The Atlas of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire History, edited by Tony Kirby and Susan Oosthuizen, says that there was a battle in Wistow in 917 when the Saxons decisively beat the Vikings. Yet there is no mention of this battle in other sources.
According to the book Edward the Elder, King of Wessex, and his sister Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians (children of Alfred the Great), defeated the Danish Army commanded by Earl Toglos at Huntingdon, Wistow and finally Tempsford, thus bringing to an abrupt end the thirty seven years of Viking rule in this area.
Are the writers of the historical atlas right – we like to think so!
If you were the Viking leader Earl Toglos where would you have deployed your troops?
Would it have been on the road to Kings Ripton with the woods and Bury Brook guarding your rear?
Or perhaps up on Wistow Toll with the Brook and the fens for protection?
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Debbie Booth, Jenny Head, Althea Walker
Heritage Day 2009
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