JAMES GRASBY: Hello and welcome to the National Trust podcast.
I'm James Grasby, building and landscapes curator for the
National Trust. And today, I'm in Suffolk in the east of
England, to learn more about a discovery found under layers of
acidic sandy soil.
Some 1400 years ago, a community came together to haul a ship
from a river within which they were to bury their King. And
today we're going to reimagine what that final journey was
really like.
Now, I've arrived at a boatyard in Woodbridge and I can see
across the river, the wooded banks beyond which are Sutton
Hoo where in 1939 a local archaeologist called Basil Brown
uncovered the ghostly shape of an 86 ft oak ship that had been
buried there. Now, inside the ship was a carefully curated
burial chamber for a well respected King, King Redwald of
the woofing dynasty.
But why did they bury the ship and how did it get there? If I
turn around, I can now see some large buildings that look like a
cross between an airplane hanger and a warehouse and inside one
of those buildings, there's a full size replica being built
plank by plank, and that's going to help us answer some of these
questions.
JACQ BARNARD: Hi. Are you James?
JAMES GRASBY: How do you do?
JACQ BARNARD: I'm Jacq Barnard. I'm the project manager from the
Sutton Hoo Ship's Company. Shall we go and have a look inside?
JAMES GRASBY: Yes, please.
That is an enormous boat. I had no idea how huge it is!
We're looking at the side of this vessel and you've got the
oak keel that runs the full length, but the principal shape
is given by a superstructure which really defines the shape
of this long, lean, sleek pointed at both ends, huge boat.
I mean, I could park four family cars along the keel, nose to
tail and still have room for a couple of minis at either end.
JACQ BARNARD: Well, I could take you up to one of our end
platforms and we can have a look at it from above?
JAMES GRASBY: Right, we're just climbing up to an elevated
platform that I guess is about 10 ft above the ground, and
we're not even as high as the prow of this ship.
JACQ BARNARD: When you see it elevated and being built in this
kind of magnitude, it is just breathtaking. Our principle here
is if we don't know what the Anglo Saxons done, we will
always go back in time rather than forward. So the saw which
we knew the Romans used, wasn't used by the Anglo Saxons. So as
much as possible, we are using their methods and their tools to
try and understand exactly how they built this ship 1400 years
ago.
JAMES GRASBY: So whereabouts have you got to in the process
of rebuilding this boat?
JACQ BARNARD: Our plan is that we get two planks on a week,
we're on track. So by the end of this year, we hope to have the
whole hull planked so it would look like a ship, but it won't
have any insides. So the following year will all be about
making sure that the frames are in place, that we've worked out
how the flooring will be fitted, how the seating will be put
in...
JAMES GRASBY: Very sort of dominant and striking feature
about the design is this regular punctuation along the length of
the vessel of these metal rivets.
JACQ BARNARD: You know, if, if it weren't for these rivets, we
wouldn't be building this ship because when they excavated the
site up at Sutton Hoo, it was the rivets that remained in the
sand in the ground in the right places, which allowed us to
convert that archaeological information into a modern day
plan.
JAMES GRASBY: Because there was something particular about the
geology of the site that caused the wood to decay and disappear,
but the metal to remain?
JACQ BARNARD: That's spot on.
JAMES GRASBY: I mean, there are hundreds and hundreds of these
metal rivets.
JACQ BARNARD: I can tell you there are 3598 of those in
there.
JAMES GRASBY: Wow
JACQ BARNARD: That's an awful lot of hammering required.
JAMES GRASBY: The enthusiasm and vigor is to be seen everywhere.
You've got a few more years of work to do, and then what
happens?
JACQ BARNARD: Spring 2025 is when we hope to get it on the
water and then we're going to incrementally trial it. But one
of the reasons we're building this is to find out what it was
capable of and what it may have been used for and why it might
have been used as a burial ship. Why was it held in such high
esteem? Because to this day, we don't know whether it was a
cargo ship, a cruising ship or a warship, you know, but we can
hopefully at least rule some of those things out because if it
doesn't perform like a warship, then it wasn't used as a
warship. So they're the kind of things that we're going to be
looking at to try and help the historians answer some of those
age old questions that they've always been around.
