Ad Gefrin Anglo-Saxon Museum and Whisky Distillery opens to acclaim

A world-class, free museum designed around the royal Northumbrian palace site of Ad Gefrin (or Yeavering), one of our favourite archaeological sites in the UK, has now opened in Wooler, Northumberland!

The Ad Gefrin Anglo-Saxon Museum and Whisky Distillery celebrated its opening on Saturday 25^th March 2023. In doing so, it provides the public with a unique look into this neglected period of our past and a chance to experience the Golden Age of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria for themselves.

ARS Ltd has worked on this site in recent years as part of the Durham University and Gefrin Trust ‘Yeavering: A Place in its Landscape’ project, as well as our flagship excavations at Cheviot Quarry 1 and 2 where other important Anglo-Saxon and early medieval remains have been found. You can read more about our contribution here or watch the video detailing the project below.

 

 

We’ve been delighted to collaborate with Tarmac and the Ad Gefrin Anglo-Saxon Museum to support an exhibition the public will love. Several objects loaned to the new museum have come from our excavations which help to tell the early story of this Anglo-Saxon kingdom. (Read more about the excavations at Tarmac’s Cheviot Quarry 1 and Quarry 2.)

We look forward to continuing our partnership with the Ad Gefrin Museum and Distillery and The Gefrin Trust over the years to come. In the meantime, if you’re heading to Northumberland soon, don’t forget to put the Ad Gefrin experience on your itinerary! And while you’re there, we highly recommend visiting the Maelmin Heritage Trail too (about 5 miles north of Wooler), which showcases the archaeology of the royal successor site to Yeavering and features a full-size reconstruction of an Anglo-Saxon timber-built building excavated just a hundred or so yards away.

You can read more about the opening of the Ad Gefrin Anglo-Saxon Museum and Whisky Distillery via The Times, BBC, ITV, North East Times, and the Museums Association.