Austerfield
Ask a person what they know about a place and you may get something about a recent happening that they remember about the location. Ask a person interested in local history what they know about a place and you may end up with a lot of varied facts, which puts that place in a very different light. It’s the second of these two choices that I hope to explore in this introduction to Austerfield.
To an American, our first question may have elicited the response, ‘It’s the birthplace of William Bradford’. To most, the response would have been, ‘Where’? As the place is not exactly on the beaten track – except that from the United States on a find the ancestors tour, most could easily miss this small, linear village, set on the very boundary of the southernmost parts of South Yorkshire, England.
But history has not bypassed the place, and many more events have happened in this small, rural backwater, than most could ever suppose. Events will show that the place has helped mould modern day Christianity, been the place of kings made and kings deposed, been part of that great adventure of exploration, settlement and nation making. It has felt the influence of Roman, Viking and Norman rule and through all this has apparently changed very little. It’s still that quiet, rural backwater, where religious sedition was practised and to many brought the village its supposed claim to fame.
Our story of Austerfield will not begin with this recent memory, albeit that memory is now over 400 years old. It begins with the end of the last Ice Age, when melt water from retreating glaciers gave the area its modern geological setting. The large inland sea, the Humber Sea, that was created by the release of such large quantities of water, gave the place its underlying deposits of sand and gravel, greatly exploited resources in the surrounding area for over the last 60 years. This period of the seas existence, in geological terms was very short, about 4,000 years, but was the forerunner of the extensive forests that subsequently covered this area.
It was into this forest that hunter-gatherers came in their search for food, and eventually settled to form the basis of the first farming community that became modern Austerfield. Our proven tale of settlement in the area begins in the Iron Age with the site of round houses that were uncovered in 1996, as topsoil was stripped for sand extraction. Archaeological surveys at the time found four or five houses, and aerial photographs predicted the settlement to have contained up to a dozen houses. Artefacts showed the community to have been involved in farming. Settlement ditches and boundary fencing give us some indication to the size of the settlement. Change would have been very slow compared with modern times. Land would have been clear felled of trees to create larger areas of farmland as the size of the community grew or they wished to diversify on what they grew and the animals they kept. Food remains in the form of bones in fire pits showed they ate sheep, pigs, deer, cattle, horses and dogs. But change eventually came with the Roman invasion of Britain.
In the early part of the 1st century, the native Ancient British tribes to this area were the Coritani tribes. From 47 to 52AD the Roman Governor of Britain, Publius Ostorius Scapula, or Ostorius for short, attempted to spread the Roman grip on Britain by subduing northern tribes. It is believed that in this period that large areas of the remaining woodlands around the modern village were burnt down by the Romans. This was to deter the guerrilla tactic employed by the Coritani of attacking Roman patrols in the area from the shelter of dense woodland. Burnt remains of bog oak and pine are still ploughed up from fields near the river. Although at this time this action would have further incited the native tribes, its benefit for a later date was the large areas of cleared land made available for farming. However, at the time the action is thought to have brought a response of battle from the Coritani. Abraham de la Pryme, a late 17th Century diarist, cites a probable battle that ensued on the Plains of Austerfield with the added suggestion that the village name comes from the ‘field of Ostorius’ battle’.
Our next tale of battle takes place some 550 years or so later in 616AD and includes the making and deposing of a king. In 592AD, Æthelfrith became King of Bernicia, modern day Northumberland and Durham, with parts of Scotland thrown in. Æthelfrith had designs on a dynasty and soon took over the neighbouring Kingdom of Deira, modern day Yorkshire and North Humberside. This enlarged kingdom became the Kingdom of Northumbria. However Edwin, rightful king of Deria was still alive and had sought shelter under the protection of King Raedwald of East Anglia, the most powerful English King of his day. Æthelfrith attempted to bribe Raedwald to kill Edwin, but the bribes were declined and in 616AD, Raedwald raised an army with Edwin against Æthelfrith. The joint forces marched north and caught Æthelfrith’s army unprepared on the banks of the River Idle, near Austerfield. Æthelfrith was killed and Edwin was crowned King of Northumbria.
