The 1086 Domesday survey records the settlement of Ounesbi, entered under the hundred of Land of Count Alan in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Ounesbi at 12 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Ounesbi supported a recorded population of 45 villagers, 21 smallholders, 6 slaves, working 21 ploughs between them.

The survey records Ounesbi’s value at 16 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 Ounesbi (1086)

Mills: 2 mills (valued at 1 shilling)
Meadow: 10 acres
Woodland: 2 * 2 leagues & 3 * 2 furlongs mixed measures

Other Settlements in Land of Count Alan

The Meaning of the Name

The origin of the name Ounesbi is not securely established from its modern form alone; like many settlement names in the North it likely combines an Old English or Old Norse personal name with a landscape term.

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

Listed Buildings Near Ounesbi

Historic England records 3 listed buildings within about a mile of Ounesbi. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade I

Allerthorpe Hall - 0.82 km
Gatepiers to Allerthorpe Hall - 0.84 km

Grade II

Ivy Garth (Marked on the Ordnance Survey Map As Berry Garth) - 0.41 km

Ounesbi Today

Today Ounesbi lies within the administrative area of Hambleton, and the settlement recorded a population of 48 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 Gatenby on Wikipedia .