Harrold Timeline
1138: Harrold Priory founded, a small poor convent of Augustinian Nuns. The nuns blamed their poverty partly on being close to the main road so that they had to provide food and lodgings for travellers and partly on the periodic floods which damaged the buildings.
13th Century: Harrold Church is of early 13th century origin, the oldest part is the North Arcade. The tower was added at the end of the 14th century.
1226: First Recorded Vicar.
1278: First mention of Harrold Bridge by name as a boundary in the Hundred Rolls. The bridge must have been in use for some while to have become accepted as a boundary mark.
1608-10: Harrold Hall built on the site of Priory.
1700: Harrold lace-making first recorded.
1770: Riot, when villagers thought they were being deprived of Common Rights.
1770: Harrold Turnpike Act, land between Harrold and Lavendon became a Turnpike.
1797: Harrold Enclosure Act.
1808: Harrold Congregational Church and Harrold United Reform Church built.
1824: Stone Lock-Up built on The Green.
1830: Wheatsheaf Public House licensed.
1845: Globe Public House licensed.
1863: Harrold Congregational Church building enlarged.
1868: Harrold Cricket Club formed.
1869: Oakley Arms and Magpie public houses licensed.
1887: Church clock installed to mark Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.
1990: Harrold United Reform Church expansion.
1908: Lich-Gates Presented to Harrold Church by John Fairley.
1911: Harrold Village Institute opened.
1926: Harrold Women's Institute formed.
1928: Harrold Snooker Club formed.
1937: Harrold County Secondary School opened.
1948: Planning permission given for the extraction of sand and gravel from what had been open farmland.
1961: Harrold Hall pulled down.
1968: A miniature whirlwind struck Harold on the 1st September causing many slates and lengths of guttering to litter the streets (Beds. Mag. Vol. 11, no. 87, p.292).
1974: Wheatsheaf public house closed.
1980: Reginald Dickens Leatherworks closed. By 1980 in accordance with the planning conditions imposed for sand and gravel extraction the extracted area had been restored as a series of lakes.
1982-85: Harrold-Odell Country park developed by Bedfordshire County Council around the series of lakes
1994: Harold Twinned with Ste Pazanne.
2000: Bridgman Doors Ltd. closes.
