Kirby Misperton in the Domesday Book (1086)
Kirby Misperton appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, entered under the hundred of Maneshou in Yorkshire.
Other Settlements in Maneshou
- Amotherby
- Ampleforth
- Appleton [le Street]
- Beadlam
- Brawby
- Broughton
- Cawton
- Coulton
- Fadmoor
- Fryton
- Gillamoor
- Gilling [East]
- Griff [Farm]
- Grimston
The Meaning of the Name
The name Kirby Misperton is of Scandinavian origin. Its final element derives from the Old Norse word bý, a farmstead or village. The first element is most likely a personal name or an early descriptive term, now difficult to recover with certainty. Taken together the name probably meant something close to ‘a farmstead’.
Names of this type are a fingerprint of Scandinavian settlement: they cluster across the old Danelaw, where Norse-speaking settlers renamed or founded villages from the late 9th century onward.
The Domesday commissioners of 1086 recorded the place as another Kirby Misperton - the spelling has shifted over the nine centuries since, as the name passed from Norman scribes through Middle English into its modern form.
Listed Buildings Near Kirby Misperton
Historic England records 4 listed buildings within about a mile of Kirby Misperton. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.
Grade II*
- Church of St Laurence - 0.32 km
Grade II
- Old Rectory and Railings Attached to Doorstep - 0.25 km
- Obelisk approximately 350 metres north-east of Kirby Misperton Hall - 0.61 km
- Kirby Misperton Bridge - 1.14 km
Kirby Misperton Today
Today Kirby Misperton lies within the administrative area of Ryedale, and the settlement recorded a population of 310 at the 2021 census. Nine and a half centuries separate that figure from the small rural community the Domesday survey recorded here in 1086.
Read more about modern Kirby Misperton on Wikipedia .
Nearby Domesday Settlements
Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:
- Kirby Misperton - 0.0 km N
- Misperton - 0.0 km N
- Little Barugh - 1.0 km W
- Great Barugh - 3.0 km W
- Great and Little Habton - 3.6 km SW
- Brawby - 4.1 km W
Heritage Around another Kirby [Misperton]
Photographs of churches, listed buildings and monuments in the vicinity, contributed by volunteers to the Geograph project and reused here under a Creative Commons licence.
© Phil Catterall · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Phil Catterall · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Karen Vernon · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
Images © their respective photographers, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 and reused here with attribution. Photographs depict listed buildings, churches and monuments near this settlement and may show neighbouring villages.
Data derived from the Open Domesday project (opendomesday.org), based on the Domesday Book dataset compiled by Professor J.J.N. Palmer and team. The Domesday Book (1086) is in the public domain.
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