A place in Bedfordshire with a history you can trace through the records: its entry in the 1086 Domesday Book, the archaeological finds and scheduled monuments around it, and the nearest Roman sites and battlefields. Everything below is drawn from the historical record.
In 1086, Marston was held by Hugh of Bolbec.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Marston in 1086, they recorded 2 manors held by Hugh of Bolbec and Herfast of Marston, under Walter Giffard and Nigel of Aubigny. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, the land was held by thanes, two and Freemen, twenty-one.
The settlement was assessed at 9.99 hides for tax. There was land for 13 ploughs, with 14 plough teams at work (4 in the lord's demesne and 10 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 31 heads of household: 20 villagers, 7 smallholders and 4 slaves. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (3 ploughs) and woodland (300 pigs). The manors were valued at 9.5 pounds in 1086, down from 16 pounds in 1066.
The Domesday Book was the great survey of England ordered by William the Conqueror in 1085 and completed in 1086, the oldest surviving public record in the country. How the survey worked →
Marston was one of the settlements recorded in Bedfordshire in the 1086 survey. Bedfordshire in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Marston's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Nationally registered historic battlefields within 25 miles of Marston.
263 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Marston, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Marston is Kellaways Formation And Oxford Clay Formation (Undifferentiated) (Oxfordian).
Aubrey's full report for this location includes every Domesday manor, the complete record of medieval lordship, archaeological context, and the story of how this settlement evolved from 1086 to the present day.