Sutton Hoo
 Looking across the river from Woodbridge one can see the lower slopes
of Sutton Hoo, the famous barrow cemetery which served as the final
resting place of the early
seventh-century pagan kings of East Anglia.
Described as ‘page one of English history’, Sutton Hoo
represents a crossroads in English history, when either the pagan or the Christian way could
be followed. The exquisitely made grave-goods and distinctive and ostentatious burial
practices found here represent a unique insular flowering of an aristocratic warrior
culture whose traces can be found across Northern Europe. It also tells
us that this Anglo-Saxon elite travelled throughout Europe and further
afield collecting objects of great artistic and technical sophistication.
A visit to Sutton Hoo is well worthwhile. The 250 acre site includes
not only the burial mounds themselves, but remnants of heathland
little changed over many hundreds of years. A series of way-marked
trails
link the grave field and burial mounds (where there is a viewing
platform) to the exhibition buildings and café. A hill top site, there
are commanding views over the Deben Estuary to Woodbridge and beyond
- well worth the walk. The treasure, helmet and day to day accoutrements
found in the burial mounds have allowed archaeologists to recreate
something of the story of our Anglo-Saxon forebears now told within
the exhibition centre; the centre piece of which is a re-creation of
both the magnificent burial chamber as it would have looked at the
time of the burial and the burial ship.
For a full events list click here Opening times
The Sutton Hoo site is open weekends only 1 March - 18 March 2005
from 10 am - 4 pm.
From19 March 2005 the Sutton Hoo Estate is open every day from 11
am - 5 pm.
Entry for National Trust members is free, otherwise £4 adults, £2
children. From 19 March £5 adults and £2.50 children. | 
