Earby in the Domesday Book (1086)

Earby appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, entered under the hundred of Craven in Yorkshire.

Other Settlements in Craven

• Addingham
• Airton
• Anley
• Appletreewick
• Arncliffe
• Arnford
• Barnoldswick
• Bashall [Eaves]
• Battersby [Barn]
• Beamsley
• Birkby [Hall]
• Bogeuurde
• Bolton [Abbey]
• Bolton [by Bowland]

The Meaning of the Name

The name Earby is of Scandinavian origin. Its final element derives from the Old Norse word bý, a farmstead 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 farmstead’.

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 Earby.

Listed Buildings Near Earby

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

Grade II*

• The Grammar School - 0.5 km

Grade II

• White Lion Hotel - 0.3 km
• North Holme Farmhouse - 0.32 km
• Waddington Farm - 0.42 km
• Guidestone formerly near Bawhead - 0.48 km
• War Memorial - 0.87 km

Earby Today

Today Earby lies within the administrative area of Pendle, and the settlement recorded a population of 4,413 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 Earby on Wikipedia .

Nearby Domesday Settlements

Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:

• Thornton in Craven - 2.0 km N
• Kelbrook - 2.0 km S
• Barnoldswick - 3.0 km W
• East and West Marton - 4.1 km N
• Elslack - 4.2 km NE
• Bracewell - 4.5 km NW