I've been taking a look at the notion from the houseofnames site that
the Bottomleys had a "family seat" at Bottomley. They define the term
as "the principal manor of a medieval lord" and "normally an elegant
country mansion" or "a manor house". ROFL.
Bottomley wasn't even a township (but see below) in Domesday; it was a
minor hamlet that didn't even appear by name. It became part of the
Warrens' manor of Wakefield and eventually part of the "inferior manor"
(i.e. a sublet township) of Barkisland. In Domesday it would have been
part of Sorebi (Sowerby) one of the several berewicks which formed the
western end of the manor.
The name first appears as a place early in the surviving manorial rolls,
on 23 My 1275:
SOUREBY. — The townships [villate] of Bothemlei and Barkesland have
respite until the Steward's coming to Sourby, to make fine for
withdrawing from suit at the mill of Soland,
It's not unknown elsewhere in the rolls for hamlets to be written up as
if they were townships. Villata seems to be generally used for any
definable community.
Bottomley first appears in connection with a personal name in the same
year in the court on the Friday in Whit week (I think 14 Jun):
RASTRICK.— Warin de Marcheden gives 12d. for replevying 2 stots and a
foal, which were seized in the Earl's liberty, until the next Court, and
also that he will then come, and prove them by true men to be his
beasts; pledges, Walter de Marcheden and Hugh de Bothemley.
The de Bottomleys (in all their medieval spelling variations) would have
been manorial copyhold tenants just like the de Littlewoods and the de
Hinchliffes of Holmfirth. The names wouldn't have become heriditary
surnames until the following century.
Ian