History of the Parish

The village landscape, now so typical of England, owes its origin to Anglo-Saxon settlements developed between about 450 and 1066 AD. The archetypal village grew up around a well, which was surrounded by a village green, where the church was built. In later centuries a smithy and a school may sometimes have been added, but no other building on the green was allowed.

Dwellings were scattered around the green. Beyond them, lay the two or three open fields of which strips were shared amongst the villagers for their cultivation. (The enclosure of fields with hedges, so prominent today, did not occur until much later and was completed only around 1700). Usually at some little distance was the substantial house of the ‘Lord of the Manor’, who might own considerable local land and would give employment to many of the villagers.

So was established a large number of virtually independent communities which became defined, as Parishes, by their allegiance to the one Church – the Parish Church. The Parish is now the lowest administrative division of local government, with its Parish Council (nine Parish Councillors in the case of Broomfield and Kingswood).

[Extracted from information produced by Friends of the Parish Churches of Leeds and Broomfield]

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