Hatfield and Newhampton is a civil parish in the county of Herefordshire, England, and is north from the city and county town of Hereford. The closest large town is Leominster to the west. The parish includes the small village of Hatfield, the former extra-parochial liberty of New Hampton, the site of former abbey lands of Fencote, the preserved Fencote railway station, and the Grade II* listed 11th-century Church of St Leonard.
History
Medieval
Hatfield is a common Old English name comprising 'hāeth' with 'feld', describing a "heathy open land or open land where heather grows." The 'hampton' in Newhampton could be either the Old English 'hām-tūn' or 'hamm tūn', for a "home farm or homestead" or "farmstead in an enclosure or river-bend". The place name Fencote means a cot [small house] in a fen [marshy land]. In the Domesday Book, Hatfield is written as "Hetfelde".
Within today's Hatfield and Newhampton were three manors, two with a joint population of 17 households. They are listed in Domesday, two as Hatfield, the other Fencote. Hatfield in 1086 was centred at the west of today's parish and included the lands of Hugh de Lasne and Ralf. Hugh's land, with 8 smallholders (middle level of serf below and with less land than a villager), is defined in area by 3 lord's and 6.5 men's plough teams. He took the manor, held in 1066 from Leoffled (wife of Thorkil) under Queen Edith, and was tenant-in-chief to king William I. Ralf's land, area defined by one lord's plough team, is listed with two slaves, and held under William d'Ecouis who was tenant-in-chief to the king, and who had taken the 1066 land owned by Almer held under overlord Queen Edith. Fencote was centred south-east from today's St Leonard's Church at Hatfield village. The manor, comprising an area defined by 2 men's plough teams, held four villagers, was abbess lands. Lordship in 1066 had been held by the Leominster St Peter's Abbey under Queen Edith. St Peter's kept lordship in 1086 and was tenant-in-chief to king William I. Land at Fencote, run by the ecclesiastical community of women, comprised at least one free hide, however if any abbey or priory at Fencote existed it could have been "dissolved or abandoned before 1066." According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, following Sweyn Godwinson's 1046 abduction of Eadgifu, the abbess of Leominster, and her imprisonment for a year, King Edward refused to allow a forced marriage and returned Eadgifu to Leominster, she by 1047 rehabilitated, perhaps at Fencote, by which time the priory had been dissolved. Leominster Priory was re-established in 1139. The existence of any abbey at Fencote has been debated, it perhaps being merely lands owned by Leominster Abbey. Fencote later became a parish before being absorbed in Hatfield and Newhampton, and other adjoining parishes.
19th and early 20th century
Hatfield in 1831 (as its own parish), was described as in the Hundred of Wolphy, north-west from Bromyard, and containing 155 inhabitants. Ecclesiastical parish living was a perpetual curacy in the Archdeaconry and Diocese of Hereford, and supported by a yearly private benefaction of £10 and a royal bounty of £600, and under the patronage of Sir John Geers Cotterell, 1st Baronet. By 1837, the parish population had reduced to153 inhabitants in 30 houses, and fairs were held yearly on 23 April and 18 October.
By the 1850s Hatfield, a township, was part of electoral district, petty sessional division, county court district and Union—poor relief and joint parish workhouse provision set up under the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834— of Leominster, and remained so for at least the rest of the century. Ecclesiastically the parish was part of the Archdeaconry and Diocese of Hereford. The Anglican parish church of St Leonard is described as comprising a chancel in 13th-century style, and a western porch, a chancel, a wooden bell-gable turret with two bells, monuments and a font. The living was a perpetual curracy worth £90 yearly, in gift of the Lord Chancellors Rolfe and Thesiger.