Romano-British Thurleigh

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. Thurleigh Castle, dating from the Middle Ages, lay south-east of the church extending as far as the grounds of the Old Vicarage [HER 313]. When the area around the Old Vicarage was developed in the 1970s earlier material, from the Iron Age, Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon periods was found.

There have been numerous finds of slag in the parish, which is the waste product from iron working and it is thought that many of these may date from the Romano-British period. One patch of slag, in Mill Road, is definitely Roman-British as it was found in conjunction with sherds of Roman pottery [HER 2729].

Romano-British pottery has been found by field-walking in an area north of Red Gate Farm [HER 2736]. An area south-west of the mill house [HER 2709] seems to have been occupied in the Romano-British period. Pottery, including colour-coated ware from the 4th century AD and undressed building stone were among the finds.

In 2008 a number of finds were discovered by metal detectorists. One of these was a lead weight which dates to the Romano-British period was found by a metal detectorist [HER 20548]. The weight had a copper-alloy wire threaded through an aperture. Another find was a copper-alloy brooch which may be Romano-British in date, or later [HER 20550]. Another brooch is definitely Roman [HER 20549].