Final year of excavation at Rendlesham reveals exciting new discoveries

This article is from Current Archaeology issue 407

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The third and final season of excavation at Rendlesham, the East Anglian royal settlement near Sutton Hoo, has revealed the foundations of at least three new structures, including a possible pre-Christian temple or cult house, as well as illuminating the wider settlement complex covering an area of c.50ha.

Suffolk County Council’s archaeological investigations first began in 2008; since then survey and trial excavations have defined an early medieval settlement complex of the 5th-8th centuries which is the most extensive and wealthiest yet known in England (see CA 290, 323, and 393). Large-scale excavations began in 2021, as part of Suffolk County Council’s Rendlesham Revealed community archaeology project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Last year’s excavation revealed evidence of a timber Great Hall, confirming the location as a royal settlement.

For this final year the team turned their efforts to the area south and west of the hall, where they discovered the foundations of at least three buildings dating to the late 6th to early 8th centuries.Their presence indicated that there were more structures to the settlement, with a longer structural sequence, than first thought. The excavation also revealed that the royal compound within the wider settlement complex was nearly twice as large as previously believed, with a perimeter ditch measuring 1.5km long and enclosing an area of 15ha.

One of the newly uncovered structures is of particular interest. Measuring 10m long and 5m wide, it has unusually wide and deep foundations, indicating a much more robust build and possibly a greater height than normal for a building of these ground dimensions, strongly suggesting that it had a special character or purpose. Found 60m south of, and at right angles to, the Great Hall, it would appear that both were laid out to the same wider plan. No artefacts were discovered within its footprint, but its internal features appear closest to Migration Period cult houses from Scandinavia, while in England the best parallel is Building D2 at Yeavering (another early medieval royal settlement), widely interpreted as a pre-Christian temple or shrine. If the Rendlesham building is indeed a cult house, it is a particularly rare and exciting find, especially given the fact that the chronicler Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History, noted that Rædwald – early 7th-century king of the East Angles, and thought possibly to be the person buried in Sutton Hoo’s Mound 1 – maintained two separate altars, one Christian and one pagan, in his temple (although Bede does not say that this temple was at Rendlesham).

This year’s excavations also uncovered evidence of fine metalworking. While metalworking debris was found in previous seasons, the finds were more highly concentrated in this area and represented all aspects of production, including a mould fragment for casting decorative horse harness fittings similar in design to those from Sutton Hoo’s Mound 17.

The Rendlesham Revealed project is managed for Suffolk County Council by Faye Minter, who leads the excavations with Professor Christopher Scull and Linzi Everett. For futher information visit: https://heritage.suffolk.gov.uk/rendlesham

Text: Kathryn Krakowka / Photo: Suffolk County Council Local Government Organisation