A place in Nottinghamshire 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, Nottingham was held by King William.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Nottingham in 1086, they recorded 12 manors held by King William, Roger of Bully, William Peverel, Ralph of Buron and Ralph son of Hubert. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, the land was held by King Edward and Earl Tosti.
The settlement was assessed at 8 hides for tax. There was land for 2 ploughs, with 18 plough teams at work. The recorded population was 39 heads of household: 11 villagers and 28 smallholders. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (12 just meadow) and woodland (6 * 5 furlongs). The manors were valued at 48 pounds in 1086, up from 21 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 →
Nottingham was one of the settlements recorded in Nottinghamshire in the 1086 survey. Nottinghamshire in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Nottingham'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.
Nationally registered historic battlefields within 25 miles of Nottingham.
269 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Nottingham, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Nottingham is Triassic Rocks (Undifferentiated) (Triassic).
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.