Upper Helmsley in the Domesday Book (1086)
Upper Helmsley appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, entered under the hundred of Bulford in Yorkshire.
Other Settlements in Bulford
- Aldwark
- Alne
- Barnby [House]
- Barton [le Willows]
- Beningbrough
- Bossall
- Brafferton
- Brandsby
- Bulmer
- Buttercrambe
- Carlton [Farm]
- Claxton
- Coneysthorpe
- Corburn
The Meaning of the Name
The name Upper Helmsley is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word lēah, a woodland clearing or glade. 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 clearing’.
Remarkably, the name has changed little since 1086, when the Domesday scribes wrote it as Upper Helmsley.
Listed Buildings Near Upper Helmsley
Historic England records 5 listed buildings within about a mile of Upper Helmsley. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.
Grade II
- Home Farmhouse - 0.71 km
- Dovecot in Garden of no 7 - 0.83 km
- Stank Bridge - 0.96 km
- Church of St Mary - 1.11 km
- Church of St Leonard’s - 1.13 km
Scheduled Monuments Near Upper Helmsley
Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 1 lies within roughly a mile of Upper Helmsley:
Upper Helmsley Today
Today Upper Helmsley lies within the administrative area of Ryedale, and the settlement recorded a population of 51 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 Upper Helmsley on Wikipedia .
Nearby Domesday Settlements
Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:
- Sand Hutton - 1.0 km N
- Gate Helmsley - 2.0 km S
- Carlton Farm - 2.2 km SW
- Thorpe Hill - 2.8 km NE
- Warthill - 2.8 km SW
- Claxton - 3.0 km N
Heritage Around [Upper] Helmsley
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.
© Andy Kerridge · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Sam Kelly · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Kath Bonson · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
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.
Data derived from the Open Domesday project (opendomesday.org), based on the Domesday Book dataset compiled by Professor J.J.N. Palmer and team. The Domesday Book (1086) is in the public domain.
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