King Alfred the Great's bones 'found under car park' in time for England vs Norway match.
The remains of King Alfred the Great have been found buried under a car park in Winchester, a researcher claims after a 13-year hunt.
The long-lost remains of King Alfred the Great have been unearthed beneath a car park, investigators have sensationally claimed.
Alfred the Great, the only English monarch to be bestowed such a title, was one of the most significant rulers in history and is widely regarded as the founder of the nation. Despite his legendary status in English history, his final resting place has long remained a mystery.
Now, author and historical researcher Graham Phillips claims to have located Alfred's grave following a remarkable 13-year search.
Phillips claims the site lies just 20 yards from a slab marking where Alfred was once interred. He added: "Bizarrely. Like Richard III, the bones are under a car park."
Alfred died in 899 and his remains were relocated on numerous occasions.
He was originally laid to rest in Winchester Cathedral until 1110, when his remains were transferred to Winchester's Hyde Abbey, where they were interred before the high altar, flanked by the bodies of his wife and son. The abbey was subsequently demolished following the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539, leaving the site in ruins.
In 1866, during construction of a workhouse on the site, English antiquarian John Mellor excavated the area, believed he had unearthed Alfred's remains and arranged for them to be reburied at the nearby St. Bartholemew's Church. Yet in 2013, when archaeologists exhumed and carbon dated the bones from St. Bartholemew's churchyard, they were found to date from over 200 years after Alfred's death - sparking Graham's curiosity and subsequent investigation.
He said: "Whoever's bones they were, they weren't Alfred's. So, I decided to discover what happened to them. The quest has taken me 13 years."
It had long been assumed that Alfred's remains were lost during the workhouse construction in the 1860s, and Winchester city council transformed the Hyde Abbey site into an attractive garden, marking the locations of Alfred's grave, along with those of his wife and son, with stone slabs. Phillips, however, believes he has uncovered evidence suggesting the bones of all three had already been relocated several decades prior to the 1860s.
He added: "I discovered that in 1788 a prison was built next to the area, and the site where graves were was turned into a garden for the warden's house. I'm convinced the original bones were moved at that time."
During the late 1700s, English historian Henry Howard paid a visit to Richard Page, the warden overseeing works at the Hyde Abbey site, in order to obtain plans of the ruins that had existed prior to the prison's construction. It was while Phillips was searching for a copy of that very plan in the archives of Cambridge University that he stumbled upon what he describes as an astonishing discovery.
Graham added: "Howard had written an article about Hyde Abbey published in Volume 13 of Archaeologia, the journal of the London Society of Antiquaries, in 1800. In it, he refers to prisoners employed to landscape the warden's new garden unearthing bones which were reburied nearby, even including a map."
At present, there are no plans to excavate the Hampshire car park and dig up King Alfred's remains, or return him to Winchester Cathedral, reports the Daily Mail.
The England squad will need to channel all Alfred's famous courage, cunning and lion-hearted spirit to defeat Erling Haaland and his fellow Norway Vikings once again on Saturday. DE.
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