Kirkby Ireleth is named in the Domesday Book, compiled by Norman commissioners in 1086, entered under the hundred of Amounderness in Yorkshire.

Other Settlements in Amounderness

The Meaning of the Name

The name Kirkby Ireleth is of Scandinavian origin. Its final element derives from the Old Norse word bý, a farmstead or village, while the first element appears to represent the church (ON kirkja). Taken together the name probably meant something close to ’the church farmstead’.

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 Kirkby Ireleth.

Listed Buildings Near Kirkby Ireleth

Historic England records 4 listed buildings within about a mile of Kirkby Ireleth. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade I

Kirkby Hall - 1.07 km

Grade II*

Church of St Cuthbert - 0.35 km

Grade II

Barn Opposite Ship Inn - 0.83 km
Railway Footbridge at Kirkby in Furness Station - 0.9 km

Scheduled Monuments Near Kirkby Ireleth

Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 1 lies within roughly a mile of Kirkby Ireleth:

Cairn and ring mound on Long Moor, W of Gill House Beck - 1.52 km

Kirkby Ireleth Today

Today Kirkby Ireleth lies within the administrative area of South Lakeland, and the settlement recorded a population of 1,201 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 Kirkby Ireleth on Wikipedia .