Oakthorpe is named in the Domesday Book, compiled by Norman commissioners in 1086, entered under the hundred of Goscote in LEC. The survey assessed Oakthorpe at 9 carucates of taxable land.

Most significantly, Oakthorpe is recorded as waste in 1086 - land rendered uninhabitable and valueless. Before the Conquest, the settlement had been assessed at 1 shilling; by 1086 that value had collapsed entirely. This pattern - prosperity before 1066, devastation by 1086 - is the unmistakable signature of the Harrying of the North , William I’s campaign of systematic destruction across Yorkshire in 1069–70.

Other Settlements in Goscote

Allexton
Alton
Anstey
Appleby
Appleby [Parva]
Asfordby
Ashby [-de-la-Zouch]
Ashby [Folville]
Barkby
Barrow [-upon-Soar]
Barsby
Beeby
Belgrave
Birstall

The Meaning of the Name

The name Oakthorpe is of Scandinavian origin. Its final element derives from the Old Norse word þorp, an outlying or secondary farmstead, while the first element appears to represent oak. Taken together the name probably meant something close to ’the oak outlying farm’.

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 Oakthorpe.

Listed Buildings Near Oakthorpe

Historic England records 6 listed buildings within about a mile of Oakthorpe. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II