WOKING THROUGH THE AGES
Prehistoric Woking
Aerial view of the Horsell Common (west) Bell Barrow taken in the 1920sLots of people look at Woking’s modern, thriving town centre and think that the borough has no history. They see the new offices, flats and retail parks and miss the hundreds of historic buildings nearby.
They drive through Goldsworth Park; one of Woking’s more modern housing estates, and think nothing about what was there before. And yet Goldsworth Park is also the site of Woking’s oldest occupation site!
The Bronze Age Palstave from HarelandsDuring the 1920s and 30s, on what was later to become the playing fields of GOLDSWORTH PARK, thousands of flint tools were found. They date from the ‘Upper Palaeolithic’ period (the most recent part of the ‘Old’ Stone Age), roughly 30,000 to 8,500 years ago. This was during what we now call the ‘Ice Ages’, but it was probably during one of the warmer ‘interglacials’ that a small group of people settled in the valley of the Parley Brook. Scattered flints from every period of the Stone Age have been found in our area, including implements from SUTTON GREEN (Neolithic arrowhead), MAYFORD (Mesolithic axe found on the old Jackman’s Nursery), WESTFIELD (Mesolithic flint core), OLD WOKING (Mesolithic and Neolithic flints from near Woking Palace), MAYBURY (two polished flint axes), PYRFORD (an Upper Palaeolithic ‘pen knife’ point and Mesolithic ‘greenstone’ axe from Walsham), BYFLEET (arrowhead found against the church wall), WEST BYFLEET (Neolithic polished flint axe found at Dartnell Park), HORSELL (Mesolithic flint axe or gouge from Kettlewell), KNAPHILL (Mesolithic flint adze) and ST. JOHNS (Neolithic arrowhead found on the Hermitage Estate).
Moving on to the Bronze Age, there is evidence that man lived (and certainly died) in our area. On Horsell Common, near the canal at Monument Bridge, are the remains of two Bronze Age ‘bell barrows’ and a ‘Disc barrow’. Another bell barrow could once be found off Woodham Lane, while across the Basingstoke Canal at SHEERWATER a Bronze Age ‘palstave’ was found in 1956.
Some of the Brooklands hoard of Roman coinsOther Bronze Age items have been found at Harelands, GOLDSWORTH PARK (palstave), Chobham Road, KNAPHILL (flint axe), MAYFORD (pottery), WESTFIELD (urn), MAYBURY (axe), BYFLEET (pottery) and at Brooklands, Byfleet (bronze bucket).
There are few finds from this area dating from the Iron Age, but a dug-out canoe discovered at BYFLEET and another at Wisley may be from this period, as might an ancient wooden paddle discovered at Send. Iron Age and Romano-British sites have been found at ‘The Furzes’, OLD WOKING, ‘Black Close’, MAYFORD and The Hockering (HEATHSIDE). The estate’s developer, W.G. Tarrant, who unearthed part of a large 1st century storage jar, another smaller vessel and a quern stone, discovered the Hockering site.
The Tarrant finds from the Hockering EstateAt Black Close, and at The Furze’s, there was evidence of wooden buildings which had been destroyed by fire some time in the 4th century. The Furze’s site revealed postholes of a building 15 m x 5m with pottery ranging from 1st to 4th century.
Roman coins of various dates have been found at MAYBURY (337-361 AD), Smarts Heath, MAYFORD (a coin of Hadrian), and at PYRFORD, where a hoard of coins was found during the construction of ‘Romans Way’. In 1907, while workmen were building the Brooklands Racetrack at BYFLEET, a large quantity of late 3rd and early 4th century coins was found.
Booklets.
A booklet on ‘Prehistoric Woking’ is available - please see the list of publications on the HERITAGE WALKS page.
Woking: 01483 773773