Archived News

7th March 2008 Paula Matthews

For those people that know me, it may come as no surprise that this morning I was planning to do some gardening but ended up on an archaeological field walk instead – another ‘first’ for me!

 

As the morning started wet and fairly miserable I decided to take the opportunity to write a letter opposing the closure of Abinger Hammer Post Office.  We use Annie’s post office for all our postal needs, to buy the Sunday paper and the Beano, fishing nets and ice creams to enjoy on the village green in the summer…..the list goes on.  The village post office is the hub of the community, a focal point for everyone in the surrounding villages and a vital resource for all age groups.

Here’s something I read today:  if the Government can spend £110 billion, (£3500 for each of us), to keep a bank with 2 million customers afloat why can’t it pay £5 from each taxpayer to support a Post Office network with 11.4 million customers? 

I think this says it all. The Government does not appear interested in the social problems of rural communities otherwise they would take a bold step back, re-assess the broader picture and look to support rural post offices and the village life that is interlinked.

 

On my way to the post office I saw a group of people gathered in a field at Crossways Farm, where we farm the land owned by the Cork family, so I stopped to investigate.
 

It was the Surrey Archaeological Society (SAS) gathering to do a ‘field walk’ on two fields to the east of the Roman Villa site. 

After delivering the important letter and popping home for my camera , I returned to the fields just to take a few photographs and have a chat, but I was still there two hours later!

 

This is a fascinating subject and it wasn’t long before I was looking at the earlier finds and then began to walk the fields spotting pieces of tile and was delighted to find an iron  nail with a huge head. Sounds fairly weird, but it’s captivating when you’re actually there!

 

The field is divided into sections. The group form a line and make a sweep across one section, picking up any pieces of earthenware they find and placing this in a bag.  When everyone has reached the edge of the field, they all turn round and sweep back across the same section once more.

Any more significant objects are marked with a flag so that their exact location is logged by a GPS system.  A tiny bell was found, described to me by Bill Meads (who was metal detecting) as one of the earliest ‘early warning systems’ which would have been placed around the neck of a sheep, a lead bullet from a pistol, an ancient button, part of a buckle and a flint scraper used thousands of years ago by a hunter to scrape the flesh from the skin of a wild animal. 

It was a really fascinating afternoon, and I’m pleased to have had this opportunity.  However, just as I expected, our boys were disappointed to have missed such an exciting day and they want the SAS to come back tomorrow!

 

I look forward to reading the final report of today’s finds.

 

 

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