Taplow burial, Anglo-Saxon burial mound in Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England
Taplow burial is a grass-covered earthen mound on the grounds of Taplow Court in Buckinghamshire, close to the River Thames. Inside the mound there was a timber chamber containing skeletal remains along with a collection of Anglo-Saxon objects.
The mound was raised around 620 to mark the burial of a person of high status in Anglo-Saxon society. Local antiquarians opened the site in 1883 and found a timber chamber with remains and a large number of objects, most of which went to the British Museum.
The mound sits within the grounds of Taplow Court, a country house whose formal garden now surrounds it. Seeing a pre-Christian burial mound in such a setting gives a sense of how old and new layers of English history share the same ground.
The mound stands on private grounds and is not freely accessible, but the objects found inside are on display at the British Museum in London. A visit there is the most direct way to see what was recovered from this site.
During the dry summer of 1995, the outline of a long-demolished church appeared in the parched grass near the mound. The name Taplow itself is thought to come from an Anglo-Saxon leader called Taeppa, meaning this burial site may have given the whole village its name.
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