Q: What is the significance of the archaeological finds of Sutton Hoo? - Graham Dobson, Houghton-le-Spring.

A: Sutton Hoo, near Woodbridge in Suffolk, was the site of an Anglo-Saxon burial ship excavated in 1939. The ship contained a coffin and a large quantity of metal artefacts, including a jewelled sword, drinking vessels, personal ornaments of gold, jewellery, coins, kitchen equipment and precious stones.

The quality and quantity of the artefacts and the elaborate nature of the burial make it Britain's most spectacular Anglo-Saxon excavation.

The burial involved dragging the ship from the River Deben to the summit of a 100ft high bluff and then burying it in a deep trench. A purse found with the body provides the best clue to who it was. The coins date up to the 620s and this makes it very likely that the burial is that of Redwald, King of the East Anglians, who died sometime between 616 and 627AD.

Redwald was one of a series of Anglo-Saxon kings who were termed Bretwaldas, or overkings, of all England.

A: In a recent Burning Question you asked about the use of the words beck and burn for streams across the region. Can I add Hartlepool to your map as a beck area. Oddly enough, we have a public park running through the town know as the Burn Valley Gardens, opened in Victorian times. As you will guess from the title, it has a stream running through it. Presumably our Victorians thought of it as a burn, however the stream has always been referred to as the Burn Valley Beck! My rugby club, West Hartlepool TDSOB, play on Grayfields at the north end of Hartlepool which is an area drained by Howbeck. This is now largely enclosed but it drains into the ancient Slake which is now part of the Docks.

A: In reference to another recent question regarding the Blue Stone at Sherburn village, you wondered if there were other similar stones across the region. The village of Hart near Hartlepool has a glacial deposit boulder which is still on display in the Main Street almost opposite the Raby Arms. It was called a meteor by my generation of children in the 1940s and 1950s, but it is a glacial deposit according to a local history. I believe the stone at Hart was used as a mounting block for many years. - Chris McLoughlin, Durham County Rugby Football Union.

A: Regarding your recent question on the phrase Jumping over the Brush, I have a small publication dated February 1, 1931, entitled The Bridges of County Durham and it has this to say about the recently repaired bridge over the Tees at Barnard Castle.

"On the centre of the bridge, Cuthbert Hilton, who had been trained by his father as a Bible clerk and was a curate of Denton, became notorious by celebrating illicit marriages, which he did after this manner, causing the couple to leap over a broomstick while he repeated the following rhyme.

"My blessing on your pates, and your groats in my purse, you are never the better and I am none the worse" - Willis Collinson, Belmont, Durham.

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