The first documentary evidence of Bletchingley’s existence is in 1086 when the Domesday Book recorded 36 households of perhaps 180 people. However, traces of human habitation have been found at Bletchingley stretching back thousand of years before the Norman Conquest, revealed by numerous archaeological excavations.
The
first signs of human habitation at Bletchingley date back about 8,000
years to the Mesolithic (Middle Stone) age. Traces of flint working and
cooking by nomadic hunter-gatherers have been found in Mesolithic
tree-throws and man-made pits during excavations at North Park
Farm Quarry, to the east of Bletchingley.
Tree throws were hollows left in the ground when a large tree was blown over and they were valuable instant shelters in the heavily wooded prehistoric landscape. One of these tree throws yielded a massive cache of about 450 worked flints.
The dark part in the middle of this image is evidence of a hearth, one of the oldest features on the site, dated to 10,000BC.
The Mesolithic people were
followed by Neolithic communities who continued to return to North Farm
and engaged in flint-working. Intentionally placed ritual deposits of
unglazed Peterborough ware vessels from the Middle Neolithic
era (3400-2800 BC) have been found. These would have been made from the
abundant local clay and fired in open shallow pits. There appears to
have been more regular agricultural activity and settlement from this
period.
A sharp drop in tree pollen deposits in Surrey from the Neolithic period marks the start of serious land clearance. Early Iron Age ironworking was also found but does not appear to have continued.
Traces of a very large Middle Iron Age hillfort (once known as the Cardinal’s Cap) have been found on White Hill on the border of Bletchingley and Caterham between Hextalls Lane and War Coppice Road. It is on the crest of a chalk spur above the south face of the North Downs. The War Coppice Camp dates from around the 6th to the 1st century BC and is the only known iron-age hillfort in Surrey situated directly on the North Downs.
Built with double ramparts
and ditches in concentric rings, it is a large, roughly oval enclosure
measuring approximately 400 metres east-west by 250 metres north-south.
It had an internal defended area of about 8 hectares (20 acres) which
would have had a high defensive timber palisade.
It is now covered in dense woodland but this aerial image of Maiden Castle gives an idea of how such hillforts looked.
Hillforts flourished alongside a range of farmsteads, both enclosed and unenclosed. They were used as settlements, food stores, meeting places and possibly religious centres. These roles appear to have been more important than any military uses.
Archaeological surveys to the west and south west of Willey Park Farm in Chaldon revealed a Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age field, directly linked to the War Coppice Camp. The site appears to have remained under arable cultivation during the medieval and post-medieval periods.
There is evidence of Roman occupation over a sustained period. A complex stone-walled hypercaust bathhouse, possibly early Roman, was found in the valley bottom of the Vale of Holmesdale at Pendell Court, 1km north of Bletchingley village. Hypocausts were the underfloor heating networks used by wealthy Romans.
Traces of a Roman field system and trackways were revealed through the magnetometry in the immediate vicinity of the site. A small Romano-British cemetery was also found, 350m north of the hypocaust building. It consisted of seven graves, two of which contained coffins made of decorated lead, dating from the third or fourth century.
Given the large number of late Roman coins found near the hypocaust it seems likely that there was prolonged Roman activity in the area. Although no evidence of local industry is known, there were abundant local resources that the Romans could have used. These included easily accessible, high-quality sand deposits suitable for glass making, and Reigate stone, a soft but durable sandstone that was very easy to carve. There was also ironstone that was too rough and irregular for carving but useful for heavy rubblestone in foundations.
Archaeological digs in Southwark and along the London city walls have found 1st-to-3rd-century structures built using Upper Greensand (Reigate Stone). This proves the Romans were extracting it somewhere along the Surrey ridge scarp from Godstone to Brockham, but no specific Roman quarry site has been discovered.
An Anglo-Saxon well and pits have been found at North Farm and 
there is also evidence that
the Anglo Saxons continued to exploit the Reigate stone. It was used in
the lintel of a doorway in the parish church at Stoke D’Abernon,
(late-7th/early-8th century). It was also used in
in the mid-11th century construction of the surviving Pyx
Chamber and Monk’s undercroft at Westminster Abbey.
The name Bletchingley is also Anglo-Saxon, originating from the Old English Blecchingeleah, meaning ‘the woodland clearing (lēah) of the people (-ing-) of Blecca.’ Place-names ending in -ingeleah date back to the early waves of Saxon settlement (around the 5th to 7th centuries) when clearings were named after the tribal leaders who claimed them.
By 1086, Bletchingley was part of the Tandridge (Tenrige) Hundred. Hundreds were divisions of land established in the mid-10th century as part of the unification of England as a single kingdom. They streamlined military drafts and the collection of the Danegeld (a land tax originally raised to buy off or fight the Danes).
Before the Norman Conquest in 1066, the over-lordship of Bletchingley was held by King Edward the Confessor. The manors of Bletchingley and Chevington immediately to the south east, were held from him by Alnod, with two other owners holding smaller allocations of land.
Alnod has been identified as Alnoth, an important citizen of London. Following the Norman Conquest, his private estates across Surrey including Bletchingley and Chivington were given to the new king’s cousin, Richard FitzGilbert. Alnod chose to become a Benedictine monk, a not uncommon survival strategy for high status Saxons.
This survey of the archaeological evidence shows that Bletchingley and its immediate surroundings were occupied continuously for centuries before the Norman Conquest. During this time the landscape had changed from unbroken prehistoric forest to a highly cleared farming economy, with hundreds of acres of former woodland cleared along the greensand ridge for arable land.
Sources:
Prehistoric and early medieval landscapes at North Park Farm, Bletchingley, Surrey County Archaeological Unit
Mesolithic tree throws and flints, North Park Farm Quarry (NPQ14), Bletchingley https://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/collections/getrecord/SHHER_MSE23520
The Megalithic Portal, North Park Farm https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=12335
Aerial photograph of Maiden Castle, 1935 https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=12335
Border archaeology Archaeological desk -based assessment https://plandocs.tandridge.gov.uk/w2webparts/Resource/Civica/Handler.ashx/Doc/pagestream?cd=inline&pdf=true&docno=25400230
Surrey Archaeological Society, Chaldon Report 2012 and 2020
https://www.surreyarchaeology.org.uk/content/chaldon-report-2012-and-2020
Surrey’s Past, Geophysical Survey of Roman Remains at Pendell Court (2024)
https://www.surreyarchaeology.org.uk/system/files/SAS%20SP%20497.pdf
The many faces of Reigate Stone: an assessment of variability in historic masonry based on Medieval London’s principal freestone, (2020)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s40494-020-00424-w#Fig1
Photo of Pyx chamber chapel, Westminster Abbey, (2022)