The library of ground
Every place Strata has dug, assembled from its sources and filed by locality and era. A place is reviewed again whenever the ground beneath it is dug afresh.
125 places · 53 localities · last reviewed 12 September 2026
United Kingdom
North LeighNorth Leigh holds a Roman villa of some sixty rooms above an Iron Age settlement, a Saxon church tower a thousand years old, and Eynsham Hall, a Georgian hunting lodge torn down and rebuilt grander by the Mason family, later a wartime maternity ward and police training college.
4 digs
47 records
9 records United Kingdom WoodstockWoodstock grew up around a royal hunting lodge and its palace, where kings, mistresses and a future queen once stayed. That palace is gone, but its memory survives in the ground nearby, including Bear Close, named for the old Bear Inn that once held it as pasture. 1 dig
12 records Portugal CascaisCascais grew from a fishing town into King Luís I's summer court in the 1870s, then sheltered exiled royalty and wartime couriers through the Second World War, while nearby Alcabideche holds Roman remains and ancient granite beneath ground that later records have yet to fill in. 4 digs
27 records Portugal PenichePeniche, on the coast of Portugal, is defined by its fortress, raised from 1557 against pirate raids and later turned into the Estado Novo's most feared political prison, holding dictatorship opponents until 1974, and before that a place of internment and, once, disaster at sea. 1 dig
8 records Ireland DublinDublin's ground carries siege, rebellion and argument in close quarters: a corner near Dublin Castle that saw a collapsed 1649 siege and 1922 street fighting, and a spot on O'Connell Street where a column stood, fell to a bomb, and gave way to the Spire. 2 digs
24 records Italy RomeRome's ground carries layers rather than a single story: an amphitheatre ordered by Vespasian for public death, an imperial bathhouse now outlined by a piazza's colonnade, a fountain that once scandalised the city, and a Forum chasm and pyre tied to Caesar's own end. 4 digs
52 records
12 records Portugal SintraSintra grew up around a royal palace on high ground, holding kings from birth to death across four centuries. It passed from medieval Templar tenure through royal confinement and consort rule, into a town of fire, legend and rehearsed disaster on its outskirts. 5 digs
21 records Portugal LisbonLisbon's ground carries a walled hill taken by siege in 1147, a riverside palace lost to the 1755 earthquake, and buildings where the secret police worked and finally fired on a crowd in 1974. Each site here was researched on its own before being gathered into this record. 4 digs
44 records
289 records
23 records
15 records Bulgaria SofiaBeneath modern Sofia lies Serdica, the fortified Roman and medieval city besieged by Bulgarian forces in 809 and taken by the Ottomans in 1382. Its buried streets and a sunken church now sit beneath a shopping mall and the Serdika Metro Station, marking the old city's core. 1 dig
11 records Serbia Opstina Nis-MedijanaOpstina Niš-Medijana holds ground fought over across centuries: besieged by crusader knights in 1096, taken by Bulgarian troops in 1915 as Serbia's wartime capital, and struck by NATO cluster bombs in 1999. Emperors, priests and armies all left their mark here. 1 dig
7 records Italy Venezia-Murano-BuranoVenice was built as a city without roads, entered only by water until the nineteenth century, when a rail causeway and later a road bridge tied it to the mainland. The Ponte della Libertà, completed in 1933, remains its sole land approach, bombed during the Second World War for that very reason. 3 digs
44 records
23 records
3 records Italy Porto - SaragozzaVia Giacomo Venezian, in Bologna's Porto - Saragozza district, runs close to Piazza del Nettuno, where Palazzo Re Enzo held Enzo of Sardinia, son of Emperor Frederick II, prisoner from 1249 until his death in 1272 — twenty-three years within a building still standing. 1 dig
12 records Italy PisaPisa's Via Santa Maria runs near the Piazza del Duomo, where the cathedral was consecrated in 1118 on soft ground that later tipped its bell tower. Around it rose a memorial church after 1316 and, centuries on, a fountain of 1765. 1 dig
