Chobham Common

Chobham Common is a 655.7-hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest north of Chobham in Surrey. It is a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade I and a National Nature Reserve. It is part of the Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area and the Thursley, Ash, Pirbright and Chobham Special Area of Conservation. It contains three Scheduled Monuments. Most of the site is managed by the Surrey Wildlife Trust as the Chobham Common nature reserve, but the SSSI also includes a small private reserve managed by the Trust, Gracious Pond.
Peat and tumuli at the site suggest that, like other non-mountainous heaths, Chobham Common was transformed from to mostly shrubs, grass and bog when late paleolithic farmers and wood-gatherers cleared much of the primary woodland that before their arrival cloaked the country. This exposed and degraded the fragile topsoils of the site, creating the conditions favoured by heathland. After the initial clearance the area would have been kept free of trees by grazing and fuel gathering. The specific earliest periods of occupation were the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age; analysis of peat cores from areas with similar geology and patterns of settlement elsewhere in southern Britain would suggest the heathland on Chobham Common emerged at some time during these periods.

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