Surrey Archaeological Collections 86

Records and analyses a collection of flint artefacts assembled around the end of the nineteenth century are recorded and analysed, and a large number are allocated a site provenance. A number of discrete sites and possible sub-sites is identified, and the results of recent fieldwork in the area is also described. Finds include a high percentage of bifaces with twisted profiles, possibly indicative of a particular production technique. The finds are related to local geology, and their significance for early human activity in the landscape is considered. There are six appendices, respectively entitled: `The sub-sites at Limpsfield' (microfiche), `Profiles of bifaces from Bell's collection of Palaeolithic artefacts from Limpsfield' (29), `Palaeolithic artefacts from Limpsfield in the British Museum' (30), `Dates of recovery of artefacts from Limpsfield gravel pit' (30), `Heights of sites above OD taken from annotations on artefacts in Bell's Collection' (31) and a `Table of measurements of artefacts from Limpsfield in Bell's collection' (microfiche).

A pocketbook belonging to the founder of the London Foundling Hospital provides evidence of his involvement in gunpowder manufacture in Surrey and organisation of powder transport via the Wey Navigation. A complete transcript of the pocketbook is provided on microfiche.

Describes the timber structures (four rows of stakes) revealed by gravel extraction in 1972/73 and recorded with the limited resources then available. Radiocarbon analysis gives a date around the first half of the sixth century AD. In addition to wooden objects, finds including multi-period pottery, stone weights or anchors, shoe leather, animal and human bone

Reports on excavations undertaken in 1996, following an evaluation in 1991. Remains of Iron Age occupation -- including circular structures -- were identified. Despite the fact that the deposits had been severely truncated in the recent past, finds of pottery, animal bone, burnt clay and lithics are noted.

Summarises the contents of a number of private collections of flint objects found on the common, with references to the few previously known finds from the locality.

A metal-detector find, said to have been recovered from the side of the railway near Ashtead Pond in 1989.

Three copper-alloy bracelets from a sandpit near Cranleigh church, found in 1995 after they which were thrown up by animal activity.

A chance find made in 1998, probably made of brass with an inlay of niello.

Publishes what is known of a small group of burials encountered during utility works beside the A31 highway. Thought by the excavator to be Neolithic, doubts were raised and it was subsequently suggested that the bodies were of seventeenth-century plague victims.

Items noted in a survey of archaeological collections held by the museums of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands and Worcestershire.