The site was excavated between 1956 and 1972 by an archaeological team from the Ministry of Public Building and Works (MOPBW), led first by Vera Evison and then by Stanley West.

[3] The land to the north and east of the West Stow Anglo-Saxon village has been heavily modified during the construction of the Bury sewage farms, with the north-east corner of the site having been partly destroyed by a gravel pit in the 1950s.

[3] The solid geology of the Lark Valley is chalk, with patches of boulder clay that forms a high plateau capped with sands and gravels in West Stow and Icklingham.

Temporarily camping on the knoll, they left behind them five or six dense concentrations of Sauveterrian-style waste lithic flakes, blades, cores and other stone implements.

[5] Grooved ware and petit tranchet-style arrowheads dating from the Neolithic Age have been found in a field adjacent to the West Stow site.

Archaeological excavation of the site unearthed evidence for a variety of different constructions and areas at West Stow: 69 sunken-featured buildings (SFBs), alongside 7 post-hole buildings interpreted as halls, traces of several lesser structures, a reserve area for clay, 2 large hollows or animal pens, pits, various unassociated post holes and several 7th century boundary ditches.

[7] The majority of structures built at West Stow belonged to a category of what the excavators called "sunken-featured buildings" (SFBs), a term first coined by Professor Philip Rahtz.

[8] The other category of building uncovered at West Stow consisted of seven larger structures held up by wooden posts which left behind postholes; the excavators interpreted these as halls.

It was subject to various possible interpretations, although represented the most sophisticated building at West Stow, involving a more advanced technique than that shown for many of the other constructions.

The purpose of these Hollows is unknown, although chief excavator Stanley West speculated that they may have represented animal pens which were once surrounded by a form of hurdling or light fencing, traces of which have not survived.

Those ditches dug on the village's western sector appeared to have been used to define certain areas of the settlement, while those on the eastern side serve no apparent functional purpose.

[15] The first excavations to take place in the vicinity of the West Stow village were undertaken in 1849, when an Anglo-Saxon cemetery was accidentally discovered on the nearby heath, and "skeletons and numerous urns" were found.

[2] In 1940, the archaeologist Basil Brown (1888–1977), best known for having excavated the Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in the 1930s, discovered two further Romano-British pottery kilns at the site.

Proceeding to publish his findings on the kilns in 1952, West went on to excavate Anglo-Saxon areas of Ipswich for the MOPBW alongside studying archaeology in an academic capacity at the University of Cambridge.

Here, he met Professor Vera Evison of Birkbeck College, London, and posed the question to her as to why archaeologists had so far focused on the excavation of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries rather than settlements; she replied that the latter were far harder to detect than the former.

[2][17] Meanwhile, inspired by Mary Leakey's discoveries in Olduvai Gorge, West traveled to Eastern Africa to excavate at the Tanganyikan city of Dar Es Salaam, only returning to England five years later, in 1965.

[2][17] The excavation was undertaken by a team of site supervisors and six builders' labourers, aided by roughly 30 volunteers drawn from both universities and the local area.

[19] Towards the end of the final season, the excavators at West Stow made use of the pioneering system of retrieving seeds and plant remains by flotation, which had just been developed by archaeologists at the University of Cambridge.

This practical experience has provided fresh insights into the everyday life of an Anglo-Saxon community and has, I believe, put some flesh on the dry bones of archaeology by encouraging the visitor to see the people and appreciate their struggle to survive and indeed, prosper."

The St Edmundsbury District Council planned to turn the area into a rubbish dump servicing the city of Bury St. Edmunds following the culmination of excavation, a decision that was reviewed annually.

It burned down in 2008 when an ember from a cooking fire set the building alight; John Rhymer, Head of Bishops Wood Centre, told press that he and his team were "devastated".

At its official reopening on 21 January 2011, the Anglo-Saxonist Stephen Pollington gave a speech in Old English while a historical reenactor, Paul Mortimer, appeared in character as Raedwald, King of East Anglia.