Surrey Archaeological Collections
Surrey Archaeological Society, 2003. (updated 2023) https://doi.org/10.5284/1000221. How to cite using this DOI
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- ADS Collection: 379
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1000221
- How to cite using this DOI
SURREY ARCHAEOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS
The archaeology of industrial extraction from Banstead and Walton Heaths
COLIN BAGNALL
This article gives an account of the history or possible history of the 50 pits shown on the OS maps of Banstead and Walton Heaths surveyed between 1866 and 1934. Much of this history is associated with the extraction from 1755 onwards of flints and gravel for the building and maintenance of the two turnpike roads which crossed the heath, the Brighton and Pebble Hill Roads (the later A217 and B2032). Details are given of the Reigate Turnpike Trust's construction of the roads, the likely sources of the materials in terms of pits, the relevance of payments for carting in the identification of those pits and the use of the pits in the improvements made by the road engineer William Constable. The account goes on to deal with extraction by the Trust's successors, the Epsom District Highways Board and the Epsom Rural District Council. Identification of the pits likely to have been opened by these bodies is attempted, with information derived from their records and those of the Banstead Commons Conservators. Manorial and other extractors, and the extraction of chalk and loam, are also considered.
