The first recorded Viking landing in what is now England was on the Isle of Portland, off the coast of Dorset, in the year 789 (sometimes rounded to 787 in older retellings). This small raiding party came from Norway and is described in the Anglo‑Saxon Chronicle as three ships whose crew killed the local royal official sent to meet them, marking the start of Viking activity in the English historical record.

Quick Scoop: What most people think of

When people ask “where did the Vikings first land in England,” they often think of the famous attack on the monastery at Lindisfarne in 793, off the northeast coast of England. Lindisfarne is usually highlighted in school history and documentaries because it shocked Christian Europe and was vividly recorded by monks, so it became the iconic “beginning” of the Viking Age in England.

So which “first” is right?

  • First recorded landing/raid in England: Isle of Portland, Dorset (south coast), in 789, involving three Norwegian ships and the killing of the royal reeve.
  • First major, famously recorded monastery raid: Lindisfarne, Northumbria, in 793, remembered for its dramatic chroniclers’ accounts and religious impact.

Historians therefore treat Portland as the earliest recorded Viking landing on English soil, while Lindisfarne remains the best‑known early raid that made the Viking threat impossible for contemporaries to ignore.

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