A place in Cambridgeshire 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, Whittlesey was held by Ely (St Etheldreda), abbey of.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Whittlesey in 1086, they recorded 2 manors held by Ely (St Etheldreda), abbey of and Thorney (St Mary), abbey of. The same lords had held the land before the Norman Conquest of 1066.
The settlement was assessed at 6 hides for tax. There was land for 10.5 ploughs, with 10.5 plough teams at work (3.5 in the lord's demesne and 7 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 38 heads of household: 24 villagers, 10 cottagers and 4 slaves. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (1 ploughs). The manors were valued at 10 pounds in 1086, down from 12 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 →
Whittlesey was one of the settlements recorded in Cambridgeshire in the 1086 survey. Cambridgeshire in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Whittlesey'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.
34 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Whittlesey, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Whittlesey 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.