The last few weeks and indeed months have seen much of the southern Britain inundated with big storms and seemingly incessant storms.
At one point over 600 flood warnings were in place as rivers burst their banks, fields and plains flooded and houses evacuated. The floods of course are awful for everyone involved but people today but they give a great flashback to times past.
Some areas of the country have flooded so much that things have reverted temporarily almost to how they were before the modern landscapes were created.
This is Athelney Island as close as we will ever see it to the times of King Alfred the Great. Back in 878AD the flood plains were all marshes full of bullrushes and wild creatures. The island itself likely full of willows and shrubs at home in a damp environment.
It was here that King Alfred evaded the Danish Vikings before finding refuge in the home of a pig herder who unaware who her guest was, asked him to keep an eye on her cakes. Alfred with other things on his mind absent mindedly let them burn and got a good telling off from the lady!
After spending a few months here, he built a burh or fortress and soon defeated the Viking King, this particular chap being one of my direct ancestors, Athelstan who converted to Christianity.
Not much remains now but geophysical scans reveal the old abbey that was built to commemorate these momentous nation building events. The white square being roughly where a memorial to Alfred stands.
It is rather fascinating that the floods only come up to the ancient hedge line…almost as if our ancestors knew what they were doing. In the distance you can see the spillway which helps alleviate the flooding.
These specialist LIDAR scans indicate what it was like back in the time of King Alfred The Great.
Hopefully the water levels will soon fall back to their usual normal levels but until then, if you want to make some traditional 1250 year old cakes here is the recipe…
Stephen Liddell 
You write “almost as if our ancestors knew what they were doing”. Why shouldn’t they have known what they were doing?
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It was meant rather sarcastically in that they were smart enough to live on high ground whilst our lot build so much on floodplains and then act surprised when they get flooded!
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That is SO true.
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The hedge line would be along the natural flood levels prior to drainage and now as we over load our man made drainage the natural drainage of our land is showing
As it would in the of King Alfred
.
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Thanks Andrew, I think that’s spot on too.
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Well, I posted a comment but it did not appear. So I tried to post again and it says I already said that!
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That’s so weird as I never received a comment at all and yours are all set to auto-post 🙂 I hope you enjoyed the post anyway!
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I had to log in when I clicked “Send” but it did not show the message, and then I logged in again and pasted the message and it said I had already said that!
Now it wants me to log in when I post this, so you might not see this one! I’ll fox it, you see if I don’t! I usually stay logged in forever to avoid this annoyance!
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I was just asking about Athelstan as you seemed to be saying he was your ancestor and a Viking defeated by Alfred. But I have only heard of Alfred’s grandson, Athelstan the King of the English.
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This Athelstan originally had a different name but after he was defeated by Alfred, he changed his name to Athelstan when he converted to Christianity. Obvious Athelstan must have been a very pious name back then or perhaps Alfreds grandson was named in honour of the defeated Viking invader?
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Yeah, Word Press is asking me to log in every time I comment, even though I clicked “remember me” at the login page of Word Press and told your page to save my mail and e-mail. I think it’s only going through because I am not posting a repeat of what didn’t go through m the first place!
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WordPress can be weird can’t it? Sometimes I’m randomly googling something and it takes me to wordpress and I have to go all through the logging in process despite having a 14 year old WordPress blog! Thankyou for persevering!
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Wessex started at Hampshire, and sussex to the east. Not seen any maps like this all across South.
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Yes I’d tend to agree. I didn’t draw the map but just now have found several similar including this one from https://www.britannica.com/place/Wessex-historical-kingdom which I didn’t expect. Certainly never think of Cornwall being in Wessex.
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Very interesting article. Thank you for it. I wanted to see the recipe for those cakes you mentioned. I followed what I thought was the link for it, but that got me nothing.
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Hi Marianna, I’m glad you enjoyed the article. I see the URL got corrupted so I’ve re-entered it again but this link should work…. https://stephenliddell.co.uk/2022/09/29/king-alfred-and-his-burned-cakes-recipe-inside/
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