Hepworth appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, entered under the hundred of Agbrigg in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Hepworth at 2.2 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Hepworth supported a recorded population of 10 villagers, 1 smallholder, 8 freemanmen, working 3 ploughs between them.

The survey records Hepworth’s value at 19d in 1086. No pre-Conquest figure survives – not unusual in the North, where records were disrupted by the Harrying and by the patchy coverage of the survey.

The survey lists 2 manors at Hepworth 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 Hepworth (1086)

Mills: 0 mills
Meadow: 4 acres

Other Settlements in Agbrigg

The Meaning of the Name

The name Hepworth is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word worð, an enclosure or homestead. 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 enclosure’.

Remarkably, the name has changed little since 1086, when the Domesday scribes wrote it as Hepworth.

Listed Buildings Near Hepworth

Historic England records 39 listed buildings within about a mile of Hepworth. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II