Marcroft

This is an English locational surname. According to the famous Victorian etymologist Canon Charles Bardsley writing in the year 1880, Marcroft is almost certainly one of the other spellings of the surname Moorcroft or Moorecroft. Whether this is so or not, or whether Marcroft is a misspelling of Moorcroft, there are or were various places called either Marcroft or Moorcroft. The early registers suggest that Marcroft as a surname does originates from a place called Marcroft (see below), a 'lost' medieval village or hamlet situated in past times on or near the county border between Cheshire and Lancashire. In fact over the centuries there may have been a number of small places or even individual farms called Marcroft or Moorcroft, and meaning the small farm on the moor, any or all of which could have been a place or origin for the surname. The surname in its various spellings is still popular in the north west of England, although today the only surviving place name appears to be that of Moorcroft, a hamlet in the former county of Monmouthshire, on the Welsh border, and there is no evidence that this place has produced name holders. The early wills records for the north and specifically the Chester area which covered much of the north, include examples such as Thomas Marcroft of Kersley, itself now apparently a 'lost' village in the Lancashire area in the year 1607, whilst slightly earlier in 1594 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1st (1558 - 1603) we have proof of the place name in the recording of Thomas Hardman. He is given as being from Marcroft, in the parish of Rochdale.