Settlements

Bronze-age settlements are notoriously difficult to find - wooden huts leave very little evidence after 3500 years; usually just traces of post holes.  The nearest Bronze-age settlements to have been found are at Addlestone, Egham and at Runnymede.  From these we can infer that local Bronze Age peoples lived in round or oval huts of about 6 to 9 metres diameter.   They were constructed on a circle of wooden posts driven down into the ground; these posts met a the apex of a thatch-covered roof.   The walls were probably made of wattle and mud daub.  In the centre of the hut was a gravel or pebble-based hearth on which food was cooked.   Since the huts had neither chimneys nor windows they were probably dim and smoky.  In the late Bronze Age porches became popular! ^{2, p20}.  

Bronze-age socketed spear head found in the River Blackwater. The side loops allow the spear head to be bound to the shaft.   There appears also to be a peg hole for a similar purpose.  Objects found in rivers are often considered to be offerings to the gods. Photo courtesy of the Surrey Heath Archaeological and Heritage Trust

The Runnymede site was found purely by accident when digging the Thames M25 bridge southern footings.  This late Bronze-age settlement was about 500 metres across and included hut post holes, storage pits and a wharf ¹.  Situated on a gravel spit into the Thames it appears to have been a major local trading post.  Metalworking appears to have been a major specialist activity with evidence of tools and weapons being cast.^{2 p 118}  No evidence of bronze working has been found any nearer and hence people in our area may have obtained their bronze knives, spears, gouges, chisels, razors and sickles from Runnymede.

Bronze Age peoples had developed simple plank-wheeled vehicles no doubt pulled by oxen. ⁴  So did they build our first roads across the heaths and ridges?

Farming

Bronze-age field systems have been found only along the Thames and the major rivers - not the Wey.^{5 p311} Stuart Needham has raised the possibility, based on pollen analysis of buried soil profiles below the West End barrows, that the higher ground was  cultivated in the early Bronze Age.^{3 p130}  However, the geological evidence is against any long-term cultivation.  The barrows are sited on a ridge of the Barton Beds sand which, although likely to be the first to be cleared of trees, elsewhere in the area provide the poorest soil and are the least likely to be cultivated for more than a dozen years before becoming exhausted.  It appears that the fields would then be abandoned and would thus revert to woodland.  When the soil had recovered; perhaps a hundred years later then the clearance cycle could begin again.³ Alternatively maybe there were no cultivated fields on the higher ground; only areas cleared for pasture.

The Bronze Age peoples were able to clear light soils efficiently because they used oxen as beasts of burden ⁴ to pull simple wooden ploughs; criss-crossing backwards and forwards across the fields.  The valley bottoms probably continued as thick impenetrable alder carr.

It is noticeable that Bronze-age barrows are located along the boundaries of the further reaches of Chobham: not on the parish boundary where it nears the village centre.   It is understandable that along the valleys, the main axes of habitation, field boundaries and homesteads would be sufficient to clearly define the territorial boundary.  However, at the furthest boundaries, way out on the heathlands, then stronger territorial markers would be required.  If this is true then we can surmise that Bronze Age peoples farmed principally along the river valleys and ran their sheep and goats out on the heathlands.  This pattern of land use can be seen in  parishes adjoining the chalk Downs.   These parishes tend to be long and thin - running from the valleys up to the Downs.   This allowed the seasonal migration of sheep from the sheltered valleys to the summer grazing on the Downs.   Chobham parish has an unusual boomerang shape - a kind of double-ended long parish that may reflect a similar land use.   In the Winter, stock may have been kept near the village, but for the rest of the year run up to Chobham Common to the north and West End to the southwest.

In addition to the pollen evidence discussed above, other possible evidence for agriculture during the earlier part of the Bronze Age comes in the form of relict field systems. No systematic fieldwork has been done in the area, but one extensive field system is known to spread across the heath of Whitmoor Common where it is geographically associated with the two barrows excavated by Pitt-Rivers. This association suggests, in the absence of independent evidence, a Bronze Age date. The major boundaries on Whitmoor Common run back perpendicularly from a small stream, up a gentle gradient to a low ridge. A series of transverse banks form some small plots, while larger areas devoid of sub-divisions tend to be higher on the slope, as are the two barrows. Fragments of other field boundary systems have been observed on other nearby heaths, namely Smarts Heath and Horsell Common, near Woking. ^{3, p131}

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