Riddington

Recorded in the spellings of Redington, Reddington, Ridenton and the very rare Riddington, this is an English locational surname, which is also well recorded in Ireland. It apparently originates from a place called Reddington, but no such place is to be found in any of the gazetters. This suggests that either the place name is now spelt differently from earlier times, which is a common occurence, or the surname is one of the five thousand or so British surnames which originate from now 'lost' medieval sites, of whjch the only public reminder in the 20th century is the surname. Between the 15th and the 18th century many thousands of villages were 'cleared' of their tenants to encourage the development of sheep farming, which required less labour. These people then gravitated to the growing cities of the Industrial Revolution where they were given as their surnames, the name of their former village. In this case the surname spelling is very close to the village name of Ridlington in Norfolk also recorded variously as Redlington, or perhaps Reading in Berkshire, which as a surname is also recorded as Redding. Unfortunately we have no positive proof to support either place. In England most recordings or certainly the early ones are to be found in the church registers of London, and examples taken from these surviving records include Isabel Redington of South Mimms on October 18th 1593, Marmaduke Reddington, a witness at St Dunstans in the East, Stepney, on August 7th 1649, and Robert Ridenton, who married Amelia Bye at St Leonards, Shreditch, on January 25th 1795.