Low Swainby in the Domesday Book (1086)
Low Swainby is named in the Domesday Book, compiled by Norman commissioners in 1086, entered under the hundred of Land of Count Alan in Yorkshire.
Other Settlements in Land of Count Alan
- Achebi
- Agglethorpe
- Ainderby [Mires]
- Ainderby [Quernhow]
- Aiskew
- Aldbrough
- Allerthorpe [Hall]
- Ascam
- Ascham
- Asebi
- Aske [Hall]
- Askrigg
- Aysgarth
- Baldersby
The Meaning of the Name
The name Low Swainby is of Scandinavian origin. Its final element derives from the Old Norse word bý, a farmstead or village. 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 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 Low Swainby.
Scheduled Monuments Near Low Swainby
Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 1 lies within roughly a mile of Low Swainby:
Low Swainby Today
Today Low Swainby lies within the administrative area of Hambleton, and the settlement recorded a population of 19 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 Swainby with Allerthorpe on Wikipedia .
Nearby Domesday Settlements
Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:
- Seuenetorp - 0.0 km N
- Maunby - 1.4 km NE
- Allerthorpe Hall - 1.4 km NW
- Gatenby - 2.2 km NW
- Ounesbi - 2.2 km NW
- Pickhill - 2.2 km SE
Heritage Around [Low] Swainby
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.
© Chris Heaton · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Chris Heaton · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© David Rogers · 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.
Location
54.2639°N, -1.4856°W · Land of Count Alan hundred, Yorkshire
View larger map on OpenStreetMap →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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