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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36917
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Do as much research into the place you want your fictional village to be as you can. Find out the topography, the climate, the surrounding large towns. Know something about the people of that time and region. At the very least it will grease your creative wheels and give you the ability to flesh out your fictional town with some degree of authenticity.

If you want to deviate from what is really there, for example you want Berwick Castle not to exist, then just make up a reason for it not to exist. Who built it? That guy just happened to die in childbirth. Easy enough. The main thing is just to make sure you know what is in your world in RL, and when you deviate, do so by choice, not by ignorance or apathy.

Depending on how much you want to deviate, there may be a lot of work involved. For example, if you want a huge stretch of wilderness for your story, in a location that in RL is quite thickly inhabited, you need a good reason for that. Maybe a plague? But if so, how did your town survive? A war? Then there would be ruins. A hostile force of some sort? Then the story needs to deal with that hostile presence.

Of course, you can choose to ignore all this and just arrange things however you like, and many readers wouldn't notice at all. But if you are writing a story that includes alternate historical elements, your target audience is likely to be knowledgeable in that area, and is much more likely to notice any mistakes.

Original score: 2