Burrowes Family

Burrowes was a surname of the Hobbits of the Shire that (in this spelling at least) is only recorded once: in the name of the company of auctioneers who were about to sell Bag End when Bilbo Baggins unexpectedly returned from his travels.

Although this version of the name is unique, it may well be related to 'Burrows', which does appear several times in The Lord of the Rings (Milo Burrows and his family were distant relatives of Bilbo). Though the connection is uncertain, there are grounds for making it: in the very earliest drafts of the first chapter of The Lord of the Rings, the name later standardised as 'Burrows' is spelt as 'Burrowes', suggesting that the families were indeed one and the same.