The Little Book of Staffordshire E-Book

Kate Gomez

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 264

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Did you know? - A gravestone in the churchyard of St Edwards at Leek suggests that the deceased died at the ripe old age of 438! - The ashes of Hanley-born Sir Stanley Matthews are buried beneath the centre circle at Stoke's Britannia Stadium. - The sun sets twice in Leek each summer solstice. - Sarah Westwood from Lichfield was the last woman to be executed at Stafford Gaol, in 1844. The Little Book of Staffordshire is a compendium of fascinating information about the county, past and present. It contains a plethora of entertaining facts about Staffordshire's famous and occasionally infamous men and women, its towns and countryside, history, natural history, literary, artistic and sporting achievements, customs ancient and modern, transport, battles and ghostly appearances. A reliable reference book and a quirky guide, this can be dipped into time and time again to reveal something new about the people, the heritage, the secrets and the enduring fascination of the county. A remarkably engaging little book, this is essential reading for visitors and locals alike.

Leseprobe

First published 2017

This edition published 2023

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Kate Gomez, 2017, 2023

The right of Kate Gomez to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 8286 3

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

Introduction and Acknowledgements

1 Before Staffordshire

2 Staffordshire Castles and Houses

3 Religion in Staffordshire

4 Staffordshire Sport

5 Science, Industry and Innovations

6 Food and Drink

7 Staffordshire Architecture

8 Natural Staffordshire

9 Royalty and Politics

10 Folklore and Traditions

11 War in Staffordshire

12 Institutions

13 Music, Literature and Television

About the Author

INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Compiling this book has been an adventure, sometimes undertaken alone, but more often with friends and family. The stories, information and snippets of trivia contained in this book have been collected from a wide range of sources, and have been a constant reminder that truth is often far stranger, far more interesting and far more entertaining than anything fiction can offer.

This book is by no means a comprehensive collection of everything the county has to offer and there are plenty more discoveries to be made. Staffordshire has been my home for almost twenty years and this book is dedicated to all the women and men of my adopted county who have made it such an interesting and inspiring place to live, and to all those who continue to do so.

Kate Gomez,Lichfield, 2023

1

BEFORE STAFFORDSHIRE

The year 2016 marked the 1,000th anniversary of the first mention of Staffordshire in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle and the county celebrated with the inaugural Staffordshire Day. Of course, people lived, worked and died here long before that name existed and evidence of their existence can be found in the landscape that surrounds us.

NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE

The Bridestones sit on the Staffordshire and Cheshire border and are thought to be somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 years old. It is an absolute wonder that these stones are still standing, and all the more remarkable when you read of their treatment in the past. Back in the eighteenth century, the site was regarded as a convenient quarry and was plundered for its stone, some of which was used to build local houses and some of which was taken to build the nearby turnpike road. There are also rumours that some of the stone can be found in the ornamental gardens at Tunstall Park, which was opened to the public in June 1908. The stones are said to have sustained yet more damage in the nineteenth century, both accidentally, when a fire lit at the site caused the stones to crack, and deliberately, when an engineer working on the Manchester Ship Canal supposedly demonstrated how detonation worked on one of the larger stones. There are stories that claim the stones mark the resting place of a murdered pair of newlyweds, a Saxon woman and her Viking groom. Others say weddings once took place here.

Near to Oakley Hall, at Mucklestone, there is a Neolithic monument frequently referred to as the ‘Devil’s Ring and Finger’, comprising of two large stones, one round with a 20in-diameter porthole in the middle and the other standing 6ft tall. No longer in their original position, they are thought to have been part of a burial chamber and have also been known as ‘The Whirl Stones’.

When Thor’s Cave in the Manifold Valley was excavated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, an assortment of archaeological finds including tools, pottery, beads and at least seven human burials was discovered, suggesting the cave had been in use from the Palaeolithic period through to the Iron Age and Roman periods.

