A place in Sussex 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, Patching was held by Canterbury (Christ Church), archbishop of.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Patching in 1086, they recorded a manor held by Canterbury (Christ Church), archbishop of. The same lord had held the land before the Norman Conquest of 1066.
The settlement was assessed at 12 hides for tax. There was land for 9 ploughs, with 8 plough teams at work (2 in the lord's demesne and 6 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 43 heads of household: 22 villagers and 21 smallholders. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included woodland (6 swine render). The manor was valued at 15 pounds in 1086, up from 12 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 →
Patching was one of the settlements recorded in Sussex in the 1086 survey. Sussex in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Patching'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 Patching.
1,177 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Patching, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Patching 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.