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Prehistoric burial mounds and earthworks on the chalk hills around our
town bear witness to its importance since earliest times. The town sits in a gap through the Chiltern Hills on the site of a small Roman
settlement called Durocobrivis, which was established at crossroads formed by the Roman Watling Street and the prehistoric Icknield Way.
The site was abandoned in Saxon times but it was here that Henry I founded an Augustinian priory in 1131, built a palace and established a
new market town. The town became a place of considerable importance, hosting regular royal visits and jousting tournaments. It was
at the priory, in the 16th century, that the annulment of Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon was pronounced, followed by the
dissolution of the priory itself soon afterwards. Parts of the original priory church, with its fine Norman nave and magnificent west front,
survives as the town's parish church.
Dunstable picked itself up from the ruins of the Reformation and again
became a busy town with the advent of stagecoach travel. Several coaching inns remain from this prosperous period, which itself declined
with the coming of the railway age and the consequent shift of the straw plait and hat making industries from Dunstable to Luton with its main line railway station.
Once again Dunstable rode out its misfortunes and, at the turn of the century, began to welcome new industries including printing and
engineering and, most notably, the motor trade. Today, many companies with household names have premises on the town's modern industrial estates.
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