Baldock has an exceptionally rich archaeological heritage. Palaeolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements show the site of Baldock has been almost continuously occupied since prehistoric times. The earliest monument in the area is a narrow
cursus, probably from the middle Neolithic. At the beginning of the Iron Age there was a hillfort at Arbury Banks, 5 km to the northeast of Baldock, that dominated the area. In the Late Iron Age (c. 100 BC), the local power base shifted from the hillfort to the vicinity of Baldock. The soil was easily farmed and transportation was more convenient. In the later part of the middle Iron Age (from prior to c.100 BC) Baldock became the site of a large
oppidum, arguably the largest such site in Britain. The oppidum in turn became a sizeable Roman settlement, which although not administratively important, seems to have been a significant cultural centre. The Baldock area is also host to the highest quantity of finds of ancient coins in Hertfordshire after the
Verulamium region. The site was used until the fifth or sixth century, with some rare sub-Roman pottery found in the vicinity. The Roman settlement gradually disappeared during the so-called "Dark Ages" and left unoccupied through the eleventh century, and resultantly there is no entry for Baldock in the Domesday Book. It was laid out by the Knights Templar on land in the manor of Weston in the
hundred of
Broadwater, granted by
Gilbert de Clare, 1st Earl of Pembroke before his death in 1148. The 1850 tithe map, drawn up before the parish boundaries were extended in the later 19th century, clearly shows the boundaries of the land grant made from the manor of Weston in the 12th century; it is a triangular parcel of land beside the old Roman Road, cut out from an older estate. The popular story for the origin of the name
Baldock is that it is a derivation from the Old French name for
Baghdad:
Baldac or later
Baudac. While Damascus was the farthest location of Templar military activity during the
Crusades, they would have been aware of the significance of Baghdad, which was widely regarded as the most prosperous market in the world. Perhaps the Templars hoped that the name would confer a similar prosperity on their own market town in England. Founding contemporaneous documents use the spelling
Baudac, but it is first recorded as "Baldac" in the Pipe Rolls of Hertfordshire in 1168.
Walter William Skeat writes in
The Place-names of Hertfordshire (1904): Others, however, consider it more likely that the Knights Templar used a name already in use, particularly since the location was already a crossroads. In addition the settlement was already thriving as a late Anglo-Saxon part of Weston. The modern layout of the town and many buildings in the centre date from the sixteenth century, with the earliest dating from the fourteenth century. Since the 16th century, Baldock has been a centre for
malting, subsequently becoming a regional
brewing centre with at least three large brewers still operating at the end of the 19th century, despite a decline in demand for the types of beer produced locally. The
1881 Census records approximately 30 drinking establishments (the town's population was at that time around 1900). Throughout the early 20th century a large number of pubs continued to operate, many of which were sustained by the adjacent and much larger town of
Letchworth, which had no alcohol retailers prior to 1958, and had only two pubs and a single hotel bar until the mid-1990s. Its larger population had for many years visited both Baldock and
Hitchin for refreshment. The Wynn
almshouses, in the High Street, were founded in 1621 and were endowed "To the World's End" by John Wynne, a cloth merchant from London who left £1000 in his will of 1614 for their upkeep. Since 1850, the town has a
railway station which today operates on the
line between
London Kings Cross and
Cambridge. With frequent services to London, including fast services of around 30 minutes, the town is home to many
commuters. The station is part of the
Thameslink Programme which connects Cambridge to
Farringdon,
City Thameslink and
Blackfriars via the
Great Northern Route. There has been human activity on the site well before the modern town was founded. Prehistoric remains on Clothall Common date back as far as c 3000 BCE. Many
Roman remains have been discovered in building work in and around the town, and the core of the
Roman settlement lies between Walls Field and Bakers Close. Earlier
Iron Age remains have also been uncovered in the same general location, which may be the earliest town ever to develop in Britain. A
medieval leper colony, on Royston Road, was located during excavations in 2003, having been thought for many years to lie to the south-east of the town on the former Pesthouse Lane (now Clothall Road), the A507. From 1808 to 1814, Baldock hosted a station in the
shutter telegraph chain that connected the Admiralty in London to its naval ships in the port of
Great Yarmouth. A history of Baldock during the Middle Ages was compiled by Vivian Crellin, a former headmaster of
The Knights Templar School. Local archaeologists Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews and Gilbert Burleigh published
Ancient Baldock: The Story of an Iron Age and Roman Town in 2007. Baldock's position at the crossing of two important thoroughfares, the
Great North Road and the
Icknield Way has made it a stopping point for a number of illustrious visitors, including
Charles I, who passed through Baldock en route for London after his arrest in 1648 and supposedly
Dick Turpin. Preacher
John Wesley came to the town in 1747. In the 1960s and 70s Baldock was a centre of
laser research at a MOD laboratory called SERL (Services Electronics Research Laboratory). This facility closed in the late 1970s and some projects and staff were transferred to
RSRE (Royal Signals & Radar Establishment) near
Pershore. supermarket Baldock was formerly the location of a film processing factory which closed before the company (originally based in Letchworth Garden City) could move in; local folklore has it that it was a silent film studio, but this is not the case. The building was then bought by the Full-Fashioned Hosiery Company from
Halifax, later becoming the Kayser Bondor ladies stocking factory (which temporarily produced parachutes in
World War II). The site was redeveloped to become a
Tesco supermarket in the late 1980s, but the
Art Deco facade of the former factory was retained and incorporated into the new building. Another notable building in the town is the thirteenth century Baldock
Parish Church of
St. Mary the Virgin at the centre of the town. The original church was built in about 1150 by the
Knights Templar before being largely rebuilt in about 1330 by the
Knights Hospitaller. It is a Grade I
listed building. Malting and brewing were formerly major industries in the town, but apart from some
light industry, today it is mostly a
commuter town. The original incarnation of the local football team
Baldock Town F.C. was formed in 1905. The club disbanded in 2001, but a new club was formed two years later. Baldock Radio Station, sometimes called
Slip End Radio Station, opened in 1929 as part of the
Imperial Wireless Chain. That year it made the first successful
radiotelephone call to the USA, to the
RCA radio station at
Rocky Point, New York. A radio frequency control station was added at Baldock in 1938. In World War II, Baldock was one of the Allied radio stations that intercepted
Kriegsmarine signals and forwarded them to
Bletchley Park to be
deciphered. After the war, the radio station joined the
International Telecommunication Union.
Ofcom has operated the station since 2003. To the east of the town there is a large residential estate that was built in several phases. This is known as Clothall Common. An archaeological dig took place in this part of Baldock in the late 1980s. According to the humorous book
The Meaning of Liff, a Baldock is defined as: "The sharp prong on the top of a tree stump where the tree has snapped off before being completely sawn through". ==Transport==