Burrow Mump 5th October 2009

There are many excellent views in Somerset, partly because much of the centre of the county is flat and rimmed by hills. Glastonbury Tor is an obvious view point but also try Brent Knoll (next to the M5) and Ham Hill (off the A303).

And, for views of the Bristol Channel, Brean Down is a marvellous place.

Barton some times things happen that seem a bit spooky, you see I had never heard of Alfred's Tower before and last night ten minutes before you made reference to it I was looking at a picture of King Albert’s monument and after reading your post I just thought you must have been talking about the monument until I looked into it further and discovered the tower you made reference too.

I have told a number of people in Yeovil, Taunton and Bridgwater the tale of how I came across Burrow Mump on the 5th October 2009. Each and every one of those people said it was meant to be the site where King Alfred burnt the cakes and that I started thinking about that last night and started looking for information on the web.

As my search was more about the cakes being burnt I only came across pictures and articles about the Alfred Monument that is placed exactly where the cakes were meant to have been burnt, I did read that you can’t go up to it as its on private land and you can only view it from the road.

Looking on a map it’s not very far away from Burrow Mump and its fascinating how seeing the Mump has led me to lean so much more about King Alfred. Mind you as we all know its claimed the story about burning the cakes might not be true, so you can’t always believe what was written down back in the 10th century.






King Alfred






Alfred was born at Wantage, Oxfordshire, the youngest son of Ethelwulf (d. 858), king of the West Saxons. In 870 Alfred and his brother Ethelred fought many battles against the Danes. Alfred gained a victory over the Danes at Ashdown in 871, and succeeded Ethelred as king in April 871 after a series of battles in which the Danes had been defeated.

Not all his campaigns were so successful; on a number of occasions he had to resort to buying off the Danes for a brief respite. Five years of uneasy peace followed while the Danes were occupied in other parts of England. In 876 the Danes attacked again, and in 878 Alfred was forced to retire to the stronghold of Athelney which was at that time an island in the Somerset Levels. The legend of him burning the cakes probably comes from this period.

The Cake Burning




In Athelney the ragged and exhausted king, hungry and dispirited, sought shelter and sustenance in the hut of a poor peasant, a swineherd or woodcutter. Out of charity or perhaps fear of the warrior figure the couple let him stay, and fed him. After two or three days the king was well enough recovered to consider his next moves - how to gather his armies again? how to beat the Danes in battle ? how to drive them from his kingdom?

As Alfred contemplated his situation the woman of the place asked him to watch some griddle cakes on the fire while she went about her other work. Lost in thought the king forgot such mundane tasks, and let the cakes burn. When the peasant woman returned to the hearth and noticed this she scolded the king, and in some versions of the tale even hit him with a stick. Alfred was both amused and instructed by the episode - though he may also have gone hungry that night - as it showed him the need to stay alert to the immediate, and the incongruity of the poor woman scolding a king appealed to his sense of the ridiculous.

the earliest version of the story was told in an anonymous Vita S. Neoti [Life of St Neot], probably composed in the late tenth century, whose author is thought by many scholars to have made it up. A later version of the story was incorporated into the Annals of St Neots, which appear actually to have been compiled at Bury St Edmunds during the second quarter of the twelfth century . This version was known to Matthew Parker (1504-75), Archbishop of Canterbury, who was the first to print Asser's Life of King Alfred in 1574. He noticed the similarities between the Annals and Asser's Life, and deduced that the Annals were written by Asser, although in fact it was the later compiler of the Annals who had made use of the Life. He therefore interpolated the story exactly as he found it in the Annals at the appropriate point in his text of Asser's Life.

The status of the text of the Life of Alfred has itself been queried many times - one recent query being by Alfred Smyth (King Alfred the Great, OUP 1995) who doubted whether it was written by Asser and put forward the opinion that it was composed by Byrhtferth of Ramsey at the turn of the eleventh century. He demoted it from a contemporary text, written during the life of Alfred by a biographer who knew him well, to one composed by another well after his death. His theories have largely been dismissed by the academic world, their arguments neatly summarised in the latest work of Professor Richard Abels (Alfred the Great, Longman 1998).




Alfred's Tower, Stourhead, Wiltshire




The project to build the tower was conceived in 1762 by the banker Henry Hoare II (1705-1785), owner of Stourhead and creator of its famous garden, known to his family as 'the Magnificent'. The tower was intended to commemorate the end of the Seven Years War against France and the accession of King George III, and supposedly stands near the location of 'Egbert's stone' where it is believed that Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, rallied the Saxons in May 878 before the important Battle of Ethandun (now Edington, south-east of Trowbridge) where the Danish army was defeated.

The tower was designed in 1765 by Henry Flitcroft, the notable 18th century Palladian architect, and despite the inspiration from St Mark's Tower in Venice, this tower is rather different. Building began in 1769 or early 1770, and was completed in 1772 at an estimated cost of between £5,000 and £6,000. In April 1770, when the tower was just 15 feet high, Hoare is quoted as saying: 'I hope it will be finished in as happy Times to this Isle as Alfred finished his Life of Glory in then I shall depart in peace.'

The tower is 49m (160ft) high, and is triangular in plan, with round projections at each of the three corners. One of these, furthest from the entrance door, has a spiral staircase within it by which visitors can climb the 205 steps to the top, where there is a platform with a crenellated parapet. The staircase is not well illuminated, with only ten small openings to admit a little daylight. The centre of the tower is hollow and open to the elements; in recent years a mesh has been placed over the opening at the top to prevent birds from entering the tower. The total girth of the tower is approximately 51m (168ft), which means that the tower's circumference and height are about the same.

The tower was damaged in 1944 when an American World War II plane crashed into it with the death of the five aircrew. It was restored in 1986, which included the use of a Wessex helicopter to lower a 300 kilograms (47 st) stone onto the top. The statue of King Alfred was also restored at this time including the replacement of his right forearm which was missing