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, Soham was held by (Bury) St Edmunds, abbey of.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Soham in 1086, they recorded 3 manors held by (Bury) St Edmunds, abbey of, Robert Malet and Roger of Candos, under Ely (St Etheldreda), abbey of and Hugh de Montfort. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, the land was held by (Bury) St Edmunds, abbey of, free man, one and Oslac of Soham.
The settlement was assessed at 6.41 hides for tax. The record notes 11.5 plough teams at work (3 in the lord's demesne and 8.5 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 30 heads of household: 11 villagers, 17 smallholders and 2 slaves. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (6 acres) and woodland (40 pigs). The manors were valued at 7.25 pounds in 1086, up from 6 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 →
Soham 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 Soham'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.
47 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Soham, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Soham 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.