Iron Age and Romano-British Shelton

 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.   

The earliest evidence for human occupation in Shelton dates from the Early Iron Age, with a cremation burial found when the site for the new route of the A421 was investigated in the early 21st century. A shallow bit contained a small amount of cremated bone mixed with charcoal rich soil. This bone was determined to be from an adult, and was radiocarbon dated to 770-440BCE. The burial also contained a single fragment of pottery [HER20108]. These excavations also uncovered a later site of probable Late Iron Age settlement to the east of Lower Shelton. Parts of two possible roundhouses were found, together with a number of pits. Two ditches aligned at right angles in the north-eastern part of this excavation have been dated as early Roman, and probably formed field boundaries 

A second Iron Age site was found on a site now occupied by 15/16 The Rickyard, Lower Shelton. Three pits were found containing pottery dating from the Middle Iron Age (400BCE to 100BCE) [HER19729].