Ruston appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, entered under the hundred of Dic in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Ruston at 124 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Ruston supported a recorded population of 262 villagers, 147 smallholders, 136 slaves, working 197 ploughs between them.

The survey records Ruston’s value at 170 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 Ruston (1086)

Mills: 10 mills (valued at 3.47 shillings)

Other Settlements in Dic

The Meaning of the Name

The name Ruston 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 Ruston.

Listed Buildings Near Ruston

Historic England records 25 listed buildings within about a mile of Ruston. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II*