A novel cement-based piezoelectric sensor was developed in this paper. The sensor was made by bonding between two cuboids of hardened cement paste with a commercially available piezoelectric ceramic plate which is sensing element using a new adhesive developed during the fabrication of sensor. The frequency response and linearity of the sensor were tested by frequency sweep and amplitude sweep load schemes. And then the complex load, random load and square load were applied to observe the performance of the sensors. From the test results it has been found that the sensor showed a good frequency independency in the common frequency range of a civil engineering structure and the output of sensor was linearly corresponding to the input of sensor, which was illuminated further in the following experiments including complex load, square load and random load. So, there is a good potential for such a sensor to be used in structural performance monitoring.