Reflecting on Friday Street
Friday Street, a small hamlet near Rendlesham sits amid a landscape steeped in early antique ritual practice. The meaning of the place name “Friday” is debated, early studies connecting it to the Norse god Freyr, while later interpretations suggest Freyja or Frigg, the goddess whose name gave the weekday.
Supporting this, rare late antique talismanic figurines found at neighbouring Eyke and nearby Friston are both linked to fertility and possibly Freyja’s cult, echoing the Roman goddess Venus. In 1882, 6 wells lined Friday Street. Celts and later peoples used wells for divination and contact with the otherworld. In Norse belief, Freyr and Freyja represented fertility and wisdom, while wells symbolised life, sacred fertility, and divine protection.
Archaeologists have linked local boat burials to the cult of Freyr and his symbolic ship, Skidbladnir. Boat burials reflected an estuarine journey to the otherworld, mirroring the sun’s nightly passage through the underworld and the Milky Way’s celestial road of souls, expressing the paths of death and rebirth. Research also identifies Friday Street as an ancient green lane, the name itself suggesting an association with religious processions, travelling priests’ sermons and the holding of service.
As explored in our upcoming publication ‘Staverton: Skyscapes and Landscapes’ Friday Street also reveals astronomical links to deities associated with its name. In 620 AD at Samhain, or All Hallows Eve (Oct 31st), Friday Street aligned with the rising sun, marking a liminal time when the boundary with the otherworld became permeable, and a processional focal point in the sacred calendar honouring the souls of the dead. 2 weeks earlier just after the first full moon of winter, at dawn on Oct 18th the sun and Venus rose here in close alignment, while Orion and the vertical Milky Way appeared on the same horizon, echoing Frigg’s distaff and Yggdrasill, the Norse world tree.
Whichever deities lay behind the name, the processional journey through Friday Street leads to Staverton’s heart, potentially preserving an ancient route uniting fertility, death and rebirth, the path of the sun, and ancestral ritual observation.
