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Simon Withers: A historical moment creating the spirit of discovery and inspiration

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We talk to Simon Withers, Senior Teaching Fellow in Architecture in the School of Design about his historical discovery and reasons to be #ProudToBeGre

When Simon Withers went to a social function, he never thought it would lead to making a huge historical discovery.  After a chance meeting with archaeologist Peter Moore at an event in the Old Royal Naval College's Painted Hall, Peter asked what he did, "I told him 3D scanning" finding this very interesting he introduced Simon to Jane Sidell, Inspector of Ancient Monuments at Historic England, and it went from there.

Working with Royal Museums Greenwich (RMG) and Wessex Archaeology, using ground penetrating radar to scan in a series of layers they discovered one of the tiltyard towers, a jousting ground of Henry VIII. A huge historical find as they were believed to be positioned elsewhere. 

The discovery is significant for historians as this is the location of the infamous jousting event where Henry VIII fell from his horse and lost consciousness for two hours. Using Captivate has made this historical discovery possible and Simon has made news headlines with his find.  This has led to an exciting opportunity as Captivate are continuing to work on the project and have been granted access by RMG to their estate above and below ground.

Empowering students to bring about seismic changes

Modest about his historical find Simon wanted to focus on the benefits to students at the university.

The Captivate project is one of many fantastic research projects at the university. Simon and the team spent the first lockdown trying and testing software, "we developed workflows for novel technologies that have now been introduced across the School of Design for any student to use'.

The discovery by has been fantastic but it's the workflows developed by Captivate that has really impressed Simon; "what is really exciting is not so much what we do in Captivate but what students can do with that."

Simon is keen to express that such projects create the essence of who we are at the University of Greenwich. Having the ability to create and research means our students have access to technology and research that can bring about seismic changes to the world we live. 

Captivate's project has been one of the several things that is giving an energy and identity to Stockwell Street. It creates the spirit of who we are, the opportunity to inspire and embodies our ambition, creativity, and thirst for discovery.  Everyone should be proud of what we can achieve here at Greenwich.