THE GEFRIN TRUST - Key Persons
Brian Hope-Taylor, an only child, was born in Surrey on 23 October 1923. Although his father was a solicitor three generations of his family had interests in the arts. Brian trained with George Mackley, a wood engraver. This was to influence Brian's later work with scraper boards. George was to later tell Brian, "You needed no teaching. All that I did was to be present at your learning." Hope-Taylor was born late in the life of his parents and spent considerable time looking after them in their final years. He was devastated as a young man by the death of his fiancé, who was killed in a road accident in New York, and never married.
While in the RAF in 1943 Brian's artistic skills were put to use. He was involved in model making for practice bombing targets based on aerial photography. There were a number of archaeologists among the photo-intelligence staff and Brian became interested in the subject. During his leave time he discovered prehistoric field systems on Farthing Down in Surrey. This led, after the war, to a series of excavations on the Norman motte at Abinger in Surrey which was published in 1956 in The Archaeological Journal.
Brian had been elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1950. He was illustrating books and magazine articles in his clean distinctive style. His earlier work at Abinger led to a study of the Motte of Ur in Dumfries and Galloway. Brian's identification of the Ad Gefrin site from the St. Joseph photographs happened at this time. This coincided with his involvement at another Anglo-Saxon palace site at Old Windsor in Berkshire. Brian spent several challenging winters at Yeavering excavating Edwin's palace; migrating to Berkshire during the summer months to complete the excavations there.
David is Senior Lecturer in the Archaeology of Northern England at Durham University and convenes the Department's North-East England Research Group, having spent time working in commercial and local government archaeology before taking up his post in Durham in 2007. His main research interests focus on the social archaeology of the 1st millennium AD, with a particular focus on the development of Christianity.
As part of this he is carrying out fieldwork on the Holy Island on the site of the Anglo-Saxon monastery of Lindisfarne with collaborators DigVentures, funded through crowd-funding and a series of other grants including one from National Geographic. Whilst most of his current work is focused on the north of England, he has significant research interests in Wales and Scotland, as well as the wider North Sea world.
He has written books on the early medieval church in Wales and a more theoretical consideration of the process of conversion in the early medieval world in Britain and elsewhere. Outside Britain and Ireland he has had a particular long-standing interest in the early church in Brittany and Western Normandy.
In 2011 he was been chosen as one of the winners of BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) inaugural New Generation Thinkers Scheme. He is on the comm ittee of the Chartered Institute for Archaeology's Research and Impact Special Interest Group.
Kate studied Architecture at the Polytechnic of Central London (now Westminster University), Archaeology at Durham University and postgraduate studies in Building Conservation at Bournemouth University with the late John Ashurst.
She recently retired after 35 years in the heritage sector working for various organisations including Historic England, where she led multidisciplinary teams that provided advice, skills and services to support local communities looking after historic places and landscapes in the north of England.
Kate continues to work in the north as a Trustee with the Tyne & Wear Building Preservation Trust helping to care for heritage by supporting change in favour of the adaptive reuse of local assets to maintain and protect our valuable heritage places and spaces. She is also a Professor in Practice with the Department of Archaeology at Durham University. This is a new role that will enable her to share her skills directly with staff and students and to bring her practical experience to the classroom.
Peter's background is in multi-period landscape analysis and has undertaken excavation and fieldwork in the Northumberland Cheviots since 1970.
He has worked for the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England and English Heritage for over twenty-eight years, on projects as varied as Neolithic flint mines and causewayed enclosures, the Stonehenge World Heritage Site landscape, the South-East Northumberland Cheviots, medieval settlements, industrial monuments and Cold War defence sites.
He has also participated in projects led by the US National Park Service in Ohio and Minnesota, and is currently directing a long-term project on the hillfort and its environs on Wether Hill in the Breamish Valley of the Northumberland Cheviots.
He has published extensively and currently co-editing with Dr Julie Gardiner, a new Oxbow Books series entitled ‘American Landscapes' accessible accounts of archaeological/cultural landscapes, defined by region, theme or time periods.
Roger discovered archaeology while a schoolboy in the ‘60s, helping on an excavation at the Roman Fort of Arbeia, South Shields, and the twin monasteries of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow. Graduating in History at Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and later post-graduate studies in archaeology, Roger began work in the Museum of Antiquities/Department of Archaeology, University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. In 1976 he was appointed Principal Keeper of Archaeology for Tyne & Wear Museums Service.
In 1986 he was invited to establish a museums service for the Isle of Skye & Lochalsh district in the Hebrides that might communicate something of the incredibly rich and diverse archaeological and historical heritage of these islands to its communities and visitors. At government reorganisation in 1995 he was appointed Manager of Culture & Leisure. In 1998 he took early retirement and in 2002 returned to Northumberland where he served for ten years as a trustee of The Glendale Gateway Development Trust.
In parallel to this, for many years he was a tutor in Archaeology for the Adult Education Departments of the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne and later the University of Aberdeen. Subsequently he served for a number of years as an Advisory Member of the Northern Board of Scottish Natural Heritage. In 1990 he was co-founder and director of a small publishing house on the Isle of Skye,Maclean Press (https://openlibrary.org/publishers/Maclean_Press), dedicated to producing works on the heritage, history & archaeology of the Hebrides.