page_title: Kingston upon Thames
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Kingston upon Thames / History / Early history
caption_attribution_description: English: Coronation Stone Thought to have been used for the coronation of up to seven Saxon kings in the tenth Century. The stone was originally kept in St. Mary’s parish church until its collapse in 1730 when the buildings foundations were undermined by grave digging. The stone was then placed in the market square and used as a mounting block for horsemen in the nineteenth Century before being moved to the grounds of the guildhall and installed as a monument in 1935.
context_page_description: Kingston upon Thames is a town, former manor, ecclesiastical parish and borough now within Greater London, England, formerly within the county of Surrey. It is situated on the River Thames, about 33 feet above sea level and 10 miles southwest of Charing Cross. It is notable as the ancient market town in which Saxon kings were crowned and today is the administrative centre of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames.
  The large historic parish of Kingston became absorbed in modern times into the Municipal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames, reformed in 1835 and from 1893 has been the location of Surrey County Hall, extraterritorially in terms of local government administration. Since 1965 Kingston has been a part of Greater London.
  Today, most of the town centre is part of the KT1 postcode area, but some areas north of Kingston railway station are within KT2. The United Kingdom Census 2011 recorded the population of the town as 43,013, while the borough overall counted 175,470. Kingston is identified as a metropolitan centre in the London Plan and is today a major retail centre, one of the biggest in the UK, receiving 18 million visitors a year.
context_section_description: Kingston was called Cyninges tun in 838 AD, Chingestune in 1086, Kingeston in 1164, Kyngeston super Tamisiam in 1321 and Kingestowne upon Thames in 1589. The name means 'the king's manor or estate' from the Old English words cyning and tun. It belonged to the king in Saxon times and was the earliest royal borough.
  The first surviving record of Kingston is from AD 838 as the site of a meeting between King Egbert of Wessex and Ceolnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury. Kingston lay on the boundary between the ancient kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia, until in the early tenth century when King Athelstan united both to create the kingdom of England. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, two tenth-century kings were consecrated in Kingston: Æthelstan (925), and Æthelred the Unready (978). There are certain other kings who are said to have been crowned there, but for whom the evidence (including the writings of Florence of Worcester and Ralph de Diceto) is less substantial: Edward the Elder (902), Edmund I (939), Eadred (946), Eadwig (956), Edgar the Peaceful (circa 960) and Edward the Martyr (975). It was later thought that the coronations were conducted in the chapel of St Mary, which collapsed in 1730. Tradition dating to the 18th century holds that a large stone recovered from the ruins played a part in the coronations. It was initially used as a mounting block, but in 1850 it was moved to a more dignified place in the market before finally being moved to its current location in the grounds of the Guildhall.
caption: The Coronation Stone in the grounds of the Guildhall
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