VOL. XVII. (2) EXCURSION— NORTHAMPTON 167 



EXCURSION TO NORTHAMPTON 



Tuesday, July 12th to Thursday, July 14th, 1910 



Directors : H. N. Dixon, M.A., F.L.S. and L. Richardson 

 {Report by L. Richardson) 



Very fine weather favoured this Excursion, those present being the 

 Rev. Walter Butt (Vice-President), Mr L. Richardson [Hon. Secretary), 

 Lieut. -Col. J. C. Duke, Surgeon-Major I. Newton, Messrs F. H. Bretherton, 

 G. M. Currie, J. M. Dixon, O. H. Fowler, H. Haigh, F. T. Pearce, J. W. 

 Skinner and A. E. Smith. 



Most of the Members arrived at Northampton {via Birmingham and 

 Rugby) at 1.25 p.m. on the Tuesday and proceeded to the George Hotel, 

 which was the Headquarters. After lunch they left in a brake and pro- 

 ceeded in a westerly direction through the suburb called St. James' End. 



The first halt was at Watkins's Brickyard, close to the Duston Road. 

 Here Mr Richardson gave a brief outline of the geology of the district. ^ 

 From New Duston the Members drove across country to Hunsbury 

 Hill to see " Danes Camp." This camp is similar to many others in other 

 parts of the country and consists of an area of about four acres, enclosed 

 by a couple of banks with an intervening ditch fifty to sixty feet wide and 

 fifteen feet deep. Although known as " Danes Camp," some think that 

 the Danes had nothing to do with it. Until 1882, little was known about 

 it ; but in that year the ironstone was worked inside and around the 

 camp. The working of the ironstone revealed a multitude of archaeological 

 treasures — " numerous iron weapons and implements, bronze scabbards, 

 bronze ornaments, stone and bone articles, vessels of hand-made pottery, 

 remains of more than four hundred pots of different forms and sizes, portions 

 of more than a hundred querns, or millstones for grinding corn by hand, 

 spindle whorls, bones of man, the red deer, the roe deer, the short-horned 

 ox, the goat, the horse, the pig, the dog, etc." " The whole of the finds," 

 says Mr T. J. George, " belong to the late Celtic period, or pre-historic iron 

 age." Most of the " finds " are in the Northampton Museum, where there 

 is also a truly remarkable collection of flint implements from the neigh- 

 bourhood. 



The next stop was at Eleanor's Cross (PI. XXII., fig. i). This beautiful 

 cross is one of the three remaining crosses of a number that were erected 

 between 1291 and 1294 by Edward I- to mark the resting-places of the body of 

 his Queen on its journey from Harby, in Nottinghamshire (where she died in 

 1290), to Westminster. The other two remaining crosses are at Waltham, 

 in Hertfordshire, and Geddington, in Northamptonshire. 



Passing up Bridge Street, St. John's Hospital was noticed. It is now 

 used as a Roman Catholic place of worship, but was originally erected and 

 endowed in 1138, by the then Archdeacon of Northampton, for the reception 

 and maintenance of the infirm poor. 



On Wednesday, the hotel was left at 9.30 a.m. and the Members drove 

 to Earls Barton, visiting Abington Park on the way in order to see Garrick's 

 Mulberry-tree (Plate XXIV). 



I As the detailed geology of the district has not been fully worked out, the account of this 

 portion of the work accomplished on the e.xcursion is postponed. 



