Story of Ad Gefrin Anglo-Saxon royal complex to be told at new attraction

November 12, 2021

8192.jpg?width=1200&quality=85&auto=form

“Just here would have been the great hall,” says Chris Ferguson to a Guardian reporter and a dozen indifferent sheep chewing grass in a stunning Northumberland valley.

“Over there would have been the royal residence and behind that, a grandstand. We are on top of one of the most important sites of Anglo-Saxon history anywhere in this country.”

Ferguson is standing in a field telling the story of one of the last century’s most remarkable archaeological finds. It is here, and in the nearby market town of Wooler, that he and his family are spearheading the development of a £10.4m tourist attraction.

While arguably as important as the Sutton Hoo finds of the 1930s, it did not have the glamour. There was no buried ship or fabulous helmet, so it has not resonated in the public consciousness in the same way, says Ferguson.

“Now it feels like a very idyllic rural backwater, but in the seventh century it was one of the most important sites in Britain.”

It was a place of hospitality, feasting and cultural exchange and would have had visitors from all the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms as well as Rome and Ireland. It was also a place of battles and feuding, burned down twice – by Penda of Mercia and Cadwallon, King of the Britons.

The plan is to open a visitor centre and museum in Wooler that tells the vivid story of Ad Gefrin and Northumbria’s Anglo-Saxon golden age. It will include an imagined recreation of the Great Hall with thrones and weapons and objects, showing that the so-called dark ages were far from gloomy. “They were the most blingy people you could possibly imagine,” says Ferguson. “So this place will look really blingy, with bright, vibrant colours and gold.”