Domesday Okehampton revealed on-line

Details of Okehampton in 1086 have just been made available to all, with the publication of the first on-line copy of the Domesday Book.

We discover that the town had 60 households (described as 'very large'), paid only 0.8 geld in tax (no equivalent in modern money is available, but it wasn't very much) and had a value to the lord of £10.

The 21 villagers, 11 smallholders, 18 slaves and 4 burgesses or freemen had only 1 horse, 52 cattle and 80 sheep between them, which seems far too few for that number of people - but they did have 20 men's plough teams, woodland and a mill.

In 1086 the lord and tenant-in-chief was one Baldwin the sheriff... which brings to mind the hero of many of local author Mike Jecks' medieval mysteries...

This is a site well worth looking through: many local villages and towns are mentioned, and it really does give a picture of Devon more than 1000 years ago.