In Search of Alfred the Great
Why was Alfred buried at Hyde Abbey?
When Alfred took the throne in 871, Winchester became the capital city of Wessex and a part of his series of fortified towns built to withstand Viking invaders. The cathedral and royal palace stood at the heart of the city and in the last year of Alfred’s reign, additional land was bought as the demand for space increased.
When Alfred died in 899, he was buried in Old Minster. His son, Edward the Elder, took forward his father's plans to build a new minster with the purchase of land from Bishop Denewulf ‘so that I might found a monastery there, for the salvation of my soul and that of my venerable father King Alfred’. In his will, Alfred had left ‘fifty pounds to the church in which I shall rest’.
New Minster, founded in 901, was built adjacent to Old Minster and when the work was complete, Alfred's body was moved and reburied there. Alfred’s widow Ealhswith (d. 902) was also buried in New Minster, together with Edward’s younger brother Æthelweard c. 920, Edward and his son Ælfweard in 924, and King Eadwig in 959.
In 1109, Henry I ordered the New Minster to be removed to the suburb of Hyde Mead, to the north of the city walls. Alfred’s body and those of his relatives were moved to the new Abbey in 1110. Alfred was interred at the high altar and his body remained there during the dismantling of the Abbey at the dissolution of the monastery in 1538.
Four years later in 1542, antiquarian John Leland visited the site - his report suggest that the tombs may have been opened at this time.
“In this suburbe stood the great abbay of Hyde…” he commented. “The bones of Alfred, King of the West Saxons, and of Edward his sone and king, were translated from the Newan Ministre, and laid in a tomb before the high altar at Hyde. In the which tomb there was of late found two little tables of lead, inscribed with their names.”
The destruction of graves
In 1788, during the building of a Bridewell (prison) on the old Abbey site, Dr Milner, a local Catholic priest and an eye-witness reported that:
'A great number of stone coffins were dug up, with a variety of curious articles, such as chalices, patens, rings, buckles, the leather of shoes and boots, velvet and gold belonging to chasubles and other vestments as also the crook, rims and joints of a beautiful crozier, double gilt.
The crozier is most likely to be the one now held by the Victoria & Albert Museum
Ten years later, the keeper of the Bridewell provided a detailed account of what happened to a visiting antiquarian, Captain Henry Howard, who drew up a rough plan of the east end of the church as a record of the lay-out. Subsequently Howard reported what he had been told:
“A great stone coffin was found, cased with lead both within and without, and containing some bones and remains of garnets. The lead, in its decayed state, sold for two guineas; the bones were thrown about and the stone coffin broken into pieces. There were also two other coffins and no more found in this part, which were also broke for the sake of the garden in which they lay, broken up and buried as low as the spring.”
So by the end of 1788, the royal bones could have been those removed from the coffins and scattered - but where was not clear.
In the first half of the 19th century, understanding gradually spread of what had happened on the Hyde Abbey site. Visitors to Winchester expressed their shock and indignation. In his article, ‘Enquiries etc. concerning the Tomb of King Alfred at Hyde Abbey’, published in Archaeologia, Captain Howard wrote:
“You will lament with me the failure of my researches, and feel some share of the same indignation, when I inform you that the ashes of the great Alfred, after being scattered about by the hands of convicts, are now probably covered by a building erected for their confinement and punishment. And when you are told that this occurred so lately as the year 1788, and that no-one in the neighbourhood , led either by curiosity or veneration for his remains, attempted to discover or rescue them from this ignoble fate, your surprise will not, I think, be any less than my own.”
Attempts to find Alfred
There have been many attempts to find King Alfred over the years, but none have yet been successful.
In 1866, John Mellor, an antiquarian, claimed to have excavated the bones of the royal household from the site of Hyde Abbey. Mellor sold the bones for ten shillings and the Rector William Williams of Saint Bartholomew’s Church in Hyde, reinterred them in brick-lined vault, with two stone slabs covering it, under a ledger stone with a cross but no other markings or names.
2010 marked the 900th anniversary of the establishment of Hyde Abbey and the arrival in Hyde of the royal bones. To mark the occasion, a group of local residents set up Hyde900 to organise events to celebrate the history of the area, including a re-enactment of the procession which brought the royal bones to Hyde.
With so much focus on the legacy on the Abbey, the question was raised whether advantage should be taken of the latest technology to examine the bones in the unmarked grave.
With the encouragement of the Revd. Canon Cliff Bannister and the support of the University of Winchester, a ‘faculty petition’ (a request for permission) to exhume the bones in the unmarked grave was submitted to the Diocese of Winchester.
Discovery of pelvic bone
In 2013, Osteoarchaeologist Dr Katie Tucker led a team of archaeologists from the University of Winchester to exhume the bones in the unmarked grave. They found that the bones came from at least six individuals but radiocarbon dating revealed that the skeletons dated from about 1100 to 1500 AD, so could not include Alfred.
As part of her research, Dr Tucker contacted the Winchester Museum Service to learn more about the 1995-1999 community excavation of Hyde Abbey. On examining remains from that excavation, Dr Tucker found a fragment of pelvic bone that had been found at the site of Hyde Abbey’s high altar. It belonged to a man aged between 26 and 45+ at death, and was radiocarbon dated between AD 895 - 1017. King Alfred, Edward the Elder, or Æthelweard, the brother of Edward would fit this profile, but as only King Alfred and Edward would have been buried at the High Altar, it is more likely to belong to one of them.
Dr Katie Tucker's book describes the search for Alfred at Hyde in 2013.
The search was also the subject of a BBC documentary featuring Dr. Tucker in 2014.
Hyde900 have also produced a series of banners recounting the search for Alfred - read more (PDF)
