A place in Oxfordshire 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, Bicester was held by Robert d'Oilly.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Bicester in 1086, they recorded a manor held by Robert d'Oilly.
The settlement was assessed at 15.5 hides for tax. There was land for 22 ploughs, with 22 plough teams at work (6 in the lord's demesne and 16 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 47 heads of household: 28 villagers, 14 smallholders and 5 slaves. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (12 acres), woodland (1 * 1 furlongs) and 2 mills. The manor was valued at 16 pounds in 1086, up from 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 →
Bicester was one of the settlements recorded in Oxfordshire in the 1086 survey. Oxfordshire in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Bicester'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 Bicester.
528 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Bicester, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Bicester is Great Oolite Group (Bathonian).
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.