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
Alfred the Great 22 January. They were defeated again on 22 March at the Battle of Merton (perhaps Marden in Wiltshire or Martin in Dorset). Æthelred died shortly afterwards on 23 April. In April 871 King Æthelred died and Alfred succeeded to the throne of Wessex and the burden of its defence, even though Æthelred left two under-age sons, Æthelhelm and Æthelwold. This was in accordance with the agreement that Æthelred and Alfred had made earlier that year in an assembly at "Swinbeorg". The brothers had agreed that whichever of them outlived the other would inherit the personal property that King Æthelwulf had