I am approaching the end of the Prudence trilogy of books and as I have been looking for a little inspiration for the planning of the final battle I felt a walk was in order! I decided to forego all my usual haunts in favour of Sutton Hoo, an ancient burial site close to the estuary town of Woodbridge in Suffolk. History has long been a passion of mine and particularly ancient history. I love coming to places like this where you can see little clues, ancient tidbits of a life long gone, but where real, solid evidence of that life has gone also. It's perfect fuel for an active imagination!
Sutton Hoo is the only known ship burial in the country, and that in itself makes it a little bit special. It is believed to be the last resting place of King Raedwald who died around 625 AD the findings when the site was excavated have also been dated to this era. The exhibition hall is well worth a visit, packed with information video's, photographs and replica's of the finds made during Basil Brown's original excavation. (The actual finds are housed in the much more secure location of the British Museum in London.) There is also a full size reconstruction of the burial chamber and the size of it gives some idea of the effort that must have gone into burying this king with his ship - whether it was King Raedwald or not he was clearly a man of great importance to his people.
However even if you are not a history buff, the walks around Sutton Hoo are lovely. There are two main walks in the guide, both are said to be about a 50 min walk but I kind of cobbled together both walks and it took me about an hour. I was lucky with the weather; it was a clear bright morning, if a little chilly, but was perfect walking weather.
The first part of the walk takes in the site of the burial mounds, which I found particularly inspiring as I sat absorbing the atmosphere and taking myself back over a thousand years to Raedwalds time.
The walk then heads off into the surrounding countryside and most of it is through woodland. Yep, more pictures of trees, sorry!
Couldn't resist taking a photo of this knobbly old fellow! There was also plenty of wild life to spot including sheep, pigs, deer, squirrels and even a dragon - which kind of wound up the walk perfectly for me!
Once again I must apologise for the poor quality of the photo's. I really need to sort out a new camera - my phone just isn't up to the task! But, hopefully this has just given you a little taster of my walk and given you food for thought when planning your own inspirational walks!
have fun,
Kim
