Austerfield is a village and civil parish in the City of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. It is 1 mile (1.6 km) to the north-east of the market town of Bawtry on the A614 road, and adjacent to the hamlet of Newington in Nottinghamshire, close to the River Idle. The population in 2001 was 571,[2] which fell to 536 at the 2011 Census.[1]
Heritage
The name Austerfield was first recorded in 715 and derives from the Old EnglishOuestraefelda (eowestre), which means open land with a sheepfold.[3][4] It was mentioned in the Domesday Book as belonging to Robert of Mortain, and having 27 villages, 40 freemen, a priest and a church.[5]
Austerfield contains the 11th-century church of St Helena, which was built in 1080 by John de Builli, using stone from quarries at Roche Abbey.[8] The church today has 19th-century several stained-glass windows designed by Charles Eamer Kempe.[9] The nave has a sheela na gig, a rare type of quasi-erotic stone carving of a female figure sometimes found in Norman churches.[10] This had been blocked into a wall in the 14th century and was rediscovered in 1898 during restoration work.[11]
Notable people
In birth order:
William Bradford (1590–1657), a Pilgrim Father and Governor of Plymouth Colony, was born in Austerfield and baptised in a font rediscovered at a local farm 40 years ago, which can now be seen in the church.[11]
The nearest railway station to Austerfield is at Doncaster (9½ miles, 15 km). It is served by a bus route, as are Bawtry, Worksop and Sheffield.[13] The A1M trunk road between London and the North passes 5 miles (8 km) to the west of the village.[14]
^Smith, A. H. (1961). The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire: Part One Lower and Upper Strafforth and Staincross Wapentakes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 46. OCLC258654754.
^Ekwall, Eilert (1960). The concise Oxford dictionary of English place-names (4 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 19. ISBN0-19-869103-3.
