Introduction
People have lived in and near Dunsfold since the Stone Age and there is a wealth of
information about the way our village grew and how our ancestors conducted their lives.
In this section we will be presenting this history as a story through the ages; but
this is a large project and what follows is only a glimpse of the information which
is available. We intend to build upon this initial sketch of the development of Dunsfold
drawing upon the archives already available to us but we hope that people in the village
will come forward with further old records of the past to fill out this account of
our heritage.
Stone Age
The earliest records of people living in our area are of the Stone Age men who dwelt
on the top of Winkworth Hill. They were hunters using stone and flint implements made
from material gathered on the chalk downs above Guildford. There was little to attract
them to live in the forests of the Weald. However ultimately they were driven down
into the Weald by the cleverer and better armed Bronze Age men coming from the valleys
of the Wey and the Thames. These Ancient Britons almost certainly had a burial ground
near the present site of Dunsfold church.
Romans
The Romans followed the Ancient Britons and had an equal dislike of the forests. They
built their roads around the northern margins of the Weald from Blackdown to Hascombe
and beyond, although the remains of one road can be traced from Chiddingfold through
High Street Green to the Mill at Dunsfold. From there the route is obscure but
it could have carried on past the cricket ground and Common House to Alfold Crossways.
Any settlement which had developed by that time in the Dunsfold area would still have
been primitive and probably comprised little more than a few simple circular wooden
cottages roofed with bark or heather thatch.
Saxons
The Saxons came after the Romans. They arrived as piratical warriors but eventually
settled into a peaceful co-existence with the Britons and became known as the
Anglo-Saxons. Their influence on our history is marked by many place and family
names of Saxon derivation. The name Dunsfold itself comes from the Saxon words
"dun" (a hill) and "fold" (an enclosure).
Enclosures were not so much temporary fenced areas as large spaces bounded by
substantial earthen dykes and ringed by heavy wooden palisades. The cottages were
inside the enclosure which was big enough to hold all the villagers' cattle overnight.
Around the enclosure was a cleared area of land used for grazing and growing crops,
the origin of the common in Dunsfold. In those days there was no individual ownership
of land; all belonged to the village in common with every freeman having the right
to a certain amount of pasturage and tillage.
Manors
By 900 a.d. King Alfred was Lord of the Manor of Godalming the boundaries of which
extended out towards Dunsfold. Until the Norman Conquest, and for some time after,
Dunsfold itself had no manor. Bramley was one of the largest and most powerful
manors in Surrey and owned great tracts of this still virtually uninhabited Wealden
forest. Neither Dunsfold nor Alfold are recorded in Domesday and it was not until the
12th Century when ironstone was found in the region that settlement of our area
started to grow.
Church
A Norman chapel stood on the site of the old Saxon burial ground and there is evidence
that pilgrims came to Dunsfold to visit the Holy Well. This chapel was destroyed,
though how is unclear, and the building of our present church was largely completed
between 1270 and 1290. Its nave pews are said to be the oldest in Britain with rough
carved ends like a bull's horns with balls on the points. They survive with little
change since they were first hewn for the original building.
Early Industry
Within the archives of our part of Surrey from around the end of the 12th Century,
Burningfold is mentioned more frequently than other names and this was probably the
oldest manor in the district though still a dependency of Bramley. Its name discloses
its connection with the charcoal industry which was centred about here and spread
around the Weald based on the abundance of timber available. The middle of the 14th
Century brought the start of much higher standards of building replacing wattle
and daub with stout timber framing (again locally abundant) and brick construction.
Chimneys were a vast improvement on a hole in the roof.
Charcoal was important initially to supply the iron industry which continued to
develop over the next two centuries. By the16th Century three ironworks were listed
in Dunsfold and another at Durfold. The industry further expanded to meet new
demands from the government gunpowder works at Dunsfold and the glassmakers in
Alfold and Chiddingfold. In 1325, glass was made in Chiddingfold for St. Stephen's
Chapel at Westminster and St. George's Chapel at Windsor.
Houses
It is probable that much of the produce from Dunsfold
and the surrounding villages
was transported down the River Arun together with timber for shipbuilding at
Littlehampton on the coast. "Yonder Lye" (see picture), so named as being the
homestead furthest from the church, owes its great beams to a return cargo of
old ship's timbers from a wrecker's yard on the coast. The old cottage which forms
the east end of this ancient house has fire dogs and a fire-back dated 1599 and 1619.
The central part of Dunsfold lying along the west side of the Common contains many
styles of building from the 17th Century to recent times and further afield large
country houses dot the landscape. Some are ancient but some date from the 17th Century
when wealthy Londoners fled from the Capital to escape the dangers of the Great Plague.
Around the church, a small group of substantial houses were built during this 17th
Century period of expansion, including the old rectory and one which is believed to
have been an inn.
TO BE CONTINUED
If you have any comments or queries concerning this section
please e-mail
the Section Editor.
