By Walter Money, F.S.A. Ill 



fortified post, on the borders of Berks and Wilts, partly in Lamborne 

 and partly in Ramsbury parish, may either of them well have been 

 the entrenched camp of Asser and the Saxon chronicler. 



Whether or not there are sufficient grounds for considering' the 

 Berkshire Eddington (the Eddevetone of Domesday) as the site of 

 the battle must remain an open question ; but there seems little 

 reason to doubt its being the same with Ethandune, which King 

 Alfred left by will to his wife, Ealhswith, inasmuch as it is men- 

 tioned in the same clause with the manors of Waneting (Wantage) 

 and Lamburnam (Lamborne), the former of which is but a few 

 miles to the north, and the latter joins the parish in the north-west 

 point. The three form Alfred^s bequest to his wife, and seem to 

 have comprised all his private estate in Berkshire. 



Since the above was written the writer has incidentally met with, 

 some interesting notes on this subject from the pen of the late 

 Canon Jackson, F.S.A., appended to an article on " The Sheriff's 

 Turn, CO. Wilts,'' in the Wilis Arch(Bological Magazine, vol. xiii., 

 pp. 108-liO. In referring to a lively discussion which was conducted 

 some years ago in this magazine. Canon Jackson observes that 

 Brixton (Deverill) could scarcely have been " Ecgbryght's stone," 

 for in Domesday Book Brixton is distinctly called " Brictric's Town," 

 from its owner, Brictric, a Saxon Thane, who, it is conceived, in the 

 days of Edward the Confessor, had been his ambassador at the Court 

 oF Flanders. He further calls attention to the existence of an 

 ancient stone a few miles north-west of Warminster, marked on 

 Andrews and Dury's county map of Wilts, 1773, which, being close 

 to the border of two counties, would not have been an unsuitable 

 place for muster, and a ride of thirty miles through Selwood would 

 have brought the King and his staff to it from Athelney. 



" The secret of Alfred's success," Canon Jackson goes on to say 

 (like that of Joshua against the Amorites), " lay in the rapidity of 

 a forced march. Alfred did not, indeed, go up ' all night,' but he 

 ' went up ' from break of dawn all day till he reached ^cglea. . . . 

 It must surely have been an unusual distance." Summarizing the 

 arguments for and against, the Canon concludes strongly in favour 

 of the battle having been fought within the Berkshire hundred of 



