Besthorpe's name is derived from the Scandinavian word ‘thorpe’ meaning outlying farmstead or hamlet and probably the name of a key character called something like ‘Bosi’.

[5] Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) hunter-gatherers are known to have occupied caves at Creswell Crags on the Notts/Derbys border near Worksop for thousands of years down to 10,000 BC.

By this time they used a distinctive range of flint and stone tools examples of which have been found at Farndon – possibly a temporary summer hunting camp.

During the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) the Trent Valley became a multi-channelled river system with extensive wetlands and developed a heavily forested landscape.

Fieldwalking at Collingham prior to quarrying produced a high density of flintwork from c 5000 BC along the edge of what was then a gravel island and this would be associated with the activities of hunter-gatherers living off the natural food resources of the Valley.

However at Langford Lowfields in Collingham archaeologists excavated what they described as a ‘log jam’ in a former channel of the Trent where flooding in c 2000BC had swept away material from a site upstream only for it to be held up by fallen trees.

Animal bones revealed evidence for cattle, pig, wild boar, red and roe deer, horse, dog and sheep and human remains including skulls lodged in the debris were interpreted as coming from a funerary or ritual site disturbed by the floods.

The population was increasing with a complex network of social relationships uniting widely dispersed mobile or sedentary groups some of whom must have passed by or even temporarily set up home in Besthorpe even if we don't have firm evidence of their presence.

By the later stages of the Iron Age (1st century BC) and into the Roman Period (after 43 AD) a sizeable community had established itself at Ferry Lane Farm between Collingham and Besthorpe.

Though there is no suggestion of any significant material wealth, the site revealed a well-ordered system of rectilinear fields, closely spaced enclosures and trackways supporting theories of a relative increase in population densities.

Fieldwalking next to A1133 just south of Besthorpe revealed a dense scatter of pottery indicating one of the sites on an elevated gravel terrace safe from flooding.

These sites would have had links with the Roman road system (Fosse Way) and traded to a degree with the ‘small town’ at Crococalana (Brough) and the larger urban centre of Lindum (Lincoln).

At Meering there are suggestions of possible pottery kilns and a hoard of 1,347 Roman coins was found in 1964 by workers in the gravel pits at Besthorpe.

In later Roman times climatic deterioration lead to flooding and some sites like Ferry Lane Farm were buried under alluvium while others were covered by sand-blown deposits – we still have episodes of sand-blow which can cause significant build-up at field edges and on the A1133.

Here a settlement with wattle and daub buildings situated across the crest of a sand dune was occupied between about 650 and 815AD and archaeologists found evidence of textile processing with the discovery of loomweights and spindle whorls.

In 1976 excavations in a garden off Trent Lane discovered a small house with low stone walls and a red clay floor outside of which had been a midden.

East front has central porch with coped gable and cross, four centred archway doorway with label mould and close boarded door flanked by two double lancets with Y tracery.