Associations with celebrities in the world of literature date back even further in Woodstock than the 900 years that the wall surrounding the park has been standing there.

Legend has it that in the ninth century the scholar-king Alfred the Great, who was born in Wantage but spent much of his early life at the royal hunting lodge of Woodstock, won what amounted to the first British poetry prize, presented by his mother. And some say that in 888 he translated De Consolatione Philosophie, (Philisophical Consolations), written by Boethius 350 years before, while in Woodstock.

I gather this information from a book called Woodstock and the Royal Park, produced by a team of Woodstock residents to mark the wall’s 900th birthday this year.

It brings home the important but often forgotten role played by Woodstock Park — which existed before the town — for the 600 years before 1704, when it was given to its present occupants, the Churchill family, and renamed Blenheim.

For instance, there is the affair between that notorious ladies man Henry II and Rosamund Clifford, apparently carried on while the King was in Woodstock; then there is the fact that Henry VIII left his wife Catherine of Aragon at Windsor and ostentatiously brought Anne Boleyn to Woodstock in July 1531. The former British ambassador to Washington Peter Jay, when mayor of Woodstock in 2009, made the remarkable discovery that 1110 was the year that the Royal hunting lodge of Woodstock was “emparked”, or walled around, by Henry I, who presumably did this partly to keep his menagerie of wild animals, including lions, from straying. Mr Jay stumbled across the information when preparing a talk for the Woodstock Probus Club. He noticed the Woodstock coat of arms on the mayoral chain: two scantily-clad men armed with clubs standing either side of a tree stump and watched by sundry white deer.

He then unearthed a note in the Town Hall explaining the symbolism: “The oak tree, oak leaves, stags’ heads and savages are symbolic of the Royal Park of Woodstock which was walled in by Henry I about AD1110 and the tree stump was a badge of Edward III which he used in reference to his Royal manor of Woodstock.”

Mr Jay said: “At that point the penny dropped: 1110. . . a nine-times centenary coming up in 2010. . . what an excuse for celebrations.”

Most of the editors and contributors are familiar figures on the Woodstock scene. John Banbury, for instance, one of the four editors listed on the front of the book, has family connections with Woodstock dating back 185 years. His father’s outfitters shop, J Banbury and Son, flourished for decades in the town.

He said: “Four of us appear as editors on the cover of the book — myself, Dr Robert Edwards, Dr Elizabeth Poskitt, and Tim Nutt — but it was a community effort involving more than a dozen contributors.”

Little wonder that the Woodstock Literary Festival, where he will talk on Saturday, has attracted so many modern literary celebrities. Dr Edwards, a former Woodstock GP, points out in his section on the Tudors that when Queen Elizabeth I was entertained at Woodstock in 1575 she was called The Fairie Queene — which became the title of Edmund Spenser’s poem. Though left unfinished, it is still by far the longest poem in the English language. The book is available at severalWoodstock shops or the Woodstock Bookshop (01993 812760). Profits go to Woodstock charities.