Doncaster Family History Society

There is very little written evidence of the history of Hatfield in early times. The name Hatfield, Hedfeld., Hethefield, or other similar names, means “a tract of open uncultivated land” and we know it lay on a small gravel island in the middle of peat moors, marshes and bogs. The first written record was a mention by the Venerable Bede on his book on the history of the English Church, written in the eighth century, of a battle at Hatfield in AD 633. It tells of a power struggle between Saxon Kings.

The next written record appears in the Domesday Book in 1086, when the village of Hatfield was part of the large estate of Conisbrough, owned by Earl William de Warenne. Conisbrough estate and many other parcels of land had been granted to him by King William 1 for his help in the Conquest. There is a separate entry in the Domesday Book for Tudworth, which had 20 fisheries, mainly eel ponds, which provided large quantities of fish for Conisbrough Castle and Roche Abbey. The Domesday Survey of 1086 mention s church at Hatfield but nothing of that building remains to be seen.

The present parish church of St Lawrence was probably begun in the 12th century. The south and west doors are Norman and so is the lower part of the outer walls of the nave. The Norman pebble construction can be seen quite clearly outside. Three Norman windows survive at the West End but the decorated windows in the south aisle are fourteenth century insertions.

The nave arcades, five on each side, are thirteenth century, replacing the original Norman work but the general impression is that of a Perpendicular church. The clerestory, transepts, tower, chancel and north and south chapels are all of that period.

The church is cruciform with a tall, commanding central tower, over the crossing the tower is 100ft. high and bears inside and out, the arms of the Savage family, one of whom, Thomas Savage, was Archbishop of York from 1501 to 1507 and his brother became Bailiff of Hatfield in 1485. The family came from Macclesfield and Thomas built the Savage chapel there. Numerous masons’ marks from the tower and into the east end indicate that all this work was carried out at about the same time in the reign of Henry V11.

After the rebuilding the church was dedicated to St Mary, but in the middle of the 18th century the original name of St Lawrence had reasserted itself. The chancel screen is a very fine one; it dates from the end of the fifteenth century, as also does the much smaller one at the entrance to the St Catherine Chapel, which is now used as a vestry.

Galleries were installed in 1697 and removed in 1872 under the supervision of Sir Thomas Jackson who also raised the floor of the ringing chamber to allow the big windows in the lower portion of the tower to light up the crossing. The south porch was rebuilt at the same time and the font was assembled from pieces of various dates.

The sixteenth armour in the south chapel is probably associated with the founder of the chancery. The parish registers begin in the reign of Elizabeth 1 and they record that the plague visited Hatfield in the summer of 1607.

The massive iron-bound dug-out chest in the north aisle is formed from a single piece of oak. It is of Norman workmanship and originally it had ten locks. The jointed chest next to it might be from the fourteenth century. The choir stalls were designed by Temple Moore (1856-1920) and the table by his son in law, Leslie Moore. The table itself incorporates part of an older seventeenth century table, which was much shorter. The windows in the south aisle are by C.E. Kempe (1837-1907) and his assistant W.E. Tower (1873-1955) and can be identified by the little sheaf of corn, which was their trademark. All the modern glass in the north aisle, the south chapel and the south transept, the Welch memorial tablet in the south aisle, the lighting pendants and the altar rails in the South Chapel are designs by G.G. Pace of York.

Doncaster and District Family History Society has published :

Burial index (in surname order) 1567 – 1900 (on fiche)
1871 Census available on CD

The following records of Hatfield, St Lawrence are available at Doncaster Archives :

Baptisms 1567 – 1940, Marriages 1566 – 1943, Burials 1566 – 1943
Index : Baptisms 1567 – 1922, Marriages 1566 – 1837, Burials 1566 – 1943.
Bishop’s transcripts : 1601 - 1876

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