Publications
Mineral Transport by the Telpher System - The Pioneering Work of Prof. H. C. F. Fleeming-Jenkin (The Story of the Glynde Aerial Railway), by M. I. Pope, published 1987 in Sussex Industrial History (issue no. 17, article, pp.13-20, ISSN: 0263-5151) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16389/17] & The Keep [LIB/506526] Download PDF
Abstract:This is the story of the Telpher aerial electric railway at Glynde, Sussex; also of its inventor and promoter, Prof H C Fleeming-Jenkin. Both are largely forgotten today, yet in their time the construction and operation of this aerial railway created immense interest, which was widely reported in both the technical and popular press.
The most striking evidence of its existence now surviving is the wood-cut engraving shown, which once served as a book illustration. When the Telpher Line opened on 17 October 1885, it became the first electrically powered aerial railway in the world. Even then it incorporated an automatic system of absolute block working, making it physically impossible for two Telpher trains to enter the same section of track. To put this achievement into perspective, it should be remembered that the world's first public electricity supply only came into operation at Godalming, Surrey, on September 1881. Then, less than two years later, the first public passenger carrying electric railway in Great Britain was constructed in Sussex, by Magnus Volk of Brighton. The original line ran for 4 miles along the Brighton sea front in an easterly direction, starting from the Aquarium. It was constructed to a two foot gauge and opened to fare paying passengers on 4 August 1883. Following its immediate success, work started in January 1884 to re-build the line using a 2' 8½" gauge and extend the route to Paston Place, giving a total length of 1400 yards, including a passing loop.
The Telpher system of mineral transport was first patented in 1882 and so dated from the earliest days of the commercial exploitation of electric power. It is this factor which makes the sophistication of the Telpher line at Glynde all the more remarkable.
The most striking evidence of its existence now surviving is the wood-cut engraving shown, which once served as a book illustration. When the Telpher Line opened on 17 October 1885, it became the first electrically powered aerial railway in the world. Even then it incorporated an automatic system of absolute block working, making it physically impossible for two Telpher trains to enter the same section of track. To put this achievement into perspective, it should be remembered that the world's first public electricity supply only came into operation at Godalming, Surrey, on September 1881. Then, less than two years later, the first public passenger carrying electric railway in Great Britain was constructed in Sussex, by Magnus Volk of Brighton. The original line ran for 4 miles along the Brighton sea front in an easterly direction, starting from the Aquarium. It was constructed to a two foot gauge and opened to fare paying passengers on 4 August 1883. Following its immediate success, work started in January 1884 to re-build the line using a 2' 8½" gauge and extend the route to Paston Place, giving a total length of 1400 yards, including a passing loop.
The Telpher system of mineral transport was first patented in 1882 and so dated from the earliest days of the commercial exploitation of electric power. It is this factor which makes the sophistication of the Telpher line at Glynde all the more remarkable.
Boxgrove, West Sussex: Rescue excavations of a Lower Palaeolithic Landsurface (Boxgrove Project B, 1989-91), by M. B. Roberts, S. A. Parfitt, M. I. Pope and F. F. Wenban-Smith, published January 1997 in The Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society (vol. 63, article, pp.303-358) View Online
Abstract:In 1988 an area of 12,000 m2 in Quarry 2 at Boxgrove, West Sussex, was identified as being under threat front gravel and sand extraction. It was decided to sample the threatened area in 1989 with a series of 6 m2 test pits. The results of this survey identified two areas that merited further investigation, and area excavations were carried out at Quarry 2/C and Quarry 2/D in 1990 and 1991 respectively. These concentrated on the main Pleistocene landsurface (Unit 4c) and revealed spreads of knapping debris associated with the production of flint handaxes. Two test pits and area Q2/C produced handaxes, over 90% of which had tranchet sharpening at the distal end. A small amount of core reduction and only a few flake tools were found: these were all from Quarry 2/C. Faunal remains were located in the northern part of the excavations where Unit 4c had a calcareous cover. In Quarry 2/C the bones of C. elaphus and Bison sp. exhibited traces of human modification.
The project employed two methods of artefact retrieval: direct excavation in metre squares and bulk sieving of units within them. Comparison of the results from these methods suggests that, when on-site time is limited, the integration of these methods is a valid technique in both qualitative and quantitative terms for data recovery. The excavated areas are interpreted as a tool-sharpening and butchery site that may have been a fixed and known locale in the landscape (Q2/C), and a location on the periphery of an area of intensive knapping reduction (Q2/D). Sedimentological and microfaunal analyses demonstrate that Unit 4c was formed as a soil in the top of a marine-lagoonal silt, the pedogenic processes being similar to those observed after draining Dutch polder lakes. The palaeoenvironment is interpreted as an area of open grassland with some shrub and bush vegetation. In places the surface of the soil supported small ephemeral pools and flashes. This area of grassland is seen as a corridor for herds of ungulates moving east and west between the sea to the south and the relict cliff and wooded downland block to the north. Within this corridor these herds were preyed upon by various carnivores, and hominids.
The temperate sediments at Boxgrove were deposited in the later part of the Cromerian Complex and immediately pre-date the Anglian Cold Stage; they are therefore around 500,000 years old. The archaeological material from these and overlying cold stage deposits is broadly contemporary with that at High Lodge, Suffolk and Waverley Wood, Warwickshire.
