A place in Suffolk 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, Combs was held by Hugh de Montfort.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Combs in 1086, they recorded a manor held by Hugh de Montfort and Count Robert of Mortain. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, it was held by Wulfnoth and free men, fifty.
The settlement was assessed at 10 hides for tax. The record notes 12 plough teams at work (3 in the lord's demesne and 9 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 29 heads of household: 12 villagers, 15 smallholders and 2 slaves. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (12 acres), woodland (16 pigs) and 3.5 mills. The manor was valued at 47 pounds in 1086, up from 26 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 →
Combs was one of the settlements recorded in Suffolk in the 1086 survey. Suffolk in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Combs'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.
77 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Combs, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Combs is Neogene To Quaternary Rocks (Undifferentiated) (Quaternary).
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.