With the release of the Netflix film ‘The Dig’ later this month, we are reminded just how much our understanding has evolved since Basil Brown’s excavations in 1939 led to the discovery of Sutton Hoo. We now know that the landscape around Sutton Hoo was an open one, with the mounds standing uninterrupted for more than seven kilometres to the East.

Tomorrow marks the astronomical summer solstice, the day when the sun burns brightest. Whilst we may be familiar with the idea of the summer solstice being celebrated because it is the longest day, evidence indicates that its celebration formed part of a complex interaction of astronomy, society and ritual – it was far more than simply a mechanism that acted as a farmers calendar.

Well amongst the most trying of times, this covid-era lockdown is bringing some shards of light. With our once a day walk in the woods and fields there’s plenty of time to research and reflect.

On the eve of a new orbit around our Sun, we look forward to greeting 2020 with you. We’d like to thank you for your support and signpost some of the wonderful hidden mysteries in our landscape that we will be endeavouring to explore and investigate in the year ahead.

Tomorrow is the astronomical Winter Solstice, an auspicious liminal moment in time. The long daylight hours of midsummer, a time for human activities enjoying life and holidays are remembered.

It’s taken us over 10 years of researching the cosmological connections between the Anglo-Saxons and the Suffolk landscape around the Sandlings in order that we could get anywhere near something close to what has become A Ritual Landscape Considered: Cosmography and Anglo Saxon Ship Burials.

It was back in 2008 that the first edition of Seven Wonders – Suffolk’s Ancient Sites: a Vision of an Arcane Landscape was published. Here we are ten years later, so why the need for an update?

It seems an awfully long time ago now, but I began exploring Suffolk’s ancient ritual landscape in the mid 1980s, leading to a decade of research and deeper exploration from the late 90s onwards. It culminated in the 2008 publication of ‘Seven Wonders – Suffolk’s Ancient Sites: A Vision of an Arcane Landscape’, then later updated with additional archaeological references.