The Buildings Archaeologist – Dr James Wright

Discovering the Secrets of Britain’s Ancient Buildings.

Visit any settlement in the land and there will be ancient buildings hidden in plain sight. Behind a Victorian façade is a Tudor house. Underneath a Georgian frontage is a mediaeval cottage. What is now a modern farm may once have been a castle.

We know relatively little about the ancient buildings that surround us, yet buildings archaeology can offer us so many clues for discovering the secrets of hidden historic houses.

This talk looks at the ways in which ancient buildings have been studied and conserved, the puzzling ways that some buildings became listed whereas others were overlooked, and how we can really understand the age and development of a structure.

James will use case studies drawn from his career to explain the fascinating, enigmatic, and surprising world of The Buildings Archaeologist.

: The speaker, James Wright (Triskele Heritage), is an award-winning buildings archaeologist. He has over a quarter of a century professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to find meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the past. He is the author of Historic Building Mythbusting (The History Press, 2024) and The Buildings Archaeologist (The History Press, 2026).