"Anglo-Saxon en-suite" suggests Harold Godwinson could have lived in West Sussex village before the Battle of Hastings
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Experts from the University of Newcastle and the University of Exeter say that Harold Godwinson, who ruled England before dying at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, maintained a residence in Bosham, West Sussex.
The coastal community is depicted twice in the Bayeux Tapestry – which recounts the events of the Battle of Hastings itself, culminating in William the Conqueror’s victory – as the location of an extravagant hall in which Harold enjoys a feast, first before setting out for France, then again on his return.
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Hide AdThe exact location of the site has never been definitively proven, but experts are now suggesting that a house in the village – now a private home – stands on the same site.


A team of crack archaeologists used a range of methods to unpick the early history of the property, including a geographical survey of the surrounding area, an assessment of surrounding remains, scrutiny of early maps and records and a re-examination of evidence from excavations carried out in 2006 by West Sussex Archaeology.
Eventually, they confirmed the existence of two previously unidentified medieval buildings; one integrated into the existing property and another in the garden. The crucial indication of the site’s earlier origins comes from an excavation conducted in 2006, which identified a latrine within a large timber building, which fits with a recently-identified trend, beginning in the tenth century, for high-status houses in England to integrate toilets.
This indicated to the team that the timber building belonged to someone of elite social status – someone like a king – and so almost certainly represents part of the residence depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry. It’s been suggested that the hall was just one part of a larger residence, which also included a church – perhaps the Holy Trinity Church – which still survives.
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Hide AdThe research, which is published in The Antiquaries Journal, was led by Dr Duncan Wright, Senior Lecturer in Medieval Archaeology at Newcastle University, who said: “The realisation that the 2006 excavations had found, in effect, an Anglo-Saxon en-suite confirmed to us that this house sits on the site of an elite residence pre-dating the Norman Conquest. Looking at this vital clue, alongside all our other evidence, it is beyond all reasonable doubt that we have here the location of Harold Godwinson’s private power centre, the one famously depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry.”
Professor Oliver Creighton of the University of Exeter, and Co-Investigator of the project, added: “The Norman Conquest saw a new ruling class supplant an English aristocracy that has left little in the way of physical remains, which makes the discovery at Bosham hugely significant — we have found an Anglo-Saxon show-home.”
The research was conducted as part of the Where Power Lies project, with a team drawn from The University of Newcastle and the University of Exeter and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The wider project aims to explore the origins and early development of aristocratic centres like Bosham, assessing for the first time the archaeological evidence for these sites across the whole of England.