The Ham Nomads

16 Oct 2014. <GB-ENG> Woodbridge (Sutton Hoo), & Flatford, East Bergholt, Suff —

Okay — today we decided to continue with our touring, and we went to an amazing site. We decided to visit Sutton Hoo, just outside Ipswich. This was the site of the most incredible archaeological find in 1939. That year, Edith Pretty, who lived in the house at Sutton Hoo, contacted Ipswich Museum suggesting that the mounds in her back yard might be worth digging in. The archaeologist Basil Brown was sent down, and he was amazed at what came out of the largest mound — a ship burial of an Anglo-Saxon king, now thought to be Rædwald, the Breatwalda (High King) who ruled East Anglia from 599 to 624/5. A ship burial was the highest honour the Anglo-Saxons paid only to their most exalted leaders, and he was accompanied to the grave by a considerable horde of treasure. The grave survived Tudor grave robbers, who missed the central burial chamber by a mere 3 feet.

The National Trust site has an exhibition, with a magnificent reconstruction of the interior of the burial chamber at the time it was first created, and it is filled with reconstructed replicas of the grave goods. It really gives you some insight into the respect given this man!

After the treasure was found, it was subject to a Coroner's inquest to decide its ownership, and lo and behold, Edith was awarded the lot! But she was publicly spirited, and donated it to the nation only a week later!

All the original treasure is now in the British Museum, having been removed to London for safety during the War (Little did they know that Sutton Hoo might remain a safer place than London, but the treasure remained safe for the duration of the war deep in a tube station beneath the city) What we see at Sutton Hoo are beautifully worked reproductions. Add to this that you can walk round the actual mounds, and this is a great place to visit!

We spent a day at Sutton Hoo, then drove (via Macca's) to a layby on the A14, near Flatford, the village that John Constable featured in many of his paintings, not the least The Hay-Wain, probably his most famous painting, from 1821-1. This is our destination for the morrow.

Distance driven — today, 40 miles ( 65 km ); to date, 8,859 miles ( 14,258 km )