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David Thorold is the Keeper of Archaeology at Verulamium Museum  and a renowned authority on coins.  His talk will be a quick and entertaining dash from ancient coins to the development of modern currency in the 17th century.

David Thorold is the Keeper of Archaeology at Verulamium Museum in St Albans and has been the coin specialist there since 1993. David trains Museum curators on coin identification for the Society of Museum Archaeologists.

As well as being involved in several St Albans excavations, David keeps his hand in by identifying coins brought and sent to the museum from around the world. His main area of expertise is British coins and he will be happy to look at any coins brought in on the night (though the Museum Service can not offer valuations). He has co-written a children’s book on the Romans in Britain.

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Jill Hind works for Oxford Archaeology, having retrained from being a science teacher. Much of her time has been devoted to researching the history of sites across England and Wales in advance of development or for conservation and management plans. Jill is also involved in strategic studies, helping to develop policy and guidance on various aspects of the historic environment. She worked on the preparation of the Urban Archaeological Database for the City of Oxford and this, plus her experience of sites within the area, led to her involvement in the Solent Thames Research Framework project .

Jill started her talk by explaining that although she is an archaeologist, she is not one that gets her hands dirty, most of her work is concerned with policy planning and guidance. She is currently writing about the post medieval period for Oxford Archaeology’s “Thames Through Time” publication.

Tonight she would be covering the post medieval Thames and its tributaries from the start to Teddington Lock which is the non-tidal part looking at the history of the area from 1540 to 1900, through archaeological investigations and surviving structures/buildings. The Thames obviously had a huge impact on communication, resources, settlement and recreation and Jill covered various aspects of locks, mills, bridges, railways, turnpike roads, wharves, boatyards along this part of the Thames.

Jill explained that the Thames was not navigable the whole way at this time. In 1635 flash locks were replaced with pound locks which were more efficient, originally they were turf sided with timber lining and later stone was used. She mentioned that Wessex Archaeology had investigated the restored Monkey Lock, a scheduled ancient monument. Canals were also built to widen and straighten or bypass the river where it was impassable.

Bridges included lift and swing types; there are two remaining toll bridges, at Whitchurch and Swinford. Jill showed us picture of the Maidenhead railway bridge and mentioned that Windsor bridge was the same design as the Tamar road bridge. Oxford swing bridge, which carried the LMS railway line, is a scheduled monument.

Railways brought more prosperity to the area, people and goods could be moved much faster than by water, however not everyone thought it a good idea, Oxford University opposed the railway station, it was the same for Eton college. Queen Victoria was also reported to be unhappy about it.

In the late 17th century Turnpike Acts enabled tolls to be collected on roads and made it mandatory to list the charges. The High Wycombe toll house is now housed at Chiltern Open Air Museum, there is also one on Folly Bridge at Oxford, now used as a newsagents.

Mills were obviously prevalent along the river, as were paper mills, one with a tar paper roof, (tubes of tar paper were also used for building walls). Jill also talked about the Brick kilns, and pottery kilns at Nettlebed and Boarstall where some excavations had taken place.

Other items of interest were the timber factories, especially in High Wycombe and the micro brewery in Thame; Osney was the first electric power station in Oxford and Ravenscroft lead crystal used sand from the Stonor estate.

Jill explained that the post medieval period was not popular for excavating because a lot of the buildings had been either knocked down or had been reused.

Jill’s talk was full of information and she gave us an insight to the history of this great river.

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As Archaeology in Marlow have surveyed Medmenham Camp, both dimensionally, and partially with geophysics, Dr Tubb went on to consider these results. There is certainly a suggestion of a ring ditch, implying that the site may have been of some importance before the hillfort was constructed. The area on the geophysical results thought to have been a dewpond, Dr Tubb thinks is probably more like to be as the results of quarrying, as it looks to have gone down to the bedrock.

The location of Danesfield was probably picked because of the naturally steep cliff and its position in a reentrant valley. Not much can be said about the site in terms of previous archaeological reports as they do not seem to be available, but Danesfield and Medmenham are unusual in that both seem to have their entrances in the Northwest quadrant, whereas a significant proportion of hillforts (40%) have their entrances to the East. There has been no Early Iron Age pottery recorded and this ties in with the theory that hillforts in the Chilterns tend to be more Middle Iron Age, than Early Iron Age.

Medmenham and Danesfield are peculiarly close together. It has been suggested that they were constructed by two different tribes, but Dr Tubb points out that just South of Swindon, there are two hillforts, Barbury and Liddington, similarly close together, but not contemporary. Liddington is earlier than Barbury. So it is possible that the two Marlow hillforts represent a shift from one site to another, rather than the two sites being contemporary. More work needs to be done to establish dating evidence.

