Dr Jane Grenville OBE

Dr Jane Grenville decided on a career in archaeology at the age of ten when her father bought her the I-Spy Book of Archaeology. She spent her teens and early twenties, when not in formal education, at the bottom of trenches in the UK, France, the Netherlands, Cyprus, Crete, Syria and Libya. She turned her attention to the possibilities of standing buildings as archaeology when working on Anglo-Saxon church sites, and this led her astray into a career in conservation.

She arrived in York in 1984 as part of the team charged with re-surveying the listed buildings of North Yorkshire. In 1991 she joined the Archaeology Department of the University of York where she developed post-graduate education in the Archaeology of Buildings, Heritage Management and Conservation Studies. She changed career again in 2007, moving into management as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Students. When she retired in 2015, she was Deputy Vice-Chancellor.

At last she has managed to return to her true calling and is happily revising the North Riding volume of Sir Nikolaus Pevsner’s magisterial survey of The Buildings of England. She is Vice Chair of York Civic Trust and chairs its Planning Committee, which advises and admonishes the City Council and developers on schemes for the city.