The 1086 Domesday survey records the settlement of Misperton, entered under the hundred of Maneshou in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Misperton at 20 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Misperton supported a recorded population of 42 villagers, 10 smallholders, working 47 ploughs between them.

The survey records Misperton’s value at 21 shillings in 1086. No pre-Conquest figure survives – not unusual in the North, where records were disrupted by the Harrying and by the patchy coverage of the survey.

Resources Recorded at Misperton (1086)

Woodland: 3 * 1 leagues

Other Settlements in Maneshou

The Meaning of the Name

The name Misperton is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word tūn, 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’.

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

Listed Buildings Near Misperton

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

Grade II*

Church of St Laurence - 0.32 km

Grade II

Old Rectory and Railings Attached to Doorstep - 0.25 km
Obelisk approximately 350 metres north-east of Kirby Misperton Hall - 0.61 km
Kirby Misperton Bridge - 1.14 km

Misperton Today

Today Misperton lies within the administrative area of Ryedale, and the settlement recorded a population of 310 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 Kirby Misperton on Wikipedia .