Iron Age

Cottages in Lilley

The parish of Lilley lies on the western edge of North Hertfordshire, mostly north of the A505. Its northern boundary follows the early medieval line of the Icknield Way, and it abuts Bedfordshire to the west. Part of the parish once included Mangrove Green, now in Offley. Three areas now in Lilley, one stretching from the eastern edge of Ward’s Wood in the west to Kingshill Plantation in the east, the second from west of Lilleypark Wood to the boundary wall of Putteridge Bury and a third to the east of Dogkennel Farm, were formerly part of Offley. The longer version of this post, linked below, explores how this complex arrangement came into being.

Although the first record of Lilley is in 1086, when Domesday Book was compiled, the community has a much longer history. It is possible that the settlement initially lay in the northern part of the parish and developed from the estate of an undiscovered Roman villa. Its move south to East Street and West Street perhaps happened when the parish church was founded, before the Norman Conquest. Archaeological remains take the story back to earlier periods when there were farmsteads and valleys across the landscape. There may even have been a henge (an oval area enclosed by a chalk bank) on a hillside overlooking Mazebeard Spring.

Read more about the history and archaeology of Lilley here.

A beaker, probably hand made at Much Hadham, typical of pots made after 400

Two years ago, I put together a small exhibition for Baldock Museum on Roman Baldock. It meant not only choosing a selection of interesting objects not on display in North Hertfordshire Museum but also writing the text for panels on the wall. I wrote enough to put into a leaflet, which I intended to make available at the Museum. As well as telling the story of the ancient town and its people, it contained a brief catalogue of the artefacts in the cases. It so happened that the exhibition coincided with a major programme of work on Baldock Town Hall, which meant that the Museum was closed for a long stretch during the year it was supposed to be on open.

Now that North Hertfordshire Museum is also temporarily closed, it seems a good idea to make the leaflet available for people to read. It explains how the ancient settlement has been revealed over the past hundred years. Beginning with remote prehistory, it looks at why the settlement came to grow up in the hollow between the hills of North Hertfordshire. The main part of the leaflet talks about the development and decline of the Roman town, looking especially at its people and their beliefs. The catalogue gives further insights into the history of Baldock. There are 22 A5 pages in all.

Download a copy here.

A survey carried out by Kris Lockyear and his team at Verulamium (St Albans)

Sensing the Iron Age and Roman Past: Geophysics and the Landscape of Hertfordshire is a new blog about an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project being carried out by Kris Lockyear of University College London. He and interested local groups will be investigating a number of Late Iron Age and Roman sites throughout Hertfordshire — from small farmsteads to the city of Verulamium — across the county that hold the potential to yield new information about this imporant period in the county’s history.