Other Monktons

“Monkton” — monks’ farm, or monks’ settlement — turns out to be one of the most-recycled place names in England: wherever a village belonged to a monastery, it had a good chance of picking up the name. This page collects the others, so far as we’ve found them, with a short summary and a link to each.

Same name, different monks

Nearly every English Monkton below owes its name to the same pattern as our own: a village given to a monastery, which is remembered in the name centuries after the monks themselves are gone. Monkton, Vermont is the exception — it’s named after a person (see below), not a monastery at all.

England

Place	Location	Summary
Monkton, Devon	On the River Otter, ~2 miles NE of Honiton, East Devon	Population 169 (2011). Its parish church is also dedicated to St Mary Magdalene — the same dedication as ours.
Monkton, Tyne and Wear	Within Jarrow, South Tyneside	Historically one of the joint townships of Hedworth, Monkton and Jarrow — the latter home to the Venerable Bede’s monastery. Monkton Dene Park holds Green Flag status.
Monkton Combe	~3 miles south of Bath, Somerset	Population 554 (2013). Grew up around the Somerset Coal Canal (opened 1800), later a branch railway with its own short-lived station.
West Monkton (includes Monkton Heathfield)	~2 miles NE of Taunton, Somerset	Population 2,787 (2011). Named after the Saxon king Centwine’s grant of the village to Glastonbury Abbey in 682 — “West” as being west of the abbey’s other estates.
Bishop Monkton	~5 miles south of Ripon, North Yorkshire	Population 778 (2011). Took the “Bishop” prefix to distinguish it from its two near neighbours below.
Nun Monkton	8 miles NW of York, at the Ouse/Nidd confluence	A Benedictine nunnery, endowed in 1172 by Ivetta of the Arches, owned the village — hence “Nun.” Houses cluster round a 20-acre green with a duck pond and maypole.
Moor Monkton	On the River Nidd, 7 miles NW of York	The third of the York-area trio, distinguished from Bishop and Nun Monkton by its situation on the moor.
Monkton Farleigh	~3 miles NW of Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire	Population 460 (2011). On high ground midway between Bath and Bradford-on-Avon.
Winterbourne Monkton	~1 mile north of Avebury stone circle, Wiltshire	Population 160 (2011). Its famous neighbour, Avebury, makes this one of the smaller Monktons with one of the biggest doorsteps.
Winterborne Monkton	Between Dorchester and Weymouth, Dorset	Population ~50 (2013) — probably the smallest Monkton of all.
Monkton Deverill	~5 miles south of Warminster, Wiltshire	Anciently known as East Monkton; now part of the parish of Kingston Deverill.

Wales

Place	Location	Summary
Monkton, Pembroke	Adjoining Pembroke, Pembrokeshire	Population 1,688 (2001) — the largest of the English/Welsh Monktons here. Monkton Priory, across the river from Pembroke Castle, was founded in 1098 by Arnulf de Montgomery.
Monkton, Vale of Glamorgan	Hamlets within the community of St Donats	East and West Monkton — no separate article of their own; mentioned within St Donats’ Wikipedia entry.

Scotland

Place	Location	Summary
Monkton, South Ayrshire	1.5 miles north of Prestwick, on the edge of Glasgow Prestwick Airport	Originally called Prestwick Monachorum (“Prestwick of the monks”) — the same “monks’” idea as Monkton, just kept as a qualifier rather than becoming the name itself.

North America

Place	Location	Summary
Monkton, Ontario, Canada	Perth County, Ontario, west of Milverton	A small village, part of the Municipality of North Perth.
Monkton, Maryland, USA	Northern Baltimore County	An unincorporated community with a population of around 4,856 — likely the most populous place called Monkton anywhere.
Monkton, Vermont, USA	Addison County	Population 2,079 (2020 census). Chartered in 1762 and probably named for General Robert Monckton, a British Army officer of the day — nothing to do with monks at all.

Also worth knowing

Monkton, Corinda, Brisbane, Australia isn’t a place but a single heritage-listed house, built in 1925 and named after “Monkton Farm,” the Dunlop family’s farm nearby — included here as a curiosity rather than a fellow village.

About this page

Compiled from Wikipedia and each place’s own local records — corrections, better sources, and any Monktons we’ve missed (there may well be more) are very welcome; see About for how to get in touch.