A place in Lincolnshire 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, Aswarby was held by Gilbert of Ghent.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Aswarby in 1086, they recorded 2 manors held by Gilbert of Ghent, Ralph the priest and Guy of Craon. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, the land was held by Ulf (Fenman).
The settlement was assessed at 5.12 hides for tax. There was land for 10 ploughs, with 22.5 plough teams at work (4 in the lord's demesne and 18.5 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 46 heads of household: 4 smallholders and 42 freemen. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (180 acres).
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 →
Aswarby was one of the settlements recorded in Lincolnshire in the 1086 survey. Lincolnshire in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Aswarby'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 Aswarby.
118 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Aswarby, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Aswarby 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.