Cobham Park Golf Course, ARC CGC 97

The Oxford Archaeological Unit was commissioned by Union Railways Ltd to conduct a field evaluation of 4.9 ha of land at Cobham Park Golf Course as part of a wider programme of archaeological investigations along the route of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL). The site was located on the dip slope of the North Downs and included a small dry valley with a spur of higher land to the west. The Upper Chalk solid geology was overlain by Pleistocene drift deposits and more recent colluvium. Seventeen evaluation trenches were excavated. A scatter of shallow archaeological features were identified on the spur of higher land, some of which contained pottery dated to the middle and late Bronze Age. Most of the pottery (c. 90%) came from a single middle Bronze Age deposit in the top of a ditch. Elsewhere pottery was more widely scattered. Burnt and struck flint was also present. The struck flint mostly represents a background scatter from earlier prehistoric activity, although the burnt flint is more likely to be associated with the Bronze Age occupation. There were no other finds and environmental remains were poorly preserved. The hill slopes and dry valley contained nothing of archaeological significance.