Richard's Powerful Passion For 'Arc' (5 August 1978)

When I called at the Gazette office the other week I was told that a Mr. Richard Griffiths, from the Bradwell Abbey Field Centre, had been asking after me and did I know him?

Oh yes, I knew him very well up to my retirement over five years ago, but I understood that he had returned to his native Shropshire three or four years ago.  So what was he doing back here?

I must explain that Richard’s abiding interest – you might say his passion – is archaeology (and,if I have to use that word, or anything like it, again in the course of this piece, I shall denote it simply as “arc”).

His interest was aroused at the tender age of ten.  He was walking in a field near his home when he picked up an unusual object.  The famous Roman site of Wroxeter was in the vicinity and Richard’s find was diagnosed as a Roman relic and was taken by a museum.

Thus early was he launched into the mysterious world of amphorae and tesserae, frustrated only by the fact that he always had his living to make as well.

Various jobs took him to various parts of the country and when he arrived in Bletchley about 20 years ago I think it was as a railwayman, but for his later years he was in the ambulance service at Leighton Buzzard, fitting in his arc with his shift work.

With his bull-like neck and shoulders he does not look like the usual picture of a student.  Yet he has digested most of the books and he reached a peak of recognition while still at Bletchley when he was asked to lecture at Keele University.

His greatest asset is his extraordinary eye for all things arc.  He seems positively to smell hitherto unknown sites.  But he doesn’t.  It is his eye.  The same eye that attracted his attention to his first find 40 years ago.  When he first began walking over the district he saw at once that it was rich in arc remains.  There were signs like various mounds, tumps and field “platforms”, which would have been obvious to most of us as being worth investigating, but there were other signs which I, for one, could never have seen, but which invariably turned up trumps.

He allied himself with others of like mind, but there were many cases in which he himself made the original discovery.  What bothered him was the amount of bulldozing and building going on, not only in Bletchley and later in the Milton Keynes city area, but also out in the villages, along with other ground disturbances like the laying of the natural gas main across the district.  He felt time was running out and he set about acting.

As he became better known he was usually able to enlist a small band of helpers, notably from the Wolverton Arc Society, but one of his first investigations was into the well-known Wavendon mound, where I think his helpers were girls from the Bletchley Park Women Teachers’ Training College.  The bulldozer was only a yard or two away when he left some sites.

So far as Bletchley is concerned, perhaps his most notable achievement was the discovery of a whole string of villas (a word meaning anything from the smallest kind of farmstead to one with numerous outbuildings) reaching from Sherwood Drive to Windmill Hill and then to various spots in Newton Longville.

In the circumstances Richard and his associates were unable to do all they would like to have done on the sites.  But the various finds were all noted, and roughly classified and he estimates that when he left the district no fewer than two tons of significant material had been deposited at the country museum, with a view to it being brought back when a suitable museum is provided in Milton Keynes.

One important area for Richard was Newton Longville and the Records of Bucks for 1973, volume 3, contains a long report compiled by himself and Mrs. Josie Southernland, on some 23 sites in the parish, together with a small map showing the old cultivation strips and two medieval roads which no longer exist.

Especially interesting is the reference to the former mound known as Hangman’s Hill, which stood close by a former crossroads.  Although there had been some previous disturbance, including the discovery of skeletons, this new investigation showed that the mound was constructed in the 12^th century from soil dug from a surrounding ditch.  It was intended “perhaps” as a stronghold and was occupied for only a short period.

GIBBET

In the 13^th century a windmill was built on the summit, but after this had burnt down in the 14^th century the area was abandoned.  The ditch silted up and the erosion was hastened many years later when a gibbet was erected and criminals were hanged there.  (The gibbet was still there in the time of Browne Willis in 1731, but he wrote of it as if it were then an old curiosity.)

Some bits of Road pottery were also found, but these were judged to be residual, though they did suggest Roman occupation of some site nearby.

Now that is what call real arc expertise.  There is a copy of this record in the reference room of the county library at Bletchley, which no future historian of Newton can afford to miss.

Another of Richard’s discoveries was the remains of the original manor house at Whaddon, which was built after the Conquest and was visited by Elizabeth 1 some centuries later.  It was about an acre in extent and apparently part was already crumbling when the queen was entertained there.

I met Richard early in his Bletchley career and asked him to get in touch with me whenever he found a new site.  No long period ever passed without a word from him.  I visited many of the sites with him and think I must have reported pretty well in non-arc terms or he wouldn’t have kept coming.

Now I found him at the field centre, still going through the materials found at Whaddon Manor about ten years ago and compiling a detailed report, presumably for the Records of Bucks.  He had spent his holidays there from time to time, but this time he hoped to reach the stage where he could leave the job for completing by one of the centre’s staff.

The Whaddon finds, he says, will stay at the centre along with those many others made by the similarly skilled people there.

These days he is active in his native parts, but he wishes they had a field centre like Bradwell.