MysteryLegendary
The King the River Took
Offa of Mercia was buried in Bedford, then the Ouse came for him.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- A town-centre church; the tomb is lost
- Legend from
- 796
- Tone
- Curious
In the centre of Bedford stands St Paul's, near where Offa, king of Mercia, is said to have been buried before the river took his tomb.
Offa, the mighty 8th-century king of Mercia remembered for Offa's Dyke, died in 796, and tradition says he was buried in Bedford. The medieval chronicler Matthew Paris passed on the story, and one version holds that his tomb stood on the banks of the Great Ouse and was soon lost to the river. Others think he was laid to rest in his minster church, the forerunner of St Paul's, in the heart of the town. Either way, no trace of the grave of one of the most powerful kings in English history has ever been found.