Places

According to my copy of "Dictionary of English place Names" (by A.D.Mills pub. OUP) Mikill or micel means Large in Old Scandanavian, and Thveit means clearing, meadow or paddock, again Old Scandanavian - whether this is Old East Norse or Old West Norse, I'm not sure (see Wiki on Old Norse. However Ross Arthur's Dictionary of Old Norse suggest Sveit means settlement or community. Either way, it is fairly certainly of Viking Origin (see the Viking Answer Lady for Viking things) and there are Mykkeltveits in Norway (see below) and the USA. There are many variants of the name - the main ones inthe UK are Micklethwaite and Micklethwait. Thanks to Muriel Wells for this cartoon.

There are 3 places in England that I know of that still have the name Micklethwaite, plus Banks Hall which was formerly known as Micklethwaite:

Micklethwaite, Cumbria

Dublin was a major Viking centre and much of North West England came under their influence. This village reflects that influence as they settled in the arable lands north of the Lake District.

Micklethwaite, Bingley, West Yorkshire

The origins of this settlement are less clear - did the Vikings come down the Aire Gap from the North West, or up the Aire from the East Coast?

Bradford Council have a conservation area assessmentpdf - it's 4MB to download but has nice photographs and maps of the area.

Micklethwaite, Wetherby, West Yorkshire

It is most likely these Vikings came up the Aire from the East Coast. Wetherby Grange was previously called Beilby Grange, and before that Micklethwaite Grange and is mentioned in the history of Kirstall Abbey

Banks Hall, Cawthorne, South West Yorkshire

Not all the settlements with this name have kept the name, as with Wetherby Grange. Local historian George Redmonds identified several more in Yorkshire. The one that is of most interest to family historians is Banks Hall near Cawthorne. This is believed by Redmonds and David Hey to be "the ancestral home" of most Micklethwaites. Certainly many branches can be traced back to this area. John Micklethwait (see below) has wills referring to Micklethwaite/Banks Hall

John Micklethwait's site has a photograph and description under Homes and Churches.

Mykkeltveit, Norway

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In the Hordaland District of Norway, about 20 km West of Voss, lies the settlement of Evanger. South of this lies a mountain called Mykkeltveitveten. Mykkel and Tveit you will already recognise (large clearing) - veten means beacon. (Here's an image of Johannes Mykkeltveit on that mountain) In fact there are quite a lot of Mykkeltveits in that part of the world. I wonder if the original Viking settlers who named our English places were also from there.

Rootsweb

There is a Rootsweb Email List for the Micklethwait(e) name, although postings are usually infrequent.