Thurleigh Slag
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 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 Iron Age or Romano-British periods or, indeed, begin on one and extend into the other. Many of these were found by dedicated field-walking in the 1970s. Those sites tentatively identified as Iron Age or Romano-British include the following:
- North-east of Mill Road is a slag patch [HER 2730];
- Widespread slag has been located south-west of Newstead [HER 2731];
- Slag has been found close to, but not necessarily associated with, an oval cropmark east of Follyfields [HER 2734];
- A patch of slag has been found near the village [HER 2735];
- An area south-east of Robin’s Folly Farm has yielded slag [HER 2738];
- A path of slag was found south of Park End Farm [HER 2739];
- East of Park End Farm is a patch of slag [HER 2740];
- A slag patch has been located north of Park End Farm [HER 2741];
- A widespread scatter of slag has been found north of Park End [HER 2742];
- A small patch of slag has been identified south of Spencer’s Wood [HER 2743];
- North-west of Park End is a thin, widespread scatter of slag [HER 2744];
- A patch of slag has been identified south of Park Farm [HER 2745];
- Field-walking has identified slag east of Park Farm [HER 2746]