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, Bourne was held by Odo.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Bourne in 1086, they recorded 6 manors held by Odo, Dodin of Rippingale, Oger the Breton, Geoffrey of Colton and Swein, under Ivo Tallboys, Alfred of Lincoln and Robert of Stafford. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, the land was held by Swein, Thorkil (the Dane), Earl Morcar, Leofwin, Healfdene and Wulfric.
The settlement was assessed at 5.61 hides for tax. There was land for 5.6 ploughs, with 14.1 plough teams at work (3.5 in the lord's demesne and 10.6 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 53 heads of household: 31 villagers, 15 smallholders and 7 freemen. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (3.5 acres), woodland (15 acres) and 5.33 mills. The manors were valued at 14.3 pounds in 1086, up from 10.8 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 →
Bourne 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 Bourne'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.
52 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Bourne, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Bourne is Great Oolite Group (Bathonian).
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.