A place in Derbyshire 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, Beighton was held by Roger of Poitou.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Beighton in 1086, they recorded 3 manors held by Roger of Poitou, Ralph son of Hubert and Leofwin of Aston, under Roger of Bully. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, the land was held by Stenulf of Sutton, Leofnoth (brother of Leofric) and Swein (son of Svavi).
The settlement was assessed at 1.99 hides for tax. There was land for 2.8 ploughs, with 1 plough team at work. The recorded population was 15 heads of household: 13 villagers and 2 smallholders. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (1 acres) and woodland (1 * 0.5 leagues). The manors were valued at 1.9100000000000001 pounds in 1086, up from 1.25 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 →
Beighton was one of the settlements recorded in Derbyshire in the 1086 survey. Derbyshire in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Beighton'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.
356 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Beighton, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Beighton is Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation And South Wales Middle Coal Measures Formation (Undifferentiated) (Moscovian).
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.