Alconbury
| Alconbury | |
|---|---|
 A Weeping Willow in Alconbury, taken from across Alconbury Brook |
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 Alconbury
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| Alconbury shown within Cambridgeshire | |
| Population | 1,569 (2011) |
| OS grid reference | TL1875 |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | HUNTINGDON |
| Postcode district | PE28 |
| Dialling code | 01480 |
| Police | Cambridgeshire |
| Fire | Cambridgeshire |
| Ambulance | East of England |
| EU Parliament | East of England |
| UK Parliament | |
Alconbury is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. Alconbury is situated within Huntingdonshire which is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire as well as being an historic county of England. Alconbury lies approximately 5 miles (8 km) north-west of Huntingdon.
In 1085 William the Conqueror ordered that a survey should be carried out across his kingdom to discover who owned which parts and what it was worth. The survey took place in 1086 and the results were recorded in what, since the 12th century, has become known as the Domesday Book. Starting with the king himself, for each landholder within a county there is a list of their estates or manors; and, for each manor, there is a summary of the resources of the manor, the amount of annual rent that was collected by the lord of the manor both in 1066 and in 1086, together with the taxable value.
Alconbury was listed in the Domesday Book in the Hundred of Leightonstone in Huntingdonshire; the name of the settlement was written as Acumesberie and Almundeburie in the Domesday Book. In 1086 there was just one manor at Alconbury; the annual rent paid to the lord of the manor in 1066 had been £12 and the rent was the same in 1086.
The Domesday Book does not explicitly detail the population of a place but it records that there was 17.5 households at Alconbury. There is no consensus about the average size of a household at that time; estimates range from 3.5 to 5 people per household. Using these figures then an estimate of the population of Alconbury in 1086 is that it was within the range of 61 and 87 people.
The Domesday Book uses a number of units of measure for areas of land that are now unfamiliar terms, such as hides and ploughlands. In different parts of the country, these were terms for the area of land that a team of eight oxen could plough in a single season and are equivalent to 120 acres (49 hectares); this was the amount of land that was considered to be sufficient to support a single family. By 1086, the hide had become a unit of tax assessment rather than an actual land area; a hide was the amount of land that could be assessed as £1 for tax purposes. The survey records that there was 18 ploughlands at Alconbury in 1086 and that there was the capacity for a further 2 ploughlands. In addition to the arable land, there was 80 acres (32 hectares) of meadows at Alconbury.
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