Do fundo do mar... Sea bottom
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Christopher Salisbury (passed away November 27, 2004)
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News Telegraph
December 14, 2004
Christopher Salisbury, who died on November 27 aged 75, was a Nottinghamshire GP and a leading expert in waterlogged wood.
For more than 30 years, he took a passionate interest in the archaeology of the River Trent, excavating the bottom of gravel quarries along its course while professional archaeologists chose to excavate the former river terraces at the top of the quarries.
Salisbury's approach proved more fruitful, yielding the discovery of Viking and Norman fish traps in the early 1970s. In the 1990s he found the remains of four medieval bridges at Hemington, for which he was named Archaeologist of the Year in 1994 at the British Archaeological Awards; he also won the Pitt-Rivers Award for best amateur project.
Salisbury also discovered a mill, two log boats at Shardlow, and most recently, possibly his most significant find, evidence of a great surface expanse of water at Aston on Trent which makes sense of a complex of ritual monuments that had previously been found there.
Christopher Ronald Salisbury, the son of an electrical engineer, was born at Kenilworth on October 12 1929 and grew up at Royal Leamington Spa. He went to Warwick School and read Medicine at Birmingham University, before doing his National Service with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Hong Kong and in Malaya during the Communist insurgency.
After returning to Nottingham he set up in general practice with his first wife Maxine (née Sunderland), whom he married in 1958. Although a gentle, kind character, he did not believe in prescribing drugs for patients who came to him with no detectable physical symptoms, and he was among the first GPs to warn against the addictiveness of tranquillisers.
Having already begun his work in the gravel quarries, in 1968 Salisbury became a founder member of the Nottingham Historical and Archaeological Society, formed to preserve the city's unique network of man-made subterranean caves. His award-winning photographs of the caves were later used to promote them as a tourist attraction.
His researches in the Trent quarries became widely known over the next 25 years, from his lectures and through the many articles he wrote and illustrated for leading archaeological journals here and in America. Using material he had collected, a Tree Ring Dating Laboratory was founded at the University of Nottingham. His observations of the Trent quarries enabled him to chart and date the river's various meaderings over millennia.
Christopher Salisbury retired as a GP in 1992 to devote more time to archaeology, his knowledge of which he was always happy to share. He was appointed a research associate at the Archaeology Department at the University of Nottingham.
His pet project at the time of his death was the restoration of Fishpond Wood at Owthorpe, a unique system of fish ponds dating from the English Civil War. The ponds had once been part of the estate of Colonel John Hutchinson, who defended Nottingham against the Royalists in 1643, and were described in the memoir of his wife Lucy. Salisbury greatly admired Lucy Hutchinson and heard the rustling of her skirt as he went about his work.
Salisbury's first marriage was dissolved in 1988, when he married, secondly, Hazel Wheeler, a professional archaeologist with the Trent Valley Archaeological Society Research Committee. She survives him, with a son and daughter from his first marriage.
News Telegraph
December 14, 2004
Christopher Salisbury, who died on November 27 aged 75, was a Nottinghamshire GP and a leading expert in waterlogged wood.
For more than 30 years, he took a passionate interest in the archaeology of the River Trent, excavating the bottom of gravel quarries along its course while professional archaeologists chose to excavate the former river terraces at the top of the quarries.
Salisbury's approach proved more fruitful, yielding the discovery of Viking and Norman fish traps in the early 1970s. In the 1990s he found the remains of four medieval bridges at Hemington, for which he was named Archaeologist of the Year in 1994 at the British Archaeological Awards; he also won the Pitt-Rivers Award for best amateur project.
Salisbury also discovered a mill, two log boats at Shardlow, and most recently, possibly his most significant find, evidence of a great surface expanse of water at Aston on Trent which makes sense of a complex of ritual monuments that had previously been found there.
Christopher Ronald Salisbury, the son of an electrical engineer, was born at Kenilworth on October 12 1929 and grew up at Royal Leamington Spa. He went to Warwick School and read Medicine at Birmingham University, before doing his National Service with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Hong Kong and in Malaya during the Communist insurgency.
After returning to Nottingham he set up in general practice with his first wife Maxine (née Sunderland), whom he married in 1958. Although a gentle, kind character, he did not believe in prescribing drugs for patients who came to him with no detectable physical symptoms, and he was among the first GPs to warn against the addictiveness of tranquillisers.
Having already begun his work in the gravel quarries, in 1968 Salisbury became a founder member of the Nottingham Historical and Archaeological Society, formed to preserve the city's unique network of man-made subterranean caves. His award-winning photographs of the caves were later used to promote them as a tourist attraction.
His researches in the Trent quarries became widely known over the next 25 years, from his lectures and through the many articles he wrote and illustrated for leading archaeological journals here and in America. Using material he had collected, a Tree Ring Dating Laboratory was founded at the University of Nottingham. His observations of the Trent quarries enabled him to chart and date the river's various meaderings over millennia.
Christopher Salisbury retired as a GP in 1992 to devote more time to archaeology, his knowledge of which he was always happy to share. He was appointed a research associate at the Archaeology Department at the University of Nottingham.
His pet project at the time of his death was the restoration of Fishpond Wood at Owthorpe, a unique system of fish ponds dating from the English Civil War. The ponds had once been part of the estate of Colonel John Hutchinson, who defended Nottingham against the Royalists in 1643, and were described in the memoir of his wife Lucy. Salisbury greatly admired Lucy Hutchinson and heard the rustling of her skirt as he went about his work.
Salisbury's first marriage was dissolved in 1988, when he married, secondly, Hazel Wheeler, a professional archaeologist with the Trent Valley Archaeological Society Research Committee. She survives him, with a son and daughter from his first marriage.
