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Girtford Before 1086

Sandy is quite rich in prehistoric and Roman sites and finds. Girtford, by contrast, has only one possible prehistoric site and one from the Romano-British period specifically recorded, as well as two find spots, though it seems reasonable to assume that activity in Sandy would have spilled over into what we today call Girtford.

The Bedfordshire Historic Environment Record [HER] records every historic building and landscape feature in the county as wel las find spots of artefacts. Summaries of each entry are now available online as part of the Heritage Gateway website.

A cropmark east of 39 Tempsford Road, the former Dick Turpin public house on the Great North Road, now [2010] a Chinese restaurant. The site consists of a single oval shaped feature, which is probably a hut circle or a small ringed enclosure [HER 13696]. An Iron Age gold coin was found near Girtford Bridge about 1883 [HER 439].

Roman pottery was found at the former All Saints mission church in London Road [HER 11310]. This lay north of Number 43 London Road and is now modern housing. A brass coin called a dupondius of the Emperor Trajan (98-117 AD) is recorded as having been found near Girtford Bridge [HER14815].