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
Battle of Dunbar (1650) Battle of Dunbar (1650) The Battle of Dunbar occurred on the 3rd September 1650, and is traditionally considered one of the major battles of the Third English Civil War, part of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms as the competing claims of the new Commonwealth of England and of Charles II to the throne of England were at stake. The English Parliamentarian forces under Oliver Cromwell defeated a Scottish army commanded by David Leslie which was loyal to King Charles II. Charles had been proclaimed King of 'Great Britain', France and Ireland by the Parliament of Scotland on 5 February