A place in Devon 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, Crediton was held by Dunn.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Crediton in 1086, they recorded a manor held by Dunn and Exeter (St Peter), bishop of. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, it was held by Exeter (St Peter), bishop of.
The settlement was assessed at 18 hides for tax. There was land for 185 ploughs, with 185 plough teams at work (13 in the lord's demesne and 172 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 377 heads of household: 264 villagers, 73 smallholders and 40 slaves. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (80 acres), woodland (5 * 0.5 leagues) and 1 mill. The manor was valued at 78 pounds in 1086.
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 →
Crediton was one of the settlements recorded in Devon in the 1086 survey. Devon in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Crediton'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.
35 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Crediton, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Crediton is Permian Rocks (Undifferentiated) (Permian).
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.