Wessex in classical heraldry and is found on a number of church windows in derived shields such as the Arms of the Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster (Westminster Abbey, which was founded by the king). At its greatest extent Wessex encompassed the modern areas of Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Dorset and Wiltshire, as well as the western half of Berkshire and the eastern hilly flank of Somerset. This covers an area of about . The English author Thomas Hardy used a fictionalised Wessex as a setting for many of his novels, adopting his friend William Barnes' term "Wessex" for
Wessex Saddleback band resembling a saddle (or "sheet"). It is a tall, rangy animal, adapted to foraging in woodland, its traditional use. This use survived longest in the New Forest, where pigs are still allowed to forage in woods for mast (acorns, beech-nuts and chestnuts) – but the New Forest pigs no longer include pure-bred Wessex Saddlebacks. There is some confusion about the origin of the Wessex Saddleback. Some sources state that it began as a cross of "the black breed of the New Forest" and "the Old English Sheeted breed", spreading through Hampshire and the Isle of Purbeck in the 18th