Sutton Hoo

Sutton Hoo is a pair of Anglo-Saxon burial grounds near Woodbridge in Suffolk. The mounds stand on a hill-spur above the tidal River Deben, about 7 miles from the North Sea. Originally they rose higher, but centuries of ploughing have levelled their tops. The site overlooks the upper estuary where Woodbridge once formed the lowest convenient crossing into East Anglia. Nearby lie other 6th-century cemeteries at Rushmere, Little Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. The ship burial uncovered here in 1938 revealed a chamber packed with gold dress fittings, a ceremonial helmet, shield, sword, lyre and silver from the Eastern Roman Empire. Scholars link these treasures with the world of the Old English poem Beowulf and believe the occupant may have been Rædwald, the first king of the East Angles. Basil Brown, a local archaeologist, began the dig before national experts took over. Later excavations found further graves, including a second cemetery 500 metres upstream. Visitors walk among the grassy mounds that mark the burial sites. The National Trust’s visitor centre displays original finds and replicas, including a reconstruction of the ship burial chamber. From the opposite bank the mounds appear as a low ridge against the skyline. The surrounding landscape of fields and waterways evokes the busy trading network of the 7th century.