Carenza Lewis
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
archaeologist
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
who became famous as a result of her appearances on the Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
series
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
Time Team
Time Team
Time Team is a British television series which has been aired on Channel 4 since 1994. Created by television producer Tim Taylor and presented by actor Tony Robinson, each episode features a team of specialists carrying out an archaeological dig over a period of three days, with Robinson explaining...
.
Educated at All Hallows Convent School, Norfolk (Anglican) and the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, in 1985 she joined the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England
Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England
The Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England was the body formerly responsible for documenting the records of English historical monuments. It was merged with English Heritage on 1 April 1999....
(now part of English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
) as a field archaeologist for Wessex
Wessex
The Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...
. During part of her time with the RCHME she was seconded to the History Department of the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
to research the relationship between settlement and landscape in the East Midlands
East Midlands
The East Midlands is one of the regions of England, consisting of most of the eastern half of the traditional region of the Midlands. It encompasses the combined area of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire and most of Lincolnshire...
. She followed this with a similar project for Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
and the Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
. In 1999 she was elected a visiting fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Corpus Christi College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is notable as the only college founded by Cambridge townspeople: it was established in 1352 by the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary...
and is a Preceptor in Archaeology. In 2004 she took on a new post at Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
to promote undergraduate archaeology, and created Access Cambridge Archaeology.
In 1993 she joined the team creating the first Time Team
Time Team
Time Team is a British television series which has been aired on Channel 4 since 1994. Created by television producer Tim Taylor and presented by actor Tony Robinson, each episode features a team of specialists carrying out an archaeological dig over a period of three days, with Robinson explaining...
series, shown in 1994. The success of Time Team encouraged the production of other programmes in similar formats, such as House Detectives by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. In 2002 House Detectives at Large starred Carenza Lewis with architectural historian Dan Cruickshank
Dan Cruickshank
Dan Cruickshank is an art historian and BBC television presenter.-Early life:As a young child he lived for some years in Poland...
. She also devised and presented a series called Sacred Sites for HTV
HTV
HTV, now legally known as ITV Wales & West, is the ITV contractor for Wales and the West of England, which operated from studios in Cardiff and Bristol. The company provided commercial television for the dual-region 'Wales and West' franchise, which it won from TWW in 1968...
. She left Time Team after series 12, filmed in 2004, and returned to television in the 2010 series 'Michael Wood's Story of England.
Carenza Lewis is widely admired for going public about her experience when she was wrongly diagnosed with breast cancer
Breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...
by Dr. James Elwood
James Elwood
James Stanley Elwood was a British physician responsible for 222 cancer misdiagnoses between 1995 and 2000.Elwood graduated with bachelor's degrees in medicine and surgery from the University of Belfast in 1943....
in 1997 and had an unnecessary double mastectomy
Mastectomy
Mastectomy is the medical term for the surgical removal of one or both breasts, partially or completely. Mastectomy is usually done to treat breast cancer; in some cases, women and some men believed to be at high risk of breast cancer have the operation prophylactically, that is, to prevent cancer...
.
Works
- Aston, MickMick AstonProfessor Michael Antony 'Mick' Aston is a prominent English archaeologist. As an academic, he has taught at a number of universities across the United Kingdom, and has helped popularise the discipline amongst the British public by appearing as the resident academic on the Channel 4 television...
and Lewis, Carenza (eds.) (1994) The Medieval Landscape of Wessex Oxford: Oxbow - Lewis, Carenza, Mitchell-Fox, Patrick and Dyer, ChristopherChristopher DyerChristopher Charles Dyer CBE FBA is Leverhulme Emeritus Professor of Regional and Local History and director of the Centre for English Local History at the University of Leicester, England.-Background:...
(1997) Village, Hamlet and Field: Changing Medieval Settlements in Central England Manchester University Press - Lewis, Carenza, Harding, PhilPhil Harding (archaeologist)Philip Harding is a British field archaeologist. He has become a familiar face on the Channel 4 television series Time Team...
and Aston, MickMick AstonProfessor Michael Antony 'Mick' Aston is a prominent English archaeologist. As an academic, he has taught at a number of universities across the United Kingdom, and has helped popularise the discipline amongst the British public by appearing as the resident academic on the Channel 4 television...
, (2000) Time Team's Timechester: a companion to archaeology; ed. Tim TaylorTimothy Taylor (archaeologist)Timothy Taylor is a lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Bradford in the UK, and an author of popular books on anthropology. He has presented his work frequently on television...
London: Macmillan - Aberg, Alan and Lewis, Carenza (eds.) (2000) The Rising Tide: Archaeology and Coastal Landscapes Oxford: Oxbow