Odell in Prehistory

Bedfordshire Historic Environment Record [HER] details every prehistoric find and site in the county. It is now available on-line as part of the Heritage Gateway| website.

The earliest evidence for human activity in what is now Odell may be represented by cropmarks east of Odell Lodge| [HER 731]. These seem to show two ring ditches and a small enclosure. Ring ditches, as the name suggests, are roughly circular ditches and are usually associated with the Bronze Age|. They may represent the ploughed-out remains of long barrows.

An Iron Age| roundhouse was found by archaeological excavation in 2008 adjacent to a Roman villa at Colworth [HER 2669]. Two other sites may represent Iron Age activity. One of these is a cropmark south of Louse Acre Wood [HER 2671]. This seems to show an enclosure with curving lines and early Iron Age pottery has been found on the surface in association with it. North-east of Grange Farm lie three patches of slag, the waste product from iron working.