Swarthorpe appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, entered under the hundred of Land of Count Alan in Yorkshire.

Other Settlements in Land of Count Alan

The Meaning of the Name

The name Swarthorpe is of Scandinavian origin. Its final element derives from the Old Norse word þorp, an outlying or secondary farmstead. 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 outlying farm’.

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 Swarthorpe.

Listed Buildings Near Swarthorpe

Historic England records 3 listed buildings within about a mile of Swarthorpe. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II

Swarthorpe Today

Today Swarthorpe lies within the administrative area of Ellington High and Low.

Read more about modern Low Ellington on Wikipedia .

Nearby Domesday Settlements

Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:

High and Low Ellington - 0.0 km N
High Sutton - 1.0 km S
Clifton on Ure - 1.4 km NE
High Burton - 2.2 km SE
Thirn - 2.2 km NE
Fearby - 2.2 km SW

Heritage Around Swarthorpe

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.

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.

Swarthorpe in the Domesday Book (1086)