December 2009 (issue 119) - The Sussex Archaeological Society

Books
BOOK REVIEWS
BOOK REVIEWS
Books
Peacehaven &
Telscombe
Through Time
THIS is a volume of ‘then and now’
images of the two communities of
Peacehaven and Telscombe and as
the author is a past president of the
local history society he has a close
knowledge of the area. In the 21st
century there is more emphasis on
the history of suburbs rather than
purely ‘historic’ urban and rural
communities. Peacehaven, long
reviled by the architectural elite
(who do not live there) is home to
a large and growing community, it
deserves reasoned recording, as it
has undergone great changes both
in appearance and (confusingly)
road naming. Some key buildings
in the early life of the settlement
have been demolished, The
Peacehaven Hotel is one example,
and precious few of the original
domestic structures have survived.
Stanley Bernard has used vintage
illustrations from a variety of
sources and has taken 21st century
images from as close a spot as
was possible to the original. Local
knowledge has enabled him to spot
small but significant landscape
features which to the untrained eye
would be lost in the present day
urban scene.
The volume starts with the village
of Telscombe and goes on to chart
its unspectacular changes before
crossing The Tye to the coast road
where the early 20th century growth
was an example of the dispersed
suburbs that developed rapidly in
the immediate post First World War
landscape.
The lack of a map to locate the
scenes is a drawback and there
needed to be some form of ‘further
reading’ especially as the author
has published earlier volumes on
this locality.
Geoffrey Mead
By Stanley Bernard, 2009.
Amberley Publishing.
ISBN 978-1-84868-199-6.
Paperback 96 pp. Price £12.99.
‘Lepers outside the
gate’: Excavations
at the cemetery
of the Hospital of
St James and St
Mary Magdalene,
Chichester, 1986-97
and 1993.
THE hospital of St James and
Mary Magdalene was founded
before AD 1118. The graves date
from the 12th to the 16th centuries
and the cemetery expands in a
southwest-northeast direction.
Nothing was found of the hospital
buildings during excavation. In
the earlier phase, the majority of
burials were male and nearly half
showed signs of leprosy. This is
further evidence of the epidemic of
leprosy in medieval Europe. More
women and children were buried
in the later phases when the use
of the hospital changed to being
an almshouse, but there was still a
20% incidence of leprosy amongst
the adults, although rather less
severe in nature.
This report is intended to be
accessible to a number of different
audiences. The local historians
will find the description of the
excavations and the documentary
research backed up by a thorough
review of the role of such hospitals
in the middle ages. Those whose
interest and background knowledge
lies with the bones will be equally
well served by learning about
the social and cultural context.
Unfortunately, the accessibility
is not reciprocal. Those not
already reasonably familiar with
paleopathology will probably find
that section much harder going.
A glossary is provided, but the
essential diagrams for the facial
changes are relegated to the CD.
In addition, as is only too often the
case in osteoarchaeology, there
are no illustrations of the normal
appearance of the bones.
I found myself much better able
to appreciate the detail in the
report after reading the excellent
account of the site by Magilton
and Lee in a recent issue of “British
Archaeology,” and the inclusion of
such an overview would have been
very welcome. The main weakness
in the report is the almost inevitable
one of a lack of integration. This
shows in a lot of ways, from the lack
of an overall index to the tendency
of the osteoarchaeologists to deal
only with their particular aspect of
the bones. All too often I got the
impression that only the editors
had read all the chapters, and their
firm grasp of the overall picture
comes through both in the detailed
description of the cemetery by
Magilton, where plots of the graves
are used to effectively summarise
the data and also in the final
discussion by Magilton and Lee.
Undoubtedly the Chichester
site is an important one and the
bioarchaeological data from it
will continue to be analysed.
In particular, because there is
continuity here from a leper hospital
to post-medieval almshouse it will
continue to figure in the debate
about the end of the leprosy
epidemic in post-medieval Europe.
Liz Somerville
School of Life Sciences
University of Sussex
Edited by John Magilton, Frances
Lee and Anthea Boylston. Chichester
Excavations Volume 10 / CBA
Research Report 158. 2008
ISBN 978-1-902771-72-4.
Paperback, 312pp, Price £40.
Hastings: Wartime
Memories and
Photographs
THE impetus for this book came
during a number of book-signing
events undertaken by the author
when he was approached by people
who wanted to share their wartime
stories with him. The result is a
fascinating book devoted to 130
photographs alongside the stories
of 75 people, and through them a
host of others who lived and died
in the town during the war years.
The book is divided into 7 chapters
beginning with ‘The Path to War’
and ending with ‘Peace Returns to
Hastings.’
I found this book very difficult
to put down as the voices come
through very clearly telling about
a variety of subjects such as ARP
duties, the testing of gas masks,
the blackout, life as an evacuee,
the fun of apple scrumping and the
horrors of the air raids.
The initiative of civilians in war
time is well illustrated – ‘If you
saw a queue, you joined it…’
– as is their heroism. Several
story tellers remember being
thrown to the ground as children,
and heroic mums lying on top of
them protecting them as bullets
ricocheted around them.
The longest chapter is entirely
devoted to recollections of air
attacks. Houses looked like
dolls’ houses as their fronts were
blown off though several bombs
penetrated buildings in such a way
that they passed straight through
detonating elsewhere. Eleven
Canadians were killed in the Albany
Hotel by a 250kg bomb which had
already gone through the Queen’s
Hotel without exploding.
In this the 70th anniversary year
of the outbreak of the 2 nd World
War, it is a pleasure to recommend
Nathan Dylan Goodwin’s collection.
It would sit well alongside the
book about Wadhurst which was
reviewed in the August edition of
Sussex Past & Present.
Maria Gardiner
By Nathan Goodman, 2008.
Published by Phillimore and Co Ltd.
ISBN 978-1-86077-582-6
Hardback.141pp. Price £16.99
Hove and Portslade
Through Time
HOVE, often overlooked in histories
of the city, has a doughty champion
in Judy Middleton, who has
published a wide range of historical
accounts of the former borough.
In this pictorial account of Hove
and Portslade she has utilised the
rapid advances in digital imagery
to compare and contrast old and
(very) new pictures of the area with
sets of ‘before and after’ views
sharply delineated.
As is often the case with Judy’s
writings it is the inconsequential
detail which is the most fascinating,
in this case the number of colonels
at Hove Club in 1897 caught my
eye! The pictures are arranged
in a general geographical order,
although to someone not ‘au fait’
with the topography of the area
a location map would have been
useful.
There seems an imbalance in
the number of images of certain
locations and a similar puzzling
omission of some expected views.
Why three views of Portslade High
Street (two almost identical) but
none of Hove Manor house
Nothing at all of Dyke Road
(or my old grammar school, now
BHASVIC) or of the luxury interwar
housing of Tongdean or Woodland
Drive. There are some typos in
street names.
This is a volume that will be pored
over by both present day residents
and ex-pats and is a useful addition
to the canon of Hove literature.
Floreat Hova!.
Geoffrey Mead
Convenor for Local History
CCE, Sussex Institute
University of Sussex
By Judy Middleton, 2009.
Published by Amberley Publishing.
ISBN 978-1-84868-416-4.
Paperback. 96pp, Price £12.99.
14 Sussex Past & Present December 2009
www.sussexpast.co.uk www.romansinsussex.co.uk Sussex Past & Present December 2009 15