LAMAS Lecture Programme October 2019 - May 2020

All lectures are held on Tuesdays at the Museum of London, 150 London Wall, London EC2Y 5HN, beginning at 6.30pm.  Please note: the Annual General Meeting begins at 6.15pm. 
Refreshments are available from 6.00pm (5.30pm before AGM).  Visitors are always welcome, especially from affiliated societies (non-members are asked to donate £2).

8 October 2019
1066: The Siege, Surrender and Triumph of London
Kathleen Tyson

The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio or Carmen Widonis gives the earliest and fullest account of the Norman Conquest. It provides a fascinating record of the siege of London, resolution of which by truce gave King William dominion over all England and the City of London its historic liberties. This talk will follow the account of the siege and surrender of London as it was recorded within months of the event, correcting some Victorian misconceptions

12 November 2019
Building Bridges to Heaven: sponsoring bridge construction in medieval England
Bruce Watson

Today constructing bridges is a responsibility of regional or national government, but in the medieval period this responsibility was often undertaken by local communities. As crossing rivers via fords caused many accidents, constructing bridges was seen as a great way of helping your community and also a pious charitable deed (which would help you get into Heaven) Often chapels (including one on Old London Bridge), crucifixes and shrines were erected on bridges as a public reminder of the motivation of the sponsors.

10 December 2019
Denmark Street Revealed
Robert Hradsky, Associate, Alan Baxter Ltd

The guitar shops of Denmark Street occupy a remarkable group of seventeenth-century terrace houses. This illustrated talk will look at how they were adapted to support a specialist enclave of metal-workers in the nineteenth century and a thriving community of music publishers in the twentieth. Robert Hradsky will peel back the layers of history to reveal surprising survivals of panelling and wallpaper and a series of little-known artisan workshops, built at the rear of the plots.

14 January 2020
Which bottles are ‘Witch bottles’? Exploring Ralph Merrifield’s legacy in the field of early modern bottle magic in England,
Nigel Jeffries, MOLA

Of all Ralph Merrifield’s achievements, it is perhaps his work on ‘witch bottles’ that remains best known. This lecture will present the preliminary findings from a three-year AHRC funded research project that the speaker is undertaking together with historians at the University of Hertfordshire. By exploring the ‘witch bottle’ work with which Merrifield remains synonymous, this research will examine how he has shaped the reporting and study of ‘witch bottles’.

11 February 2020 (6.15pm, refreshments from 5.30pm)
Annual General Meeting and Presidential Address, Taryn Nixon

10 March 2020
Scadbury Manor: research and excavation at a moated site in Southeast London
Janet Clayton, Orpington and District Archaeological Society

This talk will look at the work of the Orpington and District Archaeological Society at Scadbury Manor. The Scadbury Park estate was in private ownership from around 1200 until 1983; ODAS have been researching the estate's history and archaeology from medieval moated manor to World War II defences.

14 April 2020
Additional Kilns of the Roman Thameside Ceramic Zone: Excavations at the land of the former Mardyke Estate, Rainham, London Borough of Havering,
Eniko Hudak, Pre-Construct Archaeology Ltd

Excavations on the land of the former Mardyke Estate by Pre-Construct Archaeology Ltd in 2013 uncovered three Roman pottery kilns, which were producing local sand- and shell-tempered wares dated to the second quarter of the second century AD. This talk will present the kilns and the pottery produced on site and will consider the kilns together with those of the neighbouring site to the west of the River Beam in their wider context as part of the Thames Estuary or Thameside ceramic production zone.

12 May 2020
Joint Prehistoric Society and LAMAS lecture: Revealing a Late Bronze Age enclosure
Andrew Peachey, Archaeological Solutions

Overlooking the former marshes on the north bank of the River Thames, the soil mark of a square enclosure has been recognised since the 1960s. Recent archaeological excavation in advance of mineral extraction has revealed this to be a Late Bronze Age enclosure with two distinct phases of activity, including roundhouses.