A small copper alloy anvil, used as a Bronze Age gold-working tool, still with tiny gold flecks on its working faces, was discovered by a metal-detectorist at Knowle Hill in Lichfield along with several other objects from the same period, including an adze and a socketed axe.

At the confluence of the rivers Trent and Tame, a series of Neolithic or Early Bronze Age ritual landscape features have been termed the ‘Catholme cere-monial complex’. Amongst them are a Woodhenge monument, a ‘sunburst’ monument, a possible cursus and a large ring ditch.

In August 2015, a Bronze Age cremation urn was discovered at the Roaches by a man repairing a footpath.

A cemetery containing the cremated remains of twenty-one individuals along with the remains of five cinerary urns were discovered during the excavation of two ring ditches in Barton under Needwood in 1996.

A Bronze Age barrow at Leek, known as Cock Low, was destroyed in 1907 to make way for housing. On the 1838 town plan it is shown as a large mound and standing around 4m high. An urn discovered near the top of the mound contained animal and human bone and a heart-shaped carved stone.

A total of twenty-one burnt mounds have been discovered in the county, the majority in the Cannock Chase area.

When the Wardlow barrow was excavated in 1955 it was found to contain a central cremation deposit accompanied by an incense or pygmy cup, three fragments of a reddish-buff vessel, a barbed and tanged arrowhead, flint knives and other flint implements. The barrow was destroyed by the extension of Wardlow Quarry.

IRON AGE

Staffordshire has a number of hillforts including Bunbury Hill in the grounds of Alton Towers, Berth Hill in the Maer Hills, Bishop’s Wood near Eccleshall, Bury Bank at Stone, Berry Ring in Stafford, Kinver Edge and Castle Ring at the highest point on Cannock Chase, 240m above sea level. A high-status medieval building stands inside the latter and was excavated by local historian William Molyneux in the nineteenth century.

Local tribes in the area, which would later become Staffordshire, were known as the Cornovii, Coritani and Brigantes.

Four Iron Age coins were discovered near Gnosall in 2011.

The Glascote gold alloy torc was discovered by a canal worker who was told it was a coffin handle and to keep it as a souvenir. In 1970, it was declared treasure and purchased by the people of Birmingham and it has been suggested that it would have been made for a tribal chief. It is similar to a torc discovered in the Needwood Forest suggesting there may have been a craftsman in the area. The local high school was named after the find, as was a street in the vicinity. Other torcs from the period have been discovered near Draycott and Alrewas where three unfinished examples were discovered in 1996.

ROMAN

Just outside of Lichfield, in the village of Wall, are the remains of the Roman settlement of Letocetum, a Latinised version of an Iron Age place name meaning ‘grey wood’. The foundations of the bathhouse and guesthouse (or mansio), established here to provide rest and recuperation and a change of horses to those travelling along Watling Street, are still visible.

Many fascinating archaeological finds have been unearthed at the site and are displayed in the small site museum, including a carved stone, discovered built into the foundations of the mansio, along with seven others currently in storage at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. The carving seems to show two horned heads facing each other, with a circular object, interpreted as a shield, to their right. Heads also appear on some of the other stones found alongside it. One depicts a figure with a club in one hand, and a severed head or skull at its feet. Another features a head in what may be some sort of niche and a fourth has a head with an open mouth, which may suggest it is screaming. Carved onto a fifth stone are two ‘warrior’ figures with shields, standing side by side. A pattern of sorts around their legs has been interpreted as representing water. A second pair of figures, enclosed in a frame or box of some sort, lie at right angles to these ‘warriors’. Two further stones have inscriptions, or at least partial inscriptions – ‘CUINTI ... CI’ and ‘DDBRUTI’ – and on the eighth stone is a carving resembling a Christian cross, although it may be a pagan symbol representing the sun. All but one of the stones were built into the foundations of the mansio in an inverted position, and there is a theory that they were originally part of a Romano-British shrine dedicated to a native god or gods, demolished sometime around the building of the mansio.

