Part of the Surrey entry from an early 20th century Encyclopedia

 

The early history of this district is somewhat uncertain. Ethelwerd, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 823, places it in the "Medii Angli" or "Medii Saxones." Its position between the Weald and the Thames decided its northern and southern borders, and the Kentish boundary probably dates from the battle of Wibbandune between Ethelbert of Kent and Ceawlin of Wessex, which traditionally took place at Wimbledon, though this is disputed. The western border, like the southern, was a wild uncultivated district; no settled boundary probably existing at the time of the Domesday Survey. The number of hundreds at that time was fourteen as now, but the hundred of Farnham was not so called, the lands of the bishop of Winchester being placed in no hundred, but coinciding with the present hundred of that name. There is no record of Surrey ever having been in any diocese but Winchester, of which it was an archdeaconry in the 12th century. At the time of the Domesday Survey there were four deaneries: Croydon, Southwark, Guild-ford and Ewell. Croydon was a peculiar of Canterbury, in which diocese it was included in 1291. In the time, of Henry VIII., Croydon was comprehended in the deanery of Ewell, some of its rectories being included in the deanery of Southwark. The old deanery of Guildford was included in the modern one of Stoke. In 1877, Southwark, with some parishes, was transferred to the diocese of Rochester. In the 7th century Surrey was under the overlordship of Wulfhere, king of Mercia, who founded Chertsey abbey, but in 823, when the Mercians were defeated by Egbert of Wessex, it was included in the kingdom of Wessex, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates.

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Surrey Comet - Wednesday 15 February 1905

(...) As the invaders settled down they became consolidated into kingdoms, and then rivals went to war with each other; the first such war recorded took place in Surrey. Ethelbert, King of Kent, who was also overlord of London, and who was the first English King to marry a continental lady, desired to extend his kingdom, and consequently wished to include Surrey in it. But the King of the West Saxons, Ceorlin of Winchester, was also a warlike king, and decided to oppose his expansion. Surrey was therefore in the position of Korea to-day with the result that a great battle was fought in 568 at Wippandone, or Wubandune, in which Ceorlin was victorious and Ethelbert was driven "even as far as Kent." The site of this battle has by some been considered to be Wimbledon Common, but it is now pretty certain that it was at a place which was called Wipseden in the first Charter of Chertsey Abbey, the place being the dun or hill of Wippa (Wippa's dune or the dun, "en" of Wippa). This was on the heath near Chobham.

 

 

Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail - Monday 30 January 1933

"WARS" OF WIMBLEDON
When Kings Were in Conflict on the Common.

Tennis battles are not the only ones that have been staged at Wimbledon. People the world over think of Wimbledon as the centre of titanic tennis struggles - of Vines and Austin fighting for the mastery; of queens of the courts, such as Betty Nuthall or Helen Wills-Moody, exchanging lightning thrust for thrust before crowds breathless with excitement.

Wimbledon to-day is, of course, the mecca of the tennis lovers - the terraced arena for the bloodless battles of the bouncing balls. But there was a time, a Press Association reporter discovered to-day, when far sterner conflicts raged aver the ground where the tennis courts and the peaceful suburban houses stand. It was revealed that Wimbledon has a fighting history which makes the sanguinary records of most towns pale to insignificance. Julius Caesar, so the tradition runs, encamped on the common nearly 2,000 years ago - surely an inspiration for our tennis giants.

In the year 568 Wimbledon was the scene, it is said, of a battle between Ethelbert, King of Kent, and Ceawlin, King of Wessex. Ethelbert, it seems, lost every set in this encounter, but perhaps the ghosts of some of those soldiers of the battle of Wibbandune - as Wimbledon was then called - still stroll by night over the old battleground, or, on tennis fortnight, slip spectrally through the turnstiles without paying and rub their eyes at this modern conflict of the courts.

 

BHO – BRITISH HISTORY ONLINE

The frequently accepted identification of Wimbledon with Wibbandune, where a battle was fought in 568 soon after the accession of Ethelbert, King of Kent, is probably incorrect.

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A HANDBOOK TO GUILDFORD AND ITS ENVIRONS  -  WORPLESDON

‘Mr. Puttock of Epsom ... surmises that the battle of Wibbandune, which was fought between Ceaulin, king of the West Saxons, and Ethelbert, king of Kent, A.D. 568, took place at Worplesdon, and not at Wimbledon, as is the general opinion, on the ground that the former is the much more probable place of meeting;  and also rom the close resemblance of the name of Wibbandune  with that of Wibsdon, “which,” says he, “is the very name by which Worplesdon is at this day best known in its own vicinity.” ‘