Cherleswold History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

Origins Available:
England

Cherleswold is a name of ancient Anglo-Saxon origin and comes from the family once having lived in the village and parish of Charlwood on the border of Sussex and Surrey which dates back to at least the 12th century when it was first listed as Cherlewde. Literally the place name means "wood of the freeman or peasants," from the Old English words "ceorl" + "wudu." 1

Early Origins of the Cherleswold family

The surname Cherleswold was first found in West Sussex, where Charlwood House is an early 17th-century timber-framed country house in Lowfield Heath, Crawley. "This place was the scene of a sanguinary battle between the Danes and the men of Surrey and Sussex, that occurred near a bridge since called Kilman Bridge, and in which the Danes were defeated with great slaughter." 2 Today Charlwood is a village and civil parish in the Mole Valley district of Surrey, but is on the historic county boundary between Surrey and Sussex.

Early History of the Cherleswold family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Cherleswold research. Another 207 words (15 lines of text) covering the years 1296, 1500, 1591, 1592, 1688, 1779 and 1800 are included under the topic Early Cherleswold History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Cherleswold Spelling Variations

Sound was what guided spelling in the essentially pre-literate Middle Ages, so one person's name was often recorded under several variations during a single lifetime. Also, before the advent of the printing press and the first dictionaries, the English language was not standardized. Therefore, spelling variations were common, even among the names of the most literate people. Known variations of the Cherleswold family name include Charlwood, Cherleswode, Charlewood, Charlwode, Charlwoode and many more.

Early Notables of the Cherleswold family

Notables of this surname at this time include: John Charlwood, (d. 1592) a prominent printer during the 1500s. He 'seems to have printed so early as Queen Mary's reign, in a temporary partnership with John Tysdale at the Saracen's Head, near Holbourn Conduit.' 3 "Charlewood apparently came from Surrey, as on...
Another 51 words (4 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Cherleswold Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Migration of the Cherleswold family

For political, religious, and economic reasons, thousands of English families boarded ships for Ireland, Canada, the America colonies, and many of smaller tropical colonies in the hope of finding better lives abroad. Although the passage on the cramped, dank ships caused many to arrive in the New World diseased and starving, those families that survived the trip often went on to make valuable contributions to those new societies to which they arrived. Early immigrants bearing the Cherleswold surname or a spelling variation of the name include: Richard Charlwood who arrived in Virginia in 1658.

Citations +

Mills, A.D., Dictionary of English Place-Names. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Print. (ISBN 0-19-869156-4)
Lewis, Samuel, A Topographical Dictionary of England. Institute of Historical Research, 1848, Print.
Smith, George (ed), Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1885-1900. Print