Out Rawcliffe appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, entered under the hundred of Amounderness in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Out Rawcliffe at 2 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Out Rawcliffe supported a recorded population of 4 villagers, 5 smallholders, working 2 ploughs between them.

The numbers record a sharp fall. Before 1066, Out Rawcliffe was worth 2 shillings; by 1086 that had dropped to 1.25 shillings – a fall of 37%. 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.

Resources Recorded at Out Rawcliffe (1086)

Meadow: 36 acres

Other Settlements in Amounderness

The Meaning of the Name

The name Out Rawcliffe is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word clif, a cliff or steep slope. 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 slope’.

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

Listed Buildings Near Out Rawcliffe

Historic England records 4 listed buildings within about a mile of Out Rawcliffe. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II

Cattle Pound - 0.91 km
Rawcliffe Hall - 1.04 km
Church of St John - 1.08 km
Old Vicarage - 1.1 km

Out Rawcliffe Today

Today Out Rawcliffe lies within the administrative area of Wyre, and the settlement recorded a population of 630 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 Out Rawcliffe on Wikipedia .