A Roman Farmstead and other Late Neolithic to Post-medieval Land-use at Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire

This report covers Albion Archaeology’s 2018–19 excavation within the Houghton Regis North 1 development in Central Bedfordshire. It produced evidence for activity dating from the late Neolithic to the post- medieval period, but which relates in the most part to an extensively investigated Romano- British farmstead.

The earliest remains are late Neolithic or early Bronze Age in date, comprising a ring-ditch monument and a cremation burial. The former is of particular interest – a small ring-ditch was subsequently encircled by a larger one and buried under a mound. A later spread of post-built structures, pits, postholes and burials were associated with a middle–late Bronze Age field system, the site of which was subsequently occupied by a late Iron Age/early Roman farmstead.

The landscape changed abruptly in the second half of the 1st century AD, with the establishment of a new, differently aligned farmstead on previously unoccupied land to the south. Deliberate planning is clear in the farmstead’s original layout of a trackway and enclosures, though it was substantially modified three times, with pottery and coins suggesting that occupation continued into the late 4th and probably even the early 5th century. The farmstead included two roundhouses, up to thirteen rectangular buildings, fifteen water-pits and up to four different types of drying oven.

A few artefacts stand out from what one might expect to find on a rural farmstead in the region, e.g. those associated with the military, with literacy, and with religion, in particular a small stone sculpture. The latter is a rare and exceptional find, which originally may have stood against the wall of a shrine.

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Further excavations in the area of Houghton Regis North are published in Monograph 11: Late Mesolithic to Early Anglo-Saxon Land-Use at Houghton Regis North, Bedfordshire.