Scraping at the dirt, earth thick under his fingernails, amateur archeologist Basil Brown came across a section of hard earth.
After further excavations, he found other patches stained with rust, and iron nails and rivets spread intermittently across the site.
Over several weeks, after a delicate and painsteaking operation, archologist Basil Brown saw the shape of a ship emerge from the ground in the Suffolk field.
He had discovered an 86ft Anglo-Saxon burial ship filled with a rich cargo of teasures.
The discovery at Sutton Hoo in 1939 went on to become one of the most important archologicals finds in Britain, hailed as Britain s Tutankhamun , and to this day the cache is renowned around the world.
1.75in-tall figure dates back to the 7th Century but remains in fantastic condition
Experts believe it is a gaming piece similar to chess that formed part of a set
It was bought by a private collector for £120k with Timeline Auctions of Mayfair
A 1,400-year-old bronze chess piece that was unearthed in a field in Norfolk has sold for more than £120,000 at an auction.
The 1.75in-tall item, which depicts an armed horse rider, was discovered by an anonymous metal detectorist near Bradwell in Great Yarmouth.
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Experts believe the carving, which shows a mounted soldier with centre-parted bobbed hair, large pellet eyes and a moustache, dates all the way back to the 7th Century – making it a relic of Anglo-Saxon Britain.
New £150m world record-breaking Humber pipeline delivering gas for National Grid
The Humber Tunnel can transport between 70m to 100m cubic metres – or around a quarter – of Britain’s gas
Image: National Grid
A new gas pipeline built 30 metres under the surface of the River Humber, a world record-breaking engineering project, has been completed.
The £150 million ‘Humber Tunnel’ pipeline, which is part of the national transmission system and connects the import terminal at Easington, on the east coast, to the wider gas network, is now delivering gas to National Grid.
It can transport between 70 million to 100 million cubic metres – or around a quarter – of Britain’s gas.
16 Dec 2020
Dominic Bliss In order to make aviation sustainable, we have to make sustainable fuel. There is no other way to achieve it. (Credit: Shutterstock) One day, in the very near future, commercial aircraft will be fuelled by household rubbish. Yes, seriously.
A British technology company called Velocys is soon to build an industrial plant in Lincolnshire designed to convert household and office refuse – the stuff we throw away rather than what we send for recycling – into jet fuel. If all goes to plan, they could start production as soon as 2025.
The plant, for which planning consent has already been granted, is called Altalto Immingham. It will sit on a 78-acre site beside the River Humber, near the town of Immingham, close to the east coast. So far Velocys, which is headquartered in Oxford, has raised £8.2m in funding, of which just under £1m is from government grants, and the rest from British Airways, Shell and its own coffers. The de