West Carlton is named in the Domesday Book, compiled by Norman commissioners in 1086, entered under the hundred of Holderness [Middle Hundred] in Yorkshire. The survey assessed West Carlton at 15 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, West Carlton supported a recorded population of 10 villagers, 8 smallholders, working 7 ploughs between them.

Something went badly wrong here between the two surveys. Before 1066, West Carlton was worth 15 shillings; by 1086 that had dropped to 10 shillings – a fall of 33%. Most Yorkshire villages that lost value on this scale were swept up in the Harrying of the North – William’s scorched-earth campaign of 1069–70.

Resources Recorded at West Carlton (1086)

Mills: 2 mills (valued at 8d)
Woodland: 1000 pigs

Other Settlements in Holderness [Middle Hundred]

The Meaning of the Name

The name West Carlton 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 Carlton.

Listed Buildings Near West Carlton

Historic England records 1 listed building within about a mile of West Carlton. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade II