The area around Cainhoe Castle in 1883

The following accounts of finds predating the Norman Conquest in Cainhoe are taken from the Bedfordshire Historic Environment Record [HER], which is now available on-line as part of the Heritage Gateway website. Cainhoe Castle [HER 225], as well as being an important early medieval structure, has also revealed traces of prehistoric occupation when it has been excavated. The presence of a spring at the castle site no doubt ebcouraged early settlement. 

A number of early Neolithic to late Bronze Age tools have been found at the site. Flint tools continued to be used throughout the Bronze Age, despite its name, due to the ease of obtaining raw materials and manufacturing them, compared with the much more difficult processes involved in obtaining the constituent parts of bronze (mainly copper and tin) and working them to form implements. One excavation in 1973 yielded two blades, two cores, three flakes and four scraper tools [HER 14644].

Cainhoe Castle has also yielded two sherds of pottery from the area of the south bailey rampart [HER 14643]. One of the sherds was probably late Iron Age whilst the other was definitely Roman.