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Danegelts Bed & Breakfast (often mis-spelled "Danegeld") is located in the charming village of Geldeston, near Beccles on the Norfolk / Suffolk border.
Danegelts Bed & Breakfast (often mis-spelled "Danegeld") is located in the charming village of Geldeston, near Beccles on the Norfolk / Suffolk border.
Set in a historic, 16th Century Grade-II listed building, Danegelts (or "Danegeld") offers cosy, countryside luxury bed & breakfast at very reasonable rates. A generous, home-cooked breakfast is included in our rates, and dinner is available on request.
As you would expect from a building of this age, the house has a lot of history — not least in its name.
How did it acquire the name "Danegelts" — and why is it spelled that way rather than the more conventional "Danegeld"?
"Danegeld" in its traditional sense was the tax (often described as "protection money") levied by the Vikings ("Danes") on villages in parts of eastern England which they had conquered and settled. "Geld" is of course related to the modern English word "Gold", and simply meant money. So "Danegeld" basically meant "Viking tax".
In the 18th century, a "horde" — or buried treasure —was found not far from the house that is today called "Danegelts". Although there is no clear evidence that this treasure was connected to "Danegeld", the Viking tax, the story emerged that this was a Viking fortune, amassed through the levy of Danegeld, that had been buried perhaps for safekeeping, and subsequently lost or forgotten.
This find came to be associated with the nearby house — whose name at that point in time is not recorded — and so in time the house acquired the name "Danegelts", just an alternative spelling of Danegeld.
The house that exists here today (Danegelts) dates from the 16th Century, of course long after the Vikings had left. Unfortunately we have no record of what might have existed on this site prior to the current house's construction — that would require further archival or archaeological research.
But today if you come to stay at Danegelts Bed & Breakfast, you can perhaps imagine that you are staying on or close to the spot where a Viking warlord made his home, and amassed, and eventually lost, his "Danegeld" fortune.
If you would like to come and experience the Danegelts / Danegeld legend for yourself, please click the button below to check availability.
The memory of the lost — and found — Danegeld treasure lives on in the name-plate of the next-door Danegelts Cottage, which depicts a money-bag with gold and silver coins.
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