Meet our team: Brian Hoggard, Engagement Officer at St Swithun's, Worcester

In this blog series we look forward to introducing our team here at the CCT. We hope you will enjoy learning more about the scope and variety of the work that we do.

This week, Brian Hoggard, Engagement Officer at St Swithun's in Worcester, tells us more about his work on the regeneration project, some interesting details from the church and his research into archaeology, folklore and counter-witchcraft. 

What is your role at CCT?

I am Engagement Officer at St Swithun’s Church in Worcester. We’re in the process of turning St Swithun’s into an arts and music venue as well as heritage attraction. It’s an exciting project involving a lot of historical and archaeological research and a huge amount of learning about audio visual technology.

What is your background? 

I have been a music teacher in schools for 20 years, mainly specialising in guitar, and still run a music education company called Dragon Music. Apart from that I am a researcher and author.

What do you do when you are not working for CCT? 

I have been conducting research into the archaeology, folklore and history of counter-witchcraft since 1999 and have written a book all about it, details at www.apotropaios.co.uk. In normal times I do regular lectures all over the country and sometimes overseas. I also play a lot of guitar!

What it you favourite detail found in a CCT church and where is it?

Probably because I’ve looked at it so many times there is a lovely graffito daisy-wheel symbol with two Marian marks above it in the bell-ringing chamber at St Swithun’s. These symbols were used for protection, one being an ancient solar symbol used to ward off darkness and the other being an invocation to the Virgin Mary. I did one of the lunchtime lectures for CCT where I explain all about it.