[1][2] The site forms around half of the 62.3-hectare (154-acre) Blow's Downs nature reserve, which is managed by the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire.

[5] The archeologist Worthington G. Smith identified several remains of neolithic huts, finding among other things a horse's bone and, in 1888, part of a human skeleton.

[6] Following the establishment of the town of Dunstable by Henry I, the land would likely have been rented by the king, with the slopes of the downs being mainly used for grazing as they were too steep to plough.

[5] There is however, some evidence of crops being grown, namely the existence of strip lynchets, quite visible in the area now known as Cottage Bottom fields.

The parliamentary enclosures of the early 1800s would likely have drastically changed the appearance of Blow's Downs, due to hedges planted to separate fields.