A place in Rutland 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, Ridlington was held by King William.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Ridlington in 1086, they recorded 2 manors held by King William and Albert of Lorraine. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, the land was held by Queen Edith and Albert of Lorraine.
The settlement was assessed at 5 hides for tax. There was land for 24 ploughs, with 45 plough teams at work (8 in the lord's demesne and 37 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 222 heads of household: 188 villagers, 32 smallholders and 2 freemen. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (40 acres), woodland (2 * 8 leagues) and 1 mill. The manors were valued at 10 pounds in 1086, down from 48 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 →
Ridlington was one of the settlements recorded in Rutland in the 1086 survey. Rutland in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Ridlington'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 Ridlington.
1,098 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Ridlington, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Ridlington is Inferior 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.