The long-lost remains of King Alfred the Great, one of England's most significant rulers, may have been discovered buried beneath a car park in Hampshire, according to author and historical researcher Graham Phillips.
Alfred, known for defending Wessex against Viking invaders and laying the groundwork for a unified English nation, died in 899. The exact location of his final resting place has been a subject of mystery and speculation for centuries.
Phillips claims to have located Alfred's grave after a 13-year investigation. The purported site is approximately 20 yards from a garden where Alfred was once thought to be buried. "Bizarrely, like Richard III, the bones are under a car park," Phillips stated.
Alfred, born in 849, ruled from 871 to 899 and is recognized as the most famous of the Anglo-Saxon kings. He was a skilled leader, warrior, strategist, scholar, and administrator. His remains were initially interred in Winchester Cathedral until 1110, when they were moved to Hyde Abbey in Winchester and placed before the high altar, alongside his wife and son.
Following the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539, Hyde Abbey fell into ruins. In 1866, during the construction of a workhouse on the abbey site, antiquarian John Mellor excavated the area and discovered what he believed to be Alfred's bones. These were subsequently reburied at St. Bartholomew's Church. However, in 2013, carbon dating of these bones revealed they originated from a period more than 200 years after Alfred's death, prompting Phillips' renewed search.
Phillips' investigation was spurred by the misidentification of the bones at St. Bartholomew's. He theorizes that Alfred's remains, along with those of his wife and son, were moved decades before the 1860s construction work. He discovered evidence suggesting that a prison was built next to the abbey site in 1788, with the grave area converted into a garden for the prison warden.
In the late 1700s, English historian Henry Howard visited Richard Page, the warden overseeing work at Hyde Abbey, to obtain plans of the ruins. While searching for a copy of these plans in Cambridge University archives, Phillips found an article by Howard published in 1800. In it, Howard documented prisoners landscaping the warden's garden unearthing bones, which were then reburied nearby, and included a map of the area.
The details of this discovery are set to be revealed in an episode of the British television series "Weird Britain" on Blaze TV on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, at 9 p.m.