BERKSHIRE, ENGLAND—BBC News reports that the remains of an early medieval hub of trade and production have been found at a well-preserved monastery site near southern England’s village of Cookham by a team of researchers led by Gabor Thomas of the University of Reading. The monastery thrived under the control of the Anglo-Saxon queen Cynethryth, wife of King Offa, who ruled Mercia until his death in A.D. 796. The infrastructure at the site includes traces of a waterside loading area on the banks of the Thames River, streets, industrial workshops, and bread ovens. “The discoveries at Cookham will enable us to build a detailed picture of daily life within a monastery of this period, including Cookham’s role as an economic hub for the Middle Thames region,” Thomas said. The monastery was abandoned in the late ninth century A.D. For more on the monastery’s discovery, go to “Around the World: England.”
