A place in Dorset 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, Crichel was held by King William.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Crichel in 1086, they recorded a manor held by King William. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, it was held by King Edward.
There was land for 45 ploughs, with 27 plough teams at work (5 in the lord's demesne and 22 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 153 heads of household: 63 villagers, 68 smallholders, 7 cottagers and 15 slaves. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (150 acres), woodland (5 * 1 leagues) and 8 mills. The manor was valued at 100 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 →
Crichel was one of the settlements recorded in Dorset in the 1086 survey. Dorset in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Crichel'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 Crichel.
1,532 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Crichel, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Crichel is White Chalk Subgroup (Maastrichtian).
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.