Domesday book goes online

The Domesday Book can now be read online at the National Archives website .

England's oldest public record , is sometimes described as the "nation's finest treasure". Previously, people interested in seeing the book could only do so if they visited the Kew site of the National Archives.

Now anyone with access to the internet can explore the detailed 11th Century survey of who owned what land and wealth including servants and slaves.

The original book, written on 900 sheepskins by scribes using goose-feather quills was commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1085, after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 .

It is essentially a highly detailed survey and valuation of all the land held by the King and his chief tenants, along with all the resources that went with the land in late 11th century England so that the King could work out how much tax to charge his subjects.

Visitors to the Domesday website will have free access to search place names and see the index entry made for each village, town or city free.

The website, provided by The National Archives' DocumentsOnline service , also contains useful information about the history of this 920-year-old document.

Visitors to the site can read about the people, the landscape, towns and villages in 11th century England as well as a guide on how to interpret the book.

Work to put the document on the web first started in 1985, when snapshots of some of the pages were taken; Adrian Ailes, a Domesday expert at the National Archives, has called the online edition "a fantastic achievement".

However, research commissioned to celebrate the online launch showed a stunning lack of knowledge about this part of our history; nearly two per cent think the Domesday Book is a novel by Dan Brown, and 13 per cent thought it was a chapter in the Bible.