The Winchester Cathedral mortuary boxes containing the remains of our earliest Saxon kings are being examined to see if the bones can be connected to King Cnut.

Hampshire and its neighbouring counties of Berkshire and Wiltshire were at the core of West Saxon Wessex when the Viking raids swept through. The emerging Christian churches were attacked and the fragile shoots of the new religion stamped upon.

Hampshire has a great number of early churches, a number of which still have vestiges of their Anglo Saxon origins peeping through the structure.

Wymering Manor in Portsmouth is one of Hampshire’s oldest and allegedly, most haunted houses. From the outside it presents a bit of a sorry state and its exterior belies its ancient past but it is a house full on intrigue and mystery.

The Medieval wall paintings in the church of St Hubert, formerly St Peter, in Idsworth Hampshire are some of the most poignant Christian wall paintings to be seen. The chapel stands alone in a field, all that is left of an Anglo Saxon settlement, one of a number of lost Hampshire villages, after the spread of the black death throughout the county.

Alfred held out against the Viking invasion and showed great skills in organizing his militia, so that when the opportunity to crush the Danish attack, he did so, decisively and coherently at the Battle of Edington