Valley Park Woodlands Clothiers Copse 2 Knightwood Cottages Sky’s Wood 3 Knight Wood 6 Knightwood Farm Tredgoulds Copse carr alder nel han eo-c pala 5 Zionshill Copse Zionshill Farm 4 1 prehistoric/Roman sites 2 Bronze Age barrow 3 Bronze Age barrow 1 4 Deverel Rimbury barrow 5 Iron Age enclosure 6 linear earthwork Test Valley Borough Council 0 500 Licence No. LA079715 metres 1 VALLEY PARK FROM PREHISTORY small areas of heathland. Beech, yew TO THE PRESENT DAY and birch are less common, being restricted to areas where suitable soil conditions and opportunities for INTRODUCTION colonisation have favoured their survival. Situated within the parish of North For reasons of habitat diversity and Baddesley just beyond the western rarity, the ancient woods have a high outskirts of Chandler's Ford, Valley Park conservation value and are greatly Woodlands comprises five separate prized by local residents. These woods. Until quite recently these were qualities are emphasised in the Borough set within an agricultural landscape that Council's current Management Plan, was characterised by a patchwork of which underlines the ecological fragility small fields used for pasture, and to a and amenity potential of the woods. The lesser extent for arable. Since the plan makes a number of 1990’s extensive residential recommendations for reversing the development, in line with the deterioration in the historic character of requirements of the South Hampshire the woodlands, caused largely by a Structure Plan, has absorbed most of decline in traditional management the former farmland, leaving the woods practices. relatively isolated in what is now a predominantly suburban setting. Alongside their conservation value, the woods are important as an archaeological and historical resource. Taken together the five woods cover Several sites of archaeological interest some 42.5 hectares and fall into the have been recorded or excavated in category of Ancient Semi-Natural recent years, and these have produced Woodland. The woods are owned by information about the settlement and Test Valley Borough Council and shaping of the landscape before the managed by Leisure Services for present woods existed. Other findings conservation and education, along with relate directly to the origins, informal access to local residents for development and management of the various recreational purposes. The chief woods down to the present day. habitats are created by oak, ash, neglected hazel coppice, alder carr and 2 Zones Climate Woodland Succession Period Period Dates Modern Post-Medieval AD 1485 Medieval AD 1066 Sub- Atlantic deterioration Saxon AD 410 Roman AD 43 decline of lime increase of ash, birch, Late Iron Age 50 BC hornbeam and beech Middle Iron Age 400 BC 500 BC Early Iron Age 600 BC Late Bronze Age 1000 BC Sub- decreasing increase of ash and birch Boreal warmth decrease of elm Middle Bronze Age 1400 BC Early Bronze Age 2000 BC 3000 BC Atlantic climatic mixed oak forest with an optimum increase of alder Neolithic 4000 BC 5000 BC Boreal mixed oak forest with 6000 BC hazel and pine later Mesolithic 7500 BC increasing warmth Pre-Boreal birch, pine, juniper earlier Mesolithic 8000 BC 8000 BC Late Sub-Arctic Tundra Palaeolithic Glacial Time chart for the post-Glacial. The chart depicts the climate and vegetation trends corresponding to the main archaeological and historic periods 3 THE PREHISTORIC AND ROMAN The Mesolithic PERIODS IN VALLEY PARK 8000-4000 BC It is from the early post-Glacial period, In common with other parts of southern known as the Mesolithic or middle Stone England during the late Glacial period, Age, that the first signs of human activity Sub-Arctic conditions prevailed appear in Valley Park. The remains throughout most of Hampshire. From consist of small numbers of worked flints around 8000 BC, following the retreat of (microliths) found during recent work in the ice sheets, shrubs and trees such as the former farmland alongside Zionshill juniper, birch and pine, were becoming Copse. Microliths are small flakes established. Further climatic detached by carefully controlled amelioration through the Boreal and knapping from a shaped nodule, or core. Atlantic zones encouraged the growth They were used to form composite tools and spread of mixed deciduous forest to such as projectile points, fishing spears, form a complex mosaic over most of the knives or graters by fitting the individual British Isles. Across most of southern pieces into a wood, bone or antler England these ‘wildwoods’ were mount. These tools formed the basic kit dominated by oak and lime, with pockets used by the small and mobile Mesolithic of ash and alder along the coastal fringe. groups as they exploited plants and The ‘wildwoods’ supported a wide animals in a seasonal cycle of hunting variety of animal species such as and gathering. beaver, pine marten, elk, roe and red deer, wild ox and pig, along with a The site near Zionshill Copse may have variety