North Hertfordshire
Baldock
My first ever job as an archaeologist was excavating at the Romano-British ‘small town’ of Baldock. The importance of the site impressed me at the time and has never left me (which is why I'm now back working for the local council!). It's a tragedy that it remains so little known. I am currently working on publishing a basic catalogue of the burials, but after that, there is still an awful lot to be done. In the meantime, I have set up some pages that give an overview of the place, based on a small exhibition I put on at Baldock Museum in 2004-5.
The Norton Community Archaeology Project
Following a succesful and award-winning joint exhibition held by Letchworth Museum and Letchworth Garden City Heritage Museum, it was decided to set up a community archaeology project. My involvement is to provide professional guidance, whilst the participants effectively run the project. These pages give an overview of what has been achieved so far.
Green Lane, Letchworth
In 1988, I co-directed an unusual medieval site to the south-west of Norton, on the edge of Letchworth Garden City. It consisted of a series of cellared buildings, where only the cellars had survived. Occupation seems to have begun in the late seventh century and continued until the thirteenth. It is probably to be identified with a site named in documents as Rodenhanger.
Chester
Chester Roman Amphitheatre
This is a bit of a sticky issue, having become the subject of recent controversy, when building began in 2000 on a new court house that covers 174 m2 of the site (about 2%). I had been working for some time on a Research Design for the site and feel that I perhaps know the monument almost better than anyone. Between 2000 and 2003 I also directed four small-scale research excavations, largely on the site, the first to look at the northern part of the monument in over 30 years.
In 2004-5, a major excavation project was run by my successor at Chester, Dan Garner, together with Tony Wilmott of English Heritage. They confirmed my suspicion that there never was a timber phase and that the postholes in the centre of the arena are post-Roman and have nothing to do with the amphitheatre. They also made some surprising discoveries, summarised on the project website.
Chester Cheese Warehouse (1999 to 2002)
This site lies to the northwest of the city centre, at a point where the River Dee takes a sharp turn to the southwest as it enters the New Cut, an artificial channel dug in the 1730s to improve navigation.
Carden Park (1996 to 2001)
I worked on a research project at Carden Park in Cheshire (England) between 1996 and 2001. It’s a rock shelter site with both prehistoric and eighteenth-century occupation.
St Plegmund’s Well, Mickle Trafford, Cheshire
In early 1995, I carried out a brief survey of a long-neglected but fascinating monument in western Cheshire, a Holy Well associated with a now obscure tenth-century Archbishop of Canterbury. The results were fascinating!
Hamilton Place, Chester (1994)
This site in the centre of the city of Chester was a bit of a pioneering excavation, at least in the city. Although it was multi-period, with a sequence running from Roman to the present day, I decided to concentrate on the later post-medieval (or modern) aspects of the site, in particular, two groups of housing established in the 1850s and demolished in 1939.