The Norman Conquest
| KING HAROLD was defeated at the
Battle of Hastings in 1066 by William the Conqueror who became the new
monarch and immediately replaced all of the Anglo-Saxon lords with his own
knights who were given land and property, so bringing to an end
Anglo-Saxon rule. William ordered a survey of everything under his control
in England and the results were published twenty years later as the
Domesday Book of 1086 in which Bourne has an extensive entry detailing
everything of value in the area. The entry includes not only the number of people and their status but also the mills and fishponds, woodland and pasture, ploughs and oxen and from this we can see which of his knights controlled Bourne and details of their property. The biggest landowner was Oger the Breton and it is likely that he built either a castle or a manor house here and the most obvious situation for this would be alongside St Peter's Pool. |
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