The reason for the shrine’s demolition at this stage is unclear, but it has been suggested that it may have been replaced by a yet to be discovered temple dedicated to a Roman god built elsewhere on the site. Incorporating the stones upside down suggests that the native gods represented by the carvings were still respected, and perhaps even feared by the builders of the mansio. A ninth carved stone, found separately in a hypocaust in the north-east of the mansion appears to depict a phallus, and was inserted after construction to provide additional protection for the building.

The late Professor Mick Aston of Time Team had one of his first experiences of archaeology at Letocetum, under the guidance of Jim Gould FSA.

Whilst excavating the Wyrley to Essington canal at Pipehill, at the end of the eighteenth century, a 500-yard section of a Roman military barricade (or palisade) made from trunks of oak trees was discovered. It was thought to have originally stretched from Pipe Hill to the Roman settlement at Letocetum.

A lead ingot dating to AD 76, inscribed with the names of the emperor Vespasian and the maker Deceangli, was discovered on Hints Common.

At Chesterton, there was a first-century Roman fort and settlement excavated in 1969.

In 1960, a man digging in his garden on Lightwood Road in the Longton area of Stoke-on-Trent came across an earthenware pot containing over 2,400 coins and two silver bracelets. The find, now at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, is known as the Lightwood Hoard.

A Roman fort was established at Rocester in around AD 69, and earthworks are still visible.

A series of Roman military sites, including two forts, several camps and a small, defended settlement known as Pennocrucium, have been identified in the Stretton Mill and Water Eaton area.

ANGLO-SAXON

At Holy Trinity church in Eccleshall, there are two fragments of a Saxon preaching cross, one featuring two figures separated by a tree and the other, a man and horse. The pair of figures on the former have been interpreted by some as Adam and Eve alongside the Tree of Life and the figure on the latter as a possible early representation of St Chad, who was of course the first Bishop of Lichfield. Although there is little other evidence at present, the presence of the cross and the ‘Eccles’ element of the place name, suggests that there may have been an early Christian community here.

The Staffordshire Hoard is the largest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork ever discovered. It was found in a field alongside Watling Street, in the parish of Hammerwich in July 2009 by a metal detectorist and consists almost entirely of items associated with warfare. A further eighty-one artefacts were recovered from the site in November 2012. The hoard has been dated to the seventh or eighth century and the finds are jointly owned by Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent city councils. It is valued at £3.285 million and a fundraising campaign the save the hoard for the nation raised over £900,000 in public donations. Suggestions for why the hoard came to be buried include an offering to pagan gods or an attempt to conceal the items until the owner was able to return to collect them safely.

The Maer Hills are reputed to be the site of a number of battles and King Oswy of Northumbria, killed in AD 642, is said to be buried at Kings Bank.

An Anglo-Saxon burial ground was discovered in 1850 when a large number of urns containing human bones were found at a depth of c. 3ft in a gravel pit near Barton Station, opened by the Midland Railway Company. Some of the urns also contained iron weapons, including two knives.

At a cave to the right-hand side of Beeston Tor, sometimes known as St Bertram’s Cave, a hoard of four Anglo-Saxon brooches and twenty-three silver pennies of Edmund of East Anglia dating to around AD 875 were discovered in 1924. It is believed that the hoard is related to the invasion of the Danish Great Army into East Anglia in 869, and the murder of King Edmund in the same year.

A Saxon sword and axe were discovered in the park at Alton Towers in 1834.

A decorated Saxon cross shaft was discovered built into the foundations of the north wall of the nave of Lichfield Cathedral and an Anglo-Saxon building, excavated in the Cross Keys area of the city during work on the car park in 2007–08, was found to incorporate reused Roman masonry from the nearby site of Letocetum.

