West Ayton in the Domesday Book (1086)

The settlement of West Ayton is recorded in William I’s Domesday survey of 1086, entered under the hundred of Dic in Yorkshire. The survey assessed West Ayton at 7.1 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, West Ayton supported a recorded population of 1 villager, 3 smallholders, 2 slaves, working 5 ploughs between them.

The survey records West Ayton’s value at 6 shillings 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.

The survey lists 2 manors at West Ayton under different lords. Splitting a single settlement between multiple tenants was common across the North – Saxon estates broken up and handed to William’s followers after 1066.

Resources Recorded at West Ayton (1086)

• Mills: 1 mill (valued at 2d)
• Meadow: 2 acres
• Woodland: 3 acres

Other Settlements in Dic

• Aislaby
• Allerston
• Appleton [le Moors]
• Aschelesmersc
• Aschilesmares
• Barton [le Street]
• Baschebi
• Baschesbi
• Brompton
• Burniston
• Burton [Dale]
• Cawthorn
• Cayton
• Chigogemers

The Meaning of the Name

The name West Ayton is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word tūn, a farmstead or village. 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 farmstead’.

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

Listed Buildings Near West Ayton

Historic England records 28 listed buildings within about a mile of West Ayton. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade I

• Ayton Castle - 0.63 km

Grade II*

• Church of Saint John the Baptist - 0.7 km

Grade II

• Burton House - 0.16 km
• Derwent House - 0.19 km
• Low Hall - 0.21 km
• Candler House - 0.22 km
• The Elms - 0.31 km
• High Hall - 0.33 km
• Ayton Bridge - 0.36 km
• Yedmandale Terrace - 0.44 km
• High Mill - 0.45 km
• Ebenezer Methodist Chapel - 0.51 km
• 8 and 10, Castlegate - 0.56 km
• 12, Castlegate - 0.58 km
• Old Weaver’s Cottage - 0.61 km
• Village Pound - 0.63 km
• Church Farmhouse - 0.65 km
• 43, Main Street - 0.68 km
• 34, Castlegate - 0.72 km
• Mount Pleasant Farmhouse - 0.79 km
• Pasture Cottage - 1.05 km
• Bay Nigg - 1.12 km
• The Kennels - 1.14 km
• The Forge and Attached Outbuildings - 1.24 km

…and 4 more listed structures in the area.

Scheduled Monuments Near West Ayton

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

• Ayton Castle: medieval manorial centre, fortified house including tower and fishponds - 0.69 km

West Ayton Today

Today West Ayton lies within the administrative area of Scarborough, and the settlement recorded a population of 1,027 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 West Ayton on Wikipedia .

Nearby Domesday Settlements

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

• Newton - 0.0 km N
• East Ayton - 1.0 km E
• Hutton Buscel - 1.0 km W
• Preston Hill - 1.0 km W
• Martin Garth - 2.0 km W
• Wykeham - 2.2 km SW