Barton-le-Clay is a large village and a civil parish in Bedfordshire, England, having a border with Hertfordshire. The village has existed since at least 1066 and is mentioned in the Domesday Book.

Barton-le-Clay is in Central Bedfordshire between Bedford and Luton, 36 miles (58 km) north of London. Nearby villages include Sharpenhoe, Silsoe, Westoning and Pulloxhill. The A6 which runs from Luton (6 miles south of the village) bypasses Barton and continues through Bedford (north of the village) to Carlisle. The village bypass was constructed in January 1990.

In the southeast of the parish are the Barton Hills, which form the northeast extremity of the Chiltern Hills and are designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Much of this area of chalk downland is now a nature reserve, managed by Natural England.

Places of worship:

• Baptist - Hope Chapel
• Church of England - St. Nicholas Church-
• Methodist - Barton-le-Clay
• Roman Catholic - St. Matthew (Now closed)

Barton-Le-Clay Airfield (Barton In The Clay Aerodrome) was first established in 1935 to the west of the village, on farmland owned by the nearby Brook End Green Farm. Its first residents were the newly formed Luton Aircraft Limited and The Dunstable Sailplane Company, both companies co-owned by W.L. Manuel and C.H. Latimer-Needham.

Before the mid-1960s Barton-Le-Clay was called Barton In The Clay but the name was changed to the current form by the Parish Council of the time. All references and documentation prior to this date will be in the original village name.

The Bedford School of Flying was granted licence on 1 January 1938 and the Flying school formed on 14 January 1938, training of a large number of CAG members (as many as 500). The airfield's day-to-day management was handled by International Aircraft & Engineering Ltd which, like the Bedford School of Flying, was owned by D.M.K. Marendaz and Dorothy Summers. The School operated until 1940.

On 22 July 1940 No 24 Elementary Flying Training School (EFTS) was established at Luton and Barton-le-clay was assigned as a Relief Training Ground as the main Luton airfield became more congested. When the EFTS relocated, Luton airfield became the home of No 5 Ferry Pool, an all-women group of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), who also used Barton-le-Clay as its Relief Training Ground. No.5 Ferry Pool had relocated from the Hatfield de Havilland Aircraft Company factory site and later moved operations to Haddenham, Buckinghamshire (RAF Thame), in 1943 though they retained use of the Barton-Le-Clay airfield, transporting student pilots by bus each day until the ATA disbanded at the end of November 1945.

Barton-le-Clay airfield returned to civil use post 1945, with the grass airstrip being returned to agriculture and the buildings being occupied for industrial use.

The airfield has an active research group which documents its findings on the Barton-Le-Clay Community Website.