Page:VCH Surrey 1.djvu/279

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

EARLY MAN that it was the Worplesdon specimen which first led to the discovery of implements in the Farnham gravels. These gravels in which the Farnham implements have been found are from 10 feet to 40 feet thick and lie about 364 feet above sea level and about 1 50 feet above the present level of the river Wey. An unworn palaeolithic implement has recently been found in Wonersh churchyard, but as the gravel in which it occurred had been imported from some unknown locality the discovery is not of very great importance. It is probable that the gravel was brought from Farnham. The specimen is now in the collection of Sir W. C. Roberts-Austen, K.C.B. At Limpsfield, a village situated upon the Lower Greensand, Mr. A. Montgomerie Bell l has found at an elevation of 500 feet above the sea level many palaeolithic implements embedded from 3 feet to 7 feet deep in gravel. If this gravel ever formed a part of that which caps some of the chalk hills to the north it must have been very con- siderably degraded. This is improbable, but the implements, as also the gravel in which they were discovered, have undergone a good deal of drift wear. 2 On the slope of the Lower Greensand escarpment to the south of Limpsfield Common at a place called Redland's farm 3 more than 300 palaeolithic implements have been discovered, principally upon the surface of the ground, but also in the brick earth at a depth in some cases of 5 feet. The levels at which the implements were found range from 570 feet to 450 feet above the sea. On both sides of the Wandle, within about a mile of the point where the river falls into the Thames, many palaeolithic implements have been found. Mr. G. F. Lawrence 4 of Wandsworth has for some years past been finding numerous specimens in this neighbourhood. In 1882 Mr. Worthington G. Smith 6 discovered a palaeolithic implement in an exca- vation for the foundations of a new house on Battersea Rise near Clapham Common. The gravel formed one of the higher terraces of the Thames, where palaeolithic implements occur in such abundance as to lead Mr. Smith to think that the specimens occasionally found in the bed of the Thames near the mouth of the Wandle have been brought down from the terraces. Mr. Lawrence 6 has also succeeded in finding palaeolithic imple- ments at Lavender Hill, the borders of Wimbledon Common, Earlsfield, 1 Quarterly Journal of the Geokgical Society of London, xlvii. 140, etc. ; Evans, Ancient Stone Imple- ments, ed. 2, pp. 60910.

  • The relation of this gravel to the valley of the river Darent has been ably discussed by the late

Professor Prestwich (Quarterly Journal of the Gfo/ogicat Society of London, xlvii. 1 26-63), who points out that ' before the deposition of this river drift at Limpsfield Common, a valley of considerable width and 200 to 300 feet deep had been excavated between the Lower Greensand hills and the adjacent Chalk plateau, by which the future Chalk escarpment was first brought into relief. This channel (which is on the line of the Gault) was subsequently worn deeper.' 3 Evans, Ancient Stone Implements, ed. 2, p. 610. * Ibid. ed. 2, p. 604. 6 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xii. 2301. 6 From private information. 231