AD 700 - Sutton Hoo - Visiting
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| AD 700 - Sutton Hoo |
| The magnificent treasure |
| The excavations |
| Visiting |
| A new cemetery? |
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Visiting Sutton Hoo
For long, Sutton Hoo was in private hands, but in 1998 it was given to the National Trust. A Visitor Centre has been opened, and visitors are now welcome. It is situated off the B10832 road, two miles east of Woodbridge [TM288487]. Here is a short guide to what you may see on your visit.
Click here for the official National Trust web site, with the opening hours.
(Note there is a charge for entering the car park. Opening hours are restricted: it closes at 5 in the summer, and is only open at weekends in the winter. However it is, (I believe) possible to walk round the site even when the Visitor Centre is closed).
Click here for the web pages of the Sutton Hoo society who occasionally conduct excellent guided tours of the site.
Approaching the visitor Centre
The Visitor Centre (which is the dark building on the left) is set in the courtyard of the former stables of Tranmer House
The Visitor Centre
The Centre consists of two buildings, the Exhibition Hall (right) and the shop and cafe (left)
It is a long walk from the Visitor Centre to the Burial Ground - it is said to be only 500 metres, but it feels more like half a mile.
On your right, notice Tranmer House. This is where Mrs Pretty lived, who sponsored the original excavations in 1939, and then gave the treasure to the British Museum. It is now an Educational Centre
Then on your left, notice the glimpses of the River Deben, and imagine what it must have been like to haul a ship up from the river to the burial place.
Eventually the cemetery appear, in the form of Mound 2.
It must be said, it is a little misleading in that Mound 2 is the only mound to have been 'restored' in the course of the recent excavations. It has been restored more or less to its original height, but since none of the other mounds have been restored, mound 2 dominates the whole cemetery.
Mound 2 was never as big, or as important, as Mound 1. It was nevertheless probably the second most important mound, for it too contained a ship burial (probably) though unlike Mound 1, it had been robbed, and therefore no trace remained of the original burial.
The visitors are not allowed to go in among the mounds, but have to keep to the path and walk around the outside.
At first the mounds are barely visible, but gradually the outline of the low mounds become clear
Note the field on the other side of the pathway.
It has a most unusual crop - turf!
Every year it is sown to grass, the grass is mown and made into beautiful turf, which is them lifted and taken off to some lucky garden somewhere.
When the turf is growing it is a lovely grassy sight; after it has been harvested, the field is just bare earth.
The ship mound itself is, after all this, a little disappointing. There is a viewing platform from which it can be viewed - just so you know where it was. The ends of the ship are marked out by two thin posts - one of them can just be seen slightly left of centre. But this is where the greatest treasure ever discovered in Britain, was once buried.
