Kensworth in the Old and Middle Stone Ages

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. There is a very rich vein of information for habitation in Kensworth before our first documentary source - the Domesday Book of 1086.

There have been three finds of implements dating from the Old Stone Age or Palaeolithic in Kensworth. The large chalk quarry in the north-west of the parish has provided a flint core and six to ten flint flakes [HER 633]. Also found was an axehead dating from the Middle Stone Age or Mesolithic. More Palaeolithic flakes have been found at Lynch Hill [HER 13,561] and more from an area south-east of Kensworth Gorse [HER 13,562].

A number of blade fragments from the Middle Stone Age have been found by field-walking in the parish [HER 16,249]. In 2003 a Mesolithic axe was found in the area of the village and reported under the Portable Antiquities Scheme. The axehead could be identified as Mesolithic because the flakes had been taken off it be striking it horizontally rather than vertically.