Maritime Woodbridge

By Robert Simper

In 1939, as Britain was about to go to war, archaeologists digging at Sutton Hoo discovered an Anglo­-Saxon long ship with a burial chamber containing a treasure for a departed king. It was a unique find, the best evidence of an early English king just as the English nation was beginning. It was also by far the best evidence of an Anglo-Saxon ship.

Because the sandy soil on the high ground opposite Woodbridge is very acidic, none of the actual timbers of the 89-foot Sutton Hoo ship remained. All the archaeologists found were dark lines in the soil and iron rivets, where the hull had been.

 The treasure was rushed off to the British Museum in London for safe keeping, and a naval officer made plans of the hull. Unfortunately, in the London bombing they were destroyed, but the British Museum was able to redraw lines of the hull.

In the 1960s the British Museum re-excavated Mound One at Sutton Hoo, where the ship had been found, to try to find out more. In Scandinavia, oars had been found under ship burials, but Sutton Hoo did not give up any more secrets of the past.

The early academic research of the Sutton Hoo find concentrated on the origins of the treasure. It was obvious that the Anglo Saxons had the ability to travel by sea, because pieces of treasure were found to have come from all over Europe.

Presumably, therefore, the Sutton Hoo ship, the prize possession of a king, was a top-of-the-range sea-going vessel of the 600s. However, the academics believed it could not have been a sailing vessel, because there was no evidence of either a keel or a mast. Nevertheless, people began to wonder if this ship could have crossed the North Sea.

The only the way to find out what its capabilities had been was to build a replica, and take it to sea. The idea was suggested in the 1960s, but the cost made it impossible.

In the 1980s, marine architect Edwin Gifford and his wife, Joyce, became interested.  They had a passion for building replicas of early craft. Their first replica was the Ottor, a half- size replica of the Graveney ship, an Anglo-Saxon merchant vessel discovered in the Kent Marshes. A square sail was fitted on the Ottor and even though it had a very shallow draft, it handled well under sail.

In 1989 the Giffords took Ottor to the Traditional Boat Rally at Henley on Thames. I was chairman of the Sutton Hoo Society at the time, and travelled to Henley to see her sailing. I discussed the Sutton Hoo ship with the Giffords, and wondered if they would be interested in building a replica.

They asked if such a vessel would be welcome in the Woodbridge area, and I assured them it would. We felt this would be a way of discovering whether the Sutton Hoo ship had been a sailing vessel.

The result was a half-size 45-foot replica of the Sutton Hoo ship, completed in 1993 in Southampton by Jeff Bird. Dr Sam Newton, who is an authority on Anglo-Saxon history, suggested the name Sae Wylfing, meaning ‘sea wolf cub’, the sort of name the Anglo-Saxons were keen on.

One of the arguments against the Sutton Hoo vessel being a sailing vessel was that no evidence of keel depth had been found, and there seemed to have been no mast step or rudder. However, the king's burial chamber was in the place where a mast would have been stepped, so it was reasoned that the step must have been removed. Also, although early Anglo-Saxon craft were rowed, later vessels clearly had masts. Again, although no side rudder had been found, the ship had been strengthened at the stern to take one.

The Sae Wylfing has a square sail based on a Roman ship's sail, and a side rudder. She runs very fast before the wind, and can reach at seven knots. Going to windward, she is sluggish by modern standards, but she can make some progress. However, in reality, the Anglo-Saxons probably rowed when they needed to go to windward, and Sae Wylfing should be classified as a sail and oar ship.

In the age of sail this was quite normal. The clinker-built boats that fished off Aldeburgh and other Suffolk beaches were sail and oar craft right up to the time engines were fitted in the late 1930s.

Edwin and Joyce Gifford, Jeff Bird and their loyal crew from The Colchester Re-Enactment Society, have had to relearn the art of handling an Anglo-Saxon ship under sail and oar. They have attended many events in England and France, displaying just how versatile the Anglo-Saxons’ ships were.

When the National Trust took over the Sutton Hoo site, part of their plan was to build a full-size replica of the Sutton Hoo ship. However, the project quickly got bogged down in academic discussion over the details of building such a ship. There is still a committee dedicated to it, but there is still no agreement on the basic plans.