JAMES GRASBY: This is an enormous enterprise.
JACQ BARNARD: The ship really is just the beginning, isn't it? So
what we've got out there is the beautiful river Deben which must
have been the playground of this original ship. So don't you
think it would be a good idea if we went out onto the river
ourselves and, and had a bit of a look and see what journey may
have happened?
JAMES GRASBY: I think that would be absolutely stunning
JACQ BARNARD: Ok, let's go.
James, this is Brian, who's our skipper for the day.
JAMES GRASBY: How do you do, Brian?
BRIAN: Hello, James, pleased to meet you. Sorry about the
weather today! I hope you don't mind, I've brought somebody else
along who I think will be able to help you reimagine the
journey.
MATT: Hello, I'm Matt.
JAMES GRASBY: I have to say you are a formidable looking figure.
You're wearing a warm pinky red woollen cloak and a tunic and a
fabulous hat.
MATT: I'm wearing it because I'm a member of Wulfheodenas, which
is a living history organisation that concentrates on recreating
the material culture of the people of that time. This is the
sort of thing that somebody of reasonably high status would be
wearing in the early seventh century at the time of King
Redwald and the Sutton Hoo ship burial.
JAMES GRASBY: It's very striking. I wonder if you've got
any gear for me?
MATT: Can't be going out onto the water just in 21st century
clothes. So to start with, we're going to give you a woollen
tunic and then we'll put one of these wrap around coats over the
top of that and then a cloak over the top of that and we'll
get you a hat as well and you will be ready for an adventure
on the Deben.
JAMES GRASBY: You are kind
MATT: I'm also carrying this rather large horn that you can
see. The end is sawn off because it's a sounding horn rather than
a drinking horn.
JAMES GRASBY: Matt I think we should sound that now to start
our journey.
I think they heard that.
Matt we've left Bawsdey Quay behind in a very small,
clinker-built, wooden boat, in the water that is timeless, the
way the waves are breaking over the bow of this wooden vessel.
MATT: The landscape that we see, the hills that we see in the
distance as we move further up the river, is exactly the same
landscape as we would have seen in the sixth and the seventh
century.
JAMES GRASBY: These are the sensations and the sights that
somebody entering this river at that period would have felt.
Actually as I understand it, we're closer here to mainland
Europe than I am to my home in Worcestershire. This must have
been a meeting place of seafarers.
MATT: Definitely, I think particularly once we start to
see the development of Kingdoms, of power centres, and that's
something that the Deben is particularly important for. It's
a highway for, for European trade, for cross channel trade,
and trade from much further away as well, even as far as like the
Byzantine Empire and then beyond into China. And it's also kind
of a highway for people migrating into the country.
JAMES GRASBY: Now, Matt, tell me who was King Redwald.
MATT: Redwald, he ruled East Anglia but he held power over
kings of other Southern Kingdoms as well, so kings of Essex and
possibly Kent, Sussex and possibly even Wessex as well. So
he was very important, King.
JAMES GRASBY: Brian, our captain has turned the engine off and we
are mid-channel, silence in this timeless wooden boat. What I'm
fascinated about Matt, is why will you choose to bury your
King in a boat?
MATT: It's making that really important statement saying here
is a powerful man. Here is a true King amongst kings and it's
his family stamping their authorities - this is how
important we are. Not only was Redwald so rich and powerful and
he deserves to have all of these things buried with him, but we
as his descendants are so rich and powerful that we can give
them up to the ground to go with Redwald into whatever lies
beyond.
JAMES GRASBY: But it's a formidable prospect. Jacq,
you're also a very experienced rower in your own. right - We're
sitting on a thwart broadly speaking, which is a transverse
bench on which a rower would sit and then there would be two oars
people would there on either side on the same bench?
JACQ BARNARD: But remember that the ship is very wide in the
centre, it's 4.8 m across - we would be a long way from one
another. But we would also be expected to row in unison
because in order for 20 rows on each side to move at the same
time, they have all got to go in the water and come out of the
water at the same point. If not, they'll start to clash with one
another.
JAMES GRASBY: And tell me, Matt, who were these Anglo Saxon
rowers?
