The settlement of Somersal is recorded in William I’s Domesday survey of 1086, entered under the hundred of Appletree in Derbyshire. The survey assessed Somersal at 0.4 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Somersal supported a recorded population of 2 smallholders, 1 slave, working 1 plough between them.

The survey records Somersal’s value at 7d 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 Somersal (1086)

Mills: 1 mill (valued at 5d)
Pigs: 2
Sheep: 15
Meadow: 2 acres

Other Settlements in Appletree

The Meaning of the Name

The origin of the name Somersal is not securely established from its modern form alone; like many settlement names in the North it likely combines an Old English or Old Norse personal name with a landscape term.

Remarkably, the name has changed little since 1086, when the Domesday scribes wrote it as Somersal.

Listed Buildings Near Somersal

Historic England records 13 listed buildings within about a mile of Somersal. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade I

The Hall - 0.34 km

Grade II*

Montgomery House - 0.43 km

Grade II

Church Cottage - 0.26 km
Gate Piers and Attached Walls at the Hall - 0.29 km
K6 Telephone Kiosk - 0.29 km
Outbuildings to North East of the Hall - 0.3 km
Church of St Peter - 0.3 km
Lychgate to Church of St Peter - 0.3 km
Hill Farmhouse - 0.31 km
Churchyard Cross - 0.32 km
Barn to Rear of Montgomery House - 0.41 km
The Old Cottage - 0.41 km
Woodhouse Farmhouse - 1.14 km

Scheduled Monuments Near Somersal

Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 1 lies within roughly a mile of Somersal:

Standing cross in the churchyard of St Peter’s Church - 0.32 km

Somersal Today

Today Somersal lies within the administrative area of Derbyshire Dales, and the settlement recorded a population of 81 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 Somersal Herbert on Wikipedia .