The Interview: Professor Richard K Morris

Our past President Richard Morris is a polymath – he read English at Oxford, studied music at York, and then turned to archaeology. He served as the Churches Officer for the CBA, responsible for setting up archaeological advice networks for churches and cathedrals, and later became its Director. He was Director of the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds, Visiting Professor at the University of York and is currently Professor of Conflict and Culture at the University of Huddersfield where he supervises research topics on church archaeology and ecclesiastical geography. He is also the Archaeological Consultant for Beverley Minster. From 1996 to 2005 he served as a Commissioner of English Heritage. He has chaired the Ancient Monuments Advisory Committee for England, the Expert Panel of the Heritage Lottery Fund, and is a former trustee of the National Coal Mining Museum for England. Today he is a trustee of the York Archaeological Trust, the Landscape Research Centre, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, a member of the North-East Committee of the Heritage Lottery Fund and chair of The Blackden Trust in Cheshire, a research centre based on Toad Hall and The Old Medicine House. He is a Frend Medallist of the Society of Antiquaries of London and in 2003 was appointed OBE for services to archaeology. Richard has written extensively on the archaeological study of churches and buildings, and on the historical geography of parish churches. In recent years he has collaborated with Glenn Foard on approaches to the archaeology of medieval and early modern battles. In parallel, he has worked as an historical biographer, and on themes relating to aviation and warfare. As composer and actor, he is one of the key figures in the Abbey Shakespeare Players who have performed each summer for the last 26 years in the ruins of St Dogmael’s Abbey near Cardigan in West Wales, where the west range is the stage and the audience sits in the cloister garth.