A HISTORY OF SURREY 



It does not require a close examination of dialect and feature among 

 the present inhabitants of Surrey to appreciate the extent of London's 

 expansion to the south ; but it is by this method that the dwellers in 

 the remoter districts of the county may be provisionally classified, and 

 their early predecessors connected with others who were their neigh- 

 bours before the existing borders of the county were adopted. Before 

 the forest was cleared and the lowlands drained, the inhabitants of this 

 part of Britain must have been distributed mainly in accordance with 

 the nature of the ground. It may safely be assumed that while the 

 low-lying areas near the Thames would be liable to flood, the isolated 

 eminences that are yet to be recognized in north Surrey afforded an 

 unassailable site for habitation ; and there is archaeological evidence to 

 show that the river banks were by no means deserted by the ancient 

 Britons. After four centuries of Roman administration the Thames was 

 no doubt more under control, and skilful engineers had carried highways 

 through marsh and forest in several directions ; but the neighbourhood 

 of the Wandle and the lower valleys of the Mole and Wey were then 

 as now subject to floods, and it is rather on the Chalk formation to the 

 south and on the Greensand formation beyond it that traces of Teutonic 

 settlements within the county should be looked for. 



While geographical considerations would therefore suggest a search 

 for relics of our pagan predecessors all along the southern border of the 

 county, the heights of Sydenham and Forest Hill, of Norwood and 

 Streatham might also be expected to furnish some traces of occupation 

 by strangers who may well have entered the county from the north-east 

 by way of the Thames. The expanse of London Clay around these 

 groups of hills would however discourage further occupation to the east, 

 while the soil in the north-western corner of the county would not 

 support an agricultural or a pastoral people. This area was described in 

 1859 by the Rev. Charles Kingsley, then rector of Eversley, who called 

 attention to the surroundings of the Roman road which crosses the bare 

 and barren formation of Bagshot Sand, with clays on either side of it, 

 which he believed to have been once covered with deep oak forest. 1 



Such then being the physical data on which must be based any 

 reconstruction of the history of Surrey during the early Anglo-Saxon 

 period, mention may now be made of those slight and dubious statements 

 on the subject to be met with in the early chronicles. Not that any 

 attempt can here be made to trace in more than outline the fortunes of 

 the district during the centuries of obscurity that followed the with- 

 drawal of the Roman officials. All that is aimed at in the present 

 chapter is to examine and compare the actual relics that have so far 

 come to light, in order to estimate the material condition and political 

 connexion of the pagan or semi-pagan settlers who made, but omitted 

 to record, the early history of our district. 



It is natural to speak first of the battle fought at Wibbandune in 

 568, a few years after the accession of the young King Aethelbearht to 



1 Society of Antiquaries, Proceedings, iv. 282, ser. I. 

 256 



