Little Smeaton is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England.The Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas of City of York, York and North Yorkshire (district), North Yorkshire are in Yorkshire and t ...

, England. The population of the parish at the 2011 Census was 283. It is next to

Kirk Smeaton Kirk Smeaton is a village and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. It is located at the southern end of the county, close to South Yorkshire and East Riding of Yorkshire. Historically, the village was part of the West Riding of Yorkshire ...

, and the

River Went The River Went is a river in Yorkshire, England. It rises close to Featherstone and flows eastward, joining the River Don just to the north of Pincheon Green. The river is classified as a main river by the Environment Agency, and is therefo ...

flows through it. It was historically part of the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...

until 1974. From 1974 to 2023 it was part of the district of

Selby Selby is a market town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England, south of York on the River Ouse. At the 2021 Census, it had a population of 17,193. The town was historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire; from 1974 until 2023, ...

, it is now administered by the unitary

North Yorkshire Council North Yorkshire Council, known between 1974 and 2023 as North Yorkshire County Council, is the local authority for the non-metropolitan county of North Yorkshire, England. Since 2023 the council has been a unitary authority, being a county coun ...

Etymology

The name ''Smeaton'' is first attested in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086, in the form ''Smedetone''. This derives from

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

words ''smiþ'' (in its

genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...

plural In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...

form ''smiþa'') and ''tūn'' ('farm, estate'), and thus once meant 'smiths' farm'. The ''little'' element of the name is first attested in Latin translation in forms like ''smitheton minori'' and ''parva smitheton'' in 1311, and in English in 1315 as ''litle smitheton''. This element was added to the name to distinguish the settlement from nearby

.A. H. Smith, ''The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire'', English Place-Name Society, 30–37, 8 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961–63)
part 2
pp. 52-53.

References

External links

Little Smeaton Parish CouncilThe Smeaton Villages websiteLittle Smeaton
in the

Villages in North Yorkshire Civil parishes in North Yorkshire {{NorthYorkshire-geo-stub