archaeology information. With 200 million tons of aggregate removed per
year for
It was obvious from Rebecca’s talk that the potential of
what marine archaeology can tell us is immense, and we were very grateful to
her for sparing the time in coming along and sharing this with us.
Owing to an unfortunate mix-up, February’s meeting, The
Future of Historic Dockyards around the World by Dr Celia Clark, was unable
to go ahead and instead we had a talk by John Silman on the History of Milling. Before John’s talk,
Celia did tell us that she is trying to get Portsmouth designated as a World
Heritage Site, but is facing a lot of competition from other Dockyards around
the country. What makes it more complicated for
John started his talk by showing us sketches of early man
and his endeavours to feed himself through his wits. Then he went on to show us
a sketch of what a Roman corn mill would have looked like together with a
medieval water wheel circa 14th Century with its own eel trap, a 1590s floating
boat wheel, a 1662 German corn mill and French & Italian water wheels.
Windmills, John said, have been around since the 1100s. With this information,
John slowly built up a comprehensive evolutionary picture of how both sorts of
mills have progressed and changed over the years.
John’s slides were then of a variety of mills, many still
standing, but alas many now demolished including a 120ft nine-storey windmill
in Southsea built as a co-operative by the dockyard workers, but demolished in
1922, with others having been more fortunate including Longbridge Mill at
Sherfield-on-Loddon, which is now a Whitbread pub, and has undergone an
extensive programme of repair and renovation following a fire. The Hampshire
Mills Group now carries out milling there every fourth Saturday in the month,
and do a healthy trade in selling the flour over the bar. One of John’s prettiest
slides was of Maybury Mill in
We do hope that Dr Clark will return and present her
lecture sometime in the future, but were very grateful to John for standing in
at the last minute.
March's
meeting welcomed back Colin Van Geffen whose talk this time was titled Calshot and the Flying Years. Colin
apologised for missing his last scheduled talk, and thanked us for asking him
back. As well as slides, Colin brought along a selection of model planes that
feature in his talk, and an assortment of other flying memorabilia. Explaining
the difference between a flying boat and a seaplane, which has its floats in
the water whereas a flying boat has its hull in the water, Colin informed us
that on
Back in 1914 a successful drop of a torpedo by a Sopwith
seaplane was carried out at Calshot, the pilot being a Captain Gordon Bell. At
this time the demand for Sopwith Camels was such that it had to be franchised
out to other airplane manufacturers. Some of these planes survived well into
WW2 and were used for training purposes. Between the wars the station continued
with training and testing and in 1927, 1929 and 1931 it was used by the RAF
High Speed Flight to train for the Schneider Trophy Races.
During WW2 Calshot was mainly used for repair,
maintenance and modification of RAF flying boats, and the maintenance side
continued after the war until it was finally closed on
Unfortunately, Jeff Pain was unable to give his
advertised talk on 40 Years of I.A.
at April’s meeting, but fortunately John Silman stepped in again [see February’s
meeting] with a talk on An idiosyncratic
look at the
With a wide selection of slides, mainly taken on family
holidays in the past, John started off by explaining how canal systems worked
and then talked us through his slides which included a fair bit of I.A content
as well as specific canals and their boats. From a 1963 slide showing an old
butty converted to an 8 horse powered engine with a leaky roof and about
9" of snow on the ground [was this a holiday?] to different canal tunnels,
a steam powered dredger [now in a museum], towpaths [without the horses],
canals before and after restoration, numerous locks together with John's very
informative commentary throughout.
Other information included snippets such as, did we know
that mules and donkeys were used to tow the narrow boats as well as horses, and
that mules would not drink contaminated water, but horses were not so
discerning. How one year the Farnborough Air Show nearly didn’t go ahead as the
nearby
What came over well in John’s slides was that wherever
there was a canal, even if it was in the middle of an industrialised city such
as London or Birmingham, there was always a feeling of it being in a more rural
location than it actually was, so bystanders can enjoy the canals just as much
as the people who actually use the waterways for work or pleasure.
A big thank you and round of applause to John was
standing in at short notice, and we still have Jeff’s talk to look forward to,
rescheduled to August.
May Meeting (report by Angela Smith)
Carol was somewhere up in the wilds of
Illustrated were such subjects as transport (railways,
roads and canals), quarrying, mills (water, wind and textile), breweries and
workers’ housing. Peter commented, referring to Brunel’s Great Western Railway,
that there are hopes of making the whole of the GWR line a World Heritage Site
as he showed the ornamental portal of Box Tunnel which is twice the height of
the bore of the tunnel. When the tunnel was being cut, Bath Freestone was
discovered, so underground quarries were cut to remove this delicately coloured
limestone. Other limestones which are quarried in the county include
Passing through Wiltshire are parts of three canals —
Kennet & Avon with highlights such as the Caen Hill flight of locks at
Devizes, the Dundas Aqueduct and the steam pumping station at Crofton, the
derelict Thames & Severn (which just creeps into the north of the county)
and the Wilts & Berks, some parts of which have been restored.
