wage, so that he had to continue working as an insurance agent. He also joined the police as a special constable. Sutton Hoo excavations Landowner Edith May Pretty (1883–1942) was curious about the contents of about eighteen ancient mounds on her Sutton Hoo estate in southeast Suffolk. At a 1937 fete in nearby Woodbridge, Pretty discussed the possibility of opening them with Vincent B. Redstone, member of several historical and archaeological societies. Redstone invited the curator of the Ipswich Corporation Museum, Guy Maynard, to a meeting with Pretty in July 1937, and Maynard offered the services of Brown as excavator. Sutton Hoo farm derives its name in part from the surrounding parish of Sutton and its village, where 77 households lived by 1086. Sutton is a compound noun formed from the Old English sut (south) and tun (enclosed settlement or farm). The farm and its mounds have been recorded on maps since at least 1601, when John Norden included it in his survey of Sir Michael Stanhope's estates between Woodbridge and Aldeburgh. The land was known variously as "Hows", "Hough", "Howe", and eventually "Hoo Farm" by the 19th century (c.1834–65). "Hoo" probably means a "hill" – an elevated place shaped like a heel, from the Old English hóh or hó (similar to the German hohe), which is sometimes associated with a burial site. June–August 1938 Maynard released Brown from his employment by Ipswich Museum for June – August 1938, during which he was paid 30 shillings a week by Pretty. Arriving on 20 June, Brown was lodged for the duration with Pretty's chauffeur, at Tranmer House, then called Sutton Hoo House. He brought along books spanning the Bronze Age to the Anglo-Saxon period and some excavation reports. Given the proposed time limit of two weeks, Brown decided to copy the cross-trench digging methods used in 1934 excavations of Iron Age mounds at Warborough Hill in Norfolk, where similar time constraints had applied. With the help of Pretty's labourers, Brown excavated three mounds, discovering that they were burial sites showing signs of robbery during the medieval period. Brown first tackled what was later identified as Mound 3. Initially he found nothing, but evidence suggested a bowl-shaped area had been dug below. Following Maynard's recommendation Brown removed the soil and found a "grave deposit", offset from the mound's centre. Its location resulted perhaps from the shape of the mound distorting over time,