The 1086 Domesday survey records the settlement of Roby, entered under the hundred of [West] Derby in Cheshire. The survey assessed Roby at 9.5 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Roby supported a recorded population of 42 villagers, 23 smallholders, working 11 ploughs between them.

The survey puts Roby’s value at 4 shillings, the same as before the Conquest. Unchanged valuations are relatively rare in the North, where disruption was widespread.

The survey lists 3 manors at Roby 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 Roby (1086)

Salthouses: 27
Meadow: 60 acres

Other Settlements in [West] Derby

The Meaning of the Name

The name Roby 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 Roby.

Listed Buildings Near Roby

Historic England records 17 listed buildings within about a mile of Roby. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II*

Church of St Michael - 0.75 km

Grade II

Church of St Bartholomew - 0.66 km
Village Cross - 0.72 km
Monument to East of North Aisle of Church of St Michael - 0.77 km
Entrance Gateway to Church of St Michael at South Corner of Churchyard - 0.79 km
Entrance Gateway to Church of St Michael at North East Corner of Churchyard - 0.8 km
Huyton Cricket and Bowling Club Pavilion - 0.8 km
Railway Bridge - 0.85 km
Roby Toll House - 0.93 km
66, Roby Road - 0.94 km
1-5, Station Road - 0.95 km
Roby Cross Approximately 30 Metres West of Station Road Junction - 0.96 km
Park Hall - 1.16 km
Greenhill - 1.16 km
Newland - 1.2 km
United Reformed Church - 1.25 km
22, ST MARY’S ROAD (See details for further address information) - 1.29 km

Roby Today

Today Roby lies within the administrative area of Knowsley, and the settlement recorded a population of 7,254 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 Roby on Wikipedia .