Sutton Hoo

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Mrs Pretty started living in the property by the river near Woodbridge, southeast corner of Suffolk in the late 1930s. The family had repeatedly found gold pieces, which are now known as the shipmounds since they were settled. Mrs Pretty found the property and land suspicious but felt there might be something exciting things to be discovered, thus she invited Basil Brown who was one of the archaeologists based at Ipswich Museum and asked him to investigate the land.

As a consequence, on the eve of the Second World War, a huge ship burial of an Anglo-Saxon king and his most treasured possessions was discovered on the land of Mrs Pretty’s House. In had lain undisturbed for 1,300 years and changed the way it was thought to be our ancestors. In addition to the ship burial and the Anglo-Saxon’s possessions, the following items were discovered;

1. The dugout, where the man and horse were buried with a bronze-ewer, an iron headed throwing-axe.
2. The boat with the lady in clothes and chatelaine buried.
3. The Equestrian grave.
4. An iron helmet, coins, and fragments of vessels.

The excavation was suspended after the outbreak of the war. Many of the excavated items were transferred to London but returned to Sutton Village Hall which was owned by Mrs Pretty after the war. She had requested in her will that all of the excavated items and treasures would be given to the state so that the nation could share the exciting feeling of discovery of the treasures.

As such, the discovery of the treasures at Sutton Hoo is claimed to be the Page One of the English History. Articles of the Anglo-Saxons have been displayed at the British Museum and Sutton Hoo, which is managed by the National Trust. Visitors can walk in the footsteps of royalty around the atmospheric burial mounds and look round the exhibitions of the full-size reconstruction of the burial chamber, reproduction of music instruments, and scores of the articles.

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