A place in Buckinghamshire 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, Wendover was held by King William.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Wendover in 1086, they recorded 2 manors held by King William, Freemen, two and men, three. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, the land was held by King Edward and men, three.
The settlement was assessed at 25 hides for tax. There was land for 27 ploughs, with 20 plough teams at work (3 in the lord's demesne and 17 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 33 heads of household: 26 villagers and 7 smallholders. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (3 ploughs), woodland (2000 pigs) and 2 mills. The manors were valued at 39 pounds in 1086, up from 27 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 →
Wendover was one of the settlements recorded in Buckinghamshire in the 1086 survey. Buckinghamshire in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Wendover'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 Wendover.
1,251 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Wendover, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Wendover is Grey Chalk Subgroup (Cenomanian).
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.