County town: Warwick
Warwickshire was established as a shire in the 10th century, centred on the burh at Warwick built by Ethelfleda, Lady of the Mercians, in 914 to defend against the Danes.
Warwickshire is a midland county divided between the ancient Forest of Arden in the north — the woodland that inspired the forest in Shakespeare's As You Like It — and the more open Feldon in the south. Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare in 1564, is Warwickshire's most famous town and one of the most visited places in the world. Warwick Castle, a medieval fortress of exceptional completeness, dominates the Avon at the county town. Coventry, now the county's largest city, was a major medieval centre of cloth production and contains a cathedral destroyed in the Blitz and rebuilt by Basil Spence.
Warwickshire was surveyed in the Domesday Book of 1086, William the Conqueror's great census of England. The survey recorded 260 settlements in the county, with details of their lords, landholders, population, and resources.
Browse 260 Domesday settlements in WarwickshireEngland'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 Warwickshire 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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