Lower and Upper Thurnham in the Domesday Book (1086)
Lower and Upper Thurnham appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, entered under the hundred of Amounderness in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Lower and Upper Thurnham at 1 carucate of taxable land.
At the time of the survey, Lower and Upper Thurnham supported a recorded population of 1 villager, 2 smallholders, working 1 plough between them.
The survey puts Lower and Upper Thurnham’s value at 10d, the same as before the Conquest. Unchanged valuations are relatively rare in the North, where disruption was widespread.
Other Settlements in Amounderness
- Aighton
- Aldcliffe
- Aldingham
- Arkholme
- Aschebi
- Ashton [Hall]
- Ashton [on Ribble]
- Austwick
- Barbon
- Bardsea
- Bare
- Barnoldswick
- Barton
- Beetham
The Meaning of the Name
The name Lower and Upper Thurnham is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word hām, a homestead 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 homestead’.
Remarkably, the name has changed little since 1086, when the Domesday scribes wrote it as Lower and Upper Thurnham.
Listed Buildings Near Lower and Upper Thurnham
Historic England records 13 listed buildings within about a mile of Lower and Upper Thurnham. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.
Grade I
- Thurnham Hall - 0.25 km
Grade II*
Grade II
- Cross Approx. 8 Metres East of Church of St. Thomas and St. Elizabeth - 0.17 km
- Church of St Thomas and St Elizabeth - 0.18 km
- Fourth Lock - 0.2 km
- The Dower House, Thurnham Hall - 0.23 km
- Chapel at Thurnham Hall - 0.25 km
- Laund House - 0.72 km
- Fifth Lock - 0.76 km
- Third Lock - 0.83 km
- Sixth Lock - 1.06 km
- Second Lock Bridge - 1.11 km
- Lancaster Canal Second Lock - 1.14 km
Lower and Upper Thurnham Today
Today Lower and Upper Thurnham lies within the administrative area of Lancaster, and the settlement recorded a population of 577 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 Thurnham on Wikipedia .
Nearby Domesday Settlements
Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:
Heritage Around [Lower and Upper] Thurnham
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.
© Alexander P Kapp · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Michael Graham · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© J Scott · 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.
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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