[11] Peat and tumuli at the site suggest that, like other non-mountainous heaths, Chobham Common was transformed from to mostly shrubs, grass and bog when late paleolithic farmers and wood-gatherers cleared much of the primary woodland that before their arrival cloaked the country.

Captured enemy tanks were also tested in the common as was equipment to detonate land mines using flails and probably caused the significant damage that lead to reseeding.

Large areas of heathland were lost to neglect or subjected to agricultural “improvement” and enclosure as arable farming methods advanced.

While turbary (turf cutting) was still practised on a small scale at the beginning of the twentieth century it had ceased to be an important factor in the management of the Common by that time.

Rough grazing and the cutting of heather, gorse and small trees began to decline after 1914 and had almost completely ended by the time of the Second World War.

Photographic evidence and verbal reports indicate that during the early part of the twentieth century large tracts of Calluna vulgaris (heather) with extensive areas of wet heath and open bog dominated the Common.

In 1984, Surrey County Council produced the first management plan for Chobham Common which acknowledged invading scrub, fire and erosion as the main threats to the site.

Intervention management will therefore be limited to the more significant open habitats and places where an acceptable level of tree cover can be maintained at low cost”.

In the same year the site was proposed as a national nature reserve (NNR) and a substantial grant covering a ten-year period was awarded to Surrey County Council under the Countryside Stewardship Scheme for the management of 280 hectares of the Common.

Some attempts were made at mitigation work at the time, but with hindsight they were both inappropriate and inadequate and large blocks of gorse (Ulex europeaus) developed in the zone of disturbance on either side of the motorway creating further fragmentation of the site and causing serious fire risks.

In August 2020, a fire on the common spread to the golf course at the Wentworth Club causing the abandonment of the final event of the Rose Ladies Series.

This recreational use developed in an ad-hoc manner with walkers and horse riders creating tracks then abandoning them for new routes as they gullied and became impassable, causing wide scale erosion of the site.

While attempts to restrict horse riding proved unsuccessful, by the late 1980s both walkers and riders were showing a marked preference for the growing network of high quality fire tracks.

In 1992, a consultative process began to resolve long running conflicts of interest between horse riders and other users, and to rationalise the rights of way networks in order to meet the needs of visitors while protecting sensitive habitats and species.