Speaker – Dr. Hugh Willmott

Dr. Hugh Willmott has spent three seasons leading excavations in search of the lost buildings of Cerne Abbey, founded by Aethelmaer the Stout in AD 987. He will reveal some of the discoveries made during the project and show how the site shared similarities with the abbey at Sherborne.

About the speaker: Dr. Hugh Willmott studied medieval and early modern archaeology at the University of Durham, completing his PhD in 1999. After a brief period working in commercial archaeology, he was appointed a lecturer in archaeology at the University of Sheffield in 2004 and promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2010. He has directed a number of notable research and student training excavations, such as those at West Halton (2003-9), Thornton Abbey (2011-16), Crowland (2022-23) and Cerne Abbey (2023-present).