A place in Herefordshire 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, Yarpole was held by King William.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Yarpole in 1086, they recorded 3 manors held by King William, Leofwin the interpreter and Robert Gernon. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, the land was held by Queen Edith, Aelfric and Richard Scrope.
The settlement was assessed at 63.25 hides for tax. The record notes 234 plough teams at work (29 in the lord's demesne and 205 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 332 heads of household: 228 villagers, 91 smallholders and 13 slaves. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included woodland (6 * 3 leagues) and 8 mills. The manors were valued at 1.15 pounds in 1086, down from 1.25 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 →
Yarpole was one of the settlements recorded in Herefordshire in the 1086 survey. Herefordshire in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Yarpole'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.
15 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Yarpole, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Yarpole is Pridoli Rocks (Undifferentiated) (Pridoli).
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.