Asselby in the Domesday Book (1086)

Asselby is named in the Domesday Book, compiled by Norman commissioners in 1086, entered under the hundred of Howden in Yorkshire.

Other Settlements in Howden

• Babthorpe
• Barlby
• Barmby [on the Marsh]
• Barnhill [Hall]
• Belby [House]
• Bowthorpe
• Brackenholme
• Burland [House]
• Cavil
• Cliffe
• Cotness [Hall]
• Eastrington
• Hagthorpe
• Hemingbrough

The Meaning of the Name

The name Asselby 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.

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

Listed Buildings Near Asselby

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

Grade II

• Aschilebi - 0.41 km
• The Old Sunday School - 0.45 km
• Linton House - 0.49 km
• The Black Swan - 0.49 km
• East End Farmhouse (West) - 0.51 km

Asselby Today

Today Asselby lies within the administrative area of East Riding of Yorkshire, and the settlement recorded a population of 367 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 Asselby on Wikipedia .

Nearby Domesday Settlements

Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:

• Newsholme - 1.0 km N
• Barnhill Hall - 2.0 km E
• Knedlington - 2.0 km E
• Barmby on the Marsh - 2.0 km W
• Babthorpe - 2.2 km NW
• Brackenholme - 2.2 km NW