Plaxton

This is an English locational surname. Recorded in several spellings including Placstone, Plackstone, Plackston, and the most popular of Plaxton, it is one whose origins are open to some conjecture. Whilst the name is almost certainly from the East Riding of Yorkshire, it has to be said that there is no such place recorded in the gazetters in any of the known surname spellings, unless it be the village of Blaxton (The black stone) in the West Riding of Yorkshire and near to the town of Bawtry. The villages of Plaxtol in Kent and Plaistow in Derbyshire, both of which have exactly the same meaning of 'The play ground', are the only other places whose name spelling comes anywhere near, but there is no evidence that they have played a part in the surname development. They translate as an area of land set aside for sport, usually archery or jousting. In our opinion the surname is a linguistic transposition of the village names of Blackstone or Blaxton. There are a number of places called Blackstone in Yorkshire and Lancashire, and all have the same meaning of 'Black stone', probably referiing to a boundary marker between parishes or even counties. Locational surnames are usually 'from' names. That is to say surnames given to people after they left their original homes and moved elsewhere. The easiest form of identification being to call people by the name of the place from whence they came. Spelling being at best indifferent, and local dialects very thick, lead to the development of 'sounds like' spellings. In this case the surname is well recorded in the surviving registers of the county of Yorkshire as well as the diocese of Greater London. These examples possibly showing the development include: Margaret Plaxton, who married Walter Clarke at Pocklington, in East Yorkshire, on May 12th 1560, and (another) Margaret, this time in the spelling of Plakstone, christened at Holme on Spalding Moor, East Yorkshire, on July 13th 1600. In London John Blackestone was a witness at the church of St Mary Woolnoth, in the city of London, on April 24th 1588, Richard Plaxton at the church of St Mary Lothbury, in the city of London, when he married Mary Foucke on April 13th 1629, and Walter Plackstone at St Martins in the Field, Westminster, on August 3rd 1679.