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, Flitcham was held by Bishop Odo of Bayeux.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Flitcham in 1086, they recorded 5 manors held by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, William of Warenne, R(obert) of Vaux and Ranulf son of Walter, under Roger Bigot. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, the land was held by (Archbishop) Stigand, free men, four, Freeman, one, Algar and free men, ten.
The settlement was assessed at 30.51 hides for tax. The record notes 36.4 plough teams at work (11 in the lord's demesne and 25.4 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 279 heads of household: 66 villagers, 158 smallholders, 39 freemen and 16 slaves. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (88 acres), woodland (100 pigs) and 14.5 mills. The manors were valued at 86.93 pounds in 1086, up from 52 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 →
Flitcham 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 Flitcham'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.
223 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Flitcham, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Flitcham is Grey Chalk Subgroup (Cenomanian).
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.