Home Farm Quarry, Laleham: Neolithic, earliest Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon occupation

Excavations at Home Farm Quarry, Laleham, revealed occupation dating from the Neolithic, the earliest Iron Age and the early–middle Anglo-Saxon period. The earliest feature on the site might have been a silted up palaeochannel, which cannot be precisely dated. A ring ditch, almost entirely devoid of finds, might be Neolithic but its date is, again, uncertain. A small pit which contained Grooved Ware can be more certainly dated to the late Neolithic, and two other features might have belonged to the same period.
The most extensive remains belong an earliest Iron Age field system which was associated with waterholes and a few pits and postholes. A complete decorated Sompting axehead was found in the base of one of the waterholes, below a large deposit of freshly broken pottery.
Activity in the early–middle Anglo-Saxon period is represented by only a few features – three pits and possibly a waterhole and a short stretch of ditch – but charred plant remains including free-threshing wheat which are likely to be Anglo-Saxon in date were widely distributed across the site.