Appleton Wiske is named in the Domesday Book, compiled by Norman commissioners in 1086, entered under the hundred of Allerton in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Appleton Wiske at 2 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Appleton Wiske supported a recorded population of 4 villagers, 2 smallholders, 6 slaves, working 5 ploughs between them.

The survey puts Appleton Wiske’s value at 1 shilling, the same as before the Conquest. Unchanged valuations are relatively rare in the North, where disruption was widespread.

Resources Recorded at Appleton Wiske (1086)

Mills: 1 mill (valued at 2d)
Meadow: 2 acres

Other Settlements in Allerton

The Meaning of the Name

The name Appleton Wiske is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word tūn, 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’.

Remarkably, the name has changed little since 1086, when the Domesday scribes wrote it as Appleton Wiske.

Listed Buildings Near Appleton Wiske

Historic England records 5 listed buildings within about a mile of Appleton Wiske. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II

Appleton Wiske Today

Today Appleton Wiske lies within the administrative area of Hambleton, and the settlement recorded a population of 479 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 Appleton Wiske on Wikipedia .