Notes on Contributors
NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS
Tim G. Allen, m.a., m.c.i.f.a., f.s.a.: started in archaeology digging with the West Kent Border Group, and his first professional job was for the Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit at Dover, Farningham, Wilmington and Keston. Since graduating in 1979 he has worked for Oxford Archaeology. In 2005 he directed the archaeological excavations along the A21 Pepperhill to Cobham Dualling Scheme, and has also directed evaluations at M2 Junction 5 and at Otterpool, west of Folkestone.
Michael Carter, ph.d., f.s.a., f.r.hist.s.: a medieval historian and art historian, he is senior properties historian at English Heritage. His research is focused on English monasticism in the late Middle Ages, especially the Cistercians, a subject on which he has lectured and published extensively.
Vera W. Gibbons, ariba (dip. arch. canterbury), m.b.a.;
Trevor K. Gibbons, ariba (dip. arch. canterbury): both studied at the Canterbury College of Art, School of Architecture and qualified in 1963 as Chartered Architects. Early in their married life, as residents of Herne, they were founder members of the Herne Society and also participated as volunteers on the Reculver dig in 1965. At this time, Herne Bay librarian, Harold Gough, introduced them to Antoinette (Tony) Powell-Cotton to assist with the Minnis Bay site. Recently they returned to the Powell-Cotton Museum as volunteer researchers with the archaeology collection. Over the last seven years they have provided invaluable assistance in bringing the collection up to the standards set by current museum management practice. More recently, they have focused on research to re-evaluate the work undertaken through the mid-twentieth century by Antoinette Powell-Cotton. This has led to a series of in-house research papers detailing the material excavated from Minnis Bay from the Neolithic through to the Medieval period as well as the importance of Antoinette’s role as a field archaeologist at the time.
Deborah Goacher: has lived near Maidstone for fifty-five years. She has been a member of the Kent Archaeological Society undertaking studies of historic buildings and local history for over twenty-five years; documentary research plays an essential part. Active membership (including excavation) within Maidstone Area Archaeological and Kent Underground Research Groups has enhanced her understanding of the archaeology of structures, relevant geologies, and landscapes. She is keen to promote awareness and availability of resources for research.
Duncan Harrington: is both a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Society of Genealogists and President of the Kent Family History Society. He is a freelance historian and compiles the Kent Records New Series for the KAS. With the late Patricia Hyde he produced two important books on the history of Faversham, Faversham Oyster Fishery and The Early Town Books of Faversham. He has recently published (on CD) Collections for the History of Faversham Abbey which includes a transcript and translation of the Faversham Abbey Leiger Book.
Darren Hopkins: is a freelance researcher into the history of illicit distillation in Colonial Australia, prompted by the discovery in 2014 of the ‘Arcadia Still’, an illicit copper brandy-style still discovered buried and complete on the property once owned by the Irish immigrant and orchardist William Fagan, used by him from about 1850 to about 1875.
Don Lloyd, b.sc., f.i.a.a.: is an Australian actuary who found an interest in family history research after he retired. He has Kentish ancestry on both sides of the law, claiming descent from Alexander Iden the Sheriff of Kent through Ann Plane the wife of the eighteenth-century smuggler Arthur Gray, who was a member of the notorious Hawkhurst Gang and was hanged at Tyburn.
Peter J. Marshall, c.b.e., f.b.a.: was Rhodes Professor of Imperial History at King’s College, London, from 1981 to 1993. He is a former President of the Royal Historical Society. He has published extensively on British involvement in India and around the Atlantic in the eighteenth century and has edited volumes in the collected editions of Edmund Burke’s Correspondence and his Writings and Speeches.
Hayley Nicholls, b.a.: is a Senior Archaeologist at Archaeology South-East (UCL Institute of Archaeology). She graduated from the University of Bristol in 2008 and then spent five years working on developer-funded projects in the south-west of England, before moving to the south-east. Directing the excavation of two large Bronze Age sites in the Chichester region has dominated her time in the last few years and has been the highlight of her career so far.
Matthew Raven: was awarded a doctorate by the University of Hull in 2019 for a thesis entitled ‘The Earls of Edward III, 1330-60: Comital Power in Mid-Fourteenth Century England’. He is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Nottingham, working on a project entitled ‘Earls and Transnational Kingship in the Medieval Plantagenet Empire, c.1300-1400’. He took up this fellowship in October 2020 after a year as the Postan Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research in London.
David J. Shaw, b.a., ph.d., d.litt.: taught French at the University of Kent and was subsequently Secretary of the Consortium of European Research Libraries. He researches the history of printing and libraries. At the Bibliographical Society he has been particularly involved with its publications programme including as Editor-in-Chief of the Cathedral Libraries Catalogue. In retirement he is a researcher and volunteer at Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library.
