Spirits of Place at Sutton Hoo

Perhaps we had offended the king. We were stood on top of burial mound 1 at Sutton Hoo when a rain cloud suddenly blew in from off the coast and drenched us. That'll teach me to clamber over scheduled monuments with such enthusiasm (and also not to wear the right clothes for the outdoors).

 

The view from Mound 1

I was visiting Sutton Hoo in the company of Martin, property manager, finding out about what makes this such a special place. Luckily soon after the rain started falling we spotted Les and a team of volunteers in the woods, all heading for a wooden shepherd’s hut to take shelter. We were invited in while the squall died down.

Les's Shepherd's Hut at Sutton Hoo

Sutton Hoo is a fascinating place. But what is it? The wooden posts on arrival declare it to be a royal landscape, a burial ground of an Anglo-Saxon warlord (in around AD625). But it is also the scene of one of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century.

The story of archaeologist Basil Brown and his investigations under the patronage of the landowner, Mrs Edith Pretty, is well known to many. Brown was supplanted halfway through the investigations in the summer of 1939 by a team of archaeologists from Cambridge University under Charles Phillips. The story is entertainingly retold in John Preston’s novel, The Dig­  - well worth a read.

Basil looks on while Charles Phillips' team carry on the dig in 1939

So much at Sutton Hoo oscillates between the real and the recreated, the old and the new, the past and the present. The visitor centre was opened around 11 years ago, and contains fascinating original pieces from the archaeological work that has gone on at the site. The rest is very high quality facsimile – swords, helmets and other metalwork.

The real thing: a sword taken from a burial at Sutton Hoo

Nearby Tranmer House, now open to the public, is just over a hundred years old and was built originally as a hunting lodge. From it, the burial mounds are directly visible. It is possible to imagine that the finds came to the dining room here after they were removed from the mounds in 1939. Martin has started thinking about how best to present the house, the visitor centre and the mounds themselves as a whole, working with a fantastically committed and welcoming team.

Sutton Hoo Visitor Centre: our new walk-through recreation of the ship burial

It was great to hear of the work underway to restore the view from Mrs Pretty’s sitting room, unimpeded by power lines. I loved seeing her binoculars on display and thinking of her gazing out here, before and during the archaeological investigations.

Mrs Pretty's binoculars, with Mound 2 in the distance

Mrs Pretty was a keen spiritualist, and it was said that she had seen spectral figures on the mounds, including a man on a white horse. Perhaps the binoculars have special powers, like those in the ghost story – helping to bring Sutton Hoo’s spirits of place to life.