Much of Oxted and the surrounding area is drained by the headwaters of the River Eden, a tributary of the River Medway. The highest point in the civil parish is at Botley Hill, which at above ordnance datum is the highest point on the North Downs. Geology The oldest outcrops in the area are of Weald Clay, which comes to the surface in the south of the civil parish. A borehole, dug in 1958, indicated that the clay beneath Hurst Green and Holland is deep. Gravels deposited by earlier courses of the River Eden and its tributaries, are found above the clay in the same area. A thin band of Atherfield Clay comes to the surface between Hurst Green and Oxted, north of which are the Sandgate Beds, which overlie the Hythe Beds. The town centre is primarily on the Folkestone Beds, which take the form of a ferruginous quartz-rich sandstone, containing seams of ironstone and mica. To the west of Oxted railway station, there is a thin wash of pebbles, thought to have been deposited by river action during the Pleistocene. To the north of the town, the chalk of the North Downs has historically been divided into three bands: lower chalk, middle chalk and upper chalk. At Oxted, the middle chalk is around thick. History Early history The earliest evidence of human activity in the civil parish is from the Iron Age and finds include a metal brooch dating from the 3rd or 4th centuries BCE. During the Roman period, the roads from London to Lewes and London to Brighton ran either side of Oxted. The name Oxted suggests that the modern settlement was founded in the Anglo-Saxon period and it is possible that St Mary's Church is built on a pre-Christian religious site. From late Saxon times, the area was administered as part of the Tandridge Hundred. Governance Oxted appears in the Domesday Book as Acsted and was held by Eustace II, Count of Boulogne. Its Domesday assets were: 5 hides; 1 church, 2 mills worth 12s 6d, 20 ploughs, of meadow, pannage worth 100 hogs. It rendered £14 and 2d from a house in Southwark to its feudal overlords per year. The early medieval manor of Oxted was centred on Oxted Court Farm, to the south of St Mary's Church. For much of this period, up until the end of the 13th century, it was held