Review by Christopher Catling.
Reading this book reminds me of the University of London’s Warburg Institute Library, which has a unique classification system designed by the library’s founder, Aby Warburg (1866-1929), to encourage serendipitous discovery: looking for one book, your attention might be directed to another volume that takes you in unexpected directions.
Some readers will come to Evensong in search of archaeological reminiscences: the story of how, having excavated York Minster, the author was recruited by Peter Addyman as Secretary to the Churches Committee of the Council for British Archaeology. Richard gives a wry account of working with Warwick Rodwell to excavate the church of St Edmund at Kellington, demonstrating that a church considered unremarkable had a pre-Norman timber predecessor. This led to his seminal work Churches in the Landscape, and to his appointment as Director of the Council for British Archaeology in 1991 in succession to the redoubtable Henry Cleere, when the CBA first moved from London to York.
Excavating the CA Archive: Sutton Hoo revisited