News: Tudor Tomb Mystery in Suffolk

Researchers from the University of Leicester in the UK have just been awarded £497,000 from the Science and Heritage Programme of the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (there’s a mouthful) to conduct studies on the mysteries tombs of Tudor Suffolk using space technologies.
 

Detail from the tomb of Henry Fitzroy

The tombs in question are the Renaissance monuments of Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk (d. 1554) and of Henry Fitzroy (d. 1536), Duke of Richmond, Henry VIII’s illegitimate son. What makes these particular tombs so intriguing to art-historians and archaeologists is that when they were moved in the middle of the 16th century from original location in Thetford Priory to their current locale in the Framlingham Parish Church, St. Michael, they seem to have looked very different. The clue to this theory lies in the archaeological findings excavated at Thetford Priory, where pieces of the tomb remain that do not match what we see today.
 
Using three dimensional scanning, the team from Leicester will be virtually reconstructing the tombs using the excavated stonework to try and piece together this 500 year old mystery.
 
Framlingham Parish Church, St. Michael
Framlingham, Suffolk, UK

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