Further down the river, Taplow suffered from being misidentified as a garden feature. It’s not clear how this happened as it was identified on the maps.
Oxford report findings show enclosures small early and larger later one, with the mound inside the bottom of the later enclosure and lots of metal finds.

There was a series of fencelines and postholes, parallel, following approximately same course. All aligned, but using different construction techniques, sometimes inheriting features from previous constructions, notably a v-shaped ditch lined with trees similar to Boscombe Down lines of postholes. There was then a period of abandonment 500 years and then u-shaped ditches that don’t respect the old palisade lines, eventually replaced with a huge earth rampart, replacing the timber.

Wittenham clumps similar to Taplow as there’s an inner late bronze age enclosure, middle ironage round it, and outside (in car park) black earth site. Black earth sites are areas of darker, greasier soil with feasting debris and deliberate deposits of domestic material. Sometimes these sites can be several feet thick and spread over a large area. To call them middens is missing some of their symbolic purpose. Blewburton hill has black earth rampart-outlines, covered in chalk, underneath the earth ramparts, possibly using the past to validate their present by incorporating this older material into their new structure.

Generally hillforts usually have associated field systems and these have not been yet located for the Marlow hillforts and it would be interesting to see where they were. It is important to remember that not all hillforts were occupied and could in fact have been a location to assess what is “on the hoof” as cattle were an important resource in prehistory, as now.

Balksbury has intact delta enclosure shallow ditch with bank inside it. During the Bronze Age the area inside of the hillfort was probably used for cattle (black earth etc in one corner particularly), but in the Early Iron Age it was completely empty, and was reused and settled in the Late Iron Age.

When looking at hillforts, it’s important to consider the activity that occurs outside the hillfort. As well as black-earth sites, other evidence exists outside the ramparts of hillforts. Outside Cherbury fake copper vessels were found (copper becoming scarce by this point) and some new-fangled iron pins for decoration. Iron was not used in the same way as bronze, initially, it was a material of decoration, of special status-indicating items.

Dr Paul Tubb is a landscape archaeologist with 30 years experience, mostly in the chalklands of Wiltshire, Dorset and Hampshire. He is particularly interested in Bronze and Iron Age settlement. He is a tutor on the Part-Time Archaeology degree course at Bristol University and also teaches Continuing Education courses at Oxford and Reading.

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The audience was introduced to various chair designs, depending on the mode of construction, and then concentrated on Windsor Chairs, the style that made the Lower Chilterns famous. A Windsor chair can be described as a stool with a back and, sometimes, arm-rests, and where all of the main parts fit into holes bored or cut into the seat.

The style was first recorded in the 1720’s; and was made in many parts of the country, East Anglia, The North-East, Wales and the Chilterns. These early specimens were made by individual craftsmen, from selected timbers and were made for the wealthy.

As working conditions and standards of living improved in the mid 1800’s there was an ever increasing demand for economically priced chairs for home and commercial use. The chalk hills of the Chilterns had a ready supply of Beech, cheap and easily workable on simple pole lathes in the “green”, (i.e. newly felled and split). Chair turners set up camps all over the local woods, producing chair parts by the thousand. Legs, spindles and stretchers and all the round parts were produced by these men who later became known as the Bodgers. And “No,” Catherine said, the word ”bodge” doesn’t come from Bodger – it was probably the other way around as “Bodger” only dates from the early 20th Century.

Catherine also mentioned that High Wycombe had the first fire brigade in Bucks – probably because of all the flammable wood and glue! The manufacturers produced the elm seats, shaped the chair backs and arms, often using steam to make the timber more pliable, and shaved and fretted other parts such as the splats. The parts were
then assembled into finished chairs; stained, polished and finished ready for sale.

Catherine’s talk and slides highlighted the tools used by chairmakers, the woods used and the similarities and differences that help to give clues as to where a chair was produced. Subtle changes in the shape or detail of component parts, the method by which pieces are fixed into their sockets and the overall design, all help to identify a chair. Local chairs are less ornate than many others, with slender, elegant legs and with the centre piece in
the back made in one piece also, where the back hoop fits into the seat. If it tapers it isn’t local, if it doesn’t it
probably is!

Windsor chairs remained popular as mass produced items for a hundred years, but by the 1950’s, mechanisation replaced hand craftsmanship. Timber and low-cost furniture were imported and the Bodger was gone from a furniture industry that was, itself, struggling for survival. Today, there does seem to be a renewed interest in wooden chairs and the Windsors are still produced by a few specialist master craftsmen – long-lasting, individual,
traditionally made but costly.