MATT: You can't just put anybody into any boat and expect them to
be able to row efficiently. And even more so when it's like a
royal vessel of the size that we're talking about. So the
assumption has to be that these are men who are trained for
rowing, retained as rowers. They probably had other duties as
well, they may have been what we call a'gesith'- They would be
people who would own lands that were given to them by the King,
and they would perform military service for the King.
JAMES GRASBY: Fascinating. We're drifting, fire up the motor!
we're off.
And the waves are breaking over the bow. We're going into the
wind and I guess there's a little bit of tide that is
wanting to push us out to sea too. But picturing taking that
vessel, rowing would be very hard work...
The estuary was really quite broad when we started, and it's
narrowing down and there is Woodbridge with a modern marina
and some clearly more industrial buildings.
MATT: And the land rises around us as well as we move up. It's
been very sort of flat and level and the bit that we're coming up
to now is where we assume that the ship itself would have been
moored before it was then dragged out of the water and
hauled the half mile up to the burial mounds of Sutton Hoo.
JAMES GRASBY: It's been an encounter with history.
We're slowing down now so we must be getting pretty near our
destination - Sutton Hoo.
I've left Jacq and Matt and have come to the bank beneath Sutton
Hoo.
There is a public footpath here along the bank and I can just
see a very steep hill and some woodland to one side. I'm here
to meet Laura, who's going to help me understand what happened
once the ship got to this very point. I can see her. Laura.
LAURA HOWARTH: Hello. Nice to meet you.
JAMES GRASBY: I'm very pleased to meet you.
LAURA HOWARTH: I'm Laura and I'm the archaeology and engagement
manager here at National Trust Sutton Hoo.
JAMES GRASBY: Couldn't be more thrilled to be here. The rain
has stopped.
LAURA HOWARTH: Yes! Welcome to Sutton Hoo.
JAMES GRASBY: Now look, I'm feeling a bit daunted. We've
recreated this journey from the mouth of the river Deben to
here. This was the beginning of the great haul of that ship -
from here?
LAURA HOWARTH: Yes. Sutton Hoo is a place name in Old English,
which is the language of the Anglo Saxons. The Sutton bit
means southern and Ton means place or settlements. And then a
Hoo is a raised area of land often overlooking water and that
exactly describes where we are and we're going to be heading up
one of the Hoos to where the Royal Burial Ground is situated.
JAMES GRASBY: And in terms of this moment, the ship has been
beached, I suppose, in this squashy mud?
LAURA HOWARTH: Yes
JAMES GRASBY: So conceivably, there would have been spectators
on both sides of the river? There would have been other
vessels, perhaps?
LAURA HOWARTH: Possibly Yes. Yes. And it would have been, we
think over a course of several days. Possible funeral feasts as
well - the kind of the ceremony. This is, wasn't the kind of
funerary practice that would have been afforded to everyone.
There are only three Anglo Saxon ship burials that we know of in
the whole of England and there are two here at Sutton Hoo and
one nearby at Snape.
JAMES GRASBY: You've then got an enormous problem. I mean, it's
hard enough to launch a ship going with gravity but to pull
it out of the water across these sort of muddy surfaces of this
bank, across this berm up here.
LAURA HOWARTH: It's something quite alien to us today, I guess
dragging a huge ship just by the means that they had. But various
theories include a lot of manpower first and foremost, and
ropes, potentially these trees being used as rollers to get us
up there and potentially even livestock as well being used.
But it would have been a phenomenal feat.
JAMES GRASBY: So Laura, we're out of the mud, we've got a bit
of a journey to go now, haven't we?
LAURA HOWARTH: We do. So we don't know exactly the route
that the ship would have taken, but we're going to do is close
to what we think is kind of possible today.
JAMES GRASBY: Underneath this grass is a very dry sandy soil.
I can imagine that being quite a sort of slick surface over to
which you could drag it quite readily.
LAURA HOWARTH: Yes, we have quite acidic soil here in
Suffolk.
The soil type means that there isn't a ship to see at Sutton
Hoo today because over time water seeping in, created an
acid bath which then dissolved kind of all the organic
materials such as the timber of the ship, the body that was
placed in it. And what was uncovered in 1939 by
archaeologists such as Basil Brown and Charles Phillips was
actually a fossil of a ship.
