Surrey Archaeological Society

The site of The Old Forge (SU 83924 46729) lies adjacent to the corner of Upper and Middle Church Lanes in Farnham. The site is archaeologically sensitive, being close to the Parish Church and in the likely area of any Saxon settlement. The planning application for the site (WA/2011/0037) refers to ‘internal and external alterations…’ - in fact the building was demolished.

At the request of Mrs Anne Jones, Keeper of the Museum, a small team from Surrey Archaeological Society and the Farnham & District Museum Society excavated an evaluation
trench to the south of the Garden Gallery on 9 July 2006. The aim of the excavation was to test for the presence of archaeological material prior to the construction of a replacement building for the existing Gallery. Previous excavations in the garden, closer to the Museum, had revealed extensive archaeological deposits dating from the 12th century onwards (Surrey
Archaeological Collections, 84, 169-180).

Building works were carried out during 1994/1995, the main element of which was to add an extension to the west end of the house and to lay a new floor in the 'Well room'. Since the latter operation involved lifting the existing concrete floor and removing 50-60 cm of underlying deposits, the authors were asked by Waverley Borough Council and Surrey County Council to undertake an archaeological watching brief on the works.

Archaeological investigations carried out at the moated site of the Royal Manor House of Guildford Park (SU 9691 4931) from1972 to 1975 are described. The site, which has no significant standing buildings, forms part of the garden of Manor Farm and is owned by the University of Surrey. Geophysical surveys, other surveys, historical records and discussions with the tenant farmer were used to decide on the relatively small parts of the site that would be most convenient and valuable to investigate.

In 2005 Listed Building Consent was granted for works in Gardiner’s Wing, Farnham Castle. The Wing was divided  into  several  small  rooms and  the proposal was  to  remove a 
number  of  internal  partition walls  dating  from  the  1930s  and  later  to  create  an  open  plan office  space. The consent  required an archaeological/historic buildings  survey  to be carried out during the course of the building works and this report is the result of that requirement. 

For more information please view the attached report.

During the summer of 2011, an archaeological investigation of the garden to the rear of no 45 (SU 83894 47104) was carried out prior to the construction of an extension to the house and subsequently to monitor the footing trenches during building works.

Following on from the successful gridded field survey at Chiddingfold a similar exercise wascarried out in the field adjacent to the Roman bath house at Chatley Farm. The building was first noticed in 1942 exposed in a river bluff formed by the Mole, which flows just to the east of Chatley Farm. The site was subsequently excavated by Sheppard Frere (1949) and turned out to be a bath house of 4th century date.