A place in Essex 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, Ham was held by Osbern.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Ham in 1086, they recorded 2 manors held by Osbern, Robert Gernon and Ranulf Peverel. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, the land was held by Alstan.
The settlement was assessed at 16.5 hides for tax. The record notes 32.5 plough teams at work (8.5 in the lord's demesne and 24 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 260 heads of household: 96 villagers, 158 smallholders and 6 slaves. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (60 acres), woodland (100 pigs) and 16 mills. The manors were valued at 48 pounds in 1086, up from 32 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 →
Ham was one of the settlements recorded in Essex in the 1086 survey. Essex in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Ham'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 Ham.
The bedrock beneath Ham is Thames Group (Eocene).
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.