It was a fascinating talk, perhaps more so as the
majority of the illustrations were fairly recent, so it is possible to visit
some of the places. One frustrating aspect — Peter kept on referring to the
slides he was unable to fit in! However, anyone really interested can always
purchase Wiltshire in the Age of Steam where
everything seen during the talk is illustrated, many sites with grid
references. It can be ordered from the publisher, Halsgrove Direct, Halsgrove
House, Lower Moor Way, Tiverton, Devon, EX16 6SS at a cost of £19.99 with
p&p £2.95. Cheques payable to Halsgrove.
Email: sales@halsgrove.com. The ISBN
number is 1 84114 549 1.
Conferences
AIA Ironbridge Weekend Conference on Roads
— 14/15 April 2007(Ray Riley)
For some years the Ironbridge Weekend has been themed,
following particular aspects of industrial archaeology, an approach which has
proved attractive judging by the numbers who attend. The April 2007 meeting
concentrated on roads — ports, canals and railways having previously featured.
John Crompton introduced proceedings with an examination
of the evolution of the British road system from medieval packways to the first
motorway — the
There was a fascinating walk on Saturday afternoon
viewing four important nearby bridges on the
The evolution of the street tram was capably presented by
Chris Irwin, followed by Ray Riley on the evolution of the road bridge from
Greek times to the 19th century. The weekend concluded with a talk by
David Lowe on commercial issues facing modern road hauliers. The talks
certainly provided a useful background to industrial archaeology which tends to
emphasise detail rather than process.
Flax & Hemp-based Industries in
Report of a one-day conference held on
by Eleanor Yates,
Roger & Wendy Hedge, Mick Edgeworth & Andy Fish
After coffee and a welcome by the organisers, Robert
Allwood and Sandy Buchanan, the first paper on the industries in
Mike Bone, an economic historian and industrial
archaeologist, gave the second paper covering
The third paper was by Pam Slocombe of WANHS on
Wiltshire’s industry. She had important points to make about the soils
(greensand & clay) where hemp and flax can be grown and the areas of
Wiltshire (
After lunch short papers were given by Ann Heeley on an
oral history project based in Glastonbury, including interviews with flax workers;
Ross Aitkin on the Coker Rope, Twine & Sail Trust and its research into the
16 new scutching mills built in the years leading up to the WWII, each able to
handle locally grown flax from about 3000 acres; Sally Jackson on ten cottages
in East Coker clearly associated with the industry, though this is not
immediately apparent now; Robert Allwood on pits, shown on maps, which may or
may not have been used for sheep dips or flax retting and finally Sandy
Buchanan on the ‘missing’ bleach fields, shown on maps until the C19, but now
unrecognised, and the different chemical methods of bleaching sailcloth used
later. Interesting points were made about the subsidiary industries of linseed
oil, tow and the techniques of growing flax and hemp.
Coker Rope and Sail
Trust . . . and a Salted Cod recipe
The Trust issued its first Newsletter in February. HIAS
members may remember that it entered last year’s
Hemp History
This item was spotted by Wendy Hedge and comes from the
magazine Handwoven, Jan/Feb 2001
(Interweave Press USA), and appears to be a contribution from a reader relating
to a comment from a 1984 reprint of a book by Harriette Simpson Arnow called Flowering of the Cumberland.
“Hemp had no
history of widespread cultivation in the American colonies. England had long
offered bounties for its production, but most farmers … felt the hard and long
labor of producing hemp fiber made the crop … non-profitable. England in order
to supply her rapidly expanding navy with rope had to depend largely on Russia,
producer of a very high grade, snow-rotted hemp.
“The American
Revolution cut off the supply of hempen rope, and the growth of the plant
became more wide-spread, for with a scarcity of imported cloth and all cloth
expensive, even the hempen variety increased in use. As early as 1780 hemp was
being grown in
South Eastern Region Industrial Archaeology Conference
2007 (
This year’s SERIAC was held in the John Madejski Theatre
of the
After the official welcome, the proceedings were led off
by Paul Sowan whose talk was entitled, not surprisingly, Chalk Mines and Underground
Quarries in Berkshire. There are 5 chalk mines in
The subject of the second talk, the Epsom Mental Institutions -
History & Services, given by Alan Thomas, was rather on the
periphery of IA. Built in the early 20th century to house, treat and if
possibly train those people with mental illness, the site catered for up 8000
inmates. The final, sixth, institution planned for the site was never built and
rundown started after the second World War, final closure being in 1996. Most
of the site has since been demolished. Self-contained, the site had its own
artesian well, the electricity power station providing light and power for the
site including the three sets of water pumps. The empty boiler and power houses
(latterly used as training workshops) have been restored as part of a leisure
complex and the in-situ water pumps have been cosmetically restored.
