The Vikings are coming – again. The first time around was more than 1,000 years ago, when they poured down from Scandinavia in fast, low warships. They didn’t stay long – they were interrupted by William the Conqueror – but it was long enough for them to leave indelible marks on our culture and landscape. Those marks are the subject of the latest invasion, a major new exhibition at the British Museum which opens on March 6.
Vikings: Life and Legend, the inaugural show in the new Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery, is spearheaded by a 120ft-long Viking warship, found in a Danish fjord – or at least its remaining oak timbers, constituting about a fifth of the original vessel (the rest is represented by a beautifully designed stainless-steel frame). With other recent finds, backed up by fresh research, the exhibition promises to shed new light on those incorrigible Scandis in their horned helmets.
But you don’t need to rampage down to London WC1 to get the picture. Just look around you. The Vikings left no castles or sumptuous palaces, but they did slide calling cards under the mat all over Britain, particularly in Scotland and in the north and east of England. Those cards are still there, if you know where to look.
The curator of the Viking exhibition, Dr Gareth Williams, highlighted two places where the Viking spirit and legacy are particularly strong: Shetland (see right for Stephen McClarence’s account of Viking sites there) and Yorkshire.
“Ninety-five per cent of the place names in Shetland are Scandinavian in origin,” Dr Williams told me. “Yorkshire dialect, like Shetland, has lots of Scandinavian in it. And there are fantastic examples of Anglo-Viking architecture in Yorkshire.”
By this he means Viking crosses and the flat tombstones known as hogbacks, of which there are two examples, from Middleton in North Yorkshire and Govan in Glasgow, in the exhibition. There are plenty of other hogbacks, not just in North Yorkshire (for example at Brompton – see listing below) but as far afield as Lanivet, near Bodmin, in Cornwall.
Lewis chessmen from the new exhibition at the British Museum
A thousand years on we are still making fresh discoveries about the Vikings and the single main source is that much maligned figure, the metal detectorist. These weekend hobbyists have unearthed some stunning treasure in recent years (see “Viking hoards”, below), the most significant being found at the Vale of York near Harrogate in 2007.
This hoard, which shares star billing at the British Museum exhibition with the warship, comprises a gilt-silver bowl and nearly 700 coins, ornaments and ingots that were stored inside it when dug up. “It is effectively the whole of the Viking world in one cup,” according to Dr Williams.
In the next several years we can expect more sensational finds from the men in anoraks and headphones. “The techniques of metal detecting are improving and the scale of the hobby is growing,” said Dr Williams. “There’s new material turning up all the time.”
Far from coming back, the Vikings have never gone away.
Many words of Norse origin entered our language after the Viking invasions, for example bairn and egg. The Lake District’s fells (hills) and becks (streams) are Norse words and in Cumbria, Yorkshire and elsewhere there are plenty of towns and villages with Viking suffixes, such as -by (Grimsby), -thorpe (Scunthorpe) and -toft (Lowestoft).
Jorvik Viking Centre (jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk) in York, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, is built on the excavations of the Viking village of Jorvik, with original artefacts and re-creations. Open 10am-4pm daily till end March, then 10am-5pm, £9.75/£6.75, family tickets from £27. Read our York guide here
Inside St Thomas’s church at Brompton, near Northallerton there are five hogback stones. At St Andrew’s church, Middleton, near Pickering there is a collection of Viking crosses.
The Priory was first raided by Vikings in 793, and in 875, with the Vikings occupying much of the north of England and threatening to attack again, the monks fled with the body of St Cuthbert, eventually founding Durham Cathedral. Till March 31, open Sat and Sun 10am-4pm, adults £5.50, children £3.10.
Isle of Man
The Braaid, the site of a stone circle and later a Viking farmstead, is signposted off the A24 between Douglas and Foxdale.
