Whilst there can never be certainty as to why the pit exists or the specifics of its purpose, there are, of course, various theories surrounding its macabre mysteries.

There are scraps of ancient history that suggest the druids wielded considerable power and influence across the country both prior to and immediately after the Roman conquest. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence to show that the Romans attempted to wipe out the druidic cults and impose their own instead. Most notably, the Cult of Mithras was integral to the Roman Army, with officers being obliged to swear allegiance. This Roman cult was built on strength, violence, sacrifices and fear, but even Caesar writes of the sway of the druids in the lands he conquered from Gaul to Britain. The druid purges by the Romans could almost be seen as the first organised genocide. Why was there such a reaction to an indigenous religion? Possibly because that druid religion was much, much worse than anything the Romans had seen before. Where Mithras was hard and brutal (Decimation was key to maintaining Roman Army discipline, after all), the cult of the Druids was unimaginable in its horrors, with wholesale human sacrifice and annihilation of enemies and rivals.

It is in that context that a site such as the Murder Pit must have existed. It seems clear that Druids used it for their most powerful rites and sacrifices. What could be more powerful to sacrifice than the most precious thing known to any human: children. From the bones in evidence, the younger the child, the better. Possibly these were the children of enemies, but it must be reasonable to suspect that the ambitions of some people may have lead them to offer their own offspring to achieve greater rewards. Certainly the numbers suggest many, many victims.

Local legend is that the area has always been cursed and misfortune falls on anyone who uses or owns the land. Stories of bad luck and tragedy can be traced back several hundred years and there are consistent hints of something awry in many of the older Christian texts concerning Chobham. Much more openly known than the secrets of the Murder Pit are the legend of the cursed field off Pennypot Lane (owned by the Church and seemingly protected by infernal possession), the witches of the Ancient Glade near the Gracious Pond and the more recent tales of the Beast of Chobham Common – possibly an escaped exotic pet, but rumours persist of something altogether less explicable.

Possibly these lesser evils are better known, even promoted, to mask the profound horror beneath the village?

The earliest official records date from the founding of the Abbey of Chertsey. The Abbey was established by Edward The Confessor in AD 666. AD 666 saw more monasteries and Abbeys established than any other single year recorded. Fuelled by their interpretations of the Book of Revelations, it is believed that there was a genuine fear amongst the clergy and those who were literate that the Devil would break out of Hell and Armageddon would come that year.

The ancient ‘Charter of Chertsey’ (an illumination held in the vault of Guildford Cathedral, of which only fragments still exist), written in AD 666 states:

“Cebbaham [original name for Chobham] salvar; dei profundo clamat.”

Translation: “Chobham is to be saved; they cry from the depths.”

This is an extremely unusual statement to find in any ecclesiastical charter of the time and clearly suggests some considerable concern for the village. What is even more unusual is that ‘Cebbaham’ was barely a functioning settlement at the time anyway. Yet it was deemed necessary to establish a church and full monastic control over the area.

The landowner, Cebba, was a Saxon with a small estate, consisting of a few families, some livestock and a Saxon Hall, around which the entire settlement was focussed. Archeologists have uncovered evidence of this Hall and settlement in what is now private woodland, north of the Bagshot Road and south of the Mill Bourne, coincidentally, exactly 666 feet from the site of the original altar in the Church of St Lawrence, Chobham and exactly 333 feet from the much older site of the Murder Pit.

The distances do seem to correspond with early Christian thinking and the obsession they had with the Number of the Beast and the predictions of The Revelations of St John. The siting of the Church of St Lawrence fits neatly into various numerical patterns.

It is important to remember that the original church was a very small, wooden structure, with very little stonework at all, except possibly a simple foundation. It could have been built almost anywhere, yet the site chosen, at the top of a small hill, was exactly 333 feet from the Murder Pit, 42 feet above the level of the river and exactly seven miles from the Abbey of Chertsey. Numbers clearly meant a lot to the religious leaders of the time.

These simple facts suggest that the sighting of Chobham Church was very deliberate and the reason seems to be specific, if unpublicised: the Devil was expected to appear from the depths of Hell and Cebbaham was where he might appear.

Did they know about the Murder Pit specifically? There isn’t any evidence to suggest that they were aware of a killing dungeon at the spot, but they certainly knew there was something malevolent there, on that spot.

This is further shown by the astonishing fact that the retired Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor of Elizabeth 1st, Nicholas Heath (one of the most powerful men to live in the 16th Century), decided to move to Chobham for his retirement. He had no link to the place and it had no apparent attraction for him. However, his own papers, researched in the Bodleian Library, have cryptic clues to his real motivations for being there. He quotes, seemingly innocently, from texts that were forbidden shortly after his death, disguising them as agricultural studies. His advocation of exorcism and defence against diabolical influence was swept away by the notorious Canon 72 of 1604 – a mere 26 years after his death (a very short time in ecclesiastical terms). Something has clearly been suppressed by the highest Church authorities for the past 400 years.