Archaeological find in Arundel

Work carried out by Worthing Archaeological Society and English Heritage has uncovered a remarkable landscape in the woodland to the west of Arundel.

At one particular site, Goblestubbs Copse, a spokesperson for English Heritage said: “The remains are so fresh and undisturbed that they were previously thought to be relatively modern.

“But subsequent field surveys and excavations have shown that they are high status compounds - perhaps royal or aristocratic centres - built in the decades after Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain in 55 BC, and occupied for a couple of hundred years.

“All of this would have been destroyed by ploughing if the woods hadn’t been left to flourish for centuries.”

Aerial photographs indicate that many archaeological sites do still exist in Arundel, but they have been buried as a result of modern farming methods.

Move from the wheat fields to the cover of woodland, some of it probably established in the early post-Roman period, and a very different world is revealed.

There has been no arable cultivation in recent times and as a result the archaeological remains of previously unknown field systems, tracks and settlements are well preserved.