The Battlestone, a Saxon cross unearthed during the building of the new Ilam village, is believed to have been carved to commemorate a battle with the Danes. There are several other Saxon crosses in and around the church at Ilam, which also features a walled-up Saxon doorway in the south wall.

Several fragments of crosses exist in and around the church of St Peter in Alstonefield. As several of these are unfinished it has been suggested that there may have been a stone carving workshop near to the site of the church during the Anglo-Saxon period.

Three Anglo-Saxon crosses exist in the graveyard of Checkley parish church. Local tradition says they are monuments erected to the memory of three bishops killed in a battle between the Saxons and the Danes at Deadman’s Green.

The will of Saxon nobleman and founder of Burton Abbey, Wulfric Spot, dates to the reign of King Aethelred the Unready and so predates the Domesday Book by around eighty years, making it an important source for the study of Staffordshire prior to the Norman Conquest.

2

STAFFORDSHIRE CASTLES AND HOUSES

FIVE CASTLES OF STAFFORDSHIRE

Stafford Castle started out as a classic motte-and-bailey-style fortress after William the Conqueror gave land to Norman lord Robert de Toeni to build a timber castle to keep the locals under control. Around 1350, Ralph, a founder member of the Order of the Garter, became the 1st Earl of Stafford and ordered a stone castle to be built on the existing motte. Humphrey Stafford was created 1st Duke of Buckingham in 1444 but was killed acting as the King’s personal guard when Henry VI was taken prisoner a Northampton. His great-grandson Edward Stafford was executed by Henry VIII in 1521 and the castle was seized by the Crown. It was restored to the family but fell into disrepair, with a later Edward Stafford referring to in 1603 as, ‘My rotten castle of Stafford’. During the Civil War, the castle was garrisoned by the Royalists and reinforced with men from Lichfield, Tutbury and Dudley who helped Lady Stafford defend the castle from the Roundheads. However, it was eventually captured by the parliamentarians who had it demolished. In the 1790s, only a low wall was visible above ground. Work began to rebuild in the Gothic revival style in 1813, although a lack of funds meant the work was never completed. By the 1950s the structure was unsafe, with the last of its caretakers, who had run a small tearoom at the castle, having left the previous year. In 1961, Lord Stafford gave it to the local authority who called in the army to make it safe following the death of a young boy at the site. Although the only visible stonework is nineteenth century, recent archaeological work suggests that Stafford is one of the best surviving examples of Norman earthworks in the country.

Tamworth Castle overlooks the River Tame on a site that has been fortified since AD 913 when Aethelflaeda, Lady of the Mercians, built a burh to defend the town from the Vikings. It is likely that the motte-and-bailey castle was built around 1070, but was partly destroyed in 1215 when Robert Marmion, the fourth in the line of Marmions owning the castle, deserted King John. The castle was restored to them following King John’s death and the castle was transformed from a fortress to a Tudor home under the Ferrers’ family. In 1783 the Great Hall at Tamworth castle was whitewashed and a sixteenth-century mural of Sir Lancelot and Sir Tarquin was destroyed. Shortly afterwards, the banqueting hall was used as a forge in connection with Robert Peel’s cotton foundry, the stone floor destroyed and replaced by red bricks. In 1897 the castle was sold to Tamworth Corporation for £3,000 and it opened as a museum two years later. It is one of the best-preserved motte-and-bailey castles in England, with the second largest motte in England after that at Windsor Castle.

Chartley Castle is a ruined motte-and-bailey castle between Stafford and Uttoxeter and was one of twenty-two castles built by the 6th Earl of Chester, Ranulf de Blundeville, whose name means ‘he who ransacks cities’. There had previously been a wooden castle on the site, built in 1090 by Henry de Ferrers, a standard bearer of William the Conqueror. When Chartley Hall was completed in 1420 the castle was abandoned.

