Stratton, Biggleswade: 1,300 years of village life in eastern Bedfordshire from the 5th century AD

Review by Stephen Mileson. This report sheds light on the development of an ordinary rural settlement over the long duration. Stratton was a stræt-tun, a ‘settlement on a Roman road’ – in this case, the road between Baldock and Sandy. Originating as a small early Anglo-Saxon hamlet, Stratton underwent substantial 7th- to 8th-century growth and reorganisation. There was a radical shift from rectilinear to curvilinear settlement boundaries in the late 9th century, followed by the establishment of a roadside village in the 12th century. Stratton was apparently depopulated and enclosed in the decades either side of 1700, most likely thanks to the Cotton family, who then created a f