The 1086 Domesday survey records the settlement of Chisworth and Higher Chisworth, entered under the hundred of Blackwell in Derbyshire. The survey assessed Chisworth and Higher Chisworth at 5.9 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Chisworth and Higher Chisworth supported a recorded population of 6 villagers, 25 smallholders, 4 slaves, 38 freemanmen, working 13 ploughs between them.

By 1086 Chisworth and Higher Chisworth was worth 4.63 shillings, up from 3.5 shillings before the Conquest – which sets it apart from the many nearby villages left waste or devalued.

The survey lists 2 manors at Chisworth and Higher Chisworth 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 Chisworth and Higher Chisworth (1086)

Mills: 2 mills
Churches: 1
Cattle: 4
Sheep: 160
Meadow: 17 acres
Woodland: 15 pigs

Other Settlements in Blackwell

The Meaning of the Name

The name Chisworth and Higher Chisworth is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word worð, an enclosure or homestead. 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 enclosure’.

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

Listed Buildings Near Chisworth and Higher Chisworth

Historic England records 6 listed buildings within about a mile of Chisworth and Higher Chisworth. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II

Scheduled Monuments Near Chisworth and Higher Chisworth

Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 4 lie within roughly a mile of Chisworth and Higher Chisworth: