I am not an archaeologist by any stretch of imagination, but the marks left on the landscape by our distant ancestors on the landscape have long fascinated me.

My interest was spawned during cross-country family journeys in pre-motorway days from my childhood home in Cambridgeshire, through Wiltshire and Dorset to holiday destinations in the West Country.

Everyone knows of Stonehenge and the huge stone and ditch circle at Avebury, but hundreds of other features can be seen: depressions and banks left by ancient roads and ceremonial avenues, burial mounds (also known as barrows and tumuli), and the parallel banks and ditches surrounding hill forts. Many are thousands of years old.

My interest was fuelled by buying “Collins Field Guide to Archaeology in Britain” by Eric S Wood. Published in 1963, it is a comprehensive introduction to archaeology, with a focus on helping you first see and understand what’s there, rather than starting with history lessons.

Filled with maps and drawings, it tells you where to look, what to look for, explains what you see and also helps you identify things you may see or pick up on the ground. It doesn’t use technical terms without explanation.

Unfortunately the book is long out of print (but you might find used copies online). However, modern equivalents probably exist with colour photos and illustrations whereas the Collins guide was in black and white.

Although my adopted home county, Surrey, doesn’t compare with Wiltshire and Dorset in the quantity of archaeological sites of interest, it has many, including the burial mound on Horsell Common.

Some sites have been explored in detail. For example, Surrey County Archaeological Unit (SCAU) undertook excavations in a field near Fetcham Mill Pond in 2009, as part of improvements to water infrastructure by SES Water.

It revealed a remarkable and complex archaeological landscape, with evidence of human activity over thousands of years. The finds included a prehistoric hunting camp from the end of the last Ice Age.

A significant discovery was a scattering of Late Upper Palaeolithic/Early Mesolithic flint work, indicating on-site knapping and tool manufacture. The flints were concentrated in two locations, suggesting the position of two people sitting next to each other making flint blades around 10,000BC.

A concentration of later, Neolithic and Bronze Age, flint work was also found, including a leaf arrowhead and scrapers.

A further discovery was the flint foundations of a Roman building, possibly a bathhouse, with flue tiles suggesting heated rooms. It increased our understanding of Roman settlement in the Surrey. Other finds indicated continuity from the late Roman period into the early medieval era – rare in Surrey.

These tantalising glimpses into the lives of our ancestors prompted SES Water and SCAU to develop a new community archaeology project focused on the site.

This project, Communities at the River: The Fetcham Springs Archaeology Project, is funded with a £250,000 grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and started this year. Volunteers participate in archaeological excavations each summer, with training in archaeological techniques, finds processing, and site interpretation.

Opportunities are open to local residents, schools, and community groups. SCAU ensures activities are tailored to a wide range of interests, ages, and abilities.

The Fetcham excavations demonstrate the extraordinary depth and diversity of Surrey’s past and highlight how infrastructure projects, when combined with archaeological expertise, can reveal stories that might otherwise remain buried.