Nantwich is named in the Domesday Book, compiled by Norman commissioners in 1086, entered under the hundred of Warmundestrou in Cheshire. The survey assessed Nantwich at 60.8 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Nantwich supported a recorded population of 224 villagers, 81 smallholders, 15 slaves, working 231 ploughs between them.

The survey records Nantwich’s value at 7d 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.

The survey lists 2 manors at Nantwich under different lords. Splitting a single settlement between multiple tenants was common across the North – Saxon estates broken up and handed to William’s followers after 1066.

Resources Recorded at Nantwich (1086)

Mills: 8 mills (valued at 5.4 shillings)
Woodland: 6 * 3 None

Other Settlements in Warmundestrou

The Meaning of the Name

The name Nantwich is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word wīc, a dwelling or (in Cheshire) a salt-working settlement. 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 salt town’.

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

Listed Buildings Near Nantwich

Historic England records 128 listed buildings within about a mile of Nantwich. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade I

Churche’s Mansion - 0.31 km

Grade II*

Wright’s Almshouses - 0.15 km
Forecourt Wall and Gateway of Wright’s Almshouses - 0.18 km
Dysart Buildings - 0.27 km

Grade II

Crewe’s Almshouses - 0.15 km
The Rookery - 0.27 km
122 and 124, Hospital Street - 0.3 km
130 and 132, Hospital Street - 0.3 km
136 and 138, Hospital Street - 0.3 km
144, Hospital Street - 0.3 km
134, Hospital Street - 0.3 km
116 and 118, Hospital Street - 0.3 km
126, Hospital Street - 0.3 km
140 and 142, Hospital Street - 0.3 km
146, Hospital Street - 0.3 km
Old School at Rear of Number 65 (Sweetbriar Hall) - 0.31 km
Whitewell House - 0.31 km
148, Hospital Street - 0.31 km
69 and 71, Hospital Street - 0.32 km
94 and 96, Hospital Street - 0.32 km
Nuthurst School - 0.32 km
Congregational Chapel - 0.32 km
Sweetbriar Hall Wayside - 0.33 km
Methodist Church - 0.35 km

…and 104 more listed structures in the area.

Nantwich Today

Today Nantwich lies within the administrative area of Cheshire East, and the settlement recorded a population of 14,051 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 Nantwich on Wikipedia .