Whitley in the Domesday Book (1086)
The settlement of Whitley is recorded in William I’s Domesday survey of 1086, entered under the hundred of Osgodcross in Yorkshire.
Other Settlements in Osgodcross
- Arksey
- Badsworth
- Beal
- Burgh[wallis]
- Campsall
- Darrington
- Featherstone
- Ferry [Fryston]
- Hamphall [Stubbs]
- Hensall
- Hessle
- Kellington
- Knottingley
- Minsthorpe
The Meaning of the Name
The name Whitley 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 Whitley.
Scheduled Monuments Near Whitley
Scheduled monuments are nationally important archaeological sites given legal protection. 1 lies within roughly a mile of Whitley:
Whitley Today
Today Whitley lies within the administrative area of Selby, and the settlement recorded a population of 1,195 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 Whitley on Wikipedia .
Nearby Domesday Settlements
Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:
- High and Low Eggborough - 2.0 km N
- Roall Hall - 3.0 km N
- Kellington - 3.2 km N
- Hensall - 3.6 km NE
- Womersley - 4.2 km SW
- Beal - 5.0 km NW
Heritage Around Whitley
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.
© Steve Fareham · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Glyn Drury · Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
© Bill Henderson · 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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