StrataHistory underfoot

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.

528 places · 215 localities · last reviewed 27 October 2026
Portugal SintraSintra gathers dolmens older than Rome, a Moorish hilltop fortress, royal palaces that held kings as both residents and prisoners, a dictator's plotting ground, and a jail turned post office, all within one municipality shaped by Moorish governors, Portuguese kings, and the quiet slopes above Lisbon. 32 digs
411 records
An avenue above the Atlantic coast Avenida Eugene Levy · 3022 BC–2015 A friars' convent built into bare granite Convento dos Capuchos · 2200 BC–2025 A medieval royal palace, now a museum Fonte da Diana · 1200 BC–1949 A Moorish hilltop fortress, now a ruin Castle of the Moors · 2835 BC–2013 Wooded hillside outside Sintra · 1154–now A wooded hillside in the Sintra hills · 5000 BC–1953 A Neoclassical palace garden, now a hotel Jardins de Seteais · 5000 BC–1982 Open ground near Linhó · 1200 BC–2025 A Dutch consul's mansion in Sintra Seteais Palace · 4500 BC–1966 A tomb older than Rome · 5000 BC–1966 The politician who plotted his comeback here · 3500 BC–1903 Sintra's neo-Manueline town hall Câmara Municipal de Sintra · 9222 BC–2011 Where the dead were laid under stone · 100 BC–2025 The stones nobody could explain · 100 BC–now The king locked in his own family's house · 9222 BC–2016 The dolmen farmers spent a century stealing Casal de Cambra · 4500 BC–2024 Sintra's town hall, built in a royal style Câmara Municipal de Sintra · 4000 BC–2011 A former prison, now a post office Praça da República · 2835 BC–1979 A fire and rescue training ground · 1200 BC–1974
Portugal LisbonLisbon has been a Roman port, a Moorish stronghold besieged for seventeen weeks in 1147, a royal capital flattened by the 1755 earthquake, and the seat of a secret police dismantled in 1974. Kings, friars, engineers and agents all left ground here that still carries their mark. 24 digs
306 records
Lisbon's 14th-century city wall, now in fragments Fernandine Wall · 6379 BC–1908 The city that starved for a king it never chose Igreja de Santa Luzia · 6379 BC–2013 The bridge that gave a battlefield its name Alcântara-Mar railway station · 1755–2008 The knight who blocked a closing gate with his body Painel de Azulejos "Conquista de Lisboa" · 6400 BC–2012
United States West Santa ClaraWest Santa Clara gathers an unincorporated stretch of the Santa Cruz foothills above Cupertino, where limestone mining at Permanente Quarry grew into a major cement operation under Henry Kaiser, and Congress Springs Road, cut by Chinese laborers for loggers, once led to a mineral-water resort before fire and county purchase changed its course. 2 digs
19 records
A mountain toll road in Santa Clara County Congress Springs Road · 3999 BC–1942
United States BakerBaker, Nevada sits at the foot of the Snake Range, where a Fremont village of pit houses and granaries stood from about 1220 to 1295 CE. The peak above carried a Shoshone name before a soldier renamed it for Jefferson Davis in 1859, and the ground now lies within Great Basin National Park. 1 dig
9 records United Kingdom ChillinghamChillingham, in Northumberland, grew up around a border fortress that began as a monastery and became, by 1344, a licensed quadrangular castle with walls up to 12 feet thick. Kings, an earldom, wartime barracks and a film crew have all passed through it since. 1 dig
12 records Italy RomeRome gathers its past on a scale few towns can match: a Forum where Caesar's body was burned and a temple later raised over his ashes, an amphitheatre built on Nero's drained lake, baths broken by Gothic siege, and squares that still trace the shapes of a buried stadium and bathhouse beneath Baroque fountains and churches. 15 digs
201 records
A 3,300-year-old Egyptian obelisk in a Roman square Obelisco Flaminio · 1290 BC–1980 Rome's market square and former execution ground Giordano Bruno monument · 1219 BC–1889 An oval baroque square built inside a Roman stadium Piazza Navona · 1219 BC–2014 The killing that ended the Republic Chiesa di San Nicola de Calcarario · 1219 BC–1929 Sixty senators cornered Rome's dictator here Fortuna Huiusce Diei · 1219 BC–1929 The rider who filled the hole with himself Rostra ad Divi Iulii · 1000 BC–608
