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But new tests found they are from the ninth century, meaning they could be the remains of the Viking force that drove out the king of Mercia from Repton, in Derbyshire.

Repton was a signifi cant royal and ecclesiastical centre but became a Viking stronghold. Historical records state the Viking great army wintered in Repton in 873 and drove the Mercian king into exile to Paris.

Now research by the University of Bristol’s department of anthropology and archaeology found the bones are all consistent with a date from more than 1,100 years ago.

Excavations led by archaeologists Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjolbye-Biddle at St Wystan's Church in Repton in the 1970s and 1980s discovered several Viking graves and a charnel deposit of nearly 300 people underneath a D-shaped shallow mound in the vicarage garden.