Ganton in the Domesday Book (1086)

The 1086 Domesday survey records the settlement of Ganton, entered under the hundred of Burton in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Ganton at 8.5 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Ganton supported a recorded population of 5 villagers, working 1 plough between them.

The drop in value is hard to miss. Before 1066, Ganton was worth 1 shilling; by 1086 that had dropped to 12d – a fall of 40%. Most Yorkshire villages that lost value on this scale were swept up in the Harrying of the North – William’s scorched-earth campaign of 1069–70.

Resources Recorded at Ganton (1086)

• Woodland: 0.5 leagues * 2 furlongs mixed measures

Other Settlements in Burton

• Binnington
• Boythorpe
• Burton [Agnes]
• Butterwick
• Carnaby
• Fornetorp
• Gransmoor
• Haisthorpe
• Harpham
• Kilham
• Langtoft
• Lowthorpe
• Octon
• Rudston

The Meaning of the Name

The name Ganton 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 Ganton.

Listed Buildings Near Ganton

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

Grade II*

• Church of St Nicholas - 0.63 km

Grade II

• Garden Walls and Vine House Approximately 30 Metres North of Ganton Hall Cottage - 0.42 km
• Ganton Hall - 0.58 km
• 26 and 28 and Outbuilding Attached to No. 28 - 0.74 km
• Nos 2 and 3 and Attached Outbuilding - 0.93 km
• Joiners Shop Approximately 20 Metres Northeast of Numbers 2 and 3 - 0.93 km

Scheduled Monuments Near Ganton

Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 1 lies within roughly a mile of Ganton:

• Three round barrows NE of Ganton Wold Farm - 1.42 km

Ganton Today

Today Ganton lies within the administrative area of Ryedale, and the settlement recorded a population of 214 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 Ganton on Wikipedia .

Nearby Domesday Settlements

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

• Binnington - 1.0 km N
• Potter Brompton - 2.2 km SW
• Willerby - 2.2 km NE
• Staxton - 2.8 km NE
• Sherburn - 4.1 km W
• Foxholes - 4.5 km SE