Archeologists have reported recently; an 18th-century British cave dwelling has been identified as the shelter for an exiled Anglo-Saxon King.
A Live Science report specified that the Anchor Church Caves, located by the River Trent in an isolated part of the countryside in central England, was long considered an "18th-century folly," a lavish building made exclusively as a joke for ornamentation.
However, in a new stud, it has been shown that the cave house is the real deal. The structure, 1,200 years old, was constructed during the Northumbrian king Eardwulf's tumultuous life. The king was hounded from his throne to live as a hermit, and later on, he became a saint.
According to local legend Eardwulf, who later became St. Hardulph, lived inside the cave-dwelling after being deposed and exiled for unknown reasons in AD 806.
King Eardwulf
A piece from a 16th-century book indicates that Eardwulf has "a single cell in a cliff" slightly from the Trent, and the exiled king was buried in AD 830 at a location just eight kilometers from the cave.
Archeologist Edmund Simons, at the Royal Agricultural University in England, also the project's investigator, is convinced that the king lived in the caves under his enemies' watchful eyes.
In a statement posted on the Royal Agricultural University site, Simons said the architectural resemblances between Saxon buildings, and the recorded links with King Eardwulf, making a conclusive case that these caves were built, or enlarged, to house the banished king.
Eardwulf lived and governed during a time of insistent political variability in medieval England. During the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, seven key kingdoms and more than 200 kings intrigued, killed, and warred against each other in a keen, continuous scramble for sovereignty.
In AD 796, Eardwulf took them through, after the killing of his two immediate ancestors, and governed Northumbria, for only a decade before he was hunted from power, probably, according to some scholars, by his own son to spend his last years in exile in the rival kingdom of Mercia.
Cave as the King's Dwelling
Simons explained, according to a similar HeritageDaily report, with all of these civil conflicts, hiding inside a cave with the rest of the disciples of one was far from the most abnormal idea King Eardwulf could have come up with.
He added it was not uncommon for overthrown or retired royalty to take up a religious life during this period, attaining sanctity and, in certain circumstances, canonization. Living in a cave as a hermit, added Simons, "would have been one way this could have been attained."
In the study, the researchers redeveloped the cave's original plan, including three rooms and an easterly that faced the chapel, using detailed measurements, a survey of drone, and a careful investigation of the architectural features, which is closely similar to other Saxon lately, architecture.
Even though having been overlooked by historians until lately, cave dwellings may be the lone intact domestic constructions to have survived from the Saxon period, explained Simons.
The research team has been able to identify more than 20 other cave shelters in west-central England that could date back as far as the fifth century.
Later, in the 18th century, the Anchor Church Caves were modified, the team said when it was written that Sir Robert Burdett, an English aristocrat had it fitted up to that he, together with his friend, could dine with its cool, not to mention romantic cells. The study was published in the Proceedings of the University of Bristol Speleological Society journal.
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