Hatch Furlong
For my third week of Birkbeck fieldwork I attended the Hatch Furlong, Ewell dig in April 2008. My highlight was the discovery of a bovine (?) skull at the base of the chalk quarry I was clearing. Unfortunately that was my last day. I was told that a layer of flints was later found beneath the skull. My thoughts are that the skull was placed on the flints as a ritual offering, possibly as a final action when the pit was closed.
I followed this up with volunteer work sorting soil taken from the site. This was done with the Birkbeck Environmental Group from late 2008 to early 2009. I joined the sorting team again for the next session from late 2009 to early 2010.
The Site
Hatch Furlong is a piece of land lying on North Downs chalk that projects down into the centre of Ewell village. It was purchased by Margaret Glyn in 1911 and made over to the National Trust in 1927. In the 1970s the area was leased to Rendick's Nursery then to Seymour's Nursery.
Hatch Furlong is mentioned in medieval and later documents and deeds, such as the 1408 'Register or memorial of Ewell'. The County Site and Monuments Record contains refernces to a series of mainly Roman finds from the immediate area, such as pottery and coins. The most significant finds include a group of late 1st and early 2nd Century chalk-cut shafts. Pieces of samian pottery from two shafts dug by Charles Warne in 1860 are in the Bourne Hall Museum, Ewell. A late Roman copper alloy bracelet, now in the British Museum (x-Thurnam Collection), was reportedly found 'with skeleton nr pits, Ewell, Surrey'.
A number of small digs were carried out on the site in the 1970s and late 1980s. Fieldwalking in 1974 uncovered struck flint, sherds of Prehistoric, Roman and later pottery, building material and bits of clay tobacco pipe. A metal detector recovered up to four or five hundred coins of Roman date and other Prehistoric, Roman and post-Roman objects. Birkbeck College undertook a topographical & geophysical survey in 2004. The major discoveries were two linear features. One has been identified as a modern cinder track.
The results of Birkbeck work in 2006 showed the site honeycombed with shallow intercutting Roman quarries and revealed a small oven with a rectangular flue. The amount of ceramic building material uncovered suggests the existence of a building close by. It is also suggested that there were two phases of Roman activity on the site: 2nd-3rd century and late 3rd-4th. This appears later than the activity discovered during the 19th Century chalk quarrying further south.
Links
