[3] In 1956, Swinbank began a two-year assistant lectureship at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, covering the history of Europe from the Classical Period to the Dark Ages.

[3] In 1958, she featured alongside Eric Birley, John Gillam and Kate Hodgson in a BBC Home Service broadcast marking 1,800 years' study of Hadrian's Wall.

[3] However, despite her achievements she was not granted a permanent university position, and in the autumn of that year took up an appointment as Assistant History Mistress at Ackworth School,[1] one of a few Quaker educational establishments in England.

[8] In the words of her biographer, these consisted of "rooms full of documents, soil samples, pieces of pottery and bone, 3,000 photographs, chunks of carved stonework and even one large block of dirt weighing several tonnes."

[1] Following Peter's death from prostate cancer in 2010, Swinbank moved to London to be closer to her sons,[3] one of whom, Jeremy Heywood, was the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service.