Kathryn Smith: originally trained as an Orthoptist at Moorfields Eye Hospital then worked at the Kent County Ophthalmic & Aural Hospital in Maidstone. More recently she worked in Schools & Libraries in Kent and the Medway Towns. She has been researching her family history for the past 20 years. After living in Kent for more than 40 years she is now back in her native Hampshire.
Victor Smith, b.a., f.s.a.: read history at King’s College of the University of London where he specialised in War Studies. He is an independent historian and investigator of British historic defences on the mainland and in the Caribbean. He coordinated the KCC’s twentieth-century Defence of Kent Project for the districts reported on to date in Archaeologia Cantiana, and was Director of Thames Defence Heritage from 1975-2011. He has 40 years’ experience of researching, restoring and interpreting historic defence sites, having worked in Southern England, Scotland, Gibraltar, Bermuda and the Caribbean. In 1989 he was General Manager of the Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park in St Kitts. His work in Kent has included, in partnership with Gravesham Borough Council, the restoration and re-armament of New Tavern Fort and the interpretation of a Cold War bunker, both at Gravesend. Current projects are updated studies of the defences of the Thames in general and Tilbury Fort in particular, as well as research into a Second World War anti-aircraft gun battery at Cobham and an industrial air raid shelter complex at Northfleet. He is Acting Chairman of the Society’s Historic Defences Committee.
Christopher Sparey-Green, b.a., m.c.i.f.a.: is a graduate of the Institute of Archaeology, London (1971) and Gordon Childe prizewinner. From 1989 a project officer with the Canterbury Archaeological Trust and currently an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Kent, he has conducted numerous field projects in the Canterbury area. Since retiring in 2011 has undertaken excavation and survey on the earthworks in Homestall Wood. Apart from recent articles on the early Roman military period in Dorset he has continued research on Roman Dorchester, Dorset, and late Antique cemeteries including that adjoining St Martin’s Church, Canterbury. A study of the classical sources for Caesar’s Gallic Wars and the archaeological record from the continent has complemented work on the evidence for the British campaign and on sites at Bigbury Camp, Homestall Wood and in the Deal area which may yet prove vital to understanding the invasions.
Lucy Splarn: is a ph.d. student, funded by CHASE at the University of Kent. Her research focuses on the art, archaeology, and iconography of medieval pilgrim souvenirs. She previously worked as an Archive and Library Assistant at Canterbury Cathedral.
Iain Taylor: after a career in corporate public relations, he completed his ph.d. at Royal Holloway, University of London, in 2010. He is Treasurer of the British Association for Local History, has published articles about the Sevenoaks area in the long nineteenth century in various history journals, including Social History; Rural History; Urban History and the Journal of Victorian Culture. He has also co-authored (with David Killingray) a larger study on West Kent from 1790-1914 which is set to be published this year.
Sean Wallis, b.a., m.c.i.f.a.: has over 20 years’ professional archaeological experience and joined Thames Valley Archaeological Services in 2003, becoming manager of TVAS South in 2009. Excavations in Kent have included Bronze Age and Saxon features in Lenham (TVAS Occas. paper 28), and long-running investigations at Sevenoaks Quarry, but his major work has been outside the county: the Neolithic henge and Saxon burial at St John’s College, Oxford (TVAS Monograph 17) and numerous sites in Sussex.
Imogen Wedd, b.a. (hons), pg.dip.law, m.stud., ph.d.: after finishing her first degree at Sussex University and bringing up her two children, she completed the Common Professional Examination for legal professionals (postgraduate diploma in law), qualified as a company secretary, and worked as finance manager and practice manager for law firms in London and East Anglia. After retiring she returned to university, obtained a Master of Studies degree at Cambridge in 2009 and ph.d. in 2020.
Jake Weekes: coordinated the South East Research Framework for the Historic Environment from 2007-8, before becoming Research Officer for the Canterbury Archaeological Trust. Having developed a good working knowledge of the archaeology of South-East England from the Palaeolithic to the present, he maintains specific research interests in various aspects of British Prehistory, Roman Britain, Funerary Archaeology and Romano-British and early medieval Canterbury. He is co-author of a monograph on Prehistoric Landscapes at Chalk Hill, Ramsgate, co-editor of Death as a Process. The Archaeology of the Roman Funeral, and contributed the chapter on ‘Cemeteries and Funerary Practice’ for the Oxford Handbook of Roman Britain. His most recent major project is the Historic Towns Atlas Historic Map of Canterbury.
Cressida Williams, f.s.a.: is Archives and Library Manager at Canterbury Cathedral. An archivist by profession, she has particular interests in medieval history and ecclesiastical collections.
contributors
CONTRIBUTORS