{"id":5008,"date":"2014-08-17T06:57:54","date_gmt":"2014-08-17T05:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=5008"},"modified":"2014-08-17T06:57:54","modified_gmt":"2014-08-17T05:57:54","slug":"who-was-at-hoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/history\/who-was-at-hoo\/","title":{"rendered":"Who was at Hoo?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"One<\/a>
One of the largest of the Sutton Hoo burial mounds. It looks so plain – no hint of what lay beneath.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s really strange to suddenly find yourself in the midst of one of your old school text books.<\/p>\n

Even in Australia we were taught about Sutton Hoo \u2013 the burial mounds in Suffolk that contained an Anglo-Saxon ship and a vast treasure. I now know we were taught just a tiny part of a fascinating story.<\/p>\n

The legend of the woman who \u201cdiscovered\u201d the tombs is an interesting as what she found.<\/p>\n

Sutton Hoo is now a National trust Site \u2013 an area containing many burial mounds and a large house (there are sheep and rabbits too, but that is of lesser importance).<\/p>\n

My visit started in the museum which told the story of the burial mounds – in particular \u2013 the great discovery of an untouched mound that had escaped the tomb robbers and held a whole ship entombed inside. There is commonly believed that this is the tomb of R\u00e6dwald, the 7th<\/sup> century king of East Anglia.<\/p>\n

The treasure was not quite the pots of gold of my schoolgirl imaginings. There is, of course, the amazing helmet which now sits in the British Museum \u2013 and some beautiful gold pieces as well as glass and iron artefacts. But the light the find threw onto a misty period of history was astounding.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The helmet was badly damaged – but there were enough fragments to piece together what it must have looked like. Wow!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There were \u2013 are \u2013 dozens of graves \u2013 and not just of a king. There are common folk and warriors. There are cremation sites and shallow graves. In one grave they found a young warrior \u2013 and his horse.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to Edith May Pretty<\/p>\n

Fascinated as I was by the story of the mounds \u2013 the story of Edith Pretty really touched my writer\u2019s soul.<\/p>\n

Edith Dempster was born in 1883 \u2013 daughter of a wealthy Yorkshire industrialist. After a privileged upbringing she settled down to do good works. She met Frank Pretty when she was fifteen \u2013 and legend has it he proposed to her on her 18th<\/sup> birthday. She said no \u2013 possibly due to her father\u2019s disapproval of the young man.<\/p>\n

Frank was not deterred \u2013 and allegedly proposed to her on her birthday every year for the next 24 years.<\/p>\n

Edith said no every time \u2013 choosing to remain with and care for her widowed father. Six weeks after her father died \u2013 they announced their engagement. Now that\u2019s what I call steadfast love!<\/p>\n

They moved into a lovely home in Suffolk that had been built by a successful artist.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The land attached to their new home included these strange earthen mounds.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Five years later, against all odds, they had a son. But their happiness was to be short lived. Frank died when his son was only four years old.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This portrait of Edith was painted after her husband’s death. I think she looks quite sad.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After her husband\u2019s death, it is said Edith (or perhaps one of her guests) saw a ghostly vision among the mounds that were so clearly visible from her house. Some suggest a ghostly warrior on his horse (I like to think it was on the mound where they would later discover the horse and warrior). Another tale suggests Edith saw a funeral procession moving though the mounds.<\/p>\n

Whatever the reason \u2013 she invited an archaeologist, Basil Brown, to come and dig there \u2013 and the rest, as they say\u2026<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
An old outbuilding near the house contains artefacts that Basil would no doubt recognise.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the size of the find became apparent \u2013 an \u2018inquest\u2019 was hastily convened to determine if this vast treasure belonged to Edith or to the Crown. The decision was in Edith\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n

The Daily Mail of the time was incensed \u2013 its headline announcing that the treasure had gone \u201cto a woman\u201d. The paper also remarked that the decision was made by \u201cfourteen country jurymen\u201d who had been summoned by the village constable.<\/p>\n

I wonder what the Daily Mail had to say a few days later \u2013 when this remarkable woman gifted the entire find to the nation. She died three years later.<\/p>\n

Wandering around the site \u2013 it\u2019s too easy just to see a few mounds of dirt and an old house \u2013 a nice old house in reasonable repair, but nothing spectacular.<\/p>\n

Until you stand by the morning room window and look out at the mounds and think about the story of Sutton Hoo. Of the great King R\u00e6dwald and the woman who found his grave.<\/p>\n

\"It<\/a>
It was so easy to imagine Edioth sitting here – wondering about the mounds and then deciding to explore them.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There may still be much more to be found \u2013 archaeologists have discovered other nearby sites of great interest. And then there are those Sutton Hoo mounds that were left untouched for the future.<\/p>\n

At some point, I\u2019m sure, they will start digging again \u2013 what an exciting thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  It\u2019s really strange to suddenly find yourself in the midst of one of your old school text books. Even in Australia we were taught about Sutton Hoo \u2013 the burial mounds…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-my-travels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}