Background

It has long been suspected locally that the relatively straight road that goes from Chobham to Chertsey via Chobham Park is Roman in origin.

David Bird, in the "Archaeology of Surrey to 1541", states that it may part of the Roman road from Winchester to London via Chertsey.

Sometime at a later date, between the junctions of Gracious Pond Rd and Mincing Lane the road appears

The dotted lines show the current alignment of Chertsey Road to the south and its possible previous alignment past the house site.

 to have been diverted south around Chobham Park.  This probably happened shortly after 1535 when Henry VIII obtained and expanded Chobham Park.  The map shows its probably original route through Chobham Park.

This road may well have been the principle route to London from the South-West during the period between the decay of the London-Silchester Roman road via Egham and Staines, and the building of a bridge at Staines in the early 13th C followed by the construction of the causeway across the boggy ground between Egham and Staines.^{1 p14}

Project Approach

To determine whether the road did, as suspected, pass through the centre of Chobham Park by:

1. researching the documented history of the road
2. conducting an aerial photography survey
3. field walking for evidence
4. landscape study
5. resistivity analysis of the route

Results

Documented History Research

1. The bounds of Chertsey in the Chertsey Abbey charter of 673AD, mention a here-street (in Old English usually used to signify a Roman military road) between Crockford Bridge and Three Barrows. ² The Chobham-Chertsey road does indeed lie between these two boundary points. 
   
2. This area appears to be a Roman finds hotspot. In 1962 a Dupondius of Domitian coin was found on the Common 200m south of the Old Slade earthworks.⁽³⁾   Both Manning & Bray and the VCH report a coin hoard ^(4&5). Roman material has been found nowhere else in the parish of Chobham.
   
3. Where this road meets Mincing Lane was called Stanes Farm. 'stanes', meaning 'stones' is thought to have an association with Roman paved roads.

Aerial photography survey

Aerial photograph showing the area through which the 'Roman' road would be expected to pass. The Chobham end of the road appears in the bottom left corner: the Chertsey end at top right.

Field walking

Landscape Study

An interesting approach to locating the alignment of Roman roads is statistically analyse the orientation of field boundaries in the area. 

Map showing the alignments of field boundaries and buildings in comparison to the assumed alignment of the 'Roman' road. It can be seen that locally the correlation is very strong.  It would appear that the ditches and the raised platform on which the house stands are aligned within one degree.  The chances of this being merely co-incidence is 1:45 This is probably a strong indication that the road did once indeed pass close to the site of the house. The correlation does not extend beyond the immediate environs of the house so we are probably not seeing any evidence of a Roman field system, i.e. centuration 7

Resistivity analysis

In the first season the extent of resistivity analysis has been very small (about 0.1 hectares) and hence no conclusions can be offered.  A large area survey will be required.

However, the chances of resistivity finding a minor gravelled Roman road set on a gravel terrace is not good!

References: