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, Brooke was held by Berengar of Topcroft.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Brooke in 1086, they recorded a manor held by Berengar of Topcroft and (Bury) St Edmunds, abbey of. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, it was held by Earl Gyrth, free man, one and free men, sixteen.
The settlement was assessed at 7.62 hides for tax. The record notes 25 plough teams at work (5 in the lord's demesne and 20 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 106 heads of household: 43 villagers, 13 smallholders, 47 freemen and 3 slaves. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (14 acres) and woodland (70 pigs). The manor was valued at 2 shillings in 1086.
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 →
Brooke 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 Brooke'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.
189 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Brooke, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Brooke 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.