Baldock ( ) is a historic market town in the North Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. The River Ivel rises from springs in the town. It lies north of London and north northwest of the county town of Hertford. Nearby towns include Royston to the northeast, Letchworth and Hitchin to the southwest and Stevenage to the south. In 2021 it had a population of 10,615.
History and etymology
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):