Stafford

Stafford
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Country	England
Shire county	Staffordshire
Population	72,000 (2021)

Stafford is the county town of Staffordshire. It lies in between the larger Staffordshire towns of Stoke-on-Trent to the north and Wolverhampton to the south, and is around 25 miles north of Birmingham, Warwickshire and 45 miles south of Manchester, Lancashire. Lying within Pirehill hundred, it has a population of around 72,000. A historic market town with Anglian roots, Stafford was established at least as early as the 10th century as a fortified burh within the kingdom of Mercia. It is perhaps best known for the Ancient High House, a 16th century Elizebethan townhouse and the largest timber-frame townhouse in England.

Geography

Stafford lies in central Staffordshire within the Pirehill hundred. It is situated on the River Sow within ancient and now mostly reclaimed marshland. It is approximately 45 miles almost due south of Manchester in Lancashire and around 24 miles north-west of Birmingham in Warwickshire.

At the north-western end of the town lies Doxey Marshes, a 370-acre nature reserve home to numerous rare birds and other animal species. It is particularly noted as a breeding ground for snipe and for its local population of otters. Kingsmead Marsh, another remnant of local wetland, is located close to the town centre. South-east of the town is Cannock Chase, a wooded area and former royal forest.

History

