My brother Richard Darrah, who has died from cancer aged 67, was a well-known experimental archaeologist who specialised in ancient wood and the way it was worked. He carried out some spectacular archaeological reconstructions.
Richard was born in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, eldest of three sons of John, a businessman, and his wife, Elizabeth (nee Smith). Both our parents were interested in archaeology and prehistory; John was the author of The Real Camelot: Paganism and the Arthurian Romances (1981).
Richard studied industrial ceramics at Leeds University and had started a promising career in industry when he was bitten by the experimental archaeology bug, while visiting me and a group of other Cambridge students working on the reconstruction of an Anglo-Saxon village at West Stow, in Suffolk. At that stage, the first two grubenhauses (dwelling houses) were being built and Richard lived in a caravan to keep the project going through the cold winters. As the project expanded, Richard moved into a cottage.
The cottage became the focus of a large group of friends and volunteers who would descend on him for warmth, beer, cheese, ideas and good humour. His beer and sausages summer party was unmissable.
Richard met his future wife, Lee Hooper, when she was learning to coppice at nearby Bradfield Woods. Family life and children then took them to Hodnet in Shropshire, where Richard was involved in several more reconstructions, and later to Norwich.
His greatest project, however, was a reconstruction of the Dover boat, a bronze age craft excavated in Kent in 1992 that was the world’s oldest known sea-going boat. Richard’s half-scale reconstruction was (eventually) a huge success. It has been displayed in many museums around Europe and featured in the Time Team TV programme.
The oak boat leaked badly at first but Richard was able to show that caulking the seams with moss (as shown by the excavation) worked perfectly. His boat is still regularly paddled around the Dover area by a group of enthusiasts.
Richard faced his final illness with characteristic strength of mind and good humour. He is survived by Lee and their children, Rowan and Robin, and by our brother, Peter, and me.
