Today is Wessex Day, so here are 10 things you might not know about Wessex:
In its heyday, Wessex, or the Kingdom of the West Saxons covered an area of 4,440 sq. miles (11,500 km2). It included Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Dorset, Wiltshire, the west Berkshire and east Somerset.
Its capital was Winchester.
According to legend, the kingdom was founded by Cerdic and Cynric in around 519 after Cerdic killed a king called Natanleod. Cerdic was the first king of Wessex.
The last king of Wessex was Athelstan, who was on the throne when England was unified in 927.
Probably the most famous king of Wessex was Alfred the Great, who was known for fighting Vikings and burning cakes. He was also a champion of education and the legal system, promoting the use of English, rather than Latin in schools.
A version of Wessex was the setting for many of Thomas Hardy’s novels. Hardy's Wessex excluded Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, but the city of Oxford, which he called "Christminster", was included. Berkshire is known in the novels as "North Wessex".
Prince Edward was given the title "Earl of Wessex" when he married Sophie who became Countess of Wessex. The title had not been used since the last earl, King Harold Godwinson, was killed at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
The symbol of Wessex is a wyvern or Dragon. This creature features on the Wessex flag designed by William Crampton in the 1970s. The 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division, and post war regional 43 (Wessex) Brigade adopted a symbol consisting of a gold wyvern on a black/dark blue background. The aforementioned Sophie, Countess of Wessex, has a blue wyvern on her coat of arms.
The region figures prominently in legends of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table.
The ITV television series Broadchurch takes place in Wessex. Its characters attend South Wessex Secondary School.
New!!!
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
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