There is a further Northumbrian connection in 702AD, with the Synod of Austerfield, a church meeting called by Archbishop Berhtwald of Canterbury to settle a dispute between the King of Northumbria, Ældfrith and Wilfrid (Wilfrith), Bishop of Ripon. In 691AD, Wilfrid had attempted to have himself made Bishop of all Northumbria. Ældfrith had objected to this, seizing Wilfrid’s estates at Ripon Abbey and banishing Wilfrid to Mercia. There, the King of Mercia, Æthelred, had made him Bishop of Leicester. Wilfrid had made many attempts to have this rescinded and his estates returned, including a petition to the Pope in Rome.
The calling of the Synod of Austerfield in 702AD was an attempt to resolve this and other issues. Amongst this was a request for the northern Celtic Churches to recognise and accept the Roman method for calculating Easter which had been worked out at Whitby in 664AD and that Celtic monks should accept the Roman form of tonsure (haircut) given by their bishop instead of the Celtic style. Wilfrid is offered back his estates at Ripon, but refuses at first before finally accepting the posts of Bishop of Hexham and Abbot of Ripon. By 704AD, Æthelred has given up his kingdom to become Abbot of Bardney, Ældfrith is dead and by 709AD so is Wilfrid.
The tympanum stone above the main door to St.Helena’s Church, Austerfield is probably the only clear reminder of this event. Bede, the great historian and monk was not present and the only written records of someone who was there come from Eddius Stephanus, an acolyte of Wilfrid, so must be viewed in that respect. It has also been suggested that this Easter connection could be another link with the naming of the village. In this period the village was named ‘Oestrefelda’, ‘Oestre’ being the Saxon for Easter and ‘felda’ the word for field. This, however is probably as dubious as the Roman link.
The church itself does not date from this period, but from nearly 300 years later, shortly after the Norman Conquest. In an attempt to gain favour with the lands he acquired after the invasion , John de Buesli, agrees to request the building of a ‘Chapel at Ease’ from the Priory at Blyth, six miles south of Austerfield. This, up to that time, had been the church for the people of Austerfield and Sundays had been taken up with the journey to and from Blyth and the services. Following agreement to it being built, stone from the Roche Abbey quarries was brought by boat along the rivers Ryton and Idle to a place near Austerfield and then by horse and cart to the site of the church. Over the subsequent centuries, the church has seen new sections built and renovations completed so that it stands as can be seen nowadays.
It was into this church that, on 19th March 1589, William Bradford was brought to be baptised. However his desire to follow the path of the Pilgrims was such that at an early age he left the village on that 13-year journey that would end in America with Bradford taking the role of Governor and historian of the new settlement.
To many that would be the ending of the story of Austerfield with its most famous son, but infamous deeds have also been committed in the area. In the village stand two houses, Dyon Cottage and Dyon House Farm (although the farm has long since gone, the house still remains). Many will pass them without knowing their names stand as testimony to the murder of one Dyon by his brother and nephew in 1828. It is a story of greed and the house names are a timely reminder of the results of greed.
A walk around the village, and the names of some of the lanes show the place to have been, and still be to some extent, a farming community and it is this farming link that probably gives the village its name, an ‘auster’ being a sheep pen on the open common land. Some names, like Low Common Lane, reflect the system of Open or 3 Field Farming that happened in the village until the Austerfield Enclosure Act of 1765. Others reflect the name of families who lived in the village centuries ago, like Woodhouse Lane. The school, built in 1882, reflects the attempts to educate the populace of the village. Many, like William Bradford, leave never to return. Others seek work in the wider world, but like those descendents of Bradford remain true Austerfield at heart. Your walk would show you the old and new of the village. It would not show you many of the things outlined here, as the village still maintains its attempt to display a sleepy rural appearance to the world, a place where nothing ever happens. It does not blow its trumpet, attracting attention to itself, and so it will remain, except to those discerning few who attempt to peer past that sleepy, indifferent veneer the village displays.
Andrew Jagger
October 2001
