A few miles south of Norwich, in the beautiful valley of the River Tas, there’s a mysterious earthworks. Who walked these fields long ago? Perhaps Boudica, East Anglia’s fierce warrior queen once strode the perimeter with rebellion on her mind. ‘Burgh’ means a ‘defended place’, while ‘taese’ is an Old English word meaning advantageous or pleasant. And Tasburgh is indeed a very pleasant place to wander, dreaming of the past.
Pottery found in the undulating ground tells of an Anglo-Saxon settlement around AD 700. It’s possible fortifications were built then, perhaps using a pre-existing enclosure, dating further back to the Iron Age. Excavations near the church revealed a low flint structure, so another theory is the earthworks were thrown up in turbulent 9th century times when marauding Viking Danes were wreaking havoc across East Anglia. By 1200 the settlement became more dispersed, developing away from the church. The old earthworks were quarried for materials and in some places ploughed flat by farmers levelling the land.
There’s a gem of a scene in the glorious East Anglian comedy The Detectorists where Mackenzie Crook finds and blows a hawker’s whistle, giving a small shiver as if that single note calls through centuries of time. (First episode, third series.) As he and Toby Jones head to the pub, Magpie by The Unthanks plays, and the summer evening dissolves into an ancient past. We walk in a land shaped by stories and true treasure is found in the tales we tell.
