Ellerbeck is named in the Domesday Book, compiled by Norman commissioners in 1086, entered under the hundred of Allerton in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Ellerbeck at 20 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Ellerbeck supported a recorded population of 16 villagers, 4 smallholders, 12 slaves, working 15 ploughs between them.

By 1086 Ellerbeck was worth 16 shillings, up from 13 shillings before the Conquest – in contrast to many Yorkshire neighbours whose valuations collapsed.

Resources Recorded at Ellerbeck (1086)

Meadow: 12 acres

Other Settlements in Allerton

The Meaning of the Name

The name Ellerbeck is of Scandinavian origin. Its final element derives from the Old Norse word bekkr, a stream. 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 stream’.

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 Ellerbeck.

Listed Buildings Near Ellerbeck

Historic England records 5 listed buildings within about a mile of Ellerbeck. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II

Little Bridge Farmhouse - 0.49 km
Gates and gate piers to Boville Park Lodge - 0.77 km
Boville Park Lodge - 0.79 km
Boville Park Bridge - 0.82 km
West Farmhouse - 1.15 km

Ellerbeck Today

Today Ellerbeck lies within the administrative area of Hambleton, and the settlement recorded a population of 51 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 Ellerbeck on Wikipedia .