A place in Huntingdonshire 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, Great Paxton was held by Countess Judith.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Great Paxton in 1086, they recorded a manor held by Countess Judith. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, it was held by King Edward.
The settlement was assessed at 25 hides for tax. There was land for 41 ploughs, with 39 plough teams at work (5 in the lord's demesne and 34 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 68 heads of household: 60 villagers and 8 smallholders. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (80 acres), woodland (0.5 league * 0.5 league 1 furlong & 0.5 league * 3 furlongs mixed measures) and 3 mills. The manor was valued at 33.5 pounds in 1086, up from 29.2 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 →
Great Paxton was one of the settlements recorded in Huntingdonshire in the 1086 survey. Huntingdonshire in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Great Paxton'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.
143 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Great Paxton, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Great Paxton is Kellaways Formation And Oxford Clay Formation (Undifferentiated) (Oxfordian).
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.