According to Patrick Hanks and Flavia Hodges Dictionary of Surnames:

In English the surname Cleugh was found in the form we can now see it. The earliest hereditary surnames in England are found shortly after the Norman Conquest, and are of Norman French origin rather than native English. The incoming Normans identified themselves by reference to the estates from which they came in northern France. These Norman habitation names moved rapidly on with their bearers into Scotland and Ireland. Others of the Norman invaders took names from the estates in England, which they had newly acquired. The Normans also brought with them a store of characteristic personal names, which soon more or less entirely replaced the traditional, more varied repertoire of Old English personal names.

Cleugh : Topographic name for someone who lived near a precipitous slope from Old English 'cloth' or 'ravine'.

Had my father’s name been "Smith" I very much doubt that I would ever have been able to gather any information on my forbearers at all! However, "Cleugh" does make it easier and our detective work at the General Register Office has not been in vain.

Considering the definition of the name given above, it was not surprising to discover that my grandfather James was born in May 1842 in Beadnell, Northumberland. He was the son of James (profession: Gardener) and Jane Cleugh née Richardson. A curious detail comes to light in that it was Jane Cleugh, not her husband, who registered the young James' birth on 4th June 1842. This was not an era of female emancipation and there had to be a powerful reason for this anomaly, but what this reason was I will never know.

Just as I will never know why this young James moved South and became a Customs Officer in Lewisham; now a borough of London south of the Thames, Lewisham at that time would have been no more than a suburb. In October 1883 James married Kate Agnes Soanes at Lewisham Parish Church.

James and Kate's first child was a daughter, Dorothy; Henry James was born in 1891 and Eric Arthur in 1894. By the time Eric was born James had been promoted to Survey of Customs and the family had moved to Hampstead, north of the river and right on the edge of Hampstead Heath.

Knowing that my father's grandfather was a gardener by profession and his father a government officer, it is hardly surprising that he felt drawn to the Diplomatic Service during his active years and that gardening and golf were his favourite hobbies upon his retirement.

• Eric Arthur Cleugh
• Nicola Ilona Cleugh