Davenham in the Domesday Book (1086)
The 1086 Domesday survey records the settlement of Davenham, entered under the hundred of Middlewich in Cheshire. The survey assessed Davenham at 14 carucates of taxable land.
At the time of the survey, Davenham supported a recorded population of 6 villagers, 24 freemanmen, working 10 ploughs between them.
By 1086 Davenham was worth 1.6 shillings, up from 1.5 shillings before the Conquest – which sets it apart from the many nearby villages left waste or devalued.
The survey lists 4 manors at Davenham 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 Davenham (1086)
- Meadow: 50 acres
Other Settlements in Middlewich
- Alsager
- Bostock
- Brereton
- Byley
- Clive
- Congleton
- Croxton
- Davenport
- Goostrey
- Hassall
- Kinderton
- Lach [Dennis]
- Leftwich
- Middlewich
The Meaning of the Name
The name Davenham is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word hām, a homestead or village. 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 homestead’.
Remarkably, the name has changed little since 1086, when the Domesday scribes wrote it as Davenham.
Listed Buildings Near Davenham
Historic England records 19 listed buildings within about a mile of Davenham. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.
Grade II*
- Davenham Hall - 0.71 km
- Church of St Wilfred - 1.07 km
Grade II
- Roseaton (No 155) - 0.5 km
- Fountain - 0.51 km
- 542, London Road - 0.53 km
- Davenham Farmhouse - 0.54 km
- The Lodge - 0.58 km
- Davenham Church of England Primary School - 0.71 km
- Oddfellows Arms Public House - 0.72 km
- Davenham War Memorial - 0.72 km
- 1, Green Lane - 0.74 km
- Bull’s Head Inn - 0.75 km
- War Memorial - 0.8 km
- Church of St Stephen - 0.82 km
- Vicarage - 0.83 km
- 61,63 and 65, Church Street - 1.0 km
- Lych Gate in Churchyard of St Wilfred - 1.04 km
- Table Tomb C15 Yards East of Church of St Wilfred - 1.08 km
- The Old Rectory - 1.08 km
Scheduled Monuments Near Davenham
Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 1 lies within roughly a mile of Davenham:
Davenham Today
Today Davenham lies within the administrative area of Cheshire West and Chester, and the settlement recorded a population of 3,066 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 Davenham on Wikipedia .
Nearby Domesday Settlements
Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:
Heritage Around Davenham
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.
© Steve Leech · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© David Marten · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Jeff Tomlinson · 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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