The last talk of the morning, by David Buckley, was on
the ideas and development of the European Route of Industrial Heritage.
This is a scheme setting up a series of industrial heritage trails in north-western
Dick Greenaway gave the first talk after lunch which was
about Woodland Archaeology in the Wessex AONB (Area of Outstanding
Natural Beauty), which covers an area of
Six well-known Civil Engineers in the Thames Valley
in the 18th and 19th centuries were selected for the next talk by Stephen
Capel-Davies, and the work they undertook was explored. Notice was also taken
of links between them, e.g. who was apprenticed to whom. John Smeaton, the
first person to call himself a civil engineer (as opposed to a military
engineer) made improvements to the waterwheel which was applied in water mills.
He also engineered
The final talk was Information Explosion and the 19th Century
Printing Industry by Martin Andrew, on the printing industry and the
collections in the Typography & Graphic Communication Department of the
After the conference there was a choice of visits; either
to the
South West and West of
A few notes on the 38th IA Conference of South Wales and
West of England.
The Conference was held by the Somerset IA Society on
We learned that the venue had been selected for its ample
car parking. Sod’s Law prevailed,
however. Mayhem ensued just as Councillor Andrew Govier completed his opening
remarks and welcome to
Things got under way, after all this, with an excellent
presentation by John Willows, Curator of the
Mary Miles, a noted historian of
Henry Gunston, from the Vale of White Horse Group [nb not
Society], gave a fascinating overview of the types and designs of water flow
mechanisms to prevent flooding upstream in tidal rivers and fenland areas, hard
to depict without illustrations. Many illustrations came from the
The afternoon started with an interesting overview of
some of the 20th century wartime structures that have been recorded in
Gloucestershire, before total decay or demolition. Alan Strickland has made
determined efforts to elicit the purpose of assorted buildings before all
knowledge has been lost. He dealt with a range of airfield buildings, even down
to firing ranges, where little but a wall remains. The most curious was a tall
block that turned out to have been used to train bomb aimers, where an image
simulating the target area was projected on to the floor and it was moved in
response to the bomb aimer‘s actions, while laying on a platform set at a
height to reflect an aircraft's position. An early analogue simulator. He also
covered parachute packing stations, where a key stage is drying, barrage
balloon hangars and Royal Observer Corps posts, that were continued after WWII
and eventually became nuclear fall-out observer posts, should the event have
arisen. He didn’t have time to cover POW sites, searchlight installations,
munitions activities and others.
The next lecture on coal shipping facilities in
The Kelly Mine Preservation Society pairing gave an
intriguing review of the formation of their Trust and all that went on,
involving finally getting the co-operation of the land-owner, in setting up the
Trust, to rescue the buildings and extensive equipment of this unique legacy of
mining of micaceous haematite in the
During restoration, overnight, a missing cover plate that
had been taken by “vandals” mysteriously reappeared. Sadly, this didn’t apply
to all the brass bearings, water gauges, valve fittings and the like, all of
which had, as is so common, gone to line someone’s pockets in the thirty years
of dereliction. Some losses occurred when the more rudimentary part of the main
building collapsed under the weight of snow in 1963. The team has made a
remarkable job of researching the process and equipment and rebuilding it, much
from scratch.
The day concluded with a choice of three alternative site
visits, which we forewent. One was to the nearby Westford Pumping Station,
another to the lift and aqueducts at Nynehead on the
Reports
Twyford Waterworks
Trust — www.hants.org.uk/twt (Ian Harden)
The period since the last report has been one of
considerable activity. Although a return to steam remains some way off, a
significant step forward has been made with the removal by specialist
contractors of the remaining asbestos and brickwork surrounding the boilers.
This was completed only days before the May open day and afforded visitors the
rare sight of Babcock boilers in skeletal form. Unhindered access to the quarry
was also possible for the first time since the New Year.
Whilst present day volunteers have been making great
strides forward, we have had cause to remember the contributions of two past
engineers. Bunny Burrell died in mid February. At the suggestion of his family,
a celebratory Tea was held at the Waterworks in late April attended by family,
friends and volunteers past and present. Bunny's son presented a cheque for £1
000 to the Trust in his father’s memory and this will be put towards the
refurbishment of the
Unbeknown to us at the time, the previous day saw the
passing of the Trust’s first Chief Engineer, Jack Sara aged 89 years. A
Cornishman by birth, he graduated at King’s College,