Hero
The Blowing Stone
One breath, and the whole Vale hears.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Small holed sarsen stone by the roadside
- Legend from
- Tradition; Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's School Days (1857)
- Tone
- Heroic
Blow into the right hole and the stone moans across the valley, the way Alfred called his army.
At the foot of Blowing Stone Hill, near Kingston Lisle, stands a sarsen about three feet tall, riddled with holes. If you blow hard into the right hole, the stone gives out a deep, booming note that is said to carry for miles across the Vale. Tradition says King Alfred used it to summon his Saxon troops before battle with the Danes. The Victorian novel Tom Brown's School Days made the story famous. The stone was moved from up the hill to its present spot.