Abstract
Brooklands Weybridge: The Excavation of an Iron Age and Medieval Site 1964-5 and 1970-71
ROSAMOND HANWORTH and D J TOMALIN (pp. 1-88)
Iron Age occupation on the east bank of the River Wey dating possibly from the 6th century BC provides the setting for the discovery earlier this century of the Weybridge Bucket, a Mediterranean bronze import found in the river at this spot. Occupation continued until the time of the Roman conquest. The site probably formed part of a larger Iron Age settlement; the features discovered include an ironworking establishment with areas for smelting and forging respectively, pits of different types, and the ring gully of a house.
Saxon material dating probably to the 8th century AD was not associated positively with any structure, but occurred in the same general area as one of the five or six buildings enclosed by a ditch and palisade, which formed a small medieval estate. The capital messuage of the medieval estate was an example of a distinctive class of lightly framed timber building, comparable to Ellington, Huntingdonshire and Newstead, Yorkshire. Documentary evidence links the estate with the Broc, Brok or Brooke family, and the medieval period is dated tentatively 1150 or 1175 to the first quarter of the 14th century.
Although there are gaps in the occupation of the site, these may be more apparent than real, due to the fact that excavation could not be continued beyond the allotted time. A Neolithic flint axe and a small miscellany of worked flints suggest that the spur of higher ground projecting above the flood plain had previously attracted human activity.
In this report we have adopted a technique of ‘continuous narrative’, so that most of the excavated material, which is often the best evidence for both the chronology and the interpretation of the site at any given period, is considered in its proper context rather than being relegated to a heterogeneous appendix at the end of the paper. There are some instances, however, where the excavated material lends itself most readily to an environmental or economic assessment of the site, or where the contrast between one period and the next has been invoked. These specialist contributions will be found in the final section.
While the report was in preparation Dr J F Potter made contact with us, because his research on the iron carbonates present in the Bracklesham Beds had led him to the conclusion that these ores were exploited in prehistoric times.
