Darfield, South Yorkshire

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Darfield
Darfield shown within South Yorkshire
OS grid reference	SK5198
Metropolitan borough	Barnsley
Metropolitan county	South Yorkshire
Region	Yorkshire and the Humber
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Barnsley
Postcode district	S73
Dialling code	01226
Police	South Yorkshire
Fire	South Yorkshire
Ambulance	Yorkshire
European Parliament	Yorkshire and the Humber
UK Parliament	Don Valley
List of places: UK • England • Yorkshire

Coordinates: 53°32′06″N 1°22′33″W / 53.535, -1.3757

Darfield is a village within the metropolitan borough of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England. It lies about 5 miles east of the town of Barnsley.

1 History
2 Education
3 Notable residents
4 References

[edit] History

Many Roman coins have been unearthed in Darfield, and there is evidence to suggest that the village contained Roman habitations in its distant history.

In Saxon, the name "Feld" describes 'a large area of pasture land' , while the term "Dere" refers to the deer which inhabited the forest. When combined, this gives the name Derefeld which later became Darfield.

There are records of an 8th-century church in Darfield, but when the Domesday Book was written in 1089 there was no mention of it.

Darfield remained an insignificant agricultural village for many centuries to come, until 1862. In that year, two mining companies sank shafts in the Barnsley district to exploit the rich seam of coal running through the area. Darfield Main colliery and Mitchells Main were local mines, the population of the village quickly increased and it became a labour pool for the surrounding coalmines. By 1901, over 4,000 people lived there compared to just 600 inhabitants in 1851.

Until 1964, Darfield had a railway station on the former Midland Railway's Sheffield Midland - Cudworth - Leeds City line. The line itself closed in 1988.

[edit] Education

Darfield Upperwood Primary School is a 4-11 community primary school, opened on 5 November 1973,^[1] and educates around 250 pupils. In July 2006 it was reported in the Barnsley Chronicle that a special investigation by council auditors into the school accounts raised questions about the way it was using public money. This received national media coverage when it appeared in the Yorkshire Post in March 2007.^[2]
Foulstone Secondary School is a large school to be knocked down at the end of the school year, 2011.
St Michael and All Angels Catholic Primary School.