Battle of Reading (871) a camp at Reading, defended by the Thames and Kennet rivers on two sides, and by a rampart on the western side. Three days after their arrival, a party of Danes rode out towards nearby Englefield, where a West Saxon force under the command of Æthelwulf, the Ealdorman of the shire, was waiting for them. In the ensuing Battle of Englefield many of the Danes were killed, and the rest driven back to Reading. Four days later, Æthelwulf had been joined by the main West Saxon army, led by King Æthelred and his brother, Alfred the Great. The entire Saxon
Battle of Ashdown historical novel by C. Walter Hodges. The battle is described in "The Last Kingdom" by Bernard Cornwell. There is also an account of a visit to the battlefield in "Tom Brown's Schooldays":- "And now we leave the camp, and descend towards the west, and are on the Ashdown. We are treading on heroes. It is sacred ground for Englishmen—more sacred than all but one or two fields where their bones lie whitening. For this is the actual place where our Alfred won his great battle, the battle of Ashdown ('Aescendum' in the chroniclers), which broke the Danish power, and made