Ledington

Recorded in the modern registers as Leadinton, Leadington, Ledington, Leddington, and possibly Ledinson, this is an English surname. It is one which is recorded in the surviving church registers of the city of London as far back as Elizabethan times, with that of Jane Ledyngton who married Garratt Gryfen at Christ Church, Greyfriars, on November 30th 1573. It is locational from a now 'lost' medieval village called Leadington, in the parish of Newent, Gloucestershire. Lost villages are a feature, albeit usually an invisible one, of the countryside of the British Isles, including Ireland. It is estimated that at least five thousand such places have disappeared over the past five centures as a result of war, plague, coastal erosion, drainage, but most usually changes in farming practices, leading to a reduced requirement for labour. Perhaps surprisingly many of these places, certainly over three thousand of them have given rise to the creation of surnames, since the easiest way to identify a stranger was to call him or sometimes her, by the name of the place from whence they came. This place name derives from a fusing of the pre 7th century Welsh word llydan meaning a river and 'ing-tona', to give the people (ing) of a village (tona) by a river.