Summer Courts

I grew up on a farm, which planted the seed of a burning passion to learn about the daily lives of ordinary people in the past. My PhD at the University of Reading focussed on studying the enigmatic site of Lowbury Hill, Oxfordshire, which has traditionally been interpreted as a temple—even though a temple building has never been found there. This project encouraged me to think about the role the site probably played as a gathering place, possibly a marketplace, for people living in the countryside around it.

I have also worked extensively in the history and archaeology of board games, and am particularly interested in how studying play in the past can tell us about the lives of ordinary people. My childhood on a farm also gave me a taste for digging, and I have undertaken archaeological fieldwork in England, Wales, Spain, Italy, and Jordan. I am equally passionate about communicating the past to the general public—after all, what is the point of doing research on ordinary people in the past if you don’t get to share it with ordinary people today?