Blowing Stone Hill, where 19th-century antiquarians thought King Alfred the Great's Saxon troops had camped, and that this was how Alfred summoned them for the Battle of Ashdown against the Danes in AD 871. Thomas Hughes' novel "Tom Brown's School Days" refers to it as the "Blawing Stwun" and calls the village "Kingstone Lisle". It is also one of the "sacred stones" mentioned in William Horwood's "Duncton Wood", the first book in his fantasy fiction series about a group of moles. Blowing Stone The Blowing Stone is a perforated sarsen at in Kingston Lisle, Oxfordshire (Berkshire until 1974). The stone is in
The common land and commoners of Ashdown Forest south-east England. The common land of Ashdown Forest consists of specific areas of Forest, registered under the Commons Registration Act 1965, which only those who possess particular rights of common — commoners — are entitled to use and exploit in certain specified ways. The common land is owned by the Lord of the Manor of Duddleswell (which, since 1988, has been the Ashdown Forest Trust, an agent of East Sussex County Council). Since 1885, the common land has been regulated and protected by a statutory Board of Conservators. The distribution of common land around Ashdown Forest is very fragmented. This