Based at St John's Lodge, Regent's Park, London, and started by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, they were taught by eminent archaeologists including V. Gordon Childe, Kathleen Kenyon, F. E. Zeuner, and Stuart Piggott.
[12] Whilst a student, Pyddoke was appointed a part-time assistant in the Department of European Archaeology, responsible for "arranging and cataloguing the relevant section of the collection".
[13] Pyddoke was a motoring enthusiast, building cars raced at Brooklands with the Bolster brothers,[14][15][16][17] with whom he had been at school; after leaving Tonbridge, he went to work at SU Carburettors in Birmingham.
[22] He was editor, in 1963, of The Scientist and Archaeology, with contributions from Richard J. C. Atkinson, Kenneth Oakley, Edward Thomas Hall, Henry Hodges, and others, a "useful compact book" highlighting how "the biological and physical sciences can enlighten [archaeologists'] interpretations from artifacts and excavation data".
[23][24] Pyddoke was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London; he challenged "with some authority, and with the use of some scientific terminology" the theory that William Shakespeare was buried close to the bank of the River Avon.