West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village is an archaeological site and an open-air museum located near to West Stow in Suffolk, eastern England. Evidence for intermittent human habitation at the site stretches from the Mesolithic through the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Romano-British period, but it is best known for the small village that existed on the site between the mid-5th century and the early 7th century CE, during the early Anglo-Saxon period. During this time, around 70 sunken-featured buildings were constructed on the site, along with 8 halls and a number of other features. Subsequently, abandoned, the area became farmland in the Late Medieval period.
Antiquarian interest in the site began in 1849, when a nearby Anglo-Saxon cemetery was discovered. Subsequent excavations of Romano-British pottery kilns took place in the late 19th and mid-20th centuries, before the Anglo-Saxon settlement was revealed. The site was excavated between 1956 and 1972 by an archaeological team from the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works (MOPBW), led first by Vera Evison and then by Stanley West. Following the culmination of excavation, it was decided to reconstruct the village on the site, an experimental archaeological project which has been ongoing since 1974. In 1999, the site was opened to the public with a new visitor's centre, museum and cafe.
Location
West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village is located on the north bank of the River Lark, adjacent to the village of West Stow in the western part of Suffolk. Situated on a small hill in height, it would have been noticeably prominent in the surrounding landscape; this hill formed a "core" for a sand dune that developed around from wind-carried sand during the early 14th century and which sharply drops on the leeward side while gradually sloping on the windward side. The steep southern slope is accentuated by a ditch at its base, which marks the edge of the river's flood plain.
The surrounding landscape as it appears today is radically different from the landscape that would have surrounded the area in the Iron Age and Early Medieval periods. The land to the north and east of the West Stow Anglo-Saxon village has been heavily modified during the construction of the Bury sewage farms, with the north-east corner of the site having been partly destroyed by a gravel pit in the 1950s. By the mid-1980s, the rubbish dumps that surrounded the site had been converted into a Country Park, with the landscape being regenerated with sedge, grass, birch and oak. The site of the settlement is also bisected by a row of pine trees that had been planted in the 19th century.
The solid geology of the Lark Valley is chalk, with patches of boulder clay that forms a high plateau capped with sands and gravels in West Stow and Icklingham. The site is seven miles west from the town of Bury St. Edmunds.
Prehistoric settlement
The site at West Stow has shown evidence of human habitation throughout British prehistory. Indeed, the wider Lark Valley contains the greatest known concentration of prehistoric settlements in the region of East Anglia.
Mesolithic
Excavation at West Stow has discovered evidence for hunter-gatherers living in the area during the Mesolithic, or "Middle Stone Age" period. Temporarily camping on the knoll, they left behind them five or six dense concentrations of Sauveterrian-style waste lithic flakes, blades, cores and other stone implements. Similar scatters of Mesolithic worked flints have been found across the valley area.
Neolithic and Bronze Ages
Grooved ware and petit tranchet-style arrowheads dating from the Neolithic Age have been found in a field adjacent to the West Stow site.
Anglo-Saxon settlement
During the early Anglo-Saxon period, West Stow was the site of a small village made up of timber buildings. Archaeological excavation of the site unearthed evidence for a variety of different constructions and areas at West Stow: 69 sunken-featured buildings (SFBs), alongside 7 post-hole buildings interpreted as halls, traces of several lesser structures, a reserve area for clay, 2 large hollows or animal pens, pits, various unassociated post holes and several 7th century boundary ditches. The Anglo-Saxon village showed no signs of the development of property boundaries until the last phase of occupation. There was no evidence that the settlement was defended by fortifications.
