A rapid demolition

Antiquarian John Leland visited the site in 1542:

 “In this suburbe stood the great abbay of Hyde… The bones of Alfred, King of the West Saxons, and of Edward his sone and king, were translated from the Newan Ministre, and laid in a tomb before the high altar at Hyde. In the which tomb there was of late found two little tables of lead, inscribed with their names.” 

In the introduction to the Liber Monasterii De Hyda, Edward Edwards describes how William Camden (1551 – 1623) an English antiquarian and historian, also visited the site 'not many years after' Leland and records:

"In this stately [destroyed] church was buried the illustrious Alfred, with many more Saxon kings and bishops. At present the bare site remains, deformed with heaps of ruins, daily dug up to burn into lime." (Liber Monasterii De Hyda, Introduction LXXIV)

 Edwards also records a visit to the site in 1733 by William Cole: 

"The site of the abbey is a close with pits and holes of foundations" (Liber Monasterii De Hyda, Introduction LXXV)

The site of the royal graves appears to have been gradually forgotten. Other parts of the Abbey precinct were developed, and a grand house built in the southwest corner.  The area next to the stream seems to have been rough grazing, perhaps heaped with mounds of rubble.

The construction of the County Bridewell

At the end of the 18th century, penal reformers such as John Howard were demanding a new approach to the construction of prisons so that they should rehabilitate convicts and not just punish them. The existing prisons in Winchester - particularly the prison over the Westgate - were notorious with squalid conditions and a high mortality rate. 

Until 1787, a County Bridewell (House of Correction) was located in central Winchester - John Howard's report of the conditions there in 1784 can be found at theprison.org.uk

Inspired by the writing of activists such as John Howard, the authorities for the County of Southampton (now Hampshire) decided to construct a purpose-built prison on the abandoned site of what had been Hyde Abbey - seemingly regardless of the impact its construction would have on the underlying archaeology.  

In 1798, Howard reported what Page, the keeper of the Bridewell had told him:

 “About 'a' was also found a stone coffin cased with lead both within and without, and containing some bones and remains of garments. The lead, in its decayed state, sold for two guineas; the bones were thrown about and the stone coffin broken into pieces. There were two other coffins, and no more, found in this part, which were also for the sake of the garden, in which they lay, broken and buried as low as the spring.” 

'Enquiries concerning the tomb of King Alfred at Hyde Abbey, near Winchester', Archaeologia (1800)

So by the end of 1788, the royal bones could have been those removed from the coffins and scattered - but where was not clear.

In the first half of the 19th century, understanding gradually spread of what had happened on the Hyde Abbey site.  Visitors to Winchester expressed their shock and indignation.  In his article, ‘Enquiries etc. concerning the Tomb of King Alfred at Hyde Abbey’, published in Archaeologia in 1800AD, Captain Howard wrote:

 “You will lament with me the failure of my researches, and feel some share of the same indignation, when I inform you that the ashes of the great Alfred, after being scattered about by the hands of convicts, are now probably covered by a building erected for their confinement and punishment. And when you are told that this occurred so lately as the year 1788, and that no-one in the neighbourhood, led either by curiosity or veneration for his remains, attempted to discover or rescue them from this ignoble fate, your surprise will not, I think, be any less than my own.”