JAMES GRASBY: Laura we've emerged with some lovely
woodland into a much more open landscape, but nevertheless, the
ground is rising. I guess we've got 30 or 40 m?
LAURA HOWARTH: We're nearly there, but we are on the
steepest kind of part of the incline now, just imagining the
people hauling the effort to get this ship up there. And
meanwhile, people are preparing the actual kind of burial
itself.
JAMES GRASBY: Were slaves part of the picture?
LAURA HOWARTH: Quite possibly. Yeah. The Anglo Saxons did have
slaves. We know slaves were part of their culture and also were
slaves themselves as well.
JAMES GRASBY: I tell you what, I was rather sorry when I had to
take off my Anglo Saxon clothes, they protected me very well in
the boat. But I was very struck by the colour, the vivid,
vibrant colours, I mean, almost sort of 1970s, retro and groovy.
LAURA HOWARTH: Yes, a lot of the time people refer to this period
as the dark ages, but it couldn't be further from the
truth. It was a very vibrant time and we know that they used
natural dyes to create a rich rainbow of colour.
And that is one of the things that's worth thinking about, you
know, in terms of the ship, the level of Sutton Hoo
craftsmanship, and thinking about other Anglo Saxon stone
sculptures that were painted, it could have been carved, it could
have had decorative panels.
JAMES GRASBY: The trees are thinning and this path winding
its way through them. And we're beginning to get a glimpse of
that soft pillow shape on the horizon.
LAURA HOWARTH: This is where we're gonna put the ship that
we've been dragging up the hill. This is mound one and then we'll
set about furnishing the ship and the burial chamber ready to
heap over the soil to create this beautiful mound.
JAMES GRASBY: Now, Laura, which way was the ship facing?
LAURA HOWARTH: So it's this East to West orientation, facing out
to the river and that connection to the North Sea, we think is
just such an important part of the kind of burial layout.
JAMES GRASBY: Take me through the process of burying a boat.
LAURA HOWARTH: What we're doing is kind of furnishing a burial
chamber in the middle. The King would have been laid out in
there. Some people think that he was buried in a tree trunk
coffin. Other theories suggest that he was lying kind of supine
on the base of the ship. And then it's a process of adding in
the objects that not only represent him in life but also
would have had a purpose, a statement for him in death as
well.
263 objects that were going to be used into the next life. So
we've got a weaponry, the iconic Sutton Hoo Helmet, a wonderful
master crafted pattern welded sword. So that kind of regalia,
that ceremonial aspect. We've got feasting equipment,
entertainment in the form of a lyre and gaming pieces.
JAMES GRASBY: So not simply a basic tool kit for the
afterlife.
LAURA HOWARTH: Yes, many of these things might have been
specifically made for burial. There were some things included
for a practical purpose, but some things were very much for
the statement of power.
The Anglo Saxons at this time in East Anglia are predominantly
pagan, but we are very much at that transition point. So we've
got influences coming in from the East, Christianity coming
through, through Kent and spreading. And we also have
Christianity to the West thinking about Ireland and
Scotland as well.
JAMES GRASBY: So what a remarkable discovery for the
archaeologist Basil Brown in 1939. Staggering.
LAURA HOWARTH: We say that this is a discovery that changed
history. That it truly revolutionised our understanding
of who these people were, what they were capable of - the
amazing craftsmanship. Everything found here at here is
an expression of what it was to be an Anglo Saxon and what they
were capable of.
JAMES GRASBY: Laura, what is intoxicatingly striking is the
geometry of it, that we've got this dark foreground and this
hemisphere like a rising planet of this, of this mound on the
horizon set against this wonderful sky that you only get
in this part of the world, I think. But why here at Sutton
Hoo?
LAURA HOWARTH: Archaeology is a bit like having a jigsaw puzzle
box. We've got some of the pieces, but we haven't got the
picture on the back. So a lot of the time, what we're doing is
looking at the evidence that we have, seeing how it fits
together and coming up with theories.
There's still so much to learn about Sutton Hoo, so much
research that we're still carrying out today to uncover
other bits of the story. We think there are around 18 burial
mounds here.
JAMES GRASBY: 18?
