Watton-at-Stone is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, and is midway between the towns of Stevenage and Hertford in the valley of the River Beane.

The suffix -at-Stone dates from the early 13th century and may be derived from the presence of two large examples of Hertfordshire puddingstone, now situated at the former Waggon and Horses public house.

[2] However, it is far more likely that the suffix refers to the Roman road (anciently described as a Stone Street) that ran from Verulamium (modern St Albans), fording the River Beane at Watton-at-Stone.

The earliest finds are Paleolithic hand axes found in the village and also at the Frogmore gravel pit, and there are traces of a Mesolithic site near the roundabout at the northern end of the bypass.

[5][4] A collection of possibly Belgic armour and weaponry was discovered in the mid-19th century by workers digging a drain to the west of the village.

[4] The origins of Watton-at-Stone are from the construction of the Roman road, which crossed the High Street at the point of the modern milestone.

[5] Watton was possibly a market place trading to travellers as they slowed to cross the River Beane, and the High Street may have been a pre-existing track and therefore the new Roman road formed a crossroads here.

[5] It is likely that the focus of the Anglo-Saxon settlement was on the high ground at Watton Green, overlooking the Roman road and river valley below.

[1] Derman's great nephew Henry fitz Ailwin, the first Mayor of London, inherited the Watton manor in 1165.

[1] In 1662 brothers Maurice Thomson and Sir William Thompson, who had grown up in the village, founded Watton's first free school for 20 poor children.

[3] The village has a number of dwellings dating from early Tudor, such as Watton Place, through to late Georgian constructions.

[10] There is little employment directly within the village and it largely serves as a dormitory for commuters to London or to the nearby towns with half-hourly trains to Moorgate station.

The station opened for passengers on 2 June 1924, was closed on 11 September 1939 (though the line continued to run through the village), and reopened on 17 May 1982, paid for partly by public subscription.

The evangelical author and social campaigner Edward Bickersteth was rector of the church for twenty years from 1830 until his death in 1850.

Andrew Hodges in his biography: Alan Turing: The Enigma tells of how a gypsy fortune teller at the church fête foretold that he would be a genius.