Jenni Butterworth

Jenni can't remember how she first got interested in archaeology, but she always quite liked history at school and did her first work experience at Warwick Museum when she was 15, so she was obviously into archaeology by then. She did a degree in archaeology at Bristol University, and in her final year took Mick Aston's monasteries course. After meeting Mick and finding she was interested in the same subjects as him, she decided to do a PhD on monasteries and their estates in the West Country, with Mick as her supervisor. It was while she was working on her PhD that Mick first invited her to do some digging for Time Team. The first programme she did was a monastery she was studying called Templecombe, in Somerset (recorded in 1995). Jenni finished her PhD in 2000, and graduated to become Dr Butterworth in July 2001.

As well as digging, Jenni does development research for Time Team. 'I'm one of the people who reads the letters that people send us – we do read all of them! – and then investigates the ones that look right for the programme. I talk to the people who write to us, to county and district archaeologists, consult English Heritage, and finally I get to visit the sites that we think might be suitable, before reporting back to Tim, the series producer,' she says.

Her favourite part of the job is that it's so varied. 'I get to dig, visit sites, meet lots of interesting people and find out about lots of places I've never even heard of before.'

Jenni Butterworth ceased to be a regular Time Team digger after the 2002 series. She is currently working on other archaeology programmes.