Tutbury Castle was first recorded in 1071 and was the seat of the de Ferrers family until Henry III gave it to his younger son Edmund, Earl of Lancaster. After withstanding a siege that lasted three weeks during the Civil War, the castle was destroyed following an Act of Parliament in 1647–48. The demolition was incomplete, and the ruins still stand today. The castle is perhaps best known for being the prison of Mary, Queen of Scots on several occasions, as she was moved around the Midlands for eighteen years in a bid to thwart rescue attempts. On Christmas Eve 1585, Mary left Tutbury, a place where she had described herself as being subjected to all the ‘winds and injures of heaven’. The castle is still owned by the Duchy of Lancaster but is leased to curator Lesley Smith, an English Reformationist Medical Historian and well known for her interpretations of Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I and other historical figures.

Alton Castle sits above the Churnet Valley on a site fortified since Saxon times. The current castle was built by John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, who commissioned Augustus Pugin to replace the majority of the twelfth-century ruins with a neo-Gothic castle, replica medieval hospital, guildhall and presbytery. In 1855, an order of nuns known as the Sisters of Mercy used the site, with the presbytery becoming their convent. In 1996, it was converted into a Catholic youth retreat centre owned by the Archdiocese of Birmingham.

Other castles in the county include Caverswall, Eccleshall, Heighley, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stourton.

STAFFORDSHIRE’S LOST HOUSES

In 1761 a young nobleman called Arthur Chichester, the Earl (later Marquess) of Donegall, acquired Fisherwick Hall, a ‘very proper brick house’ built in the late sixteenth century by the Skeffington family. Within five years, Donegall had decided to transform his Tudor home into a fashionable and elegant mansion and enlisted the services of some of the best-known architects and artists of the day to help him. Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown was employed to redesign and remodel the house and surrounding parkland. Some of his additions to the Fisherwick landscape included 10,000 trees (earning his employer a medal from the Society of Arts), a ladies’ botanic garden, an orangery and the creation of a lake and a cascade. The mansion itself was built from white stone, with a huge Corinthian portico gracing the entrance. Lavish interiors were created by Joseph Bonomi (who is mentioned in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility), his friend Jean-Francois Rigaud, the stuccoist Joseph Rose, and Thomas Gainsborough was commissioned to paint the Donegall family portraits.

After just half a century, the Donegall era at Fisherwick drew to a close. The marquess died in 1799, and by 1808 the majority of the estate had been bought by Richard Bagot Howard, owner of Elford Hall. Fisherwick Hall was torn down and sold off to the highest bidder. The columns which had once held the portico over the entrance to the hall eventually found their way to the George Hotel, Walsall, in 1823, bought for next to nothing after being found disused and covered in moss (unfortunately as the George Hotel was demolished in 1934, the columns may lie somewhere in this state once again!). The porch is said to have made its way to Upfields Farm on the Elford Road, wrought-iron gates featuring Donegall’s initials ended up at Bolehall in Tamworth, and a staircase and doors were made use of in a house in Beacon Street, Lichfield.

Beaudesert, at the edge of Cannock Chase, was the seat of the Paget family, given to one of Henry VIII’s closest advisers William Paget following the Reformation. His descendant, Henry Cecil Paget, known as the Dancing Marquess, inherited the title and family estates in 1898. Described by many as a flamboyant eccentric, he converted the chapel at the family’s other home, Plas Newydd, into a 150-seat theatre, inviting local people to watch musical comedies and pantomimes, all starring the extravagantly costumed marquess in the lead role.

Paget also took his theatre troupe on tour. In 1903, they performed The Marriage of Kitty and An Ideal Husband to huge audiences at St James’s Hall in Lichfield. This was one of the few times that this marquess actually stayed at Beaudesert. Despite an enormous annual income that made him one of Queen Victoria’s wealthiest subjects, the cost of staging his dazzling theatre shows and a love of expensive clothes, perfumes, jewellery and parties left him heavily in debt. In 1904, the contents of Plas Newydd were put up for auction and a sale of some of the contents of Beaudesert followed in January 1905. Later that year, the Marquess died of pneumonia in Monte Carlo aged only 30. The Lichfield Mercury reported his death in March 1905 saying, ‘The news of Lord Anglesey’s death was received at Bangor with much regret, as Lord Anglesey, despite his peculiarities was much liked there.’

