The settlement of Topcliffe is recorded in William I’s Domesday survey of 1086, entered under the hundred of Yarlestre in Yorkshire.

Other Settlements in Yarlestre

The Meaning of the Name

The name Topcliffe is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word clif, a cliff or steep slope. 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 slope’.

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

Listed Buildings Near Topcliffe

Historic England records 19 listed buildings within about a mile of Topcliffe. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II*

Church of St Columba - 0.77 km

Grade II

Mile-post Approximately 100 Metres to South of Kibber Hall - 0.52 km
The Old Vicarage - 0.6 km
Dovecote 35 Metres East of Hall Farmhouse - 0.61 km
Hall Farmhouse - 0.64 km
Ye Old Golden Lion Cottage - 0.66 km
Jasmine Cottage - 0.66 km
Duart and House to Right - 0.67 km
The Old Post House - 0.68 km
The Mount - 0.7 km
Walkers Ground - 0.71 km
The Old Tolbooth - 0.71 km
The Old School to North of Church in Churchyard - 0.76 km
Medieval Cross Base Outside Post Office - 0.77 km
Wesleyan Chapel - 0.78 km
Topcliffe Mill House - 0.94 km
Topcliffe Mill - 0.95 km
Highfield House - 1.14 km
Roecliffe House - 1.16 km

Scheduled Monuments Near Topcliffe

Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 2 lie within roughly a mile of Topcliffe:

Topcliffe Today

Today Topcliffe lies within the administrative area of Hambleton, and the settlement recorded a population of 1,237 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 Topcliffe on Wikipedia .