A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE system already existing at that date. Thus Leighton Buzzard and Tod- dington lie six miles apart on either side of the great Roman highway to Chester ; and Dunstable is at the point of junction between that and the still earlier Icknield Way, which probably led the advance bands of im- migrants into what is to-day the shire of Bedford. Fifty miles divide Dunstable and Newmarket ; and the British road which runs between them, sometimes flanked by the parallel Ashwell Street, seems to explain discoveries of characteristic West Saxon remains in its vicinity. Whether the defensive earthworks across Newmarket Heath were erected to stop such an advance may be doubted, but that and other parallel embank- ments are evidently directed against an enemy on the west, and no Saxon (as distinguished from Anglian) remains have been as yet discovered to the east of those lines. A summary description of the few and mostly unimportant dis- coveries in the county is necessary before any closer connection between them can be established ; and to convey some idea of the remains that probably await discovery within the county it will be advisable to start with a remarkable cemetery from which an extensive series of relics is exhibited in the British Museum. On the western boundary of the town of Bedford is the straggling village of Kempston ; and the road to Marston and Woburn, which branches off about two miles west of St. Mary's church, skirts a field that has long been dug for gravel. During the year 1863 the excava- tions in this field laid bare a certain number of human remains, and further exploration revealed a cemetery of Anglo-Saxon date. A de- tailed description ' of the graves was submitted to the Bedfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society in the following year by Rev. S. Edward Fitch, M.D., who had watched the excavations and illustrated about forty of the antiquities discovered in five coloured plates. 2 His comments on the cemetery were summarized by Mr. Roach Smith, who also published the notes of Mr. James Wyatt, a geologist whose attention was drawn to the burials while engaged on a geological examination of the gravel. The road formed approximately the northern limit of the cemetery, though a few interments were found beyond it ; and the large number of burials it contained were found to vary in size, depth and position, some being not more than 1 8 inches below the surface, others at a depth of nearly 5 feet. There was no attempt at a universal orientation, as skeletons were discovered lying at all angles with one another, and directed to almost every point of the compass. The fact that many skeletons of men, women and children were found entirely undisturbed shows that this was a common burial ground, and not the site of a battle where the fallen had been hastily interred. Various modes of burials were noticed ; some of the graves contained skeletons laid at full 1 Rrfi. A hoc. Archit. Soc. 1864, p. 269. 2 These and the journal of discoveries are reproduced in Roach Smith's Coll. Ant'tq. vi. zoi (sec also p. 166). 176
