Ouston Farm is named in the Domesday Book, compiled by Norman commissioners in 1086, entered under the hundred of Ainsty in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Ouston Farm at 10.6 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Ouston Farm supported a recorded population of 1 villager, 42 smallholders, 8 slaves, working 6 ploughs between them.

Something went badly wrong here between the two surveys. Before 1066, Ouston Farm was worth 9.75 shillings; by 1086 that had dropped to 8.5 shillings – a fall of 12%. 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.

The survey lists 3 manors at Ouston Farm 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 Ouston Farm (1086)

Meadow: 91 acres
Woodland: 2 swine render

Other Settlements in Ainsty

The Meaning of the Name

The name Ouston Farm 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 Ouston Farm.

Listed Buildings Near Ouston Farm

Historic England records 2 listed buildings within about a mile of Ouston Farm. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II