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, Woodleigh was held by Robert of Aumale.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Woodleigh in 1086, they recorded a manor held by Robert of Aumale. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, it was held by Aelfric Pike.
The settlement was assessed at 1.25 hides for tax. There was land for 12 ploughs, with 12 plough teams at work (3 in the lord's demesne and 9 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 30 heads of household: 15 villagers, 8 smallholders and 7 slaves. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (2 acres) and woodland (110 acres). The manor was valued at 3 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 →
Woodleigh 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 Woodleigh'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.
194 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Woodleigh, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Woodleigh is Lower Devonian Rocks (Undifferentiated) (Early Devonian).
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.