Flaxby in the Domesday Book (1086)

The settlement of Flaxby is recorded in William I’s Domesday survey of 1086, entered under the hundred of Burghshire in Yorkshire.

Other Settlements in Burghshire

• Addlethorpe
• Aismunderby
• Aldfield
• Allerton [Mauleverer]
• Arkendale
• Askwith
• Azerley
• Barrowby [Grange]
• Beckwith [House]
• Besthaim
• Bestham
• Bewerley
• Bilton
• Birstwith

The Meaning of the Name

The name Flaxby 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 Flaxby.

Listed Buildings Near Flaxby

Historic England records 3 listed buildings within about a mile of Flaxby. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II

• Milepost - 1.13 km
• Gates and Gate Piers to West Lodge - 1.29 km
• West Lodge - 1.29 km

Flaxby Today

Today Flaxby lies within the administrative area of Harrogate, and the settlement recorded a population of 87 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 Flaxby on Wikipedia .

Nearby Domesday Settlements

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

• Goldsborough - 1.4 km SW
• Allerton Mauleverer - 2.0 km E
• Cadretone - 2.0 km E
• Clareton - 2.0 km N
• Thornborough - 3.2 km E
• Hopperton - 3.2 km E