Handley in the Domesday Book (1086)
The settlement of Handley is recorded in William I’s Domesday survey of 1086, entered under the hundred of Duddeston in Cheshire.
Other Settlements in Duddeston
- Bettisfield
- Bickerton
- Bickley
- Boughton
- Broxton
- Burwardestone
- Burwardsley and [Higher] Burwardsley
- Caldecott
- Calvintone
- Cheaveley
- Cholmondeley
- Chowley
- Christleton
- Clutton
The Meaning of the Name
The name Handley 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 Handley.
Listed Buildings Near Handley
Historic England records 13 listed buildings within about a mile of Handley. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.
Grade II*
- Church of All Saints - 0.42 km
Grade II
- Well House Farmhouse - 0.3 km
- Handley Oak - 0.34 km
- Langford House - 0.36 km
- Pump House Cottage - 0.74 km
- War Memorial Well House - 0.78 km
- Green Farmhouse - 0.82 km
- Pool Farmhouse - 0.84 km
- Manor Cottage - 0.85 km
- Building housing Swimming Pool (formerly Barn) in Garden of Manor Farm. - 0.85 km
- Aldersey Manor - 0.86 km
- Manor Farm Cottage - 0.87 km
- Gate Piers at Aldersey Lodge - 0.94 km
Handley Today
Today Handley lies within the administrative area of Cheshire West and Chester, and the settlement recorded a population of 266 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 Handley on Wikipedia .
Nearby Domesday Settlements
Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:
- Chowley - 1.4 km SE
- Tattenhall - 2.2 km NE
- Coddington - 2.8 km SW
- Golborne - 3.0 km N
- Clutton - 3.0 km S
- Lea Newbold - 3.6 km NW
Heritage Around Handley
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.
© Stephen Charles · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Stephen Charles · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Jeff Buck · 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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