Early Times

Pavenham is a small village 6 miles north of Bedford U.K. on one of the many loops of the meandering River Ouse and surrounded by rolling hills.                                           

Although Bedford sits on Oxford Clay deposits and once had an impressive Brick Industry founded on this resource, underlying layers of Limestone exposed by the river have been quarried for several centuries, and the honey coloured stone has been used by Pavenham and surrounding villages for building homes, farms, and barns.

As these rock deposits are not of great age,  'Romantic'  fossils have not been found. . .  ( NO  T-Rex in our backyard ! ).  However, some exotic bones have been found in the gravel beds along the Ouse including hippo, elephant and rhino along with early evidence of man.

Certainly by Neolithic times the area was inhabited - if only sparsley -but there is archeological and artefactual evidence of habitation from that time through Bronze Age, Iron Age, Celts, Belgae, and Roman periods: A polished stone axe found in Millers Bog at Milton Ernest: The odd Bronze Age spear: The remains of an Iron Age Settlement at Harrold: Belgae settlement and coin at Odell: Roman hinge piece from armour, cereal drier. 

 This picture is a cow licking its muzzle, a bronze escutcheon from a bucket, found at Felmersham - Beds  (a neighbouring village along the river).  The span of the horns is 46mm and is one of a pair of bucket mounts - the heads being fixed to the wooden bucket by rivets and the ring between the horns would take a rope handle.   It is typical of the Iron Age and is clearly Celtic.