North Cowton 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

The Meaning of the Name

The name North Cowton 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 North Cowton.

Listed Buildings Near North Cowton

Historic England records 8 listed buildings within about a mile of North Cowton. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade I

Church of Saint Mary - 1.08 km

Grade II

Town End Farmhouse - 0.38 km
Town End Cottage - 0.38 km
Haughton House - 0.47 km
North Cowton War Memorial - 0.5 km
Cobbler’s House - 0.52 km
Railway Bridge - 1.1 km
Station House and Station Cottage - 1.27 km

Scheduled Monuments Near North Cowton

Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 1 lies within roughly a mile of North Cowton:

South Cowton deserted medieval village, immediately south west of Cowton Castle - 1.46 km

North Cowton Today

Today North Cowton lies within the administrative area of Richmondshire, and the settlement recorded a population of 506 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 North Cowton on Wikipedia .