A HISTORY OF SURREY 



Two possible traces of some early occupation of part of the county, 

 and of West Saxon occupation of the western parts, may be added. The 

 system of compact villages, as opposed to scattered hamlets, which 

 Professor Maitland has taught us to see preserved on the face of the 

 Ordnance Survey, 1 strikes the eye in Surrey in the country which 

 stretches along the edge of the chalk downs from the Kentish frontier 

 in the north-east away towards Guildford south-westward, and in 

 the Thames valley ; less markedly in the land between them. This 

 represents the country most easily accessible to people coming over the 

 Thames and most attractive to them generally. The slopes of the chalk 

 downs were open and dry, yet had springs of water, and were probably 

 already cultivated by the provincial Britons. Over precisely this same 

 tract of country the common fields are known to have still existed com- 

 paratively recently, while there are very few traces of them elsewhere. 

 Here in 24 places there were in Domesday 570 villam with ploughs. 

 In 126 other places named in Domesday there were 1,812, an average of 

 23! to the former, of 14^ to the latter places. It is possible that here 

 we have the original village settlements of the early inhabitants. 



In the county west of the Wey, or south of the chalk, in places 

 separated from these former villages, with the one exception of Ockshot 

 which lies more east, the suffix shot occurs in local names. Without 

 discussing the meaning of the syllable, we may note that it is also 

 common in the West Saxon lands in Berkshire and Hampshire, but 

 uncommon elsewhere. 



The geographical position of Surrey is the key to its history, and 

 its history is to be found in its roads. It was traversed by roads coming 

 from every harbour, and converging upon London, from Southampton 

 on the south-west to Richborough on the south-east, or by roads to the 

 Roman bridge at Staines, Ad Pontes, and by the British trackway along 

 the North Downs which later took the name of the Pilgrims' Way. 

 This system of roads was of more ancient origin than London Bridge, 

 perhaps than London itself. 



The absence of any great centre of population within the borders 

 of Surrey, except in the outskirts of London, have caused its history to 

 take a peculiar form. Its historical events are those concerning people 

 or armies traversing its roads with the aim of reaching something 

 beyond the county, not moving upon something in the county itself. 

 It is a thoroughfare, with the all-important centre of the whole country, 

 London, upon its borders, the old English capital of Winchester on one 

 side of it, the Kentish ports and the ecclesiastical metropolis on the 

 other. It also lies between the Sussex ports and the Thames valley. 

 It is to London and the continent what the Megarid was to Athens and 

 the Peloponnesus. Armies operated in Surrey because their bases and 

 their objects were continually upon its opposite sides. 



After the establishment of the English people in Britain 300 years 

 elapsed without any fresh invasion. 



1 Dmetday Book and Beyond, p. 1 6. 

 330 



