An English King’s Bones Were Moved Over Centuries and Eventually Lost. One Researcher Claims He Discovered Their Location—Under a Parking Lot

Alfred the Great defended Wessex from the Vikings. Researchers have been searching for his remains for years after their resting place in an abbey was disturbed

Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent

July 14, 2026 4:37 p.m.

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For more than a century, the whereabouts of Alfred the Great’s remains have been a mystery. Now, a researcher claims to have cracked the case, asserting that the bones of the Anglo-Saxon ruler are located in an unassuming—yet not unprecedented—location in Winchester, England.

“Bizarrely, like Richard III, the bones are under a car park,” author Graham Phillips says, per BBC News’ Stuart Rust.

The supposed final resting place doesn’t match Alfred’s reputation as one of England’s most successful early leaders. King of Wessex from 871 to 899, Alfred is credited with having laid the groundwork for a unified England through his emphasis on education, construction of walled towns called “burhs” and success fending off Vikings.

The king’s burial place has been less stable than his legacy, though for the first several hundred years his constantly changing gravesite was well-documented.

After his death in 899, Alfred was first interred at the Winchester cathedral, known as Old Minster. Later, his son, Edward the Elder, completed the construction of a new cathedral, New Minster, and moved his father’s remains there.

Around 1110, Alfred’s remains were again moved, this time to Hyde Abbey, where he was placed in between his wife and son before the high altar. When Henry VIII disbanded Catholic institutions between 1536 and 1540, a period now known as the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Hyde Abbey was disbanded, but the royal family remained in the ground.

The true mystery begins in 1788, when a workhouse and prison were built on the site of the former abbey. In the 1860s, an antiquarian named John Mellor said he excavated the site and found what he thought were King Alfred’s bones. He sold them to be reburied at Saint Bartholomew’s Church, where they were placed in an unmarked grave.

But in 2013, archaeologists from the University of Winchester working with Hyde900, a community project aimed at celebrating the 900th anniversary of the foundation of Hyde Abbey, conducted an analysis that challenged this lead. Radiocarbon dating of the grave showed that the bones belonged to at least six individuals, each of whom died at least 200 years after Alfred did, according to a university statement.

“Whoever’s bones they were, they weren’t Alfred’s. So, I decided to discover what happened to them,” Phillips says, reports the Telegraph.

The search took him more than a decade. Now, he says he has found a journal article from 1800 in the archives of the University of Cambridge that mentions bones being disinterred during the creation of that 18th-century prison. The article includes a map pointing out where the bones were reburied. Phillips hopes a noninvasive radar survey can examine that spot, which is now a parking lot.

Phillips’ theory has not been independently reviewed nor endorsed by the University of Winchester.

“Our medieval past is filled with meaning for today’s world,” Katherine Weikert, a historian at the university, tells BBC News. “It is always great to see people excited about medieval history, and doubly so when it comes to Alfred here in Winchester.”

Meanwhile, another lead on the whereabouts of the late king points back to Hyde Abbey. Osteoarchaeologist Katie Tucker of the University of Winchester re-examined remains that were removed in the 1990s from the site. She identified a pelvic bone that had been found at the position of the high altar. Radiocarbon dating from the University of Oxford identified a date range of 895 to 1017 C.E., and osteological analysis found it belonged to a man roughly between the ages of 26 and 45 at death.

The most plausible explanation, according to the university statement, is that the bone belongs to Edward the Elder or Alfred the Great.

Christian Thorsberg | Read More

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.