Swanborough Tump – Swinbeorg c850
Here in the year 871 the future King Alfred the Great met his elder brother King Aethelred I on their way to fight the invading Danes and each one swore if the other died in battle the dead man’s children would inherit the lands of their father King Aethelwulf.
This was the meeting place of Hundred Moot of Swanborough in Saxon times and would have been very well known then. In A.D. 871 King Alfred and his brother Ethelred met there for an assembly of fighting men to respond to the Danes who were assailing Wessex from their base at Reading. Not knowing what the future held the brothers made their wills to provide lands for their children. The Tump, which is in the parish of Manningford Abbots, is just to the south of the Pewsey to Woodborough road and to the east of Frith Copse.
Until recently it had become neglected and overgrown with trees. As a millennium project the parish council have cleared the undergrowth, left the fine ash trees and installed a sarsen stone with a plaque commemorating the history of the Tump. Swanborough was the name of the hundred, containing several modern villages, and although in does not seem to have been used for a settlement it has given rise to the surname ‘Swanborough