878 AD celebrates its first birthday this weekend on Sunday 12 November.
The immersive attraction, based in the Brooks Shopping Centre, Winchester opened on 12 November 2022. The visitor experience recreates life in Anglo-Saxon Winchester on the eve of the pivotal Battle of Edington between King Alfred the Great and the mighty Viking, Guthrum. From a thief to a soldier and a slave, live performance brings the stories of everyday Anglo-Saxons to life, while real artefacts from the period, including the exquisite Winchester Reliquary, are on display, alongside Anglo-Saxon games to play.
The second part of the 878 AD experience is a unique app, 878 AD: Winchester Revealed, which invites visitors onto the streets of Winchester to discover its history in a new way through the use of augmented reality. Lost buildings are recreated in their original locations, map fragments can be collected that reveal Alfred’s lasting legacy to the city, its street layout, while app users can become an Anglo-Saxon artisan, creating their own shield design or crafting a pot, and even practise augmented reality archery using the real-world medieval Westgate as a target. The whole experience, visitor attraction and app, uses the world of the global bestselling gaming series, Assassin’s Creed® Valhalla, to bring Anglo-Saxon Winchester to life.
For visitors with a passion for history and heritage, Hampshire Cultural Trust has launched a joint ticket to three of the attractions it manages in the city: 878 AD, Winchester City Museum and Westgate Museum. Visitors to all three attractions will be able to discover Winchester’s history from its roots in the Iron Age to the emergence of the Anglo-Saxons and its part in the final journey of King Charles I. Tickets are valid for a year and visitors can return to all three venues as many times as they like to explore the city’s unrivalled heritage and its place in the history of England.
Fancy making an Anglo-Saxon treat? Read the Hampshire Cultural Trust
Find out more at 878AD.co.uk
Manager Daniel Thompson (centre) and actors at 878 AD ready to tuck into a bowl of honey cakes specially prepared to an original Anglo-Saxon recipe to celebrate the first birthday of 878 AD.
