Howthorpe Farm in the Domesday Book (1086)

The 1086 Domesday survey records the settlement of Howthorpe Farm, entered under the hundred of Maneshou in Yorkshire.

Other Settlements in Maneshou

• Amotherby
• Ampleforth
• Appleton [le Street]
• Beadlam
• Brawby
• Broughton
• Cawton
• Coulton
• Fadmoor
• Fryton
• Gillamoor
• Gilling [East]
• Griff [Farm]
• Grimston

The Meaning of the Name

The name Howthorpe Farm is of Scandinavian origin. Its final element derives from the Old Norse word þorp, an outlying or secondary farmstead. 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 outlying farm’.

Names of this type are a fingerprint of Scandinavian settlement: they cluster across the old Danelaw, where Norse-speaking settlers renamed or founded villages from the late 9th century onward.

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

Scheduled Monuments Near Howthorpe Farm

Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 9 lie within roughly a mile of Howthorpe Farm:

• Round barrow 200m ESE of Hollin Hill - 1.1 km
• Round barrow 250m ENE of High Baxtonhowe - 1.14 km
• Round barrow 350m NNE of High Baxtonhowe - 1.18 km
• Round barrow 350m north east of High Baxtonhowe - 1.23 km
• Round barrow 450m ENE of High Baxtonhowe - 1.32 km
• Round barrow 350m north east of Hollin Hill - 1.35 km
• Round barrow 400m north east of Hollin Hill - 1.37 km
• Round barrow 570m ENE of High Baxtonhowe - 1.44 km
• Round barrow 750m ENE of High Baxtonhowe - 1.59 km

Howthorpe Farm Today

Today Howthorpe Farm lies within the administrative area of Hovingham.

Nearby Domesday Settlements

Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:

• Wiganthorpe Hall - 1.0 km W
• Terrington - 2.0 km S
• Ganthorpe - 2.2 km SE
• Slingsby - 2.8 km NE
• Scackleton - 3.0 km W
• Hawade - 3.0 km N