Our May lecture was given by Ken Welsh, Project Manager of the largest dig in Britain, in advance of the building of Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport. 85 hectares have been completely excavated. Mr Welsh gave us a polished presentation of the story the site has revealed and some of the finds that illustrate it. Perhaps the most striking revelation was that the area has been continuously inhabited since Mesolithic times - 6,500 B.C.- when hunter/gatherers occupied the dry river terraces; cooking pits and flint tools testify to their presence.

The Neolithic period is represented by traces of several monuments, the most notable being the Stanwell cursus - a "ceremonial " way running for several kilometres across the flat landscape. A complex network of Bronze Age field boundaries and trackways has been revealed, indicating that woodland had been cleared so that crops could be grown and domesticated animals kept. A notable find was a large wooden bowl preserved in a well or waterhole.

By the Iron Age the field system was still in use but the Bronze Age scattered dwellings had been superseded by more centralised settlements. House circles were traced and a particularly large one may have been a temple.

The layout of the landscape showed little change thereafter until the late Roman period ( 300-400 A.D.) when much of the earlier layout was re-organised into new paddocks and fields. Even so some of the later mediaeval ditches overlie the Bronze Age boundaries, indicating a remarkable continuity in landscape organisation.

The layout of the landscape showed little change thereafter until the late Roman period ( 300-400 A.D.) when much of the earlier layout was re-organised into new paddocks and fields. Even so some of the later mediaeval ditches overlie the Bronze Age boundaries, indicating a remarkable continuity in landscape organisation.

Mr Welsh's lecture was a fascinating resume of a remarkable dig and afforded a splendid long perspective of the activity on a single, albeit very large, site. Some of the finds may be seen at the Heathrow Visitor Centre and at the Museum of London.

F.W.Flemen