A place in Hampshire 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, Alverstone was held by Tovi.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Alverstone in 1086, they recorded a manor held by Tovi, who held from William son of Stur. The same lord had held the land before the Norman Conquest of 1066.
The settlement was assessed at 1 hide for tax. There was land for 2 ploughs. The recorded population was 1 head of household: 1 smallholder. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included 1 mill. The manor was valued at 5 shillings in 1086, down from 1 pound 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 →
Alverstone was one of the settlements recorded in Hampshire in the 1086 survey. Hampshire in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Alverstone'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.
The bedrock beneath Alverstone is Lower Greensand Group (Albian).
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.