Doomsday book 1086

The traditional view is that Kirkheaton began life as ‘he ton’ or ‘heaton’, which comes from two Olde English words ‘heah’, meaning high and ‘tun’, a settlement or farm, to give the translation of the ‘dweller at the high farm’.

However, the first historical reference to the settlement which would become Kirkheaton is actually ‘Heptone’ (Hepton in modern English) in the Domesday Book of 1086. ‘Heope’ or ‘Heopa’ in Old English means brambles or rosehips to give the farm where the brambles grow. In Norman times Hepton would have been little more than a hamlet. The Domesday Book records two brothers living there in 1066.

Where this settlement was remains a mystery although it was almost certainly on high ground. It may have been at Upper Heaton or on Cockley Hill where medieval remains have been found. As to the disappearance of the name Hepton that may have come about when the de Heton family became one of the major landowners in the village in the late twelfth or early thirteenth centuries. Places were often named after the families that owned them and this was certainly the case with the de Hetons. Besides land in (Kirk)Heaton they also owned land in Westheaton and Eastheaton (modern day Hanging Heaton) in Dewsbury.

Many surnames originate from placenames. Although Hepton no longer exists as a place the name still survives as a surname, e.g., the footballer Stan Hepton played for Huddersfield Town in the 1950s. Perhaps the old village name of Hepton did survive for some time.

JLL

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