Bunbury and Lower Bunbury in the Domesday Book (1086)
The 1086 Domesday survey records the settlement of Bunbury and Lower Bunbury, entered under the hundred of Rushton in Cheshire. The survey assessed Bunbury and Lower Bunbury at 5 carucates of taxable land.
At the time of the survey, Bunbury and Lower Bunbury supported a recorded population of 11 villagers, 7 smallholders, 2 slaves, working 8 ploughs between them.
By 1086 Bunbury and Lower Bunbury was worth 5 shillings, up from 4 shillings before the Conquest – which sets it apart from the many nearby villages left waste or devalued.
Resources Recorded at Bunbury and Lower Bunbury (1086)
- Meadow: 18 acres
- Woodland: 3 * 3 furlongs
Other Settlements in Rushton
The Meaning of the Name
The name Bunbury and Lower Bunbury is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word burh, a fortified place. 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 stronghold’.
Remarkably, the name has changed little since 1086, when the Domesday scribes wrote it as Bunbury and Lower Bunbury.
Listed Buildings Near Bunbury and Lower Bunbury
Historic England records 38 listed buildings within about a mile of Bunbury and Lower Bunbury. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.
Grade I
- The Church of St Boniface - 0.7 km
Grade II*
- The Chantry House - 0.55 km
Grade II
- Chapel Cottage - 0.25 km
- Rowton Cottage - 0.27 km
- Bunbury Cottage Tudor Cottage - 0.37 km
- Brantwood - 0.38 km
- Dolphin Cottage - 0.41 km
- The Stores - 0.42 km
- Spurstow Smithy - 0.49 km
- Talbarn (Part to South) - 0.5 km
- Shippon East of Green Butts - 0.59 km
- Green Butts - 0.6 km
- Bunbury Aldersey School - 0.64 km
- Church Bank Cottage - 0.64 km
- Church Farmhouse - 0.66 km
- Brown Hills - 0.67 km
- Sundial in St Boniface’s Churchyard 10 Metres to South - 0.68 km
- Farm Building West of Brownhills (North Section Only) - 0.69 km
- West Gates to St Boniface’s Churchyard - 0.69 km
- The Dysart Arms Public House - 0.7 km
- Birchfield - 0.72 km
- Gravestone in St Boniface’s Churchyard 5 Metres to East - 0.72 km
- Little Orchard - 0.73 km
- Church Cottage Rose Cottage the Crest Trelawn Widow’s Cottage - 0.74 km
…and 14 more listed structures in the area.
Scheduled Monuments Near Bunbury and Lower Bunbury
Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 1 lies within roughly a mile of Bunbury and Lower Bunbury:
Bunbury and Lower Bunbury Today
Today Bunbury and Lower Bunbury lies within the administrative area of Cheshire East, and the settlement recorded a population of 1,342 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 Bunbury on Wikipedia .
Nearby Domesday Settlements
Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:
- Spurstow - 1.4 km SW
- Alpraham - 2.8 km NE
- Tilstone Fearnall - 3.0 km N
- Beeston - 3.2 km W
- Peckforton - 3.2 km W
- Tiverton - 3.2 km N
Heritage Around Bunbury and [Lower] Bunbury
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.
© Stephen Charles · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Espresso Addict · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© David Dixon · 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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