Mayfield, Staffordshire 2.92

Location and HistoryMayfield is a village on the outskirts of Ashbourne in Derbyshire, about 9 miles from Uttoxeter, situated in East Staffordshire.The village is divided into Mayfield, Church Mayfield, Wallash, Upper Mayfield and Middle Mayfield. It has a population of approximately 2000. It lies on the banks of the River Dove. The Dove is the boundary between the Derbyshire and Staffordshire. Mayfield is on the Staffordshire side of the border but it has an Ashbourne postal address because its nearest postal town, Ashbourne, is in Derbyshire. Derbyshire is not used by Royal Mail.Mayfield was mentioned in the Domesday Book, in which it was called 'Mavreveldt'. The name is possibly derived from the Old English for 'open land growing with madder' or perhaps, 'assembly open land'.It was the scene of a siege during the retreat of Bonnie Prince Charlie, whose followers terrorised the local villagers forcing them to take refuge in John the Baptist's church. Several musket ball holes, reputedly from weapons fired during the siege, can still be seen in one of the doors of the church.There has been a church in Mayfield for over a thousand years. The Domesday Survey of 1086 recorded a priest in Mayfield, one of only twenty-five priests recorded for the county of Staffordshire. There is now no trace of the original Church, which would have been a Saxon wooden building standing on or near to the site of the present church. The Saxon church was replaced during the reign of Henry I by a Norman stone building in about 1125. The church was extended in the 15 and 16th Centuries, with the tower being built in 1515. The final extension was in 1854.