County town: Lancaster
Lancashire was created as a county around 1182 by Henry II, when the honour of Lancaster was reorganised after the rebellions of the earlier 12th century. Much of its territory had not been surveyed in the Domesday Book of 1086.
Lancashire extends from the flat coastal plain of the Fylde and the Ribble estuary to the Pennine moors and the Forest of Bowland in the east. Lancaster, its county town, was a Roman fort and early medieval centre. The county's medieval character was shaped by the powerful honours of Lancaster and the abbeys of Furness, Whalley, and Cockersand. From the 18th century Lancashire became the engine of the Industrial Revolution, its cotton mills — powered by the rivers of the Pennine valleys and later by steam — transforming the landscape of east Lancashire and Salford into the world's first industrial region. Blackpool, Preston, and Burnley retain their industrial heritage.
Lancashire was not surveyed in the Domesday Book of 1086. The survey covered most of England south of the Tees, but the northern border counties — including Lancashire — lay outside the effective reach of the Norman administration at the time of the survey.
England's 39 historic counties, established between the 9th and 12th centuries, are the framework through which English local history, legal records, and landscape have been organised for a thousand years. Most survive today as ceremonial counties, their boundaries deeply embedded in place identity.
This page introduces the historic county of Lancashire. A full Aubrey report for a location within it pulls together everything the record actually holds about that ground, from the geology beneath it to the last coin dropped in a field:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Aubrey has published in-depth research reports for one notable place in Lancashire. Read in-depth research reports on notable places — explore.
Lancashire contains 258 scheduled monuments — sites of national importance protected under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.
Browse scheduled monuments in EnglandAn Aubrey report for a specific location in Lancashire draws on historical maps, archaeological records, Domesday data and landscape history to tell the full story of any site in the county.