Foxall

Recorded in several spellings including Foxhall, Foxall and Foxehole, this unusual surname is English and apparently locational. However there is no such place in England as Fox Hall, although there are several such sites in Ireland, none of which appear to be the "home" of a surname. This suggests that either the nameholders come from one of the various places called Fox Hill found throughout England, or from a now "lost" medieval village, or more likely in our opinion from the area of London known as Vauxhall. This place was recorded in 1279 as "Faulkshale", which seems to prove our theory. Vauxhall or Faulkshale means "the house of Folk", an early personal and now surname of Germanic origins. In the medieval times several letters such as "v" and "f" and "b" and "p" were interchangeable, and as examples "fen" in the North country and East Anglia became "ven or venn" in the South and South-West, whilst the surname Vaux is equally found as the surname Foulkes, Faux or Fawkes. All we can say with certainty is that as Foxall or Foxhall, the surname is well recorded in London area from at least the 16th century, whilst oddly there does not seem to be any surname recordings of Vauxhall. These early recordings taken from authentic surviving church registers include John Foxhall at St Brides church, Fleet Street, city of London, on January 6th 1599, George Foxall, at the same church on July 3rd 1614, and George Foxhole, at St Dunstans in the East, Stepney, on March 22nd 1761.