Broomfield comes from the Old English ‘brōm’ meaning a ‘broom, thorny bush or shrub’
with ‘feld’ as open land, unencumbered ground’; therefore, ‘open land where broom
grows’. The Domesday Book records Broomfield as Brunfelle.
Broomfield parish church is a Grade: II listed building, dedicated to Saint Margaret.
Robert de Crevequer built the church in the late 11th century, with the addition
of the west tower in the 15th century. Around 1450, an unknown founder cast and hung
a treble bell. Mr A Wakefield added a tenor in 1579, with the ring of three completed
by William Hatch in 1663. The Victorian architect Gordon Macdonald Hills carried
out a restoration in 1879.