10 records Italy PaduaPadua's former ghetto neighbourhood, near the synagogue built in 1548 and the ancient university, holds a record of arrest and deportation. Sixteen stumbling stones set into its pavement mark families and students taken between December 1943 and May 1944. 1 dig
3 records Italy MonzaMonza sits on clay laid down by a drowned Pliocene sea, and has carried a medieval commune, a Habsburg and Savoy villa, a murdered king, wartime torture, and one of the world's oldest motor-racing circuits, each leaving its own mark on the town's ground. 6 digs
48 records
25 records
12 records United Kingdom Tower HamletsTower Hamlets holds a Roman bath house buried beneath Wapping's streets and the Norman keep William the Conqueror began at the Tower of London in the early 1080s. Between them lie centuries of upheaval: murder on Ratcliff Highway, executions at Tower Green, and a 1974 bomb in the White Tower's mortar room. 2 digs
27 records Italy ComoComo grew from Novum Comum, the Roman colony whose arena and baths once stood near what is now Viale Carlo Cattaneo, before medieval walls rose partly over those older foundations, carrying the ground through Romanesque building, Renaissance rebuilding and twentieth-century Modernism. 1 dig
4 records Portugal MisericordiaMisericórdia is a Lisbon parish shaped twice by disaster — the 1755 earthquake and the 1988 Chiado fire — where a poet's uncertain grave, a ruined convent, and rebuilt shopping streets sit together around Praça Luís de Camões and Largo do Chiado. 2 digs
26 records
18 records Italy CremonaCremona rests on Pliocene clay within the Cenozoic fill of the Padana basin, a colony fought over in 200 BC and besieged in AD 69, later marked by a Romanesque baptistery, the towering Torrazzo, a rebuilt opera house and a small square that was once a plague cemetery. 1 dig
24 records
47 records
The mansion torn down and rebuilt grander
Eynsham Hall · 100–2023
The house they knocked down to build a bigger one
Eynsham Hall, Terrace Walls To Rear · 700 BC–1981
The house that got torn down to build a bigger one
Eynsham Hall, Terrace Walls To Rear · 100 BC–1981
Portugal
Salvaterra de MagosSalvaterra de Magos grew up around a royal hunting retreat built in the 1500s and favoured by the Portuguese crown into the 1700s. Fires in 1817 and 1828 and an earthquake in 1858 brought the palace down, leaving only its chapel and falconry standing near where the bullring now stands.
1 dig9 records United Kingdom WoodstockWoodstock grew up around a royal hunting lodge and its palace, where kings, mistresses and a future queen once stayed. That palace is gone, but its memory survives in the ground nearby, including Bear Close, named for the old Bear Inn that once held it as pasture. 1 dig
12 records Portugal CascaisCascais grew from a fishing town into King Luís I's summer court in the 1870s, then sheltered exiled royalty and wartime couriers through the Second World War, while nearby Alcabideche holds Roman remains and ancient granite beneath ground that later records have yet to fill in. 4 digs
27 records Portugal PenichePeniche, on the coast of Portugal, is defined by its fortress, raised from 1557 against pirate raids and later turned into the Estado Novo's most feared political prison, holding dictatorship opponents until 1974, and before that a place of internment and, once, disaster at sea. 1 dig
8 records Ireland DublinDublin's ground carries siege, rebellion and argument in close quarters: a corner near Dublin Castle that saw a collapsed 1649 siege and 1922 street fighting, and a spot on O'Connell Street where a column stood, fell to a bomb, and gave way to the Spire. 2 digs
24 records Italy RomeRome's ground carries layers rather than a single story: an amphitheatre ordered by Vespasian for public death, an imperial bathhouse now outlined by a piazza's colonnade, a fountain that once scandalised the city, and a Forum chasm and pyre tied to Caesar's own end. 4 digs
52 records
The rider who filled the hole with himself
Rostra ad Divi Iulii · 1000 BC–608
The nymphs Rome tried not to look at
Ninfa dei Laghi · 378 BC–2018
A fountain sits on the footprint of an empire's bathhouse
Baths of Diocletian · 378 BC–1762
Portugal
MafraMafra grew around a king's vow: John V promised in 1711 to build a convent if his wife bore an heir, and that promise became the vast Palace of Mafra, finished in 1755. The town's old stone pillory still stands nearby, marking older judicial ground.
