The Sutton Hoo Viking Ship Project

13th February 2025- Sutton Hoo Viking Ship - Damian Robinson

Damian, who is a Trustee of the ‘Ships Company’ and Professor of Maritime Archaeology at Oxford University, explained that he studies the people involved in re-constructing this Viking ship, who are mainly retired volunteers. The ship is a ‘Re-construction’ rather than ‘replica’, which is a perfect facsimile, as there are many ‘gaps’ in the information recovered from the excavation, requiring research and some informed guesswork. He suggested that there are a range of these reconstructions, from the worst which are based on little evidence to the reconstructions of Viking ships which are the best. While Sutton Hoo does not have the wooden remains that the Viking ships have, the team are following the same strict experimental research and production methodology.

Archaeologist Basil Brown dug the site in 1939, then plans of the ghost image of the ‘ship’ in the sand were drawn. There has been a plan for a re-construction since at least the 2000s, with experiments to help fill in the gaps, such as the lack of oars, how they were fastened to the ship, or how many there were. While the ship was preserved as a ‘shadow’ in the sand, lots of fantastic artifacts were found in the burial chamber, such as a buckle, a purse clasp; as well as warrior equipment such as a helmet, sword and shield. All of these are now kept in the Sutton Hoo and Europe gallery at the British Museum. It is believed that the burial chamber in the ship was for King Rædwald, c. AD 624, although no body was found in the excavations.

The ship is being built across the river from Sutton Hoo in Woodbridge in a boat shed that was constructed as part of an urban regeneration scheme. The Sutton Hoo Ship’s Company was formed to create the ship as a community project and has 3 members of staff (2 shipwrights and a project manager) plus about 200 volunteers who vary from a ‘youngster’ of about 60 to a 95-year-old!

It is believed that in the post-Roman period in the SE of England there was an influx of Angles, Saxons, Franks and Jutes from the continent. While the exact scale of this ‘migration’ is debated what is seen is that there is a change from late Roman to a more Germanic culture. In this time the first early English kingdoms were founded, including that of the East Angles, which was ruled over by Rædwald.

The Sutton Hoo ship was compared with earlier and later ship discoveries, as it is an important link in the chain of development of clinker-built ships. The reconstruction is based on a new interpretation of the patterns of the bog-iron rivets found in the sand. Dr Julian Whitewright studied the rivets and developed planking plans which were tested inside nautical architectural software to determine that the hypothesised ship would be seaworthy. The Ship’s Company are building the ship by hand from green (freshly felled) oak with Anglo-Saxon-style axes and other tools. As they are taking time to build the ship, the oak is drying out and this will cause leaks when the ship is launched before the wood takes up water again and the ship becomes watertight. They are hopeful that the ship will be launched in 2026.  But this is just the beginning and for the next phase of the project they will need to recruit and train 200 to 250 rowers to help with testing the boat to understand it capabilities. They have also started to plan voyages to historically appropriate locations such as Canterbury, Lundenwic (Anglo-Saxon London), Eoforwic (York) and Jarrow, the monastery where St Bede lived.

Questions followed about visiting the Woodbridge site and the time that the original ship took to build, which Damian fielded, then Gail gave the vote of thanks saying that she was fascinated all the way through the journey Damian had taken us and impressed by his delivery, despite the technical hitches, his humour that enhanced what could have been a dry subject, but most of all his enthusiasm for the project that shone through and the members and partners joined her in a stirring round of applause.                              AR