House Clearance in Burpham

Long before Christianity, much worked flint from the Stone Age was deposited around the area where the Guildford fire station is at Ladymead. There is yet further evidence of very early history on Weylea Farm. The River Wey was very slow running and the land beside it in the valley was marshy and susceptible to frequent flooding. This will have meant that the nearest dry land was on the higher slopes at the western edge or the recently built Weylea Estate where it is closest to the A3 — at this point there was a settlement for early Britons where they made pottery from the local clay.

Later came the Romans. Their burial ground was also nearby, approximately where Pimms Row stands today. In 1897 Romano-British pottery and other artefacts were discovered on the slopes overlooking the river to the west of Pimm’s Close, In writing the history of Burpham, Roger Marjoribanks comments that: ‘It is likely that the remains of a small villa lie buried in the soil not far away, He further comments that: ‘It was probably defensible, for when the Saxons arrived in the 6th century A.D., they called the place Burh-ham (m), which means either “Fortification Hamlet” or “Fort in the Water Meadow:”

Towards the end of the 19th century, brick-making started as a small industry using local clay. Brickfields were to be found in the grounds of New Inn Farm along New Inn Lane, and Winterhill Farm, as well as Slyfield, a short distance away across the river, Little wonder that the deeds of the houses in Abbotswood include a covenant stating that: ‘No bricks or tiles shall at any time be burnt or made nor any clay or lime burnt on the land …‘ These covenants were introduced by Taylor, and were carried through to the other deeds of subsequent purchasers, reflecting his wish that the estate should not be turned into a brickworks.