The 1086 Domesday survey records the settlement of Moxby Hall, entered under the hundred of Bulford in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Moxby Hall at 4 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Moxby Hall supported a recorded population of 16 villagers, 2 smallholders, working 9 ploughs between them.

The drop in value is hard to miss. Before 1066, Moxby Hall was worth 6 shillings; by 1086 that had dropped to 3 shillings – a fall of 50%. Most Yorkshire villages that lost value on this scale were swept up in the Harrying of the North – William’s scorched-earth campaign of 1069–70.

Resources Recorded at Moxby Hall (1086)

Meadow: 30 acres
Woodland: 3 * 1 furlongs

Other Settlements in Bulford

The Meaning of the Name

The name Moxby Hall 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 Moxby Hall.

Listed Buildings Near Moxby Hall

Historic England records 1 listed building within about a mile of Moxby Hall. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II