Govan Old Church, at 866 Govan Road, G51 3UU, contains 31 carved stones (sarcophagi, grave slabs, cross shafts, hogbacks) from the Viking era, when Govan was the centre of the kingdom of Strathclyde. See thegovanstones.org.uk Open 1-4pm at weekends and Mon, Wed and Thurs, entrance free.
The Battle of Maldon, near the town of that name in 991, was a hugely significant battle between the Anglo-Saxons and the Viking invaders. The events were recorded in the medieval poem The Battle of Maldon. The battlefield site is 1 mile south-east of Maldon facing Northey Island, off the road to Mundon. There’s no parking there so it’s preferable to walk from the town centre along the sea wall – map available from Maldon TIC (01621 856503; visitmaldon.co.uk).
Shetland was a handy first port of call for Viking voyagers; the islands’ capital, Lerwick, is at the same latitude as Bergen, on the west coast of Norway. Invasions began around 800 AD and Shetland was effectively part of Scandinavia until the 15th century, when it joined Scotland. It has two of Britain’s most interesting Viking sites: Jarlshof and Unst. See more on shetland.org
Jarlshof, where there are remains of Viking longhouses
In the late 19th century, storms battered low cliffs near Sumburgh Head, at the southern tip of Shetland’s main island. They revealed a multi-layered settlement dating back 4,000 years and including Bronze Age and Iron Age remains. Longhouses subsequently unearthed in the 1930s were the first Viking settlement discovered in Britain. The site, in a spectacular coastal setting, has an informative visitor centre and opens daily (£5.50/£3.30) from 9.30am (until dusk before April 1st, then until 5.30pm). Nearby Sumburgh Hotel (01950 460201; sumburghhotel.com) serves coffee and meals.
Shetland’s most northerly island boasts the remains of at least 60 longhouses, the highest density of rural Viking sites to be found anywhere, including Scandinavia. Three of them, at Hamar, Underhoull and Belmont, have been excavated and can be visited all year round, along with a replica longhouse. Haroldswick also has a replica Viking ship, in which 30 or so oarsmen would have sat behind a snarling-dragon prow. Self-guided trails can be downloaded free at shetlandamenity.org/trails
Shetland Museum and Archives (01595 695057; shetland-museum.org.uk) at Hay’s Dock, Lerwick, has a large collection of excavated finds.
Shetland stages a Viking-inspired midwinter fire festival: the Up-Helly-Aa (uphellyaa.org). Every year on the last Tuesday in January, an 800-strong procession weaves through the streets of Lerwick carrying flaming torches. The festival’s spectacular climax is the burning of a specially-built longboat or galley. The Galley Shed in St Sunniva Street, Lerwick, houses an exhibition about the festival.
Vale of York Hoard
Currently in the British Museum exhibition, it will later be divided between the BM and the Yorkshire Museum, York (yorkshiremuseum.org.uk).
The Vale of York Hoard
Found in Silverdale Lancashire in 2011, this hoard of more than 200 silver pieces is on display at the Museum of Lancashire, Preston (lancashire.gov.uk/museums).
This collection of more than 8,600 silver coins, ingots and jewellery was discovered in 1840 and is now owned by the British Museum though some pieces are exhibited at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (ashmolean.org).
Also found in 2011, in Furness in Cumbria, this collection of 92 coins and objects is now on display in a new Viking gallery in the Dock Museum in Barrow in Furness (dockmuseum.org.uk).
This cache of more than 100 pieces of jewellery and coins (including a dirham minted in Baghdad in the 10th century) was unearthed in Orkney in 1858. Part of it is on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh (nms.ac.uk).
Ballaquayle, Glenfaba Hoards
Found on the Isle of Man in, respectively, 1894 and 2003 and displayed at the Manx Museum, Douglas (manxnationalheritage.im).
Found in 2004 near Huxley in Cheshire; 21 silver bracelets and an ingot are displayed at the Museum of Liverpool (liverpoolmuseums.org.uk).