Excursion to Homerton. Saturday, May 5th, 1883 - Geologists' Association excursion

Figure 50 Vertical sections of the gravels of Hackney.

Figure 51 Section across the valleys of the Hackney Brook and the Lea.

Figure 52 Section in Stoke Newington Pit

Figure 53 Section west of Kyverdale Road, Stoke Newington.

Figure 54 Section showing "Warp and Trail", Stoke Newington.

Figure 55 Small and beautifully-made flint implement.

Figure 56 Small and beautifully-made flint implement.

Figure 57 Abraded quartz hammer-stone.

Figure 58 The implements from the twelve-foot stratum of Thames gravel are sub-abraded, lustrous and of greater age than the foregoing ; one of these, now in the collection of Dr. Evans

Figure 59 At depths of 20 feet, and sometimes 30 feet, other gravel occurs with still older, more greatly abraded, and ochreous implements ; one of which, from the east side of the Lea, at Leyton, Essex

Director: Worthington G. Smith, F.L.S. (Proc. Vol. viii. p. 124.)

The object of the excursion was the examination of the Palæolithic localities discovered in the Lea Valley. The party was met at the Homerton Station of the North London Railway by the Director, and conducted to the western bank of the Lea, where the new buildings belonging to the School Board in Sydney Road had been erected.

The river-terrace is here 33 feet above the level of the Lea, and the opposite terrace on the eastern side of the Lea in Essex was seen exactly a mile and a half away. Mr. Smith explained that other terraces were more than 90 feet higher than the surface of the Lea and correspondingly wider apart. These heights were referred to as indicative of what great change had taken place since Palæolithic times in the excavation of the wide and deep Lea Valley. The Director stated that very few implements were found in the valley lower than the 33-feet terrace on which they then stood. Stray examples were now and then found in the lower levels, but the evidence indicated to him that there was some sort of break in the continuity of the Palæolithic age at the time of the formation of the 33-feet terrace. He said that the gravel and sand there seen in the open excavations was of various depths, sometimes 12 feet and at others 30 feet, and that it rested on the London Clay. The implements are not common on the 33-feet terrace, and, as a rule, they are all abraded and ochreous. Mr. Smith called special attention to the "warp and trail," the ice-deposited material which he said covered nearly all the north-east of London. This " warp and trail" does not, however, go under the Lea; it gradually thins off further down in the valley, and by its deposition seems to indicate that it followed a natural depression belonging to an old surface into which the Lea afterwards ran. All the implements are older than the deposition of the "warp and trail," and enormously older than the Lea as known in modern and Neolithic times. As a proof that the valley had not materially changed since Neolithic times, he instanced the finding of Neolithic celts and other tools just beneath the surface humus at the bottom of the present valley. On the 33-feet terrace, one of the visitors found an implement, broken in Palæolithic times, in gravel thrown on a new road close to the schools.

The valley was then descended, and a pit visited almost on a level with the river, in which little of human origin had ever been found. From here the bank was again ascended to Glyn Road, Lower Clapton, and the party went to see two exceedingly fine Palæolithic implements found close by.

The implements were found by gravel-diggers many years ago, and the men, not knowing what they were, were struck with their beautiful forms and geometrical precision of outline. The workmen sold them to Mr. Poole (their present owner) as ornamental objects,

The party then made their way to Clarence Road, about 57 feet above the Lea, and everywhere—on looking eastwards down the streets—corresponding heights could be seen across the Lea in Essex.

The collection of Mr. J. E. Greenhill, in the Clarence Road, was then inspected. This collection is a notable one, as it numbers more than three hundred weapons and tools recently acquired in the Clapton district; the quest not having been commenced by Mr. Greenhill till two years after Mr. Smith's paper on the implements of the Lea Valley was read before the Anthropological Institute. Mr. Greenhill then conducted the party to the brick-pit at Upper Clapton, just east of the Clapton Railway Station. The surface here is 44 feet above the Lea, and the brick-earth is rich in Mammalian remains. These were studied for several years by Dr. Cooke, of Stoke Newington, and many examples from this collection are now in the Museum of Natural History at South Kensington. Mr. Greenhill explained the nature of the beds, and gave his own experience of the fossil bones contained in the brick-earth.

From these pits the party made straight for Stoke Newington Common, the scene of the more interesting of Mr. Smith's discoveries, as here he lighted on an undoubted Palæolithic settlement of great extent, the sandy floor or working place remaining to this day just as it was left by the Palæolithic men who lived on the spot before the thick, tenacious, ice-laid deposit known as " warp and trail" was deposited.

