Brastead

Recorded in the spellings of Brastead, Brasted, and Braisted, this is an English surname. It is locational from a village called Brasted in the county of Kent, near the town of Westerham. The spelling of the village name in the 13th century was Bradstede, suggesting that the meaning was either a broad house but probably meaning a large farmhouse, or the broad place, possibly a reference to grazing or common lands around which the village housing would have been grouped. The surname being locational is a "from" name. That is to say a surname given as identification to somebody who left his or her original home, and moved elsewhere. In this case this seems to have been the town of East Grinstead in Sussex where the surname usually in the spelling of Brasted, has been well recorded since Elizabethan times. This was at the very begining of the compulsory registration of births, weddings and funerals in church registers, which commenced in London area in 1535, A curosity of the surname is that although by any standards a Kentish surname, it does not seem to be recorded in Kent at all! Early examples of the surname recording include Letticia Brasted, the daughter of Henry Brasted, who was christened at East Grinstead on August 26th 1571, whilst the first recording in London is probably that of William Bangley Brasted. He is recorded as a witness at Holy Trinity in the Minories on March 15th 1812 when his daughter Hannah was christened, and thereafter until 1820, he appears in various church registers including those of St Botolphs Bishopgate, and St Matthews, Bethnal Green. He was literally the father of the family in that area.