House Clearance in Badshot Lea

A Neolithic (4000 – 2200 BC) Long Barrow, at Badshot Lea, was discovered in 1936 in a quarry, unfortunately partly destroyed. It was originally a burial chamber about 47 metres long.

[What Badshot Lea may have looked like: Belas Knap long barrow, Gloucestershire Image: Adam Stanford, Archaeology Safaris Ltd]

What Badshot Lea may have looked like: Belas Knap long barrow, Gloucestershire Image: Adam Stanford, Archaeology Safaris Ltd

The remains were observed by Rankine in 1936, in a quarry west of Badshot Farm and immediately east of the railway cutting. Most of the site had already been quarried away, but rescue excavations revealed enough of the ditches to indicate a barrow some 140 ft long, oriented slightly north of east.

Three sherds of Neolithic pottery were found in the primary silting of the south ditch. In the secondary filling of both ditches was a quantity of Neolithic pottery and a few associated flints. A fragment of a polished axe was taken from the north ditch. Rankine also found two flint arrowheads one leaf-shaped and one lozenge-shaped.

It is possible a Neolithic settlement is nearby (see Historic Environment Record 2155).

Bronze Age round barrows are more common but this is the only example in Surrey of a Neolithic long barrow. It is an important site because it is half way between the well-known and preserved Kent and Wessex tombs.