of water fowl. been a temporary camp, used to advantage by a small party occupying the slightly higher and drier ground during a hunting foray. Such hunting bands would exploit various territories determined by the availability of game and the proximity of other Mesolithic groups. To follow the larger animals, such as deer or wild ox, it might have been necessary for the hunters to range over annual territories extending to tens of square kilometres. It was once believed that Mesolithic hunter gatherers had a minimal effect on their environment. However, the most recent research has suggested that by the later Mesolithic these small groups were manipulating their environment in a variety of ways, ultimately leading to a thinning of the primary forest and a change in its species composition. A Mesolithic hunter using microliths to prepare composite spearheads 4 In the pollen records from several sites, The character of this activity is unclear, peaks in the representation of hazel or but the unusual discovery of a single alder pollen are closely associated with sherd of late Neolithic pottery might finds of microliths and the presence of indicate that some form of more charcoal, both indicating that changes in permanent settlement existed in the the abundance of the two species were vicinity of Zionshill Copse. being brought about by human intervention. At other sites the more open conditions created by woodland clearance are reflected in an increase in the pollen of plantain, sorrel and grasses, while in some areas clearance appears to have initiated the formation of heathland. Limited observations made during the building development in Valley Park suggest that parts of the lower-lying areas were probably marshy and subject to periodic flooding during the Mesolithic. A Neolithic flint axe hafted in a A palaeo-channel (ancient river bed), the wooden shaft. Experiments have presence of alluvial deposits (water-lain shown that axes of this type are very silts) and the discovery of bog-oak effective for felling quite large trees (fragments of oak preserved in waterlogged silts or peat) during the excavation of the balancing pond near The Neolithic has been seen as a period Zionshill Copse are all indicative of characterised by an agricultural increasingly wet conditions. These are revolution which followed the local reflections of much broader trends introduction of cereal crops and animal in southern England that included rising domestication. It was also a period sea level and coastal inundation, and when more extensive woodland further inland the extension of river clearance for cultivation and pasture was floodplains. While the main agent for undertaken. This rather generalised these changes was climatic, peat picture of a Neolithic economy formation and alluvial sedimentation at universally dependant on agriculture has the local level were almost certainly been challenged in recent years. promoted by the later Mesolithic forest clearance. A number of studies of Neolithic society have stressed the variability of subsistence practices at the local level, The Neolithic especially in marginal environments 4000-2000 BC where hunting and gathering continued Other flint implements recovered by to play an important role. recent fieldwork suggest that small scale With its heavy, wet soils, much of the activity around Zionshill Copse lower land in Valley Park may have been continued into the succeeding Neolithic unsuited to cereal cultivation and almost (new Stone Age) and Bronze Age certainly remained wooded. periods. 5 The wet woodlands with their rich diversity of plant and animal species would have been a valuable resource for local communities, who would have visited the area on a seasonal basis to hunt and collect wild plants. barrow mound pits with The early Bronze Age urns 2000-1400 BC The character of the early Bronze Age occupation of Valley Park is equally elusive, depending as it does on a few woodland boundary bank surface finds of worked flint and two round barrows (burial mounds), one in Sky’s Wood and the other in Clothiers 010 Copse. These were identified during a metres recent survey, and while both are of a form that was introduced during the early Plan of the Deverel Rimbury barrow Bronze Age, neither has been excavated showing the distribution of the pits and consequently their date remains containing funerary urns uncertain. The barrow consisted of a small circular The middle Bronze Age mound measuring some 12 metres 1400-1000 BC across and 0.6 metres high. There was By the middle Bronze Age the no sign of the usual surrounding ditch, archaeological evidence from Valley dug to provide material for the mound, Park is much stronger. The excavation and it appeared that the mound had of a previously unrecorded round barrow been created by scraping up topsoil from in Zionshill Copse, alongside Sky’s the adjoining area. Road, revealed a small cremation cemetery of middle Bronze Age date.