Wednesday 18 January 2012

The Royal Sarsen King Stone (Maybe)


The Coronation Stone is an ancient sarsen stone block, located next to the Guildhall in Kingston upon Thames, England. Kingston is now a suburb of London and was once the county town of Surrey.
In Old English, tun, ton or don meant farmstead or settlement, so the name Kingston appears to mean farmstead of the kings. Early sources claim that at least seven of the old Saxon kings of England were crowned at Kingston as they stood or sat on the stone. A local legend that these Saxon coronations gave Kingston its name is contradicted by the records of the 838 council.
The names of the seven kings are now inscribed around the Stone's plinth. These were:
Edward the Elder
Athelstan
Edmund I of England
Eadred of England
Eadwig of England
Edward the Martyr
Æthelred the Unready

More here

2 comments:

  1. Similiar traditions at Tara in S.Ireland and in Scotland with king stones. There's precious little about what saxon beliefs were in their own country, but it's similiar to what is an old British tradition from the neolithic. I seem to recall the old Royston Stone in Herts might be thought to be a glacial sarsen, with heavy iron content, used as a cross and visited by King James.

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  2. Thanks - Royston's stone is another sarsen I didn't know about.

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