A place in Wiltshire 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, chalke and Chalke was held by Gerard.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed chalke and Chalke in 1086, they recorded a manor held by Gerard, Richard Poynant and Wilton (St Mary), abbey of. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, it was held by Aeleva of Knoyle, Wilton (St Mary), abbey of and men of the church.
The settlement was assessed at 77 hides for tax. There was land for 66 ploughs, with 65 plough teams at work (15 in the lord's demesne and 50 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 156 heads of household: 86 villagers, 50 smallholders and 20 slaves. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (12 acres), woodland (3 * 1 leagues) and 5 mills. The manor was valued at 77 pounds in 1086.
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 →
chalke and Chalke was one of the settlements recorded in Wiltshire in the 1086 survey. Wiltshire in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of chalke and Chalke'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.
736 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of chalke and Chalke, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath chalke and Chalke is Grey Chalk Subgroup (Cenomanian).
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.