A wide range of information relating to the historic and archaeological environment is included on the Surrey Historic Environment Record (HER). For example:
- Chance finds, such as prehistoric flint tools or fragments of Roman pottery
- Standing monuments, like the ruins of a Norman castle
- Excavations, often in advance of building development
- Field surveys, identifying scatters of material in ploughed fields and historic landscape features
- Cropmarks indicating buried walls or ditches, identified from aerial photographs
- Documentary evidence, such as a watermill shown on a seventeenth-century map
- Research projects, such as into industrial sites and Second World War defences
- Information on protected sites, such as Listed Buildings, Scheduled Monuments and Historic Parks & Gardens
At present, the HER contains over 24,000 records, ranging from the earliest periods of prehistory to the twentieth century. As new sites and finds are being discovered all the time, the HER is continually being updated and our knowledge of all archaeological periods continues to evolve.
