Saturday, February 2, 2013

Dr Christopher Phillpotts, MA (London), PhD (Liverpool), BA (York) AIFA, FSA

It is with the greatest regret that Crickley Hill Man records the death, peacefully on 27 January 2013, of his dear friend known on this blog as Dr Phillpotts or The Chronicler. Our sympathies go to his family.

Dr Iain Ferris has kindly drawn my attention to the following item in the newsletter of the Society of Antiquaries of London: "Finally, the Society has been informed of the sad news of the death of our Fellow Christopher Phillpotts, who was elected as recently as 1 November 2012 and who was one of the authors of the paper on ‘The King’s High Table at the Palace of Westminster’ published in last year’s Antiquaries Journal. Christopher was widely known as a specialist in medieval towns, to whose history and archaeology he brought extensive field experience combined with palaeographical skills in medieval French and Latin. He contributed many specialist reports and papers to monographs and journals on the London suburbs of Spitalfields, Shoreditch and Southwark, on medieval Winchester, Kingston, Uxbridge, Northampton, Bristol, Bath and Newport (Gwent)."

Chris dug at Crickley for many seasons and it was a rare summer when he did not put in an appearance. His first season was 1972 , an account of which appears here. As he wrote then this was his first publication. I've found at least the first page of his next publication in the 1984 EHR:



He worked for the Museum of London Archaeological Service for many years and then practised as a consultant in history and archaeology. I have compiled an online bibliography of some of his work set out below

Books to which he contributed as author or joint author:


Winchester Palace: Excavations at the Southwark Residence of the Bishops of Winchester






A Quietly Active Community: The Historyof the Kennet Centre, Newbury

Charter Quay: The Spirit of Change - TheArchaeology of Kingston's Riverside


Other articles by Dr Phillpotts include








His entry in British and Irish Archaeological bibliography shows further the breadth of the assessments and studies he wrote over the years.

He will be much missed.

Chris at Conwy Castle, September 2012