Ockley Vat
Kings Arms, Stane St, Ockley, Surrey.
Fairy Belle Mrs Worsfold.
The Kings Arms was a traditional coaching inn built in the 17th century. Before it closed in 2013 it was a hotel and restaurant that shut early when it had no customers. The grade II listed building was recently sold for £850,000 with planning permission to convert the inn into five residential dwellings.
In 851 there was a battle at Ockley. According to an Anglo-Saxon chronicler, king Æthelwulf and his son Æthelbald, together with the West-Saxon army, fought against an invading Danish army of 350 ships that had already plundered London and Canterbury, and put king Beorhtwulf of Mercia to flight. The chronicler refers to the battlefield as Aclea (Oak Lea), and the Danish army was defeated suffering “the greatest slaughter… we have heard tell of up to this present day”.
