The Iron Age in Biddenham

A reconstruction of an Iron Age round house at Flag Fen [Cambridgeshire] October 2011

The Bedfordshire Historic Environment Record [HER] contains information on the county’s historic buildings and landscapes and summaries of each entry can now be found online as part of the Heritage Gateway website. Cropmarks north-west of Windmill Hill [HER 1867] show a ring ditch overlain by a double-ditched trackway and roughly rectangular enclosures. Ring ditches are often the remains of Bronze Age round barrows and six cremations, not inside urns have been found. The overlying features could belong to the Iron Age.

A large oval enclosure seems to enclose the southern part of The Green [HER 15271]. It is partly visible as a bank and ditch and the alignment of the medieval village along main Road has “clearly respected it as a pre-existing feature”. In 2003 an evaluation of adjoining land in Vicars Close produced no evidence of archaeological features.

Linear cropmarks were identified at Gold Lane [HER 8677]. They show two parts of a rectangular enclosure and two further ditches cutting the north-west corner. The site comprised about three acres. An excavation revealed an Iron Age settlement consisting of a rectangular enclosure surrounded by a ditch and bank on the inside.

An Iron Age coin was found a Bromham Road [HER 15945]. It is a gold stater dating from 15-10 BC. The obverse shows a corn sheaf with an inscribed tablet across it. The reverse shows a warrior on horseback looking back with a sword in his right hand and a shield in his left.