What's In A Name?*

One of the larger lists of early surnames, which I found extremely useful, was The Building Accounts of Kirby Muxloe Castle 1480 - 1483. These can be found in the Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological Society Volume XI pages 193-345. The above is not a complete list of all who worked on the castle and in theory Kirby village lay outside my main area of interest but here was a real treasure trove of surnames. The big surprise was that the majority of the men mentioned in the building accounts were Bradgate Estate workers and not men drawn from William Lord Hastings' estates in north-west Leicestershire, or imported from Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire.

Time after time history books tell the same story of an acrimonious relationship between the Grey family, headed by the Ist Marquis of Dorset, and William, Lord Hastings, builder of Kirby Muxloe Castle. Yet the surnames of the stone carriers, the continuous service over the three years of castle building, the diversity of collection points on the Grey's Bradgate Estate, hints at the collaboration, in particular that of Ralph Petch the Bradgate Estate Steward and Lord Hastings' Clerk of Works, Roger Boulott at Kirby Castle. Whilst arranging the removal of some thirty oaks from within Bradgate Park, the normal day by day arrangements point to a working relationship best described as harmonious, certainly not acrimonious. I have definitely modified my own views on the strength of the feud between the Greys and Hastings at this time now I have studied the composition of the Castle labour force.

To take a few names from the 1480 - 1483 Kirby Castle lists we find John and Thomas Alen from Glenfield, John Balle from, Glenfield, Robert and William Coolton from Ratby, John, Stephen and William Fletcher, all from Newtown Linford and making a first appearance on my listing, one Thomas Geary. Nowadays the Geary family have a well established bakery business in Ratby but this family appears to have originally settled in both Groby mid 17th century and Anstey mid 18th century before moving to Ratby in the late 18th century. In this same period the name Glover appears in leasing documents connected with Leicester Abbey lands within Anstey in 1490 and stays firmly fixed to the Anstey area from that time onwards, some 500 years. Occasionally Cropston or Newtown Linford become host to various members of the Glover family but always Anstey

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