Hoo-ray! Sutton Hoo

Another fun research day. The latest family meanderings have taken me to Woodbridge, Suffolk.  Lily Maud's grandparents and great-grandparents (I have not traced further back than them yet), were from Woodbridge.  And where is Woodbridge, I wondered?  Only on the opposite bank of the River Deban from Sutton Hoo! 

Sutton Hoo is the site of the famous and most significant Anglo-Saxon burial ground in Britain, dating back to the 6th and early 7th centuries.  The Romans had scarpered by 410 AD, and pagan Germanic hordes (from Anglia and Saxony) began moving into the area, and by the 7th century a number of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had been formed.   It is generally agreed that it is a 7th century king named Raedwald of East Anglia that is the king buried at Sutton Hoo.

 

Our 19th century Quinton relations in Woodbridge, some of whom were shoe makers and lived on the still dear little street called Theatre Street, would have looked over these burial mounds every time they gazed across the river, but since archaeological excavations did not begin until 1938, they would have lived their whole lives never knowing what lay beneath these grassy knolls.

map credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wicklaw_and_Ipswich.jpg

Sutton Hoo photo credits: http://www.britishmuseum.org,