This is an English locational surname. Recorded in several forms including Hurleston, Hurlestone, Hurlston and others, it originates either from the village of Hurlestone near Nantwich, in the county of Cheshire, or Hurleston, now an area of headland on Porlock Bay in the county of Somerset. This it would seem was once the site of a medieval community which has now disappeared. In both cases the meaning of the name seems to be the "fenced farm" from the pre 7th century Olde English "hurdl-tun". Fencing was not generally a feature of the British landscape, and it may be that the name was simply a local "borrowing" of a term, which may have described hedgerows or special pounds used for containing the cattle, and preventing them roaming the countryside particularly at night. Locational surnames are usually "from" names. That is to say names given to people as easy identification after they left their original homes to move elsewhere. In this case it is interesting that the surname is well recorded in Somerset with Richard Hurlstone being christened at North Cadbury on June 7th 1663, and Mary Hurlestone, who married Richard Baily at Ansford, on June 26th 1712.

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