History

 Domesday book to the 21st Century

In common with most villages, Badsworth has existed since before 1086.   It is listed in the Domesday Book as Badesuurde meaning Bades or Baedi's enclosure.."In Badesuurde, Uttone and Rugartorp two brothers had 9 carucates and 5 bovates of land for gold where 6 ploughs can be............

A church is there and a priest and one and a half acres of meadow. Pasturable woodland one leuga in length and three furlongs in bredthe"

This seems to indicate an Anglo Saxon settlement with open fields around a nucleus of houses and it is believed, a wooden Anglo Saxon church.

The Anglo Saxons set up many "springline" villages which offered an assured good quality water supply from natural local springs. Close to the edge of the village heading out towards Thorpe Audlin can be seen the  legacy of the strip system in the somewhat corrugated appearance of the field whereby each peasant was allocated a number of strips in open field, ploughed deep to gain more surface area. 

The  remains of the Strip system - from space! 

The village today still reflects its past, being of a "nucleated" character with the Church of St Mary as its central focus. It is thought that there was a village green situated close to the church at which a community well was sited for use by the villagers. There remain several wells in and around the village - some apparently still useable but others which are filled in or disused. This seems to suggest that the village green was not necessarily a dominant focus for the community.

Whilst the village is of nucleated character, its shape is broadly rectangular and typical of many villages in the North of England. 

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