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

Other Settlements in Allerton

The Meaning of the Name

The name Birkby is of Scandinavian origin. Its final element derives from the Old Norse word bý, a farmstead or village, while the first element appears to represent birch (ON birki). Taken together the name probably meant something close to ’the birch 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 Birkby.

Listed Buildings Near Birkby

Historic England records 4 listed buildings within about a mile of Birkby. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II

Birkby Manor - 0.45 km
Church of St Peter - 0.46 km
Birkby Manor Stables and Coachhouse and Wall - 0.5 km
Garden cottage to the south west of Birkby Manor - 0.51 km

Scheduled Monuments Near Birkby

Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 2 lie within roughly a mile of Birkby:

Birkby Today

Today Birkby lies within the administrative area of Hambleton, and the settlement recorded a population of 32 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 Birkby on Wikipedia .