There are four spots in Berkshire which claim the honour of being the Œscendun of the chroniclers, where Æthelred and Alfred gained their great victory; they are Ilsley, Ashamstead, Aston in the parish of Bluberry, and Ashdown, close to White Horse Hill. Now[313] it seems clear that Ashdown was, in Saxon times, the name of a district stretching over a considerable portion of the Berkshire chalk range, and it is quite possible that all of the above sites may have been included in that district; therefore, I do not insist much upon the name, though whatever weight is to be attached to it, must tell in favour of the latter site, that of Ashdown. Let us, however, consider the other qualifications of the rival sites.
That of Ilsley is supported, so far as I know, only by Hewitt in his antiquities of the Hundred of Compton (1844); and his argument rests chiefly on the fitness of the ground for the scene of a great battle. He tells us that the detachments of three Waterloo regiments, marching through Ilsley in 1816, when they came to the spot, stopped and called out, “Waterloo! Waterloo!” to one another. He also states that the name Ilsley is, in fact, “Hilde læg,” the field of battle; but as he has no tradition in his favour, and cannot, so far as I know, point to any remains in the neighbourhood in support of his theory, I think his case must fail, and only mention it to show that I have not overlooked the claim.
Ashamstead, situate five miles to the southeast of Ilsley, is named by the Lysons in their topographical account of Berkshire as the probable site of the battle, but they give no reasons, and are unsupported by tradition or remains.
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Aston has a stronger case. It is situate between Wallingford and Ilsley. The range of chalk hills rises just above it, and one detached hill is here thrown out into the vale, on which are still visible considerable earthworks. There is a chapel called Thorn Chapel on the eastern slope of this hill, and I am told there is a tradition that this chapel was built on the spot where some Saxon king heard mass on the morning of a battle. It is suggested by Mr. Lousley and others, that the Saxons occupied this outlying hill, the Danes the opposite range; and that the battle was fought in the valley between, where, when the road was recently altered, a number of bones were found, apparently thrown in together without care, as would be the case after a battle. There are, however, no regular barrows or other remains. Bishop Gibson is in favour of this spot, on account, as it would seem, of a passage in the Saxon Chronicle for the year 1006, which runs as follows: “They” (the Danes) “destroyed Wallingford, and passed a night at Cholsey.” Then they “turned along Ashdown to Cwichelmes Low.”
The bishop says, that Cwichelmes Low (the low or hill of King Cwichelm, who reigned in these parts, and died in the year 636 A.D.) is Cuckhamsley Hill, or Scuchamore Knob, as it is generally called; a high hill in the same chalk range, about ten miles east of White Horse Hill; and he argues that, as the Danes went from Wallingford, by Ashdown, to Cwichelmes[315] Low, we must look for Ashdown between Wallingford and Cuckhamsley Hill. Now Aston lies directly between the two, therefore Aston is Ashdown, and the site of the battle. But the place now called Ashdown is on the further side of Cuckhamsley Hill from Wallingford—therefore the Danes could not have passed it in getting from Wallingford to Cuckhamsley Hill—therefore the modern Ashdown cannot be the site of the battle.
To this I answer, First, the Bishop assumes that Cwichelmes Low is Cuckhamsley Hill, without giving any reason.
Secondly, assuming Cwichelmes Low and Cuckhamsley Hill to be identical; yet, as Ashdown was clearly a large tract of country, the Danes might go from Wallingford, along a part of it, to Cwichelmes Low without passing the battle-field.
Thirdly, the name Aston is written “Estone” in Domesday Book; meaning “East town,” or enclosure, and not “Mons fraxini,” the “Hill of the Ash-tree.”
Fourthly, Æthelred and Alfred would have kept to the hills in their retreat, and never have allowed the Danes to push them out into the Thames-valley, where the Pagan cavalry would have been invaluable; but this must have been the case, if we suppose Aston to be the site of the battle. Lastly, all the above sites are too near to Reading, the farthest being only sixteen miles from that town. But Æthelred and Alfred had[316] been retreating three days, and would therefore much more probably be found at Ashdown by White Horse Hill, which is ten miles farther along the range of hills.
Ashdown, the remaining site, and the one which I believe to be the true one, is the down which surrounds White Horse Hill, in the parish of Uffington. On the highest point of the hill, which is 893 feet above the level of the sea, stands Uffington Castle, a plain of more than eight acres in extent, surrounded by earthworks, and a single deep ditch, which Camden, and other high authorities, say are Danish.
There is another camp, with earthworks, called Hardwell Camp, about a mile W.N.W. of Uffington Castle, and a third smaller circular camp, called King Alfred’s camp, about a mile to the S.W., which may still be made out, close to the wall of Ashdown Park, Lord Craven’s seat, although Aubrey says, that in his time the works were “almost quite defaced, by digging for the Sarsden stones to build my Lord Craven’s house in the Park.” Wise suggests that the Danes held Uffington Castle; that Æthelred was in Hardwell-camp, and Alfred in Alfred’s camp. A mile and a half to the eastward, in which direction the battle must have rolled, as the Saxons slowly gained the day, is a place called the Seven Barrows, where are seven circular burial-mounds, and several other large irregularly-shaped mounds, full of bones; the light soil which covers the[317] chalk is actually black around them. The site agrees in all points with the description in the chroniclers; it is the proper distance from Reading; the name is the one used by the chroniclers,—“Ash-down,” “Mons Fraxini,” “Æscendun;” it is likely that Æthelred would have fought somewhere hereabouts to protect Wantage, a royal burg, and his birthplace, which would have been otherwise at the mercy of the enemy; and lastly, there—and not at Cuckhamsley Hill, or elsewhere—is carved the White Horse, which has been from time immemorial held to be a monument of the great victory of Ashdown. For the above reasons, I think we are justified in claiming this as the site of the battle.