Raby in the Domesday Book (1086)
The settlement of Raby is recorded in William I’s Domesday survey of 1086, entered under the hundred of Willaston in Cheshire.
Other Settlements in Willaston
The Meaning of the Name
The name Raby is of Scandinavian origin. Its final element derives from the Old Norse word bý, 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’.
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 Raby.
Listed Buildings Near Raby
Historic England records 11 listed buildings within about a mile of Raby. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.
Grade II
- Jasmine Cottage - 0.58 km
- Wheatsheaf Inn - 0.61 km
- Farm Building to Corner Farm Alongside the Green - 0.63 km
- Corner Farm Farmhouse - 0.64 km
- Building to west of White House Farm, Raby - 0.69 km
- Pear Tree Cottage - 0.79 km
- Chicken Corner Farm - 0.98 km
- Cherry Farmhouse - 1.08 km
- Stanacres - 1.22 km
- Lydiate Lodge - 1.24 km
- The Lydiate - 1.29 km
Raby Today
Today Raby lies within the administrative area of Wirral, and the settlement recorded a population of 100 at recent figures. Nine and a half centuries separate that figure from the small rural community the Domesday survey recorded here in 1086.
Read more about modern Raby on Wikipedia .
Nearby Domesday Settlements
Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:
- Hargrave - 1.0 km E
- Thornton Hough - 1.4 km NW
- Little Neston - 2.2 km SW
- Hadlow - 2.8 km SE
- Great Neston - 2.8 km SW
- Poulton Lancelyn - 2.8 km NE
Heritage Around Raby
Photographs of churches, listed buildings and monuments in the vicinity, contributed by volunteers to the Geograph project and reused here under a Creative Commons licence.
© Sue Adair · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Rosalind Mitchell · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© El Pollock · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
Images © their respective photographers, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 and reused here with attribution. Photographs depict listed buildings, churches and monuments near this settlement and may show neighbouring villages.
Data derived from the Open Domesday project (opendomesday.org), based on the Domesday Book dataset compiled by Professor J.J.N. Palmer and team. The Domesday Book (1086) is in the public domain.
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