Battle of Aclea

The Battle of Aclea occurred in 851 between the West Saxons led by Æthelwulf, King of Wessex and the Danish Vikings at an unknown location in Surrey. It resulted in a West Saxon victory.

Battle of Alcea
Part of the Viking invasions of England
Date851 AD
Location
Ockley, England
Result Anglo-Saxon victory
Belligerents
Anglo-Saxons Danish Vikings
Commanders and leaders
Æthelwulf Unknown
Casualties and losses
Unknown Unknown

Little is known about the battle and the most important source of information comes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which recorded that:

three and a half hundred ships came into the mouth of the Thames and stormed Canterbury and London and put to flight Beorhtwulf, King of Mercia with his army, and then went south over the Thames into Surrey and King Æthelwulf and his son Æthelbald with the West Saxon army fought against them at Aclea, and there made the greatest slaughter of a heathen raiding-army that we have heard tell of up to the present day, and there took the victory."[1]

Aclea means Oak Field, as Asser explained. This should survive as Oakley and there are many examples of that name in England, but none survive in Surrey[2] except possibly for Ockley Common near Thursley.[3]

References
  1. Swanton, Michael, ed. (2000). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. London, UK: Phoenix. p. 64. ISBN 978-1-84212-003-3.
  2. Keynes, Simon; Lapidge, Michael, eds. (1983). Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred & Other Contemporary Sources. London, UK: Penguin Classics. pp. 68, 231 n. 17. ISBN 978-0-14-044409-4.
  3. |Ordnance Survey, Ockley Common & Bagmoor
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