Austerfield


Austerfield is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster, on the border with Nottinghamshire. It lies less than a mile to the north-east of Bawtry on the A614 road to Finningley, at 53° 26' 30" North, 1° 0' West and an elevation of around 23 feet above sea level. It is close to the River Idle. The population in 2001 was 571, which fell to 536 at the 2011 Census.

Heritage

The name Austerfield derives from the Germanic Ouestraefeld, meaning Eastern field.
The Council of Austerfield was convened here by King Aldfrith of Northumbria in AD 702 and attended by Berhtwald, Archbishop of Canterbury to decide on whether Saint Wilfrid should become Archbishop of York. Austerfield was then on the border between the two Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia.
Austerfield contains the 11th-century church of St Helena. The builder of it in 1080 was John de Builli, using stone from quarries at Roche Abbey. The church today has several stained-glass windows designed by Charles Eamer Kempe. The nave has a sheela na gig, a rare type of quasi-erotic stone carving of a female figure sometimes found in Norman churches. This had been blocked into a wall in the 14th century and was rediscovered in 1898 during restoration work.

Notable people

In birth order:
The nearest railway station to Austerfield is at Doncaster. It is served by a bus route, as are Bawtry, Worksop and Sheffield. The A1M trunk road between London and the North passes 5 miles to the west of the village.