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

Other Settlements in Burghshire

The Meaning of the Name

The name Birstwith is of Scandinavian origin. Its final element derives from the Old Norse word viðr, a wood. 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 wood’.

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 Birstwith.

Listed Buildings Near Birstwith

Historic England records 11 listed buildings within about a mile of Birstwith. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II

Swarcliffe Hall Now Grosvenor House School - 0.09 km
Lodge to Swarcliffe Hall (Now Grosvenor School) - 0.29 km
Church of St James the Apostle - 0.29 km
Stable, Byre and Barn Range Approximately 50 Metres South East of New Bridge Cottage - 0.69 km
New Bridge Cottage - 0.73 km
New Bridge - 0.82 km
Nidd House - 0.93 km
West House - 1.1 km
Hirst Grove - 1.21 km
West House Farm Cottage - 1.22 km
Winsley Cottage - 1.23 km

Scheduled Monuments Near Birstwith

Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 1 lies within roughly a mile of Birstwith:

New Bridge - 0.82 km

Birstwith Today

Today Birstwith lies within the administrative area of Harrogate, and the settlement recorded a population of 791 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 Birstwith on Wikipedia .