Plans to ‘de-regulate’ Britain ‘Help us repeal bad laws,’ said Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on 1 July, asking the public for feedback on unnecessary legislation the British people would like to see scrapped. One response, published in the Independent on 5 July 2010, was so witty, it deserves a wider audience. ‘In Hereford’s Cathedral […]

The largest hoard of Anglo Saxon gold ever found, was discovered the summer of 2009 by a metal-detectorist in a field in Staffordshire and is set to revolutionise our perceptions of life in the 7th and 8th centuries. With more than 650 items made from gold, and more than 500 in silver this is truly […]

The Portable Antiquities Scheme has today released news of the Frome Hoard, a cache of 52,503 Roman coins dating to the 3rd century, found by metal detectorist Dave Crisp near Frome in Somerset in 2010. Tony Williams, Coroner for Somerset, will hold an inquest today to determine whether the coins can be declared treasure, in […]

Archaeologists have discovered Stonehenge’s little sister, dubbed Bluestonehenge, just 2.8km away on the west bank of the River Avon.

  Dig for Shakespeare The University of Birmingham Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity is an internationally acclaimed research community that brings archaeology and heritage to life. Our research and projects are exciting and diverse, and most recently have involved digging up Shakespeare! A team of archaeologists from Birmingham Archaeology are involved in the ground-breaking investigation […]

Four miles east of Newcastle upon Tyne, Hadrian’s Wall comes to an end. It’s not quite at the sea — Tynemouth is still 4 miles further on, but here the River Tyne is broad enough to allow the Wall to come to an end. Here there is a fort known appropriately as Wallsend from which […]

Chesters is the nicest of the Hadrian’s Wall forts. It lies 20 miles west of Newcastle and forms the beginning of the dramatic central part of Hadrian’s Wall. Chesters is still ‘civilised’: it lies in fertile farm land at the point where the Wall crosses the river North Tyne.

After such sensational discoveries it was inevitable that archaeologists would return to Sutton Hoo. Rupert Bruce-Mitford was the first to pick up where the 1939 team left off, re-excavating Mound 1 and removing the remaining ship rivets in the 1960s.

This was no ordinary burial. The group that gathered on a grassy promontory overlooking the River Deben around AD 625 was participating in a ceremony that is without equal in Britain. First a huge vessel, 27m long and honourably scarred and patched through long service was hauled a mile uphill to the mounds of a […]

Over the last few years, several spectacular hoards have been discovered in Britain in quick succession, the most recent being the magnificent Staffordshire Hoard found in 2009 the Frome Hoard in 2010