Roman farmstead, Iron Age trackway and medieval moat found at Kempston

A Roman farmstead, an Iron Age trackway and a medieval moat have been uncovered beneath fields at the Universal United Kingdom Resort site in Kempston Hardwick.

In spring 2024 archaeologists dug 322 trial trenches across the site at Kempston Hardwick. The results are tucked away in the resort’s planning documents and they give a glimpse of what was here long before the brickworks.

In the Core Zone the trenches revealed traces of an early Roman farmstead close to Elstow Brook. Pottery from its ditches was mostly dated to the first century AD, and archaeologists also found a fragment of roof tile.

Elsewhere in the Core Zone an Iron Age trackway and its surrounding enclosures were identified, showing how people were dividing up and moving through this landscape before and into the Roman period.

Across Manor Road, the Lake Zone had a different story. An earlier geophysical survey had picked up the outlines of buried features, and the 2024 trenches confirmed an Iron Age and Roman settlement. There was also evidence of cremation burials, with a possible cemetery identified for further investigation.

At the southern end of the Core Zone the excavations uncovered a medieval moat. Pottery from the area suggests people occupied the site between the 12th and 14th centuries. This medieval moat is reported as a separate site from the scheduled Kempston Hardwick moat near Manor Road.

Next time you see a drone shot of the Core Zone, have a look at how the fields are laid out today. A couple of thousand years ago, people were already carving out tracks, digging boundary ditches and farming this same patch of Bedfordshire.