Founded outside the walls of Winchester on the orders of Henry I and consecrated c.AD 1110, the Benedictine edifice of Hyde Abbey was one of the most important royal monasteries of its time. In particular, it was significant as the burial place of certain celebrated members of the royal dynasty of Wessex. New Minster was located in the centre of Winchester, where the Norman Cathedral is today, on a site immediately adjacent to the Old Minster (see CA 344). When its the monks moved north of the city to establish Hyde Abbey, important items from their previous home were also relocated, including the bones of two Anglo-Saxon kings – Alfred the Great (r. AD 871-899) and his son Edward the Elder (r. AD 899-924) – as well as of Alfred’s wife Ealhswith (Alswitha).
The abbey prospered for more than 400 years, but in 1539 it became one more victim of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, its religious community disbanded and its buildings demolished. Today, all that remains above ground of the once-grand complex is an elaborate stone gateway, an arch that spanned the abbey millstream, and the church of St Bartholomew, which was built mainly for lay servants of the abbey and inhabitants of the community that had sprung up nearby. The abbey’s fine stonework was recycled in local building projects, and elements of its materials can be spotted in structures around the city – but traces of the monastery, including its royal burials, were also preserved below the surface as the land was left empty for centuries.
While the site’s significance slowly faded from memory, the monastery was brought to light once more in 1788 when a Bridewell, or small prison, was constructed over its footprint. The convicts who were tasked with digging the foundations of their own jail had little care for the remains they disturbed – in a contemporary account the local Catholic priest Dr Milner describes looking on in horror as ‘at almost every stroke of the mattock or spade, some ancient sepulchre was violated… the bones were thrown about’. These burials included two great stone coffins which may have held the royal bones – today the location of the royal remains is a mystery, though it has been suggested that a fragment of male pelvis recovered during Winchester Museum Service excavations in the 1990s, and radiocarbon dated in 2014 to c.AD 895-1017, may have come from Alfred or Edward (see CA 288).