LAURA HOWARTH: Yes. Some of them have been plowed down to almost
on the flat. So, shall we go and explore some of the other people
buried here?
JAMES GRASBY: Yes please. Laura, this feels like a great
privilege to be going over the barrier. It's got a little rope
here.
LAURA HOWARTH: So I'll just unhook the rope and let you in.
So this is for our guided tours. So just kind of minimizing
footfall and the erosion on the burial grounds.
JAMES GRASBY: So, Laura, that's one of the groups to our left, a
guided tour.
LAURA HOWARTH: It is, and actually, we're going to head
over to Mound 17.
JAMES GRASBY: And every step we take, a grasshopper leaps out in
front of us.
LAURA HOWARTH: A carpet that's alive with wildlife.
JAMES GRASBY: Mound 17 looks in comparison to mound one, pretty
modest. It's pretty flat.
LAURA HOWARTH: It is. So this was one of the very last things
that was discovered during the 1980s campaign and it was
actually found, purely by chance, by Professor Martin
Carver at the end of his excavation season, believe it or
not, whilst he was playing golf.
MARTIN CARVER: When we took over the site, we were conscious that
the site had been raided on a previous occasion. So we put the
site under 24 hour guard.
I did my stint, I was a lone guard surrounded by a lot of
mounds and being a golfer, not a very good one but a keen golfer
it's safe to say, I invented a game where you chip from Mound
One to Mound Two, from Mound Two to Mound 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and so
on. Thus, helping me learn the geography of the site, and also
try and improve my chipping skills.
There was a Mound 12 which was just under a tree and I always
fell short. But interestingly enough, the ball always rolled
off what it landed in and eventually I twigged that there
must have been another mound there. That's the only reason
why the ball would have rolled off where there wasn't
apparently a mound to roll off.
And that turned out to be Mound 17. You know, I wouldn't
recommend it in general, but it is amazing how you, you know, if
you spend long enough peering at the ground, how you can start to
feel the micro-geography which is hiding what you're looking
for.
JAMES GRASBY: What was actually found here?
LAURA HOWARTH: So we've got two graves in front of us and one
possible theory is this is Redwald's son and he was buried
with everything that you would think of for a warrior. Moving
over to the next grave, it's a horse.
So his horse, we believe, to accompany him on to the next
life and over there, which is again, no longer really visible
as a mound, Mound 14, is the only high status female burial
that we found here. That could have been Redwald's Queen.
Unfortunately, we'll never know for certain.
JAMES GRASBY: So what you're saying was this was exclusively
a family burial site?
LAURA HOWARTH: The Royal Burial Ground is a really important
part of our Sutton Hoo stories, but there are other chapters
that are equally as interesting and fascinating.
So during Professor Martin Carver's excavation, they also
found 39 sand bodies. Again, the acidity of the soil means they
were shadowed kind of stains in the soil and quite an
interesting juxtaposition to the seventh century burials that had
so much care and reverence afforded to them, these people
were deviant burials we think with kind of wrists and ankles
being bound, heads cut off, shallow graves, very gruesome.
And I think it just shows there's so much that we still
don't know about Sutton Hoo, and ongoing research. So today,
we're using a lot of non invasive techniques and
technology to see what that can tell us and add further chapters
to our Sutton Hoo story.
JAMES GRASBY: The story is not over. It's been fascinating,
Laura, thank you very much indeed.
Standing here in the courtyard looking at the full size
sculpture of the great ship they have here. It's inspiring to
think of what the Anglo Saxons achieved at Sutton Hoo. It
really shows the commitment and the ceremony and the importance,
in preparing their dead for the afterlife. And the sheer feat of
strength and engineering to enable that to happen is
incredibly impressive.
And once the full size replica ship is built and river worthy,
we'll gain even more insight into this magnificent vessel and
those she carried. And that's what I love about it - It's a
story that is still being written, a story still being
spun.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the National Trust
podcast. If you'd like to learn more about Sutton who or the
building of the Great ship replica, we've included
information and links in this episode's show net to make sure
you get to new episodes of this podcast follow or subscribe on
Spotify, Google podcasts or Apple podcast. We'll be back
soon. But for now from me, James Graspy, goodbye.