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, Westbury was held by King William.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Westbury in 1086, they recorded 2 manors held by King William and William Shield. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, the land was held by Queen Edith and Wulfward.
The settlement was assessed at 44.5 hides for tax. There was land for 54 ploughs, with 61 plough teams at work (18 in the lord's demesne and 43 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 113 heads of household: 38 villagers, 43 smallholders and 32 slaves. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (80 acres), woodland (3 * 0.5 leagues) and 8 mills. The manors were valued at 110.5 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 →
Westbury 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 Westbury'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 Westbury.
477 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Westbury, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Westbury is Gault Formation And Upper Greensand Formation (Undifferentiated) (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.