It was said that the Dancing Marquess was known to the tenants of his Staffordshire estate only by repute, and that he had neglected his ancestral home. His cousin and successor Charles Paget was determined to do things differently, and in 1906 began to make alterations to Beaudesert in preparation for him spending more time there. Unfortunately, in 1909, with his mother Lady Alexander Paget already in residence, a huge fire broke out at the hall. Fire brigades from Rugeley, Cannock, Hednesford, Brownhills and Lichfield attended the blaze, which began in the servants quarters and destroyed much of the west wing. Perhaps this was the beginning of the end for Beaudesert.

By the early 1920s, the Paget family decided they were unable to run two estates due to the heavy burden of taxation and decided to take up permanent residence at Plas Newydd. What they did not take with them from Beaudesert to Anglesey was put up for sale, including Chinese wallpaper, Flemish tapestries, a Broadwood grand piano and a billiard table. Then in 1932, the entire Beaudesert estate was put up for auction. Although many of its cottages and lodges were sold, the hall itself was not. In 1935, the Lichfield Mercury published a letter written by the marquess in response to people’s concerns over the future of Beaudesert. In it he explained that the hall had not received one single bid at the 1932 auction, and that despite being offered to every possible public body, colleges, the British Red Cross Society and school authorities, it had been found unsuitable by all. He added a postscript asking for any practical suggestions, which might yet save Beaudesert.

The fabric of the hall, along with the fixtures and fittings, were sold off piecemeal. Some of the interior furnishings were taken to Carrick Hill in Adelaide, Australia, and what was left was sold to demolition contractors, but the firm went out of business before they could complete the job of razing Beaudesert to the ground. The remains of Beaudesert, including part of the Great Hall, were given listed status in 1953. During demolition many of the bricks from Beaudesert were taken to re-face St James’s Palace, which had suffered from pollution as a result of coal smoke. Much of the estate is now used as a Scout and Guide camp, administered by the Beaudesert Trust.

Elford Hall, in the village of the same name between Lichfield and Tamworth, and its associated estate were gifted to Birmingham City Council in July 1936. Francis Paget, who had served in the trenches of the First World War and had vowed to God to do something to benefit others if he were to make it home safely, made the decision in order ‘to promote the healthful recreation of the citizens of Birmingham’. Basque children fleeing from the Spanish Civil War were housed in the mansion in 1938 and during the Second World War the hall was used to store artwork from the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. When a gale caused a chimneystack to crash through three storeys of the derelict hall in 1962, the Birmingham Corporation made the decision to demolish the hall. All that remained was the Walled Garden, which lay overgrown and neglected and earmarked for a housing development until 2009 when a group of local people formed an action group to restore the garden, retaining much of its original character whilst also creating somewhere free and accessible for the public to use and enjoy.

Trentham Hall started life as an Augustinian priory but was acquired by the Leveson family, who later married into the Gower family. Capability Brown landscaped the garden, and the house was doubled in size by the mid nineteenth century. However, by 1907 it had been abandoned as pollution from the Potteries was flowing down the Trent, which had been diverted to create a lake close to the hall and supply water to the fountains; it was said, ‘The pools of the princely grounds of Trentham are literally becoming the cesspool of the Potteries’. In 1979, the estate was sold with the hope of transforming it into a leisure park like nearby Alton Towers but subsidence caused by coal mining in the area made this scheme unworkable. During the Second World War it was used by the Bank of England, and Trentham Ballroom opened on the site in 1931 playing host to bands including The Beatles, Pink Floyd and The Who before closing in 2002.