The project employed two methods of artefact retrieval: direct excavation in metre squares and bulk sieving of units within them. Comparison of the results from these methods suggests that, when on-site time is limited, the integration of these methods is a valid technique in both qualitative and quantitative terms for data recovery. The excavated areas are interpreted as a tool-sharpening and butchery site that may have been a fixed and known locale in the landscape (Q2/C), and a location on the periphery of an area of intensive knapping reduction (Q2/D). Sedimentological and microfaunal analyses demonstrate that Unit 4c was formed as a soil in the top of a marine-lagoonal silt, the pedogenic processes being similar to those observed after draining Dutch polder lakes. The palaeoenvironment is interpreted as an area of open grassland with some shrub and bush vegetation. In places the surface of the soil supported small ephemeral pools and flashes. This area of grassland is seen as a corridor for herds of ungulates moving east and west between the sea to the south and the relict cliff and wooded downland block to the north. Within this corridor these herds were preyed upon by various carnivores, and hominids.
The temperate sediments at Boxgrove were deposited in the later part of the Cromerian Complex and immediately pre-date the Anglian Cold Stage; they are therefore around 500,000 years old. The archaeological material from these and overlying cold stage deposits is broadly contemporary with that at High Lodge, Suffolk and Waverley Wood, Warwickshire.
Lower Palaeolithic surface finds from northern scarp of the Downs at Kithurst Hill, near Storrington, West Sussex, by Matthew Pope, published 2000 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 138, shorter article, pp.221-222) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 14509] & The Keep [LIB/500298] & S.A.S. library View Online
Early Upper Palaeolithic archaeology at Beedings, West Sussex: new contexts for Pleistocene archaeology, by Matthew Pope, published 2008 in Archaeology International (vol. 11, article, pp.33-36) View Online
Abstract:The site of Beedings in Sussex was first recognized as the source of some exceptional Upper Palaeolithic flintwork in 1900, but subsequently disappeared from the archaeological literature. In the 1980s it was recognized again, but it was not until 2007-8 that in situ Palaeolithic archaeology was found at the site. In this article, the director of the excavations describes the discovery, within a network of geological fissures, of two separate industries, one Middle Palaeolithic and the other Early Upper Palaeolithic. The archaeology at Beedings spans a crucial cultural transition in the European Palaeolithic and therefore provides an important new dataset for the analysis of late Neanderthal groups in northern Europe and their replacement by modern human populations.
Palaeolithic site at Beedings, by Matt Pope and Caroline Wells, published April 2008 in Sussex Past & Present (no. 114, article, p.8, ISSN: 1357-7417) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/500475] & S.A.S. library View Online
Preview:Summer 2007 saw trial trench excavations by Matt Pope and a volunteer team in the field to the east of Beedings Castle, Nutbourne, near Pulborough, West Sussex.
Discoveries at Beedings, 2008: Multiple occupation on a Wealden Greensand ridge, by Matt Pope and Caroline Wells, published December 2008 in Sussex Past & Present (no. 116, article, p.12, ISSN: 1357-7417) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/500475] & S.A.S. library View Online
Preview:This year's excavations at Beedings, on the Lower Greensand escarpment near Pulborough, West Sussex, has furthered a century of research and speculation concerning a collection of worked flint blades, discovered during construction of a house in 1900. Initially recognised as an Upper Palaeolithic assemblage, it was subsequently discredited and the rump of the assemblage discarded in the 1930s, (perhaps down a well at Lewes castle mound) consigning the site to obscurity. Reconsideration by Roger Jacobi of the remnants of the assemblage in 2007 confirmed this as a peerless example of the earliest Upper Palaeolithic archaeology in northern Europe, yet excavations by Jacobi and Ainsworth failed to find any Palaeolithic material.
Results of archaeological and built heritage investigations along the A27 Southerham to Beddingham and Glynde junction improvements, by Adam Brossler, Matthew Pope and Jamie Preston, published 2009 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 147, short article, pp.211-213) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 17254] & The Keep [LIB/500365] & S.A.S. library View Online
The Valdoe: Archaeology of a Locality within the Boxgrove Paleolandscape, by Matthew Pope, Mark Roberts, Andrew Maxted and Pat Jones, published January 2009 in The Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society (vol. 75, article, pp.265-304) View Online
Abstract:A programme of archaeological assessment, funded through the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund, was undertaken at the Valdoe Quarry in West Sussex ahead of a renewed and final stage of gravel extraction at the site. This paper gives an account of the evidence for human activity recovered in the course of this work. The analysis demonstrates that the Valdoe Quarry contained archaeology relating to the transport and modification of bifaces. These signatures formed part of wider patterns of land-use operated by the same hominin groups found at Boxgrove, within a single, developing palaeolandscape. It is concluded that further activity sites remain to be discovered within the general environs of the Valdoe and the parish of East Lavant where historically there have been surface finds of bifaces.
Commanding position: high-status Late Iron Age and Romano-British occupation of a Wealden ridge at Beedings Hill, West Sussex, by Matt Pope, Caroline Wells, David Rudling, Anna Doherty, Sue Pringle, Louise Rayner and Roberta Tomber, published 2012 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 150, article, pp.71-94) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 18615] & The Keep [LIB/500368] & S.A.S. library View Online
Abstract:This report presents the results of recent excavation and a field-walking survey at Redfolds Farm and Beedings Castle, near Nutbourne, Pulborough. It also publishes for the first time material from this site retained by the late Con Ainsworth. Late Iron Age and early Roman finds of pottery, including imported Dressel 1 amphorae and 'Pulborough' samian, coins and ceramic building material, are reported and discussed. Through the fieldwork and archive reassessment undertaken as part of the Beedings survey, Beedings Hill can now be confirmed as a site with significant high-status Late Iron Age and Romano-British activity. Strong evidence has been identified for trading contacts with the continent in the form of wine amphorae, other ceramics and Late Iron Age coinage. Insights are gained into Iron Age decorated pottery groups and the local production of samian in the 2nd century ad. The significance of this evidence in understanding the distribution of political power in Late Iron Age West Sussex and its transformation under Roman rule are discussed.