Burwood

Recorded as Burwood and Burtonwood, this is an English surname. It is locational either from two lost or very diminished villages in the county of Surrey now called Burwood Park and Burwood House near Hersham and Weybridge respectively, or from Burtonwood in Lancashire. In all cases the place name and hence the surname meaning would seem to be the 'The fort in the wood' from the pre 7th century 'burg-wudu'. Burtonwood in the county of Lancashire is described in the early charters and registers of the 14th century as being "a chapelry in the parish of Warrington", but neither Burwoods seem to be recorded at all. Burtonwood although being first recorded in the annals of Lancashire in the year 1283, is described in the 'Dictionary of English Place Names' published in 1936, as being a "lost" village. If this was so at that time, it certainly was not the case only a few years later. Burtonwood being the site of the largest American base in the British Isles during the Second World War (1939 - 1945). Burtonwood also translates much the same as Burwood being the settlement (tun) by the castle (bur) in the wood, from the pre 7th century Olde English "burh tun wudu". Robert Burwood appears in the suriving church registers for the city of London in 1583, when his daughter Mary was christened at St Dunstans in the East, Stepney, whilst in 1617, Henry Burtonwood of Acton Grange, had his will recorded at the Wills Registry, in the city of Chester