 Saxthorpe comes from the Old Norse meaning ‘an outlying farmstead of Saski’.There is some evidence for early occupation in the parish, a number of prehistoric flints have been found scattered throughout the parish, including Neolithic flints axes, a jade axehead, and an arrowhead which dates to the Late Neolithic or the Early Bronze Age.The sites of two ring ditches, probably the remains of Bronze Age barrows, are visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs, and a Bronze Age palstave and a spearhead have been found in the parish.