Cyril Francis Wardale

Cyril Wardale was born in Cricklewood, north London, on 7 November 1923. At the age of seventeen he advanced his age and enlisted in the Royal Corps of Signals, serving in the North African campaign, in Sicily and through Italy. Demobilised in 1946 he thought of joining the Metropolitan Police but an advertisement for recruits to the Ordnance Survey led him to change his mind. After training as a surveyor, he worked in a Large Scales survey section in north London, where he stayed until a vacancy arose in the Small Scales Division, revising the one-inch-to-the-mile maps.

He had always been interested in archaeology and, when the opportunity arose in 1956, he transferred to the Archaeology Branch under Charles Phillips. After initial training he became a field investigator and spent the rest of his working life surveying archaeological sites. His topographical knowledge of Britain was considerable and his attention to detail and the interpretation of complex sites was unsurpassed, as was his skill as a draughtsman. Some of his best-known surveys are of Stonehenge and Tintagel and in 1972 he was appointed head of the field-survey teams for England and Wales. In 1983, he and most of the staff were transferred to the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England and he retired five years later.

Wardale was a devoted family man and his last years were spent conventionally on the golf course, listening to his impressive collection of classical music tapes and CDs, and enjoying social life among his large circle of friends who benefited from his generosity and great sense of humour. He died on 23 June 2000.