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
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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