The Anglo- Saxon Chronicle entry for 894 (recte 893) describes the Viking campaigns of that year. It states that ‘the marauding parties were both gathered together at Shoburg [Shoebury] in Essex, and there built a fortress. Then they both went together up by the Thames, and a great concourse joined them, both from the East- Angles and from the Northumbrians. They then advanced upward by the Thames, till they arrived near the Severn. Then they proceeded upward by the Severn.’ While that was happening, Alfred's generals gathered forces.

Notes on this translation indicate the difficulties of locating Buttington, where Viking marauders so unpleasantly starved to death. Ingram referred to John Speed (d. 1629), William Somner (d. 1669), Obadiah Walker (d. 1699) and Edward Gibson (d. 1748) for it as by Welshpool, Powys, while Sir John Spelman (d. 1643) put it in Gloucestershire. Walker actually mentioned earthworks visible at the former site (although he mistakenly placed it in Shropshire). Despite that Ingram plumped for Boddington, north- west of Cheltenham. But Boddington is not on the Severn.

Later writers also show the slow progress of agreement between the seventeenth century and the twenty- first. Plummer placed the conflict at Buttington Tump (National Grid Reference (NGR) ST 547931), on a peninsula between the Wye and Severn near Tiddenham, Gloucestershire. Sir John Lloyd also thought Buttington by Chepstow suited the Chronicle account better than did Buttington by Welshpool (especially for the composition of the English army and its leaders). Hugh Smith agreed, thinking ‘that the two sides of the river’ referred to Wye, and not to the Severn Estuary. Garmonsway similarly placed Buttington in Gloucestershire.