Buckhurst

This name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational surname from either of the places called "Buckhurst" in the counties of Essex and Sussex. The place in Essex is recorded as "Bocherst" in circa 1135 and that in Sussex as "Bochirst" in the Close Rolls of that county of 1234. The name means "(settlement by) the beech grove", derived from the Olde English pre 7th Century word "boc" meaning "beech tree", with "hyrst", meaning variously, "sandy knoll, copse, or wooded eminence, grove". The surname development has included John de Bocherst (1296, Sussex) and Cecilia de Bonkhurst (1332, Sussex). Benjamin Buckhurst and Alice Gladdinge were married at St. Peter's, Cornhill, London on the 13th February 1606. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Richard de Buchurst, which was dated 1200, The Berkshire Pipe Rolls, during the reign of King John "Lackland", 1199 - 1216. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.