Heathcote is a surname rooted in English topography which literally means Heath Cottage. The location in Derbyshire was first recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Hedcote, and as Hethcote in 1244. The location in Warwickshire appears is written Hethcot in the 1196 Feet of Fines for the county. The Anglo-Saxon surname Heathcote originates from a hamlet that stands high on the barren hills above Dovedale and Hartington. The place-name refers to a cottage on a heath or wasteland where was found an outlying farm or grange of Grendon Abbey. The said Grendon Abbey was founded in 1133. Some of the earliest references to the grange at Heathcote are found in records of the 1300 and 15th century.