The 1086 Domesday survey records the settlement of Cartmel, entered under the hundred of Amounderness in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Cartmel at 5.4 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Cartmel supported a recorded population of 6 villagers, 10 smallholders, 23 freemanmen, working 10 ploughs between them.

By 1086 Cartmel was worth 7.3 shillings, up from 4.5 shillings before the Conquest – which sets it apart from the many nearby villages left waste or devalued.

2 of 7 manors within Cartmel are recorded as waste in 1086, with the remainder still productive. This partial devastation suggests the settlement was caught in the path of the Harrying of the North but not entirely destroyed - or that recovery had begun in some holdings by the time of the survey.

The survey lists 7 manors at Cartmel under different lords. Splitting a single settlement between multiple tenants was common across the North – Saxon estates broken up and handed to William’s followers after 1066.

Resources Recorded at Cartmel (1086)

Meadow: 100 acres

Other Settlements in Amounderness

The Meaning of the Name

The origin of the name Cartmel is not securely established from its modern form alone; like many settlement names in the North it likely combines an Old English or Old Norse personal name with a landscape term.

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

Listed Buildings Near Cartmel

Historic England records 78 listed buildings within about a mile of Cartmel. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II*