About Us

The Community Assembly of Darfield is located in a village within the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, South Yorkshire in the British Isles. Historically, it is part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. The village lies to the east of Barnsley town centre. 

Roman coins have been found in Darfield, and there is evidence of Roman habitation during its history. In Saxon times, the name 'feld' described '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 said to be records of an 8th-century church in Darfield, but when the Domesday Book was written in 1086 there was no mention of it. Darfield remained a small agricultural village until 1862 when two mining companies sank shafts in the Barnsley district to exploit the rich seam of coal running through the area. Darfield Main colliery and Mitchell's Main were local mines, and the population of the village quickly increased as it became a labour pool for the surrounding coal mines. By 1901, over 4,000 people lived there compared to just 600 inhabitants in 1851.

Until June 1963, Darfield had a railway station on the Sheffield to Cudworth to Leeds line. The line was closed in 1988 due to severe mining subsidence.

Founding Facilitators