Historic Properties

London

Archaeological excavation in advance of restoration continued in the gardens of Chiswick House. A second phase of work by the Museum of London Archaeology Service at the Burlington Lane Gate patte d'oie was only partially successful in resolving an apparent conflict between documentary evidence for the alignment of the western allee and the previous season's archaeological findings. A team from Northampton Archaeology re-examined the eighteenth-century Cascade, recording structural features and revealing its original brick culverts together with the remains of lead-lined basins and pipework. Evidence for two shallow niches faced in flint and stone adjacent to the lake was found, but no sign of the ford illustrated in contemporary engravings. Repairs to the nineteenth-century roofs above the outer vestibule of the Westminster Abbey Chapter Houses and St Faith's Chapel provided the opportunity to recover information about their earlier form, the construction of the thirteenth-century vaults, and the sequence of development in this corner of the Abbey. At Kenwood House, rectified photography of the principal interiors was completed. A less conventional project involved the sampling of two spoil heaps next to the former Home Farm scheduled for removal together with building materials from demolished farm outbuildings. They were found to contain many fragments of early twentieth-century ceramics, including cups, saucers, and teapots from Express Dairy tea rooms around London, dumped when the farm was leased by the Dairy from the 1880s. Two cartridges also uncovered may reflect the use of the adjacent quarry as a practice firing range during the First World War.