The settlement of High and Low Bradley is recorded in William I’s Domesday survey of 1086, entered under the hundred of Craven in Yorkshire. The survey assessed High and Low Bradley at 7 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, High and Low Bradley supported a recorded population of 7 villagers, working 3 ploughs between them.

The valuation dropped between 1066 and 1086. Before 1066, High and Low Bradley was worth 2 shillings; by 1086 that had dropped to 10d – a fall of 74%. 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 2 manors at High and Low Bradley 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 High and Low Bradley (1086)

Churches: 1
Meadow: 1 acres
Woodland: 1 * 0.5 leagues

Other Settlements in Craven

The Meaning of the Name

The name High and Low Bradley 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 High and Low Bradley.

Listed Buildings Near High and Low Bradley

Historic England records 14 listed buildings within about a mile of High and Low Bradley. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II