Cobbledick

Recorded in many spelling forms including Cobledike, Cobbledick, Cobbleditch, Copleditch, Copeldick, the perhaps extinct Cuppleditch, and the certainly extinct Cobberduke, this is a rare English surname. It is almost certainly locational and possibly from the fenlands region of East Anglia, as the first known recording is from the county of Lincolnshire. The name does seem to mean the ditch or dyke built of cobble, this being an early form of construction used particularly in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk until quite recently, although the famous Victorian etymologist Canon Charles Bardsley writing in the year 1880, claimed that the name means 'Cobbalds dike', with Cobbald being an early first name. Either translation is possible, but what is certain is that the place so named no longer exists, and that it must be assumed that this surname in its myriad of spellings, is now one from a 'lost' medieval village. The fens were drained between the 14th and 18th centuries, and hundreds of hamlets and villages, subsequently disappeared, athough many, perhaps the majority, produced surnames which have survived into the late 20th century. In this case the first known recordings are believed to be those of Johannes de Cupeldik of Lincolnshire in the Hundred Rolls of 1273, and Roger de Cubbeldik also of the same county in the Parliamentary Writs for the year 1313. Later recordings include John Cobberduke at St Giles Cripplegate in the city of London, on August 20th 1700, John Coupleditch at St Helens Threddlethorpe, Lincolnshire on May 15th 1747, and Emma Cobbledick, who married Henry Davis at St James Paddington, also in the city of London, on May 14th 1835.