The Prittlewell royal Anglo-Saxon burial or Prittlewell princely burial is a high-status Anglo-Saxon burial mound which was excavated at Prittlewell, north of Southend-on-Sea. It is located between the A1159 road and the Shenfield–Southend railway line, close to an Aldi supermarket and The Saxon King pub.
Artefacts found by archaeologists in the burial chamber are of a quality that initially suggested that Prittlewell was a tomb of one of the Anglo-Saxon Kings of Essex, and the discovery of golden foil crosses indicate that the inhabitant was an early Anglo-Saxon Christian. The burial is now dated to about 580 AD, and is thought that it contained the remains of Sæxa, brother of Sæberht of Essex.
Every day during term time I drive my daughter to school past the sight of a Saxon burial. It’s become habit to wish Sæxa good morning, because it must get quite lonely being out there next to the traffic. The irony of course is that nobody would ever have known about him, but because they wanted to widen this road to accommodate traffic to Shoebury Garrison, excavations took place.
It’s fabulous knowing such a well preserved part of local history was saved from tarmac and wheels: I never sit and complain either, when stationary on this piece of road, which happens quite a bit. The cost of enlightenment is often inconvenience, and if it all gets too much I can always nip across the road, park up and go walk through Priory Park instead. Some mornings, I think my daughter wishes we could do that instead of school.
Failing that, there’s always the Aldi.
Kings, Rest
Rail passes Prince
recently revealed Essex boy
buried in wealth yet
lost chronicles regret:
our Pyramids
Talk of the South
best preserved bet
quietest mouth,
forgotten ancestry.
Road almost ruined
enlightenment, celebrity:
let’s build a pub
next door, so Prince
if tired from weekly
Aldi shop could pop
in for a lager top;
buy wheely bin for him
to store treasures within.
The corner’s square
there’s nothing there
life moved beneath
Museum’s glare,
yet every day
I wave hello:
the Prince’s hump
burial lump
remembered history.
Proper Bard 