King Edmund and his Medieval Palace 

Pucklechurch is famous for its association with King Edmund who was Alfred the Greats' grandson and was murdered in Pucklechurch in 946.

King Edmund 921-946

¤ The Background to Edmund ¤

Fifty years on from the death of Alfred the Great in 899, his dynasty were overlords from Brecon to Aberdeen; another fifty years on both dynasty and England had fallen to foreign conquerors.

In 924 Alfred's son, Edward the Elder, died and was replaced by his eldest son Athelstan who before the end of the year was recognised as King of Wessex. Athelstan held together a composite state embracing the English peoples of Wessex, Mercia and further Northumbria; the Britons of Cornwall, the Anglo-Scandinavian population of the Danelaw and the Norsemen, Danes and Englishmen of the area around York. This state depended on the strength of the ruler and when Edmund, Athelstan's brother, succeeded him in 939 he was a youth of 18 years old, and Athelstan's kingdom soon collapsed under invasions of Irish Vikings.

In the subsequent six years to 946, Edmund showed considerable warlike and political skill to begin to re-conquer Athelstan's former kingdom, but in the May of that year the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that he was murdered in Pucklechurch in defence of his steward by a Leoff, who he had earlier banished. He was buried at Glastonbury as Edmund 'the Magnificent'. The following picture was lent to us courtesy of Mr Les Whittock, Pucklechurch.

Artists impression of the murder, published by J.Stratfords 1792 (courtesy of Les Whittock)

The siting of a Palace at Pucklechurch is quoted by two historians as being just outside the Royal Forest of Kingswood and ideally situated for a royal residence, for both safety and sport, and was a residence of Saxon kings. The scholar Felling confirms that Edmund was murdered 'in his own hall' and it is perhaps the word 'hall' that is most appropriate to what is unlikely to be a Palace in the connotations of today. However the word 'Palace' is generally recognised.

The position of King Edmund's Palace has been traditionally placed behind the Star Inn on Castle Road and is so scheduled as an Ancient Monument. This assumption is based on the nature of the visible field evidence rather than a definite geographically proven site taken from early literature. The scholar Mee states that 'under the turf in a field near the Inn the foundations of a Saxon hunting lodge where Edmund the Grand, so called for his courage and wisdom, was stabbed to death by an outlaw who crept in during a banquet'. The problem, therefore, is exactly where in Pucklechurch the Palace could actually be.