Harrold: 5,000 Years of Life and Death in a North Bedfordshire Village

The Bedfordshire village of Harrold occupies a location on the river Great Ouse that has been inhabited since early prehistory. Albion Archaeology’s three excavations in the village between 1997 and 2003 revealed evidence for activity dating as far back as the middle Neolithic, which a crouched burial providing the focus for a later round barrow. A farmstead which had been established in the late Iron Age was also discovered; continuing into the Roman period, its paddocks and crop-processing area attest to an agricultural economy. Signs of Saxon activity were mostly sparse, with the excavations located on the periphery of the developing village, although one settlement focus was identified. Evidence of industry in the Middle Ages, however, was much more substantial: more than 290kg of locally made, shell-tempered pottery came from the smallest of the three excavations, with pottery manufacture and metalworking likely to have taken place nearby.

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