A place in Cambridgeshire 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, Great and Little Abington was held by Sigar of Abington.
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Great and Little Abington in 1086, they recorded 4 manors held by Sigar of Abington, Count Alan (of Brittany) and Firmatus, under King William and Aubrey de Vere. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, the land was held by Almer, Edeva, the fair, Wulfwin (son of Alfwin) and priest, one.
The settlement was assessed at 11.62 hides for tax. There was land for 16 ploughs, with 14 plough teams at work (5 in the lord's demesne and 9 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 34 heads of household: 20 villagers, 10 smallholders and 4 slaves. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (2 ploughs), woodland (20 pigs) and 2 mills. The manors were valued at 18.1 pounds in 1086, up from 16 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 →
Great and Little Abington was one of the settlements recorded in Cambridgeshire in the 1086 survey. Cambridgeshire in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Great and Little Abington'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.
598 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Great and Little Abington, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Great and Little Abington 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.