The settlement of Great and Little Cubley is recorded in William I’s Domesday survey of 1086, entered under the hundred of Appletree in Derbyshire. The survey assessed Great and Little Cubley at 3.7 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Great and Little Cubley supported a recorded population of 3 villagers, 16 smallholders, 14 freemanmen, working 9 ploughs between them.

By 1086 Great and Little Cubley was worth 3.8499999999999996 shillings, up from 2 shillings before the Conquest – a sign this community came through the Conquest without being ruined.

The survey lists 4 manors at Great and Little Cubley 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 Great and Little Cubley (1086)

Churches: 1
Cattle: 2
Pigs: 10
Sheep: 30
Meadow: 1 acres
Woodland: 40 None

Other Settlements in Appletree

The Meaning of the Name

The name Great and Little Cubley is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word lēah, a woodland clearing or glade. 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 clearing’.

Remarkably, the name has changed little since 1086, when the Domesday scribes wrote it as Great and Little Cubley.

Listed Buildings Near Great and Little Cubley

Historic England records 12 listed buildings within about a mile of Great and Little Cubley. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade I