West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village

On our way to our recent holiday we decided to stop off to let our toddler stretch his legs and have a snack. We'd been to the same holiday location several times and each time we had seen signs to West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village so this seemed like an ideal opportunity to check it out.

The Workshop, a thatched anglo-saxon house with yellow walls.

West Stow Anglo-Saxon village is an open air museum featuring recreations of Anglo-Saxon houses, based on those excavated between 1956 and 1972.

Museum display case showing Paleolithic artefacts.

There is a car park just outside the site, you will need to pay for a parking ticket, we found a ticket machine near the coach park.

On walking up to the entrance you'll find a cafe, outdoor seating and picnic tables, and a building used for school groups. Inside the main building is the combined visitor desk and gift shop, and a small museum space displaying more of the history of the site and some of the key pieces from the excavations.

Inside the "weavers house", showing woven material and an Anglo-Saxon loom.

Once you've explored the display you can walk out to the recreated village. The first thing you'll actually see is a recreated Hobbit house (with an explanation) and some pigs. Follow the path along, go past a video display, and you'll find the village.

There are a selection of buildings in various sizes. This includes a main hall (complete with benches and a fire pit), a weaving house, a living house, a farmers house, and a workshop.

A red and yellow wooden carved plague over a doorway.
A large iron cauldron hanging over an extinguished fire. Benches and a wooden floor are in the background.

We had a good explore, there were a couple of volunteers around (there was a live fire so best to have someone nearby keeping an eye on it!) who were happy to answer questions. Our three year old found plenty to keep him interested and had a good time peering into unusual buildings.

The site is step-free and the path from the main building to the village has some matting down to help when rain makes things muddy, but I'd recommend people with mobility issues go when the weather has been good as the village site will probably get quite slippery.

Once we'd seen everything we exited via the gift shop. Outside the car park was a play area for children with swings, slides, and climbing equipment, and some more picnic tables. We had our picnic and let our toddler unleash some energy in the play area before driving on.

Overall we had a really good trip and would recommend it to anyone in the Essex/Suffolk area, or who might be driving by on their way to Center Parcs Elveden Forest!

A thatched wooden house with the door propped open.