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The first mention of Farnsfield emerges in 956AD in a document in which King Edwy of Northumbria gave the Danish Archbishop of York, Oscytel, the manor of Southwell, which included the farmstead of Farnsfield. Farnsfield was a small community of farmsteads scraping a living from agriculture in a clearing at the edge of Sherwood Forest. By 1520 Farnsfield was the responsibility of Southwell Minster under the Archbishop of York, Cardinal Wolsey. Most people were farmers and poor land, bad weather, disease and starvation were constant hazards. By the 1600s more specialised trades were developing in Farnsfield including bakers, tailors and shoemakers. By the late 1700s sheep rearing was the main source of income from outside.

The church dates from the 15th century but was rebuilt between 1859 and 1860 by Thomas Chambers Hine and Robert Evans following a fire. Only a fragment of the tower from the 15th-century building survives.

The former Maythorne Mill, its former workers’ cottages and its ancillary buildings, plus a farm, form the greater part of this small hamlet. It was a cotton mill built in 1785 to supply the framework knitting industry with yarns. The speculator that built Maythorne was a Southwell hop merchant. In the early C19th the mill was adapted to produce silk and lace thread. There was also a Mission Hall, a pub & general store. The mainly female workforce was required to wind silk on bobbins, form it into shanks before it was finally washed and pressed and despatched to Nottingham. However, yarn & thread products were not the only items produced here as osier beds provided willow for basket-making and hops were also grown locally. From 1939-45 the mill was used to billet soldiers and in 1948 the land & buildings were put to agricultural use. the mill building has been converted into residential flats & some workshops in various outbuildings. The mill wheel was powered by the River Greet.

The earliest church on the site is believed to have been founded in 627 by Paulinus, the first Archbishop of York, when he visited the area while baptising believers in the River Trent. The legend is commemorated in the Minster's baptistry window. In 956 King Eadwig gave land in Southwell to Oskytel, Archbishop of York, on which a minster church was established. The Domesday Book of 1086 recorded the Southwell manor in great detail. The Norman reconstruction of the church began in 1108, probably as a rebuilding of the Anglo-Saxon church, starting at the east end so that the high altar could be used as soon as possible and the Saxon building was dismantled as work progressed. Many stones from this earlier Anglo-Saxon church were reused in the construction. The church was originally attached to the Archbishop of York's Palace which stood next door and is now ruined.

Features now restored in the middle of the wood, including small gap-jumps with chicken line, flowing great (April 2022).

Unfortunately the Forestry Commission have been into Watchwood and removed all the man-made features (jumps) from the downhill runs. However the trails are still rideable & fun, plenty of berms still in place. (July 2021)

well worth a visit

A pretty red-brick village that boasts a couple of pubs, a small Co-op and a village bakery, if you are in need refreshment or supplies. To the north is the former Southwell to Mansfield railway line, which has since been converted into the Southwell Trail for walkers, cyclists and horse riders. To the south is a memorial to a Halifax bomber that crashed here in 1944, killing all on board.