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, Shoddesden was held by Aghmund of Wellow.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Shoddesden in 1086, they recorded a manor held by Aghmund of Wellow. 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 1 plough, with 1 plough team at work (0.5 in the lord's demesne and 0.5 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 1 head of household: 1 villager. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. The manor was valued at 10 shillings in 1086, down from 15 shillings 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 →
Shoddesden 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 Shoddesden'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 Shoddesden.
332 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Shoddesden, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Shoddesden 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.