At the time of the visit the excavations were not numerous or deep; indeed Mr. Smith explained that large and deep excavations were seldom seen. The examples open were, however, sufficient to show the nature of the deposits, including the seam representing the "Palæolithic Floor." The accompanying illustration (Figure 53) shows a section, 300 feet long from N. to S., through the back gardens on the western side of Kyverdale Road; drawn by Mr. Smith when the excavations were made for the basements of the houses and the drains. The surface of the ground at the south is 83ft. 3in. above Ordnance Datum, and at the north 90ft. 6in. At from 4ft. to 6ft. from the surface there is a thin stratum of sub-angular flints, shown by the line A A A. This is the "Palæolithic Floor," or working-place, 60 feet of which is further enlarged to scale in the lower part of the illustration : B is Thames gravel much older than the " Floor," and containing slightly abraded lustrous implements; and C is fine sand, often full of fossil fresh-water shells, including Corbicula fluminalis (Mull.) and Hydrobia marginata (Mich.). D D D is the "Palæolithic Floor," on which rest hundreds of Palæolithic implements and flakes as sharp as on the day they were made, quartzite hammer-stones with ends abraded off; fossil-bones, antlers, teeth, &c. Above the "Floor" D D, is sandy loam, loamy sand, and distinct "warp and trail" where it has not been removed for brick-making, &c. A characteristic section of "warp and trail " is shown in Figure 54. The base, A, is generally about 12 feet from the surface, and agrees with stratum B in Figure 1. C to M are various deposits of white and coloured sand. The "Palæolithic Floor " is here almost obliterated, but its position is between M and N. The "warp and trail" is seen at O and Q, whilst P is a pocket of London Clay. R is surface humus, containing Neolithic implements, bone-tools, British and Roman pottery, Roman coins, and other objects of more recent date.

Figure. 55 and Figure 56 illustrate two small and beautifully-made implements, and Figure 57 an abraded quartzite hammerstone; all one-half real size, and (except Figure 56) now in the collection of Dr. John Evans. The implements from the twelve-foot stratum of Thames gravel are sub-abraded, lustrous and of greater age than the foregoing; one of these, now in the collection of Dr. Evans, is illustrated, one-half real size, by Figure 58. At depths of 20 feet, and sometimes 30 feet, other gravel occurs with still older, more greatly abraded, and ochreous implements; one of which, from the east side of the Lea, at Leyton, Essex, is illustrated at Figure 59. The localities and implements have been described and illustrated by Mr. Smith in "Nature" (Oct. 12, 1882, and Jan. 18, 1883), and more fully in the "Trans. Essex Field Club," vol. iii. part 7. Mr. Smith directed special attention to a small excavation at the S.W. end of Kyverdale Road, partly filled in with surface humus at the time of the visit, where the line of the " Palæolithic Floor" was defaced by the material which had been thrown in. When this small excavation was re-opened a few days after the visit the workmen lighted on many excellent implements and flakes, at least ten or a dozen of the former, and more than a hundred of the latter. Three or four of the implements were the finest yet found in north-east London; these were acquired by Mr. J. E. Greenhill. North-east London has produced nearly 1,000 implements since 1878 [to 1883].

From Kyverdale Road the party walked to Mr. Smith's house at Highbury, where about 1,000 implements had been laid out for inspection. These included 300 or 400 from the localities visited during the -afternoon, and others from nearly every known locality in England. Hammer-stones, scrapers, cores, &c., from the "Palæolithic Floor," were also laid out so as to be easy of inspection, together with fossil bones (including the scapula of a Mammoth in contact with an unabraded implement), flakes, drift-wood, fossil shells, and two scraper-flakes which had been struck from the same block of flint in Palxolithic times, and had been replaced by Mr. Smith.

Maps

Ordnance Survey. Geological. Sheet 1. 125.

New Ordnance Survey. Sheets 256, 257. 1s. each.

Books

W. Whitaker, Geology of London, 2 vols., 8vo, London (Geol. Surv.). 1889. 11s. [For literature.] W. G. Smith. (Papers enumerated in above text.)

B. B. Woodward, Pleistocene (non-marine) Mollusca of the London District, Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xi. 1890, p. 335.

A. S. Woodward and C. D. Sherborn, Catalogue of British Fossil Vertebrata, 8vo, London. 1890.