Despite his success at Ashdown, the Danes continued to devastate Wessex and Alfred was forced to withdraw to the Somerset marshes, where he continued guerrilla warfare against his enemies.

From King Alfred's battles with Denmark, the Monmouth Rebellion, to the discovery of the Cheddar Man, Somerset has been ... supported on the surface of the marshes it stretched over.

When Alfred the Great was stranded in the Somerset marshes it seemed that Saxon Britain was doomed, and that Alfred’s Wessex would be the last Saxon kingdom. Instead Wessex expanded until, ...