Statefield

Recorded as Statefield, Staterfield, Statersfield, Stotherfield, and possibly others, this is a rare English locational surname. It is presumably from some place whose name is represented by at least one of the surname spellings. However no such place has been found, or anything quite like it unless it be Stotfield in County Durham or Stotfield in Morayshire in Scotland, or a surname from a now "lost" medieval village, whose name may have originally been Stotherfield. In all cases the plavce name and hence the surname means "cattle field". It is estimated that over three thousand villages and small towns have disappeared from the countyside of the British Isles over the past five centuries, and this seems to be another for the growing list. As to why so many disappeared has been the subject of several books. The popular culprits were changes in agricultural practices, the enclosure of the common lands, and the Great Plagues, although the drainage of the fens and wetlands, coastal erosion and war have also played their parts. The surviving church registers of the city of London include early examples such as Thomas Stotherfield at St Martins in the Field, Westminster, on March 19th 1664, and Jane Statefield who married William Over at St James church, also Westminster, on June 25th 1761.