Whicham in the Domesday Book (1086)
The settlement of Whicham is recorded in William I’s Domesday survey of 1086, entered under the hundred of Amounderness in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Whicham at 4 carucates of taxable land.
At the time of the survey, Whicham supported a recorded population of 4 villagers, working 2 ploughs between them.
The survey puts Whicham’s value at 1 shilling, the same as before the Conquest. Unchanged valuations are relatively rare in the North, where disruption was widespread.
The survey lists 2 manors at Whicham 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 Whicham (1086)
- Meadow: 2 acres
- Woodland: 5 * 4 None
Other Settlements in Amounderness
- Aighton
- Aldcliffe
- Aldingham
- Arkholme
- Aschebi
- Ashton [Hall]
- Ashton [on Ribble]
- Austwick
- Barbon
- Bardsea
- Bare
- Barnoldswick
- Barton
- Beetham
The Meaning of the Name
The name Whicham is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word hām, a homestead 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 homestead’.
Remarkably, the name has changed little since 1086, when the Domesday scribes wrote it as Whicham.
Listed Buildings Near Whicham
Historic England records 6 listed buildings within about a mile of Whicham. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.
Grade II
- Church of St Mary - 0.24 km
- Whicham and Silecroft War Memorial - 0.45 km
- Range of Buildings Immediately North East of Cross House Farmhouse - 0.74 km
- Manor Cottage Manor House - 0.78 km
- Limekiln Immediately to South West of Bankspring Former Brewery - 1.25 km
- Bankspring Former Brewery - 1.27 km
Scheduled Monuments Near Whicham
Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 1 lies within roughly a mile of Whicham:
Whicham Today
Today Whicham lies within the administrative area of Copeland, and the settlement recorded a population of 477 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 Whicham on Wikipedia .
Nearby Domesday Settlements
Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:
- Kirksanton - 2.2 km SE
- Millom Castle - 4.1 km E
- Millom - 4.5 km SE
- Bootle - 6.7 km NW
- Broughton in Furness - 8.6 km NE
- Kirkby Ireleth - 10.0 km E
Heritage Around Whicham
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.
© Andrew Hill · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Mark Jenkinson · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Mark Jenkinson · 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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