A place in Norfolk 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, Beccles was held by King William.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Beccles in 1086, they recorded 4 manors held by King William and (Bury) St Edmunds, abbey of. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, the land was held by (Earl) Gyrth and (Bury) St Edmunds, abbey of.
The settlement was assessed at 4.78 hides for tax. The record notes 10 plough teams at work (1 in the lord's demesne and 9 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 82 heads of household: 7 villagers, 45 smallholders and 30 freemen. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (10 acres) and woodland (8 pigs). The manors were valued at 27 pounds in 1086, up from 10 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 →
Beccles was one of the settlements recorded in Norfolk in the 1086 survey. Norfolk in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Beccles'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.
84 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Beccles, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Beccles is Neogene To Quaternary Rocks (Undifferentiated) (Quaternary).
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.