Pillaton Hall was demolished when Sir Edward, the fourth and last of the Littleton baronets, moved the family seat from Pillaton Hall to Teddesley in 1742. The building of the new hall was funded by the discovery of a hoard of gold and silver coins found in twenty-five purses during the demolition of Pillaton.

Drayton Manor was built by the Peel family in 1835, but the family fortunes were frittered away, particularly by the 4th baronet, a gambler reputed to have once ‘broken the bank’ at Monte Carlo. Now all that remains of the house is its clock tower and part of the servants’ quarters although there was a rumour that the rest of the house had been bought by an American who had rebuilt it back in his home country. The site was used as a training post during the Second World War, and afterwards was purchased by George and Vera Bryan, who opened an amusement park in 1949. George was the son of William Bryan, an inventor of slot machines. A zoo was added in 1954, when the Bryans teamed up with Molly Badham, who would later own Twycross Zoo. Today, Drayton Manor is the fifth most popular theme park in the country.

Ranton Abbey was accidentally burned down in 1942 when Dutch troops forming the bodyguard for Queen Wilhemina of the Netherlands were stationed there.

Biddulph Old Hall was destroyed by the parliamentarians after the Royalist garrison there surrendered during the Civil War. The famous Roaring Meg cannon was used during the attack. After King Charles II was restored to the throne, Francis Biddulph was one of twelve Staffordshire men proposed as a Knight of the Royal Oak.

TALES FROM STAFFORDSHIRE HOUSES

Maer Hall in Newcastle-under-Lyme was once owned by Josiah Wedgewood II whose Etruria works were 7 miles away. Charles Darwin proposed to Wedgewood’s daughter Emma at Maer and they were married in the nearby church of St Peter. After Wedgewood’s death, another pottery manufacturer William Davenport bought the house, and for most of the twentieth century it was owned by the Harrison family, of the Harrison Shipping Line.

The Wodehouse near Wombourne was the seat of landscape designer Sir Samuel Hellier and it has been claimed that the property has not been sold for over 900 years. Hellier died childless and left the property to his friend Reverend John Shaw, on the condition he would change his surname. His grandson, Colonel Shaw-Hellier, as he was known, let out the property to the Liberal MP for Wednesbury, Phillip Stanhope, and his wife Alexandra Tolstoy. Stanhope was joint president of the National League for Opposing Women’s Suffrage and in 1914 was attacked with a dog whip at Euston station by a suffragette who had mistaken him for Prime Minister Asquith. Another prime minister, William Ewart Gladstone, stayed at Wodehouse on the night of 8 November 1888 after speaking at Birmingham.

Swythamely Hall, once owned by the Brocklehurst family, was brought by the World Government for the Age of Enlightenment, followers of Indian mystic Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and was opened as a training centre for teachers of Transcendental Meditation. It was sold in 1987.

Sinai Park near Burton upon Trent has been described as ‘the most important house in England to be in such a state’. The hilltop location with water supplied by a chalybeate spring suggests the potential for much earlier occupation of the site. However, the first hard evidence of habitation here are the remains of a fortified manor house in the form of the thirteenth-century moat surrounding the property and stonework in the cellars below. Sinai was donated to the monks of Burton Abbey by the Schobenhale family, and was used as a ‘seyney house’, i.e. a place to restore their strength after bloodletting sessions and during periods of illness – hence the name and its importance. According to English Heritage ‘only a handful of similar monastic retreats or seyney houses have been identified nationally’. Sinai has surviving buildings dating to this period, which have been described as ‘unique’. The three wings are structurally independent of each other and it’s believed that the monks brought two medieval timber-framed buildings here from Burton, and rebuilt them parallel to each other to use as dormitories. After the Reformation, Sinai was given to the Paget family who at times used it as a hunting lodge. In 1606, they erected a medieval-style great hall to link these two wings and to impress their mates.