The earliest signs of human activity in Leigh are evidenced by a Neolithic stone axe found in Pennington and a bronze spearhead from south of Gas Street. A single Roman coin was found at Butts in Bedford. After the Roman departure from Britain, and into the history of Anglo-Saxon England, nothing was written about Leigh. However evidence for the presence of Saxons in what was a sparsely populated and isolated part of the country is provided by local township place names that incorporate the Old English suffix "leah", such as Leigh, Tyldesley, Shakerley and Astley.