Suffolk’s Valley of the Kings: Sutton Hoo and the River Deben
with Dr Sam Newton (Wuffing Education at Sutton Hoo)
at Sutton Hoo
on Saturday, 20th January, 2018.

A look at the largely forgotten but clearly once rich history of the Deben valley and its tributaries in the light of what we can see of its archaeology, art, place-names, and landscape history, and especially of the recent work at Rendlesham.

Provisional Programme

09.50 – 10.15:                Coffee on arrival

10.15 – 11.15:                Sutton Hoo and the River Deben

11.15 – 11.40:                Coffee break

11.40 – 12.40:                Royal Rendlesham in the Light of Recent Work

12.40 – 14.00:                Lunch break

14.00 – 14.50:                 St Felix, Walton Castle, and the Fjord of the Geese

14.50 – 15.10:                Tea break

15.10 – 16.00:                Significant Place-Names in the Deben Valley and Its Tributaries

c.16.00:                          Thanks and Close

About Dr Sam Newton

Sam Newton was awarded his Ph.D at UEA in 1991.  He published his first book, The Origins of Beowulf and the pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia, in 1993, and his second, The Reckoning of King Rædwald: the Story of the King linked to the Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial, in 2003.  His most recent work is “The Forgotten History of St Bótwulf (Botolph)”, The Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, 43 (2016), pp. 521-50, which is also available from his Academia  webpage https://independent.academia.edu/SamNewton , along with his other recent papers.  He has lectured widely around the country and has contributed to many radio and television programmes, especially Time Team.  He is a tutor for Cambridge University’s Institute of Continuing Education, an accredited NADFAS lecturer, and a Director of the Wuffing Education Study-Day Partnership at Sutton Hoo.

Some Suggestions for Optional Background Reading

  • Arnott, W.G., The Place-Names of the Deben ValleyParishes (Ipswich 1946).
  • Arnott, W.G., Suffolk Estuary: The Story of River Deben (Ipswich 1950).
  • Briggs. K., & K. Kilpatrick, A Dictionary of Suffolk Place-Names (Nottingham 2016)
  • Bruce-Mitford, R., Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology (Gollancz 1974).
  • Ekwall, E., The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, 4th edition (Oxford 1960).
  • Evans, A., The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial (British Museum 1986).
  • Heaney, S. (tr.) Beowulf: An Illustrated Edition, ed. J. Niles (Norton 2007).
  • Hoggett, R., The Archaeology of the East Anglian Conversion (Boydell 2010).
  • Martin, E.A., Burgh: Iron Age and Roman Enclosure, East Anglian Archaeology Report 40 (Ipswich 1988).
  • Newton, S. The Origins of Beowulf and the pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia  (Brewer 1993, 2004).
  • Newton, S., The Reckoning of King Rædwald (Redbird 2003).
  • Plunkett, S., Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times (Stroud 2005).
  • Scarfe, N., The Suffolk Landscape (Hodder & Stoughton 1972, Alastair 1986).
  • Scarfe, Norman, Suffolk in the Middle Ages (Boydell 1986).
  • Scull, C., F. Minter, & J. Plouviez, “Social and economic complexity in early medieval England: a central place complex of the East Anglian kingdom at Rendlesham, Suffolk”, Antiquity, 90, 354 (2016), pp. 1594-1612.
  • Wain, P., “The Medieval Port of Goseford”, Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, 43 (2016), pp. 582-601.
  • Warner, P., The Origins of Suffolk (Manchester 1996).
  • Whitelock, D., “The Pre-Viking Age Church in East Anglia”, Anglo-Saxon England, I (1972), pp. 1-22.