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Richard took us along the river by means of photos and paintings and many interesting snippets of informa- tion relating to all the villages/towns we passed, however he started his talk by telling us of the current exhibition at the heritage centre “Buried Treasure the Archaeology of the Maidenhead Area” which displays many archaeological finds around the Maidenhead area including stone axes and bronze age swords.

The armchair “tour” commenced at Henley for this ride down the river with pictures from 100 years ago, he explained that the banks were straightened out for the Regatta so it was a straight run from Temple Island. Hambledon is next up and we were asked to think about what came first: the weir, the mill or the lock. On to Medmenham Abbey, then Harleyford – the house, which is now offices was designed by Robert Taylor, who also designed Maidenhead Bridge, then to Temple Lock, showing the footbridge and then an aerial shot taken in 2003 of the floods.

Bisham Church was very recognizable as was Marlow Bridge and the plaques fixed below the bridge “sigil de desbro 1860”. This is apparently the date the original wooden beams of the bridge were replaced with steel. Another aerial shot, this time of the Mar- low Mill area which Richard told us ground rape seed in the 18th century. The flash lock was called the Lion’s Mouth with the winch at the end of St Peter’s Street.

On to Quarrywood Hall and further to Bourne End, the photo showing the sailing club. I did not know there was an ‘international airport’ behind the Quarry Hotel, at Cockmarsh. On to Cookham and Swan Upping, with a painting by Stanley Spencer which Richard told us was painted in two halves, part before and part after the war and the styles are noticeably different. Richard then showed us a picture of Spring Cottage, on the river on the Cliveden estate, which was built as a tea house by the Duchess of Sutherland who entertained Queen Victoria. 100 years later Spring Cottage was rented by Stephen Ward, the osteopath at the centre of the Profumo affair.

On to Maidenhead Bridge and the Turner painting featuring Brunel’s railway bridge, also to Bray showing the George before it became the Waterside. The aerial view of Dorney Rowing Lake was particularly interesting as it showed its relation to the Jubilee River. We then went to Monkey Island, Boveney and finished at Windsor. Richard showed us three different paintings of the castle, one fairly accurate one with extra turrets and one pure Disney. This is where we disembarked from our “tour”.

It made me stop and think again how much we have on our doorstep that I take for granted and visitors come from miles to stay and visit.

Thank you Richard for reminding us of our local heritage.

Richard had on sale, for the benefit of the Heritage Centre, maps and books, one of which was a history of the Berkshire Archaeological Research Group by Janet Firth. Richard’s talk fee also goes to support the Centre.

Normal opening is Tuesdays to Saturdays 10am to 4pm, also on the 2nd Sunday of each month, 10am to 12.30pm (Farmers’ Market Day) 01628 780555 email is info@maidenheadheritage.org.uk. Web site is www.maidenheadheritage.org.uk

Richard also gives talks on other subjects.

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Dr Williams explained that improvements in DNA reconstruction can be retrospectively applied and forensic technology development can be applied to archaeology, helping to identify cause and date of death and can also be used for facial reconstruction imaging. Anna then went on to describe and show us slides of various sites and finds that had been identified using forensic science.

Her first case was from Prof. Martin Biddle’s excavations of Repton and Anna was allowed to identify the cause of the death of one of the Vikings found there, he had been wounded in the femur with a sword. Lindow Man, the bog body in Wilmslow was very well preserved, he had many injuries, each of which could have caused his death separately and it was therefore thought there may have been a ritualized killing.

At the Battle of Towton, during the Wars of the Roses, 28,000 people died in the 1461 war and in 1996 a mass grave was excavated and forensic techniques were able to identify and separate all the bones. She advised us that the bones showed strenuous exertion whilst growing and it was assumed this meant the men were trained from an early age for battle. Before 1949 it was not so easy to identify dates, radio carbon dating was very important as was dendrochronology and mass spectometry. Bone fluorescence can be used to date bones, but there are other factors that affect this.

Dr Williams then went on to tell us about some of the investigative work undertaken on Tutenkamun. In 1968 the body was radiographed, in 2005 it was CT scanned, when over 1700 images were taken. Anthropological analysis showed he was 18 – 20 years old, 170cm tall. Bone fractures are thought to have occurred after death and not the cause of death.

Dr Williams concluded that archaeology will continue to benefit from scientific advances made in the forensic area.

Thanks to Anna for her very interesting talk.

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