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, Pickenham was held by King William.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Pickenham in 1086, they recorded 9 manors held by King William, reeve of the Hundred, Ribald (brother of Count Alan), William of Warenne, Arnold, Herlewin (son of Ivo), Ralph of Tosny, free man, one and Reginald son of Ivo, under Count Alan (of Brittany) and Berner the bowman. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, the land was held by Earl Ralph the constable, free man, one, Godwin, Asford, Toli and (Earl) Harold.
The settlement was assessed at 4.87 hides for tax. The record notes 31.5 plough teams at work (13 in the lord's demesne and 18.5 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 101 heads of household: 52 villagers, 17 smallholders, 17 freemen and 15 slaves. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (12 acres), woodland (66 pigs) and 9 mills. The manors were valued at 30.439999999999998 pounds in 1086, up from 15.15 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 →
Pickenham 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 Pickenham'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.
172 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Pickenham, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Pickenham is White Chalk Subgroup (Maastrichtian).
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.