At the time of the Domesday Book Appletree was one of the five Hundreds listed under the county of Derby. In that book it is spelled "Apiltree" – the first part of this name probably belonged to an invading Angle chief who dealt out the rough justice of those days under a tree, a favourite place of law-giving of both Angles and Saxons.
The Appletree Hundred stretches across the middle of the county from Denby nearly to Ashbourne, a glorious stretch of country still composed almost entirely of small villages standing in rich farmland.
Duffield can trace its origins back to about the sixth century and was probably so named by the Angles. The two components of the name are "Duva" (Dove) and "feld" (a wide tract of land). It is interesting to note that the western and southern boundaries of Appletree Hundred are bounded throughout by the River Dove.
The first written record of Duffield and its appended townships appears in the Domesday Book that was compiled in or about AD 1086. Duvelle (Duffield) is entered as one of the holdings of Henry de Ferrers - Duvelle seems to be the nearest that the Norman clerks could get to the name of Duffield! The transcript reads as follows:
"In Duvelle (Duffield) and Bradelei (old Belper) Holebroc-waste (Holbrook) and Muleforde-waste (Milford) and Machenie-waste (Makeney) and in Herdebi (Coxbench) Siward had seven carucates of land for geld and the sixth part of one carucate. Land for seven ploughs and the sixth part of one plough. There are now in the demesne three ploughs; and thirty two villeins and eight bordars and ten serfs having eight ploughs and twenty acres of meadow. Wood pasturable four miles in length and two in breadth. There is a priest and a church and two mills of eight shillings (annual value). In the time of King Edward it was worth nine pounds now seven pounds. In Herdebi Henry has the sixth part of one carucate."
Duffield Castle does not appear in the record because it was built somewhat later by Henry de Ferrers in the 12th century - and was razed by Henry III about 1266 after Robert de Ferrers had joined with the rebellion of Simon de Montfort.
Excavations at the end of the 19th century revealed the foundations of a Norman Keep second in area only to Colchester and the White Tower in the Tower of London.
The site of the Norman keep was given to the National Trust in 1897 and was one of the NT’s first acquisitions in Derbyshire.
Duffield Castle Site
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