A place in Surrey 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, Guildford was held by King William.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Guildford in 1086, they recorded 7 manors held by King William, Ranulf (Flambard), Ranulf the sheriff, reeve, one, Otbert and Robert of Vatteville. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, the land was held by King Edward, Archbishop Stigand, Tovi the reeve, widow, one and man, one.
The manors were valued at 30 pounds in 1086, up from 18.01 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 →
Guildford was one of the settlements recorded in Surrey in the 1086 survey. Surrey in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Guildford'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.
1,007 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Guildford, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Guildford is White Chalk Subgroup (Maastrichtian).
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.