Czechia PraguePrague's Old Town Square has held people since at least 4400 BC, witnessed executions of Hussite captains and Bohemian leaders, given the city its astronomical clock since 1410, and now houses the registered office of the European Association of Archaeologists, founded in 1994. 1 dig
14 records France ParisParis grew from a besieged island fortress in the Seine into a capital rebuilt by kings, revolutionaries and Haussmann's planners alike. Its streets hold a demolished medieval castle, toll gates turned into grand squares, wartime executions and liberations, and theatres, cafés and cabarets layered over Roman and Eocene ground. 39 digs
404 records
A courthouse built on a royal palace Quai de l'Horloge · 2843 BC–2018 Paris's largest public square Obélisque de Louxor · 1289 BC–2024 A judicial island has held prisoners, kings and corpses alike Siege of Paris · 500–1972
Ireland DublinDublin's ground carries siege, rebellion and civil war in close company: a royalist army turned back at its walls in 1649, a British admiral's pillar stood and fell on O'Connell Street, and a gaol on Inchicore Road held and shot the men who tried to remake it. 3 digs
39 records
The pillar Dublin argued about for 157 years Spire of Dublin · 377 BC–2003
United Kingdom Berry PomeroyBerry Pomeroy, in South Devon, grew from a manor named 'Berri' in the Domesday Book of 1086 into a castle raised by the Pomeroy family in the late fifteenth century, then an Elizabethan mansion built by the Seymours within its walls, left to ruin after 1688. 1 dig
12 records United Kingdom AltarnunAltarnun gathers its history on Bodmin Moor around Jamaica Inn, a stone coaching inn built in 1750 on ground where an inn had stood since 1547. It served Cornish smuggling routes, sheltered Daphne du Maurier in 1930, and now keeps a museum of smuggling and her work. 1 dig
13 records United Kingdom InvernessInverness holds Culloden Battlefield, the open moor where the Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stuart was defeated by government troops under the Duke of Cumberland on 16 April 1746, a day that ended Highland clan life as it had existed for centuries. 1 dig
14 records United Kingdom Barley-with-Wheatley BoothBarley-with-Wheatley Booth sits beneath Pendle Hill in Lancashire, a sandstone summit worked by named tenants from 1323, shaken by the 1612 witch trials, and later marked by George Fox's 1652 vision that founded the Quakers. 1 dig
13 records United Kingdom LancasterLancaster's story gathers on the hill above the River Lune, where a Roman fort gave way to a castle raised by Roger the Poitevin around 1093. Held by the Duchy of Lancaster, it served as prison and court for centuries, closing as a jail only in 2011. 1 dig
15 records United Kingdom LondonLondon is a city of layered ground: a Roman bathhouse beneath a Shadwell monument, a cholera pump traced by John Snow in Soho, a Norman fortress begun by William the Conqueror, and a square of Saxon knights. Plague pits, prisons, markets and cemeteries sit beneath its pavements still. 18 digs
263 records
A Victorian burial ground, still open for burials Colonnade · 2200 BC–2021 A 1960s market hall with the largest concrete dome in Europe West Poultry Avenue · 2800 BC–2000 A dying Edinburgh preacher's church became Europe's first Coptic church Prince of Teck · 1610 BC–now The Father who walked into the cholera ward Roman Bath House · 1508 BC–1983
United States DonnerDonner, near Truckee, California, holds ground long used by the Washoe before it became the winter camp where the Donner Party was trapped by snow in October 1846. The site later became a tourist attraction, a memorial park, and a place still marked by the region's railroad and Chinatown history. 1 dig
