Ladies' Guild Meeting - February 2011
Candlemas, on Wednesday, 2nd February, marked the first meeting of 2011. There was a lot of bustle and chat as we arrived and waited for the start of the evening. We sang about “Angel Voices,” which could be considered optimistic for the time of year! We were then introduced to Tim Vicars, who was to present his pictures and talk about eight chosen objects from the collection housed at Wardown Park Museum. Tim manages the collection there. We found he is a real expert on the ancient history of the local area. He calls this talk “A history of Luton-ish in eight chosen objects.”
The land we live on, shaped by seas and ice ages, is more remote from us than for any of our ancestors, because our modern world of machines and technology keeps us away from the outdoors and, while protecting us from the elements, provides a reason for rarely looking beyond it. Tim led us to the reality of the past with beautifully crafted lumps of flint, dug from the chalk we all live on here in the Chilterns. Limbury, Round Green and Caddington were all sites where chalk ponds developed in the area and this is where animals drank and humans followed to hunt or relax. From Round Green came a Palaeolithic hand axe, beautiful in construction and impressive because of the skills required and the hours it took to make. Tim told us about an antiquarian called Worthington George Smith from Dunstable, born 1885, who walked 20 miles a day, looking at the building sites in the expanding area. He then drew and catalogued the articles he found. The museum has his dated, illustrated diaries and about 100 boxes, with several thousand objects.
All the objects we saw were dated using the radiocarbon scale of BP (Before Present). The ‘Present’ was set as 1950 and so an object dating from 1050 BC would also have the date of 3000 BP. We heard that the date of 8000 BP (6050 BC) was attached to an adze, a blade found in the New Bedford Road area. The Mesolithic people who made this were nomads who followed the weather; animals and plants providing for their needs. A population of about 10,000 humans roamed an area the size of Kenya. The next stone treasure was from 5000 BP, a polished stone axe found at Limbury; the stone came from a quarry in Cumbria. Luton is sited on an ancient trade route of the Icknield Way and the River Lea and so trade and travel has always been part of life here. The other local rivers, Flit and Ouse, all provided travel routes.
A bronze spearhead (4000 BP) found at Farley Hill, was made from copper, probably from the Great Orme in North Wales and tin, probably from Cornwall. This speaks of a new technology. Tim mentioned a population with more power and prestige. The round burrows on Galley Hull and Five Knolls and the hill fort on Ivinghoe Beacon all show the development of the area. A piece of decorated shale brought us forward to 2500 BP. There is now evidence of culture. Mirrors for personal adornment were now made from metal. Boundaries, such as ditches across the Lea, and the three ditches which made up Drey’s Ditches (lines of posts to stop carts and chariots going through without payment) were erected. These ancient works are scheduled monuments and so are protected by law.
An iron key, of a style not recognisable today as a key, dated 1700 to 1600 BP, led Tim to speak of Roman times with local villas, baths and mosaics. Limbury had a Roman settlement. The Romans set up shrines at the local springs. They built Watling Street and paved the ancient Icknield Way. Roman Dunstable was a staging post. There are 475 known Roman sits in Bedfordshire. The Stockwood Discovery Centre has some artefacts on show. 1500 BP is the era of the amber and glass bead necklace found here. The beads are of blue glass; also amber beads from the Baltic, made up with a crystal pendant. We are now in Saxon times when there was a farmstead on the banks of the Lea. There were many grave offerings found in a Saxon burial site in Argyll Avenue. The Saxons were skilled metal workers who had an organised culture. In 886 AD, the Danelaw / Saxon border was established from London along to the source of the Lea, then in a line from there to Bedford and the Ouse. We were a real frontier town in those days! There are records of Viking raids across the border.
Medieval pottery, found in Gordon Street in 1938 while an air raid shelter was being built, brought us further forwards. William the Conqueror had decreed that the manors of Luton, Leagrave, Houghton Regis and Leighton Buzzard were not to be touched; he took them as royal manors to be given to hold as a royal gift. This means that we were a prosperous area in the days of the Norman invasion. Luton had two castles, one now under Matalan (1139) and the other on the site of the Catholic Church. We also had a strong guild, seven mills, an annual fair and a market. The largest manor in Bedfordshire was of 14,000 acres. St Mary’s Church dates from 1121 and the Wenlock Lords built Someries castle in 1448.
We ranged from the deposits of chalk and flint under the sea until about 1500 AD; we found that we have a wealth of treasure here under our feet and a heritage of people who made us what we are today. Luton’s Wardown Museum has a host of treasures.