Grimston in the Domesday Book (1086)
Grimston is named in the Domesday Book, compiled by Norman commissioners in 1086, entered under the hundred of Maneshou in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Grimston at 3.8 carucates of taxable land.
At the time of the survey, Grimston supported a recorded population of 17 villagers, 7 smallholders, 16 freemanmen, working 13 ploughs between them.
Something went badly wrong here between the two surveys. Before 1066, Grimston was worth 8.8 shillings; by 1086 that had dropped to 5.5 shillings – a fall of 37%. 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.
The survey lists 3 manors at Grimston 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 Grimston (1086)
- Meadow: 20 acres
- Woodland: 0.5 leagues * 4 furlongs mixed measures
Other Settlements in Maneshou
- Amotherby
- Ampleforth
- Appleton [le Street]
- Beadlam
- Brawby
- Broughton
- Cawton
- Coulton
- Fadmoor
- Fryton
- Gillamoor
- Gilling [East]
- Griff [Farm]
- Harome
The Meaning of the Name
The name Grimston 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 Grimston.
Listed Buildings Near Grimston
Historic England records 1 listed building within about a mile of Grimston. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.
Grade II
Scheduled Monuments Near Grimston
Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 14 lie within roughly a mile of Grimston:
- Round barrow on Grimston Moor 655m north east of Grimston Grange - 0.33 km
- Round barrow on Grimston Moor 600m north east of Grimston Grange - 0.46 km
- Long barrow 350m north west of Grimston Grange - 0.53 km
- Round barrow on Grimston Moor 750m south west of Viewly Hill Farm - 0.56 km
- Round barrow 250m north of Coney Hill Farm - 0.83 km
- Round barrow 450m south west of Coney Hill Farm - 0.84 km
- Round barrow 500m SSW of Coney Hill Farm - 0.85 km
- Round barrow 800m east of Windyridge Farm - 0.94 km
- Round barrow 560m NNW of Maidensworth Farm - 0.95 km
- Round barrow 530m NNW of Maidensworth Farm - 0.96 km
…and 4 more.
Grimston Today
Today Grimston lies within the administrative area of Ryedale, 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 Grimstone on Wikipedia .
Nearby Domesday Settlements
Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:
Heritage Around Grimston
Photographs of churches, listed buildings and monuments in the vicinity, contributed by volunteers to the Geograph project and reused here under a Creative Commons licence.
© Betty Longbottom · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Betty Longbottom · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Pauline E · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
Images © their respective photographers, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 and reused here with attribution. Photographs depict listed buildings, churches and monuments near this settlement and may show neighbouring villages.
Data derived from the Open Domesday project (opendomesday.org), based on the Domesday Book dataset compiled by Professor J.J.N. Palmer and team. The Domesday Book (1086) is in the public domain.
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