14 records United States Fall RiverFall River holds one recorded piece of ground so far: 230 Second Street, where Andrew and Abby Borden were killed with a hatchet in 1892. Lizzie Borden was tried and acquitted, and the house later became a bed and breakfast and murder museum. 1 dig
14 records United States Salt Lake CitySalt Lake City holds ground stretched from an 1824 ambush on the Jordan River to a 2026 stabbing at a shopping mall, passing through farming villages, a house that ended a war without battle, and founding families — Mormon settlers, mining senators, railroad men — whose houses, schools and cemeteries still mark its streets. 18 digs
177 records
The village that became a shopping center West Valley City · 1000 BC–2022 A bungalow built in 1929 was picked up whole and carried across town Joseph E. and Mina W. Mickelsen House · 1818–2018 The trap on the Jordan River 2810 West · 1877–1994 The mansion where Utah made peace with the army sent to crush it Devereaux House · 1857–2024
Portugal GrandolaGrândola, in Portugal's Setúbal region, joins a market town whose name became a revolution's password with the older ground around Melides, where burial sites by the coastal lagoons predate any village by thousands of years. Between them runs a line from Mesolithic graves to a song broadcast at midnight in 1974. 2 digs
16 records
A stretch of ancient burial ground near a lagoon Melides · 2500 BC–now
Portugal MatosinhosMatosinhos is a coastal municipality near Porto, settled since Paleolithic and Mesolithic times and anchored by an Iron Age hillfort. Granted its own municipal standing from 1514, it later gathered forts, a wine house turned architecture centre, and a seafront square holding a modern net sculpture. 1 dig
13 records Portugal Torres VedrasTorres Vedras grew from a ridge above the Portuguese coast where Copper Age communities raised shared tombs long before any town stood there. Across later centuries it became a municipality, home to clergy, a future empress, a bishop, and soldiers, its ground holding burials from the Chalcolithic to the Liberal Wars. 1 dig
15 records Portugal CascaisCascais grew from Roman farm estates and a Visigothic burial ground into a chartered fishing town, then a royal summer court after the 1870s, and finally a refuge for exiled kings and secret couriers during the Second World War. Forts, chalets and a 1755 tsunami all left their mark on its shore. 29 digs
380 records
Roman farmland above the coast Sao Domingos de Rana · 100 BC–now Open coastal ground near Cascais · 100 BC–1992 The wave that drowned All Saints' Day Chalet Ficalho · 3008 BC–2018 A 19th-century summer house, now a small hotel Chalet Ficalho · 2870 BC–2025 A 19th-century summer villa, now a hotel Chalet Ficalho · 2870 BC–2023 A 19th-century summer villa, now a small hotel Chalet Ficalho · 3008 BC–2023 A pocket of grand 1900s villas Chalet Ficalho · 2870 BC–1992 Open ground on Portugal's Lisbon coast Alcabideche · 100 BC–2025 A 19th-century lighthouse, now a museum Farol de Santa Marta · 2870 BC–2007 A seaside mansion built as a wedding gift Casa de Santa Maria · 2870 BC–2004 A sea chasm on the Cascais coast Vigia do Facho · 3008 BC–1987 A seaside fortress, now a hotel The flight of ICARUS · 2870 BC–2014 The cave where the dead were buried with shells · 3008 BC–1967 The researcher who dug up forty forgotten rabbis · 1364–2025 The kings who fled to a Portuguese fishing town · 4000 BC–2016 A hole where the sea comes in to kill Vigia do Facho · 2870 BC–1992 The man who faked his own death in a sea cave · 2870 BC–now Rebuilt for a king, disarmed within a year · 4000 BC–now A castle built for show became a gift to strangers Forte de Nossa Senhora da Luz de Cascais · 2870 BC–2000
Portugal Santiago do CacemSantiago do Cacém, in Setúbal district, grew into a market town amid open farm country that includes land near Abela, where a Bronze Age stone marker and the nearby Celtic and Roman town of Miróbriga mark older settlement, while farming continued across the surrounding parishes. 1 dig
4 records Morocco CasablancaCasablanca grew from the ancient city of Anfa into a port shaped by bombardment, colonial rule and later independence, bearing hospitals, churches, a mosque and a courthouse from different eras, and, near Al Fida – Mers Sultan, a refuge founded in 1985 for mothers rejected by their families. 1 dig
12 records Spain EsteponaEstepona's ground carries a long sequence of change: stone tombs from 3000 BC, Roman settlement and cemetery, a shift from Christian to Islamic burial rites, and the town's seizure by Henry IV's forces in 1457, when its mosque became a church. 1 dig
14 records Portugal AlbufeiraAlbufeira, on the Algarve coast, has held Phoenician and Carthaginian sailors, Roman villas and salting tanks, a medieval necropolis, and a town largely erased by the earthquake and tsunami of 1755. Its freshwater springs at Olhos de Água still rise through the sand regardless of who has governed above them. 1 dig
13 records Ireland BandonA church tower three streets from you once turned news of an execution into a coronation. 1 dig
14 records Portugal LouresLoures gathers traces from ice age hunting camps to a Roman villa struck by a road crew in 1990. Named in a document of 1118, held later by Templar lands, shaken by the 1755 earthquake, and marked today by finds at the Municipal Museum of Loures. 1 dig
15 records Portugal LouleLoulé's coast turned from pine-fringed beach to fishing parish to resort town. King Denis granted Quarteira a charter on 15 November 1297; centuries later, banker Cupertino de Miranda founded Vilamoura in 1966, close to the Roman ruins of Cerro da Vila. 1 dig
10 records United States HighlandHighland, Utah, was incorporated as a city in 1870 on bench ground above old Lake Bonneville, later farmed before subdivisions such as Dry Creek Highlands and Blessing Rock at Beacon Hill covered it with houses built from the 1990s onward, held since by successive families through sales, mortgages and liens. 7 digs
58 records
An address, and nothing else on record West Horizon Drive · 2004–2025
United States PinedalePinedale, Wyoming, sits near Fremont Lake in Sublette County, ground marked by ancient hunting sites and a modern memorial alike. A 1993 federal phytoplankton survey of the lake, dedicated to biologist Robert C. Averett, shares its waters with the buried evidence of a 1980 family murder. 1 dig
7 records United States AlbuquerqueAlbuquerque's ground holds two quieter stories beneath its streets: a 1716 land grant held by a soldier's widow, and a farming settlement called Los Griegos. Railroad platting and the city's expanding grid reduced both to street names, one of which no longer even carries its original name. 2 digs
18 records
A village that became a number then vanished Colleen Avenue Northeast · 1909–2003 A grant faded into a grid of streets Lafying Street Northeast · 1909–1988
United Kingdom North LeighNorth Leigh carries an Iron Age fort, a sixty-room Roman villa, a vanished medieval village at Tilgarsley, and a Georgian hunting lodge rebuilt as Eynsham Hall. Saxon burials, a chantry chapel endowed by a grieving widow, and a wartime maternity ward all mark ground later turned hotel and private club. 5 digs
71 records
A mansion that became a maternity ward Estelle Manor · 4000 BC–2025
United Kingdom BicesterBicester grew up around an early Christian cemetery, a Saxon church tower, and a medieval priory that drew pilgrims to a saint's relics and held a countess among its dead. Nearby, Roman Alchester and Akeman Street marked older passage, and a highwayman's ambush on the Bicester road in 1818 left its own grim record. 1 dig
12 records Portugal Salvaterra de MagosSalvaterra de Magos grew around a royal hunting lodge built in the 1500s, where a royal marriage contract was signed in 1383 and the Portuguese court gathered through the 1700s. Fires in 1817 and 1828 and an 1858 earthquake destroyed the palace, leaving its chapel and falconry standing near today's bullring. 1 dig
9 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.