(Past President, 2005–2010)
Richard Andrew Hall, whose excavations at Coppergate, York, between 1976 and 1981 established him as one of the nation’s experts on the Viking age and one of its most distinguished excavators, died on 13 September 2011. Born in Ilford, Essex, Richard moved with his family to Northern Ireland as a child. Educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and the Queen’s University of Belfast, he read Archaeology under Professor Martyn Jope and was much influenced by the Anglo-Saxon numismatist Michael Dolley. These encouraged him in an undergraduate dissertation that reviewed and reassessed Viking finds in Ireland and confirmed his desire to devote his life to a study of the Viking age. From Belfast he went to the University of Southampton, gaining a doctorate for a study of the towns of the Danelaw. In 1974 Richard was appointed by the York Archaeological Trust as an Excavations Supervisor. He remained with the Trust for the rest of his career, becoming in due course Deputy Director and ultimately Director of Archaeology.
On arrival he declared his intent to dig himself a large part of the Viking town, which he dramatically managed to do in the Coppergate excavation between 1976 and 1981.
The York Archaeological Trust was confronted at the time of his arrival with a large number of rescue excavations on sites of various periods and Richard first dealt with excavations of waterfront Roman warehouses and a street in the cellars of the W. H. Smith Store in Coney Street, then an area of the praetentura of the Roman legionary fortress Eboracum in Stonegate, both dug impeccably and both leading to prompt reports in The Archaeology of York. He also became responsible for an early version of community archaeology, the work of the York Excavation Group, and took on the task of the popular publicising of the Trust’s work through the informal publication Interim (he edited over 80 issues) and eventually through his chairmanship of the Friends of York Archaeological Trust.
One of the Trust’s research priorities, warmly supported by the then Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments Andrew Saunders, was the excavation of a sample area of Jorvik, the Viking age town of York. A large site due for eventual development was identified in Coppergate and a campaign was launched to gain access, raise funds for a major excavation and assemble resources and staff for a long excavation on the deeply stratified site, evidently at the heart of the Viking age city. Magnus Magnusson, TV presenter and Viking expert, led a resource-gathering campaign under the patronage of the Prince of Wales, the Queen of Denmark, the King of Sweden, the Crown Prince of Norway and the President of Iceland. Richard’s excavations did not disappoint, and the progress of his work was followed throughout northern Europe as he demonstrated the impact of colonial Vikings on the development of towns and the revival of economic activity in 10th and 11th century England. Detailed reports followed in The Archaeology of York establishing Coppergate as a prime resource for Viking age archaeology. Meanwhile he played a large part in developing the Jorvik Viking Centre at York, the immensely successful on-site presentation of the results of his excavation which, at his death, had already welcomed almost 17 million visitors.
Richard’s responsibilities at York Archaeological Trust were broader than single excavations and he found himself organising a wide range of projects within and, increasingly latterly, outside York. He developed a particular interest in the archaeology of Ripon, initially through emergency rescue excavations in, of all places, the Anglo-Saxon crypt built by St Wilfrid in the 7th century. Later he was to excavate the area above the crypt, at the east end of the cathedral nave. Outside the church itself he excavated what was evidently the Anglo-Saxon monastic cemetery at Ailcey Hill, correlated previous published and unpublished archaeological discoveries, and carried out various investigations which allowed him to establish the topography of the Anglo-Saxon monastic precinct. He also instituted studies and conservation of the Ripon Charter Horn, reputedly donated to the city in 886. Another contribution to church archaeology came with the excavations carried out under his general supervision at Skipwith church, where the archaeology of the Late Saxon tower was elucidated and, again, efficiently published. His growing expertise in church archaeology led to Richard’s appointment as archaeologist to York Minster where for more than a decade he coordinated research both on the standing structure and on below ground archaeology required during the still on-going major conservation campaign.
Richard’s expertise in so many fields led to a number of general appointments and offices. He was Chairman of the Institute of Field Archaeologists (now Institute for Archaeologists) in its early days, Honorary Secretary and trustee of the Council for British Archaeology, President of the Society for Medieval Archaeology and a member of the Cathedrals Fabric Commission. A British delegate to the Viking Congress for many years, and to the Lubeck conferences on urban archaeology, he was appointed to advisory committees on the excavation of the Viking towns at Kaupang, Norway, and Birka, Sweden. He also played an important role in interpreting Viking archaeology at a popular level, through lecturing regionally, nationally and internationally, television presentations, guided tours and through his books, notably The Viking Dig (1984) and Exploring the World of the Vikings (2007).
Richard was President of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society from 2005–2010. This was a period when the Society was adapting to the new management arrangement set up under his predecessor, and when its headquarters were also being improved and modernised. Richard was the charismatic driving force behind the institution of a new five-year strategy, to encourage members to think about the kind of society they wanted, and to propose ways of achieving their goals. Despite the difficult financial climate of these years, very substantial progress was made under his vigorous leadership, which has given his successors a reliable model on which to build future development.
Richard Hall
P.V. Addyman
Past-President, York
The Society notes the sad death of Elizabeth Berry in 2012; an obituary is in preparation for next year’s YAJ.