Kingston Lisle

Kingston Lisle is one of the spring-line villages at the foot of the Berkshire Downs along the B4507 between Wantage and Ashbury where chalk was a favoured material for building. The village is probably named after Gerald De Lisle who was born in 1248, the son of Robert Lisle who married a Kingston lady, Alice Fitzgerald.

At the southern entrance to the village is Kingston Lisle House, which stands in Kingston Lisle Park. The house is built on the site of an earlier manor house sometimes known as Kingston Castle. The present Kingston Lisle House was built in 1677 with two wings added later, in 1812.

Next to the entrance to Kingston Lisle Park is the Church of St. John the Baptist, parts of which are Norman. The walls have paintings which depict scenes from the life and also the beheading of St. John.

In the centre of the village is the Blowing Stone Inn, named after a block of perforated sarsen that stands beside the roads half a mile to the south of the village in Blowingstone Hill. If you are able to close one of the holes completely with your mouth and blow the stone makes a foghorn-like sound which, according to legend, was used by King Alfred to call the local men to fight at the Battle of Ashdown.