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Nature and wildlife at Sutton Hoo
Sutton Hoo is a haven for wildlife - with something new to see in every season. Read on for details of what you might see when you visit.
Sutton Hoo is well-known for its archaeological and historical significance and internationally recognised as the final resting place of an important Anglo-Saxon king. What many people don’t realise, however, is that it’s also a haven for wildlife and highly designated for its nature-rich landscape.
After years of commercial use, the 110-hectare estate is now managed for the benefit of nature. It’s made up of vast areas of acid grasslands, woodlands, saltmarsh and mudflats and is home to two designated SSSIs (Sites of Special Scientific Interest).
Ferry Cliff, at its southern end, is valued for its significant fossil remains, while the neighbouring Deben estuary is an internationally important feeding ground for wild ducks, geese and wading birds.
Over the past few years, Sutton Hoo’s woodlands have become actively managed for the benefit of nature, with endangered songbirds such as nightingales, and woodland flowers such as primrose, wood anemone and red campion, reaping the benefits. Nine to ten species of bat, including the barbastelle, have been identified.
Read on to find out more about the different layers of the landscape and what you might see...
Wildlife to look for in autumn
As the leaves fall and the ground cover thins, you are more likely to see foxes, badgers and deer moving through the landscape at Sutton Hoo. We mostly see fallow and muntjac, but have occasional visits from red and roe deer too. Autumn is breeding season – also known as the rut – so you may well hear the barks, groans, and roaring of males as they compete for attention.
Fungi can pop up anywhere, particularly in the woodland and out on the Royal Burial Ground, so be careful where you tread! Parasol fungi, puffballs and fly agaric are some of the species most often spotted.
In the woods, listen out for the distinctive ‘twit-twoo’ call and return between pairs of tawny owls, particularly in late afternoon and into dusk. You may also be lucky enough to see a barn owl foraging for mice and voles across the grasslands.
Although the summer migrant birds are now departing, the winter visitors are on their way. Look out for redwings and fieldfares feasting on hawthorn and holly berries.
A mosaic of habitats
Sutton Hoo has a rich tapestry of habitats, from high, dry and acidic soil to low, wet and alkaline mud and all points in between. Each would have been deeply understood by the Anglo-Saxons as sources of food, medicine and building materials.
Sandlings
Acid grassland is a distinctive element of the sandlings heaths, a sandy soil landscape called the ‘sandlings’ that once formed a continuous heathland along the coast of Suffolk. Agriculture and development have diminished these heaths and they're now divided into small and isolated pockets.
The acid grasslands at Sutton Hoo are managed to maintain this scarce habitat and its characteristic plants, including wavy hair-grass, sheep’s sorrel, bentgrass and harebells. Some areas of bracken and brambles are cut back to encourage more grassland to develop, but plenty are left for nesting birds and sheltering mammals.
This light maintenance encourages less common plants such as viper’s bugloss, cudweed and sand spurrey, as well as insects such as groundhoppers, brown argus butterflies, Carder Bees and red-banded sand-wasps.
Woodland slopes
There is a variety of woodland at Sutton Hoo and also pine plantations, with patches of scrub and brambles on the periphery. The woodlands only came to be managed by the National Trust in 2018, as they were previously part of a shooting estate.
The future management of Sutton Hoo’s woodlands is to increase the proportion of broadleaved deciduous trees, such as the oak, silver birch, beech, sweet chestnut and willow found on the lower slopes. This will also mean reducing the conifer plantations, which were planted as commercial crops, to encourage a more natural landscape and increase biodiversity.
Centuries ago, local woodland would have supplied the Anglo-Saxons with timber for homes and ships. They also practised coppicing, in which young tree stems are repeatedly cut down to near ground level and used to make poles for hurdle fencing and housing.
The woodland would have been an important source of vitamin C too, providing apples, blackberries and sloes.
In Anglo-Saxon times, all fallen wood would have been used, but today we deliberately leave some to create habitats for invertebrates.
Ferry Cliff is home to a rare wet woodland, where natural freshwater springs run through the trees, merging into the salt marsh and reed beds where they meet the estuary’s edge.
Riverside
The salt marshes and mudflats along the Deben Estuary are a vital habitat for wintering waders and wildfowl. The tidal muddy areas are packed full of invertebrates, making it a very rich feeding area for the birds. In Anglo-Saxon times these birds would have provided valuable additional winter food and feathers. The salt marsh areas on the sides of the estuary support a special community of salt-tolerant wildflowers, including sea lavender, sea aster, orache and sea purslane.
In 2022, the National Trust acquired River View Field, re-establishing the link to the river and where visitors can now enjoy a circular walk even closer to the estuary than ever before.
The outlying part of the estate at Ferry Cliff has a sand cliff where the underlying geology is visible. This internationally rare exposure of the Suffolk Pebble Beds preserves the transition between the Palaeocene and Eocene epochs (66 to 56 million years ago) and is a Geological SSSI. The mammal fossils here chart the rapid early evolution of mammals after the extinction of the dinosaurs. They have yielded the earliest ancestral horse in Europe - and probably the world.