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During the reign of the Saxons Royal centres were established at Glastonbury, Cheddar, Bath, Frome, Somerton, Wedmore and Carhampton. Major excavations at Cheddar have revealed a great deal about such Anglo-Saxon Royal palaces. A great long hall was established here in the 9th century or before. Around 930, this was rebuilt and a chapel and other buildings added. The Witan is known to have met here in AD 941, 956 & 968 and the Saxon Kings were generally frequent visitors to the county. Somerset became one of the heartland shires of the Kingdom of Wessex. King Edred died in his palace at Frome in AD 955, whilst his brother and nephew, Kings Edmund the Magnificent and Edgar the Peacable, both chose to be buried at Glastonbury. The latter's coronation in AD 973 is the earliest recorded and the order of service and symbols of Royalty used can still be seen in the ceremony of today. It took place at Bath Abbey.

There was, however, little respite from warfare as the damage caused by internecine wars was followed by the devastation wrought by the Viking invaders from Scandinavia. Somerset stood firmly behind the Kings of Wessex who spent many years fending off these ferocious invaders. In AD 878, when Alfred the Great was king and in desperate straits, following the latest Viking incursion, which was made in daunting strength, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded: "At Easter, King Alfred, with a little company, built a fort at Athelney, and from the fort kept fighting the force, with the help of those of Somerset who were nearest. In the seventh week after Easter, he rose to Ecgybryht's Stone, east of Selwood. All those of Somerset came to meet him..." During this time of guerilla warfare, undertaken from the Somerset Levels, Alfred is said to have 'burnt the cakes' of a local peasant woman while contemplating his future fate. He got a hiding for his trouble from the unsuspecting housewife, but he resolved to fight back with cunning. It was supposedly at Athelney that he slipped into the enemies' camp, dressed as a minstrel, and learnt of their battle plans. Shortly afterwards, Alfred converted himself from fugitive into victor by thrashing the Viking army at Edington in neighbouring Wiltshire. Though a peace treaty was signed, at Wedmore, renewed warfare was never far away. This was why Alfred built a fort at Lyng to guard the important centre of Somerton and another at Axbridge, to protect the Royal centre of Cheddar. Others were built at Watchet & Langport. He also restored some of the original Roman defences at Bath and Ilchester. King Alfred also founded the famous abbey at Athelney in thanksgiving for his deliverance from obscurity.

Despite the ravages of war, Somerset grew into a substantial centre for trade during the 10th century and its towns grew with it, accommodating important markets for local and imported goods. The towns also afforded a protected environment where money could be minted. In the countryside, where the great majority of Somerset folk earned their living from agriculture, the landscape was drastically changed by a reorganization of the land into a new, open-field system. Villages grew up close by and with this, the scattered single farmsteads largely disappeared and were replaced by close communities living close to their farmlands. In time, the villages were themselves grouped together in "hundreds" and monthly "hundred" courts were set up in places like Bempstone, near Stone Allerton, where civil, criminal and religious cases were heard.