Place Name
The road leading from Teddington High Street in the direction of Kingston. Kingston-Upon-Thames had been in royal hands since Anglo-Saxon times where for almost a century it was the place of coronations. The name itself literally means the King’s estate, from the Old English words cyning meaning king and tūn meaning estate. First being mentioned in the Anglo Saxon Charter of AD838 as Cyninges tun. Nothing changed following the Norman Conquest and by the time of the Domesday Book of 1086 it was being called Chingestune; by 1164 it was Kingeston. By 1321 it had become Kyneston super Tamisiam; and in 1589 Kingestowne upon Thames. It is the original royal borough in England having been the place where Edward the Elder, elder son of Alfred the Great, was crowned in 899. Æthelstan (or Athelstan) followed on September 4, 925 and so it continued as the place for coronations down to Aethelred the Unready. The addition mentioning the River Thames was to distinguish it from all the other Kingstons around the realm.
