The excavations were directed by Professor Philip Dixon, then of the University of Nottingham (above, now and then). His Assistant Directors were Terry Courtney (right), and Richard Savage (below), the only other people to attended for every one of the 25 seasons. The archive was put together digitally by Steve Vaughan (below right, now and then), who also dug on the site from 1980-93. Below left - some of the team (1981).
Copyright (c) The Crickley Archaeological Hill Trust 1969-2021. The right to use, copy, distribute or otherwise disseminate this material is reserved to those specifically authorised by The Trust.
The Crickley Hill excavation team
A huge team of volunteers were responsible for the excavation and recording of the site. For around six weeks every summer a large team of diggers, many experiencing fieldwork for the first time, came together to dig. Numbers regularly peaked at around 100 on site, with perhaps 250 different people every year. Some came back again and again.
Crickley was always known as a key site for the training of new diggers. Many university courses required a period of practical work, and especially towards then end of the eighties the opportunities for this work became less and less. So Crickley attracted more and more of them. In addition there were A-level students, people working as part of their Duke of Edinburgh award, and many others simply looking for a working holiday.
Supervisors were generally graduates and veterans of the dig. Some took holiday from high paid jobs to supervise each year. Each took care to guide and train their digging team in the techniques, and to try to explain what was being unearthed. The site was always quite challenging to interpret, so this was an important part of the work. As a result of this serious effort to educate, numerous diggers chose to go on to study the subject at University, especially at Nottingham, which was the sponsoring university for the work.
There is a powerful legacy of Crickley still in the archaeology of the UK. Several current professors of archaeology cut their excavating teeth at Crickley. There are County Archaeologists, senior members of the National Trust, English Heritage and several major museums who started on the site. In the years before Time Team, it was perhaps the most important recruitment vehicle for the subject in the UK.
