Dr Denise Allen

Dr Denise Allen began her archaeological career in the 1970s as an excavator on many British sites. She studied Archaeology at Cardiff University, with a PhD on Roman Glass.

She started working with Andante in 1999, and spent nearly 20 years as a Director of the company, planning tours as well as leading them. She has recently co-written a guidebook: Roman Britain and Where to Find it.

Dr Denise Allen's archaeological career began with excavating a wide variety of sites around Britain. She studied archaeology at Cardiff University and gained her PhD on Roman glass. She has continued to work as a freelance glass specialist ever since, juggling this with family, museum work, lecturing, and also leading archaeological tours to the ancient world.

Her initial involvement with Andante came in the early days as she led our inaugural tours to both Sicily and Tunisia, and she then joined our office staff in 1999, becoming a Director shortly thereafter. Since moving to Devon she organises field visits for the Devon Archaeological Society, and edits their newsletter. She is still one of our most popular and established expert guides, highly commended by our guests.

Denise's publications include many reports on Roman glass, and a popular introduction to the subject: Roman Glass in Britain (Shire 1998). She has recently co-written a guide to Roman Britain, with Mike Bryan, which covers all the sites which are open and accessible to the general public, including museums with Roman artefacts on display: Roman Britain and Where to Find it (Amberley 2020).