Rigton in the Domesday Book (1086)
Rigton is named in the Domesday Book, compiled by Norman commissioners in 1086, entered under the hundred of Burghshire in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Rigton at 3 carucates of taxable land.
At the time of the survey, Rigton supported a recorded population of 9 villagers, 4 smallholders, 3 slaves, working 3 ploughs between them.
The survey records Rigton’s value at 2 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 Rigton (1086)
- Cattle: 16
- Sheep: 200
- Horses (cobs): 1
- Woodland: 100 acres
Other Settlements in Burghshire
- Addlethorpe
- Aismunderby
- Aldfield
- Allerton [Mauleverer]
- Arkendale
- Askwith
- Azerley
- Barrowby [Grange]
- Beckwith [House]
- Besthaim
- Bestham
- Bewerley
- Bilton
- Birstwith
The Meaning of the Name
The name Rigton 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 Rigton.
Listed Buildings Near Rigton
Historic England records 2 listed buildings within about a mile of Rigton. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.
Grade II
- Stocks - 0.59 km
- Sycamore Farmhouse - 0.75 km
Scheduled Monuments Near Rigton
Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 1 lies within roughly a mile of Rigton:
Rigton Today
Today Rigton lies within the administrative area of Harrogate, and the settlement recorded a population of 479 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 North Rigton on Wikipedia .
Nearby Domesday Settlements
Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:
- Walton Head - 3.0 km E
- Beckwith House - 3.0 km N
- Weeton - 3.0 km S
- Rossett Green - 3.2 km N
- Dunkeswick - 3.6 km SE
- Kirkby Overblow - 4.0 km E
Heritage Around Rigton
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.
© Alexander P Kapp · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Alexander P Kapp · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Betty Longbottom · 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.
Found an inaccuracy? [email protected]