County town: Oakham
Rutland is England's smallest historic county, its origins as a separate entity going back to the 10th century when it was a royal manor. It was often absorbed into neighbouring counties but always reasserted its separate identity.
Rutland is England's smallest county — 'multum in parvo' ('much in little') is its motto — a compact area of limestone upland and river valleys between Leicestershire and Lincolnshire. Its small size belied its prosperity: the county had some of the richest agricultural land in the East Midlands, and its landowners were among the most powerful in the region. Oakham Castle, whose Norman great hall survives intact, was the caput of the county's medieval lords. Rutland Water, created in the 1970s, is now one of the largest man-made lakes in England. The county was abolished in 1974 but restored in 1997, making it the newest as well as the oldest English county.
Rutland was surveyed in the Domesday Book of 1086, William the Conqueror's great census of England. The survey recorded 17 settlements in the county, with details of their lords, landholders, population, and resources.
Browse 17 Domesday settlements in RutlandEngland'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.
An Aubrey report for a specific location in Rutland draws on historical maps, archaeological records, Domesday data and landscape history to tell the full story of any site in the county.
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