Researcher claims he’s found King Alfred the Great under a car park in Winchester
A historical researcher claims to have located the remains of King Alfred the Great in a Winchester car park.
King Alfred the Great ruled Wessex, an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is today southern and southwestern England, from 871 to 899.
He is widely recognized for introducing lasting reforms in law, education and state administration during the Early Middle Ages, which laid the foundations for the unification of England in 927.
Researcher Graham Phillips, who describes himself as the “real-life Indiana Jones”, has written 27 books examining historical mysteries, including Solomon’s treasure and the death of Napoleon.
It also focused heavily on Alfred the Great, who began his search for a resting place after a failed archaeological dig 13 years ago.
However, the search for the King’s remains took more than a century; Various obstacles were encountered, such as misidentifying the bones and digging the wrong grave entirely.
Mr Phillips claims the remains were found in a car park in Winchester, 20 meters from the garden pavement where the King’s tomb was supposed to have been located for the past 23 years.
Speaking to BBC Radio Solent, he said: “Strangely enough, like Richard III, the bones are under a car park.”
Following his death in 899, King Alfred was first buried in Winchester’s Old Minster and was later moved to New Minster by his son Edward the Elder. In 1110 he moved again to Hyde Abbey.
Following the destruction of the abbey in 1539, the exact whereabouts of the King’s remains were not confirmed until 1866, when antiquarian John Mellor excavated the site during the construction of a workhouse. The remains found at the site were reburied in St Bartholomew’s Church.
However, when the University of Winchester exhumed these bones in 2013 and subjected them to carbon dating, it was understood that they belonged to 200 years after Alfred’s death.
A year later DNA testing revealed that a fragment of a pelvis found in Hyde Abbey may have belonged to the King or his son; This indicates that the remains moved in 1866 did not belong to Alfred.
Instead, Mr Phillips believes the bones were moved again in 1788 when a prison was built next to the monastery ruins. He said this was supported by a magazine article dating back to 1800, which described prisoners excavating a lead-lined coffin and bones while modeling the garden, which were later reburied nearby.
Based on these findings, he calls for a non-invasive, ground-penetrating radar survey of the parking lot. Radar searching has proven successful in the past and was the same method used to find the remains of Richard III in a Leicester car park in 2012.
The body of his “killer nephew” was found 500 years after his death, according to an archaeological team at the University of Leicester; This marks one of the strongest archaeological identifications of a mentioned historical figure ever obtained.
Mr Phillips’ claim has not yet been independently examined by any archaeologist or heritage organisation.
The University of Winchester declined to comment on the researcher’s claim, saying finding King Alfred’s resting place was “complicated”. He added that he continues to work closely with Hyde900’s community archeology project to investigate the monastery complex.
Head of the university’s humanities department, Dr. Katherine Weikert said: “Our medieval past is full of meaning for the world today. It’s always great to see people excited about medieval history, and that’s doubly so when it comes to Alfred at Winchester.”
Mr Phillips acknowledged that without permission to investigate in the area, some investigations could go unsolved.
“Most of the time I can find good evidence to settle the argument,” he told the BBC. “But it is often left open and someone else may need to take on that task in the future.”
