Fenton is named in the Domesday Book, compiled by Norman commissioners in 1086, entered under the hundred of Appletree in Derbyshire. The survey assessed Fenton at 6.5 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Fenton supported a recorded population of 11 smallholders, 4 slaves, working 4 ploughs between them.

The survey records Fenton’s value at 6.5 shillings in 1086. No pre-Conquest figure survives – not unusual in the North, where records were disrupted by the Harrying and by the patchy coverage of the survey.

The survey lists 2 manors at Fenton 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 Fenton (1086)

Pigs: 14
Meadow: 15 acres
Woodland: 3 * 2 furlongs

Other Settlements in Appletree

The Meaning of the Name

The name Fenton is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word tūn, 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’.

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

Listed Buildings Near Fenton

Historic England records 7 listed buildings within about a mile of Fenton. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II