Location
Sutton Hoo is the name of an area spread along the bank of the River Deben opposite the harbour of the small Suffolk town of Woodbridge. About 7 miles (11 km) from the sea, it overlooks the tidal estuary a little below the lowest convenient fording place. It formed a path of entry into East Anglia during the period that followed the end of Roman imperial rule in the 5th century.
South of Woodbridge, there are 6th-century burial grounds at Rushmere, Little Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin and circling Brightwell Heath, the site of mounds that date from the Bronze Age. There are cemeteries of a similar date at Rendlesham and Ufford. A ship-burial at Snape is the only one in England that can be compared to the example at Sutton Hoo.
The territory between the Orwell and the watersheds of the Alde and Deben rivers may have been an early centre of royal power, originally centred upon Rendlesham or Sutton Hoo, and a primary component in the formation of the East Anglian kingdom: in the early 7th century, Gipeswic (modern Ipswich) began its growth as a centre for foreign trade, Botolph's monastery at Iken was founded by royal grant in 654, and Bede identified Rendlesham as the site of Æthelwold's royal dwelling.
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