Ockley History

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Two centuries before the Normans invaded, the vilage is believed to be the place that is mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle as Aclea, the place where King Ethelwulf of Wessex fought a great battle with the Danes. Here the two armies assembled, the Danes marching victorious from London and Ethelwulf with his forces from Winchester. In his book; 'Memorials of King Alfred' Edited by The Rev. Dr. Giles, he writes:

".. and there king Ethelwuf and his son Ethelbald, with the army of the West-Saxons, fought against them at Aclea [Ockley], and there made the greatest slaughter among the heathen army that we have heard tell of unto the present day, and there got the victory."

Stane Street - Roman Road

Running by the village green is the Roman Stane Street, which runs from Chichester to London, and from Sussex it comes straight as an arrow, making for the gap in the downs near Dorking, where it then crosses a corner of the churchyard.

The Roman road from London Bridge to Chichester which passed through Ockley was more likely to have been used for commercial rather than military purposes and possibly constructed before AD 53. The Rev. Woodroffe (1784-1817) dug entirely through the causeway in his glebeland* to make a ditch, finding it about 4 1/2 ft thick formed of several rows of flints and other stones laid alternately all bedded in sand or very fine gravel and with the utmost regularity. At the time of writing there is no unburied portion of Roman work although a stretch of l20ft at TQ 165455 was exposed by the Surrey Archaelogical Society in May 1935.

The routes both north and south have a pronounced divergence from the old causeway, the reasons for which can now only be conjectured but since a farm would hardly be built on a principal road it can be assumed that the north deviation was in existence before the farm - in this case c15 or earlier. The fork leading south over Puttocks Bridge is much later between 1762 and 1870 which is evident from early maps.

In medieval times the liability for highway maintenance rested with the landowners and roads were very poor. A statute in 1555 made the parishes responsible for repairing their own roads but despite this and other statutory measures no significant improvement probably occurred until the Local Government Acts late in the c19 and even by 1910 the road was still surfaced with Leith Hill stone.

Stane Street became a turnpike road in 1663 and tolls were collected at the junction near Hale House until 1840 (Joseph Rapley collected the Tolls in 1822). A turnpike is also believed to have existed a few yards north of Coles Lane.

Before the railway two coaches used to go through the village from London to Bognor in 1862. Fares to Epsom were five shillings inside and three shillings outside.

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