Raventhorpe in the Domesday Book (1086)

The settlement of Raventhorpe is recorded in William I’s Domesday survey of 1086, entered under the hundred of Sneculfcros in Yorkshire.

Other Settlements in Sneculfcros

• Aike
• Beswick
• Beverley
• Bracken
• Dunnington
• Etton
• Gardham
• Grimston
• Holme [on the Wolds]
• Ianulfestorp
• Kilnwick
• Leconfield
• Lockington
• Middleton [on the Wolds]

The Meaning of the Name

The name Raventhorpe is of Scandinavian origin. Its final element derives from the Old Norse word þorp, an outlying or secondary farmstead. 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 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 Raventhorpe.

Scheduled Monuments Near Raventhorpe

Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 3 lie within roughly a mile of Raventhorpe:

• Moated site 100m north of Parkhouse Farm - 0.62 km
• Moated site and two fishponds 80m south-west of Parkhouse Farm. - 0.72 km
• Moated site of Leconfield Castle - 0.92 km

Nearby Domesday Settlements

Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:

• Leconfield - 1.4 km NE
• Neuson - 1.4 km NE
• Cherry Burton - 1.4 km SW
• Etton - 2.2 km NW
• Steintorp - 2.2 km NW
• Steitorp - 2.2 km NW