More information : Saxon double house, also known as Streoneshalh, founded in AD 657 by St Hilda. It was here that the Synod of Whitby was held in AD 664, where it was agreed that British Christians would use the customs of the Latin church rather than Celtic custom. It was burnt by the Danes in AD 867. Excavations on the N side of the later Benedictine abbey church by EH in 1999¿2000 located a complex of Anglo-Saxon multi-period buildings with c 1000 8th-/9th-century graves of at least three different types (MNY24467). Some of the buildings overlaid part of the cemetery area and may be associated with re-planning of the site. The buildings may have been used for a variety of domestic activities. Some of the area was subsequently covered by medieval structures and the cemetery belonging to the Benedictine Abbey. Further rescue excavation on the cliff edge in 2001¿2 revealed parts of the contemporary settlement. The excavations revealed that the Anglo-Saxon settlement was far more extensive and well-planned than had previously been thought. An area of sloping ground N of the abbey, thought to have originally measured about 20 acres, had been organised like a 'new town' and was terraced to provide level ground surfaces for houses. Structural remains included pits, postholes and an area of burnt remains within a stone curb dated archaeomagnetically to the 8th century. Finds were removed from the eroding cliff face by a JCB, including loom weights, a glass bangle and part of a small 8th-century funerary cross inscribed with the words 'Pray for . . .' in Latin. (7)
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