1 dig12 records Portugal SintraSintra grew up around a royal palace on high ground, holding kings from birth to death across four centuries. It passed from medieval Templar tenure through royal confinement and consort rule, into a town of fire, legend and rehearsed disaster on its outskirts. 5 digs
21 records Portugal LisbonLisbon's ground carries a walled hill taken by siege in 1147, a riverside palace lost to the 1755 earthquake, and buildings where the secret police worked and finally fired on a crowd in 1974. Each site here was researched on its own before being gathered into this record. 4 digs
44 records
The knight who blocked a closing gate with his body
Painel de Azulejos "Conquista de Lisboa" · 6400 BC–2012
The king who wouldn't sit for his own portrait
Praça do Comércio · 200 BC–1965
The building where the last shots for the dictatorship were fired
Palácio do Barão de Quintela e Conde de Farrobo · 1367–2025
Where Lisbon's secret police kept its files and its cells
Edifício no Largo Corpo Santo, n. 19 - 22 · 1506–1974
France
ParisParis has grown across two thousand years from a walled Gallo-Roman island to a capital of kings, revolutions and world's fairs, its ground layered with fortresses, convents, tollgates and battlefields, each stratum still traceable beneath the boulevards Haussmann drew over them.
30 digs289 records
An island of courts, sieges and public spectacle
Siege of Paris · 500–1972
A police officer was shot dead beside Notre-Dame in 1944
Siege of Paris · 700–2019
An island fought over since the Vikings sailed up the Seine
Siege of Paris · 250 BC–1995
A chapel built for a crown of thorns still stands
Siege of Paris · 250 BC–2014
Vikings besieged this island fortress until paid to leave
Siege of Paris · 250 BC–1995
Egyptian coffins rest beneath a fortress that became a palace
Louvre Castle · 100 BC–1794
A fortress underlies the Louvre's glass pyramid
Pyramide du Louvre · 500–1989
800 died at the last barricade of 1832
Le président du conseil ministre de la guerre cite à l'ordre de l'armée la Ville de Paris · 1358–1938
Audit courts and vanished convents ring this Paris corner
Les Feuillants Convent · 1200–2014
A hotel rises on ground once walled for a royal arsenal
SO/ Paris Hôtel · 1254–2022
Portugal
Santa Maria MaiorSanta Maria Maior, a parish in central Lisbon, holds ground once ruled by kings and monks alike. The Ribeira Palace stood here for around 250 years before the 1755 earthquake destroyed it, and Carmo Convent, founded in 1389, still stands roofless from that same morning.
2 digs23 records
Kings ruled here for 250 years, then the ground shrugged
Núcleo Arqueológico da Rua dos Correeiros · 1000–1875
A convent that watched power fall twice
Palacete Loures · 1147–2012
Italy
Santo StefanoSanto Stefano gathers a long ground in Bologna: the site of two Christian executions in 305 AD, a buried temple to Isis, an early medieval cemetery, and, nearby, the palace prison where a defeated king died in 1272. Ownership and use shifted repeatedly across centuries of destruction and rebuilding.
1 dig15 records Bulgaria SofiaBeneath modern Sofia lies Serdica, the fortified Roman and medieval city besieged by Bulgarian forces in 809 and taken by the Ottomans in 1382. Its buried streets and a sunken church now sit beneath a shopping mall and the Serdika Metro Station, marking the old city's core. 1 dig
11 records Serbia Opstina Nis-MedijanaOpstina Niš-Medijana holds ground fought over across centuries: besieged by crusader knights in 1096, taken by Bulgarian troops in 1915 as Serbia's wartime capital, and struck by NATO cluster bombs in 1999. Emperors, priests and armies all left their mark here. 1 dig
7 records Italy Venezia-Murano-BuranoVenice was built as a city without roads, entered only by water until the nineteenth century, when a rail causeway and later a road bridge tied it to the mainland. The Ponte della Libertà, completed in 1933, remains its sole land approach, bombed during the Second World War for that very reason. 3 digs
44 records
A clock tower was built for sailors, not for time
Siege of Venice · 300–1912
A causeway built to end isolation was bombed for it
Ponte della Libertà · 1273–2010
A causeway built by fascist Italy still carries Venice's only road
Ponte della Libertà · 1273–2010
Italy
FlorenceFlorence gathers around Piazza della Signoria and its cathedral: seat of a medieval republic, site of a friar's execution, ground where Medici dukes raised bronze monuments, and a Duomo built directly over the city's first cathedral. Republic gave way to Medici rule, and each layer left its mark.
3 digs23 records
A cathedral was built directly over Florence's first one
Siege of Florence · 300–1530
A friar's ashes were thrown into the Arno here
Girolamo Savonarola · 1–1594
Italy
VeronaVerona's record here gathers around Piazza Bra: a small plaque to the city's sons who fell fighting in Libya in 1911, set near the spot where Garibaldi once vowed "Rome or death," alongside older markers of the square's long civic and military past.
1 dig3 records Italy Porto - SaragozzaVia Giacomo Venezian, in Bologna's Porto - Saragozza district, runs close to Piazza del Nettuno, where Palazzo Re Enzo held Enzo of Sardinia, son of Emperor Frederick II, prisoner from 1249 until his death in 1272 — twenty-three years within a building still standing. 1 dig
12 records Italy PisaPisa's Via Santa Maria runs near the Piazza del Duomo, where the cathedral was consecrated in 1118 on soft ground that later tipped its bell tower. Around it rose a memorial church after 1316 and, centuries on, a fountain of 1765. 1 dig
10 records Italy PaduaPadua's former ghetto neighbourhood, near the synagogue built in 1548 and the ancient university, holds a record of arrest and deportation. Sixteen stumbling stones set into its pavement mark families and students taken between December 1943 and May 1944. 1 dig
3 records Italy MonzaMonza sits on clay laid down by a drowned Pliocene sea, and has carried a medieval commune, a Habsburg and Savoy villa, a murdered king, wartime torture, and one of the world's oldest motor-racing circuits, each leaving its own mark on the town's ground. 6 digs
48 records
Monza's town hall has read out decrees since the 1200s
Albergo diurno Monza · 1200–1901
The Chimera guards a square that has seen worse
Arengario (Monza) · 1200–1961
Partisans were tortured on this Monza ground in 1944
Castello Visconteo · 1200–1932
United Kingdom
City of LondonThe City of London holds Aldgate, breached by rebels in 1381 and 1471, and the Tower of London, raised by William the Conqueror in the early 1080s, where three queens were beheaded and a 1974 bomb killed a visitor. Sieges, executions and modern violence have all left their mark here.
2 digs25 records
Three queens beheaded a few paces from a Norman keep
Tower of London · 200–2014
Rebels died under a dropped portcullis at this gate
Aldgate House · 50–1888
Vatican City
RomeBeneath the high altar of St. Peter's Basilica lies a second-century funeral monument amid a Roman necropolis of roughly a thousand graves. Tradition and a 1968 papal declaration name it Peter's tomb, though the excavation's own lead archaeologist doubted that identification throughout his life.
1 dig12 records United Kingdom Tower HamletsTower Hamlets holds a Roman bath house buried beneath Wapping's streets and the Norman keep William the Conqueror began at the Tower of London in the early 1080s. Between them lie centuries of upheaval: murder on Ratcliff Highway, executions at Tower Green, and a 1974 bomb in the White Tower's mortar room. 2 digs
27 records Italy ComoComo grew from Novum Comum, the Roman colony whose arena and baths once stood near what is now Viale Carlo Cattaneo, before medieval walls rose partly over those older foundations, carrying the ground through Romanesque building, Renaissance rebuilding and twentieth-century Modernism. 1 dig
4 records Portugal MisericordiaMisericórdia is a Lisbon parish shaped twice by disaster — the 1755 earthquake and the 1988 Chiado fire — where a poet's uncertain grave, a ruined convent, and rebuilt shopping streets sit together around Praça Luís de Camões and Largo do Chiado. 2 digs
26 records
Fire took the Chiado twice, and the poets stayed
Largo do Chiado · 1147–1988
A nation buried the wrong bones and called it certain
Palacete Loures · 1147–1988
Austria
Innere StadtInnere Stadt is Vienna's old core, ground first held by the Roman camp of Vindobona and since layered with medieval churches, Habsburg burial, sieges, a Baroque palais, a synagogue and a wartime Gestapo headquarters — each holding its place beneath the streets.
1 dig18 records Italy CremonaCremona rests on Pliocene clay within the Cenozoic fill of the Padana basin, a colony fought over in 200 BC and besieged in AD 69, later marked by a Romanesque baptistery, the towering Torrazzo, a rebuilt opera house and a small square that was once a plague cemetery. 1 dig
24 records
A record of ground, not a magazine.
Nothing here was commissioned. Each place is assembled from its own sources, published at the resolution of the ground rather than the point, and reviewed again when the record changes. No page reports a person.