The settlement of Swainshead is recorded in William I’s Domesday survey of 1086, entered under the hundred of Amounderness in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Swainshead at 0.6 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Swainshead supported a recorded population of 4 villagers, 4 smallholders, 2 slaves, working 3 ploughs between them.

The survey records Swainshead’s value at 1 shilling 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 Swainshead (1086)

Mills: 1 mill (valued at 2d)
Cattle: 9
Pigs: 12
Sheep: 40
Meadow: 4 acres
Woodland: 6 acres

Other Settlements in Amounderness

The Meaning of the Name

The name Swainshead is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word hēafod, a headland or hill-top. 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 head of land’.

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

Listed Buildings Near Swainshead

Historic England records 1 listed building within about a mile of Swainshead. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II