The first surviving record of Kingston is from AD 838 as the site of a meeting between King Egbert of Wessex and Ceolnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury. Kingston lay on the boundary between the ancient kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia, until in the early tenth century when King Athelstan united both to create the kingdom of England. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, two tenth-century kings were consecrated in Kingston.
There are certain other kings who are said to have been crowned there, but for whom the evidence is less substantial: Edward the Elder, Edmund I, Eadred, Eadwig, Edgar the Peaceful and Edward the Martyr. It was later thought that the coronations were conducted in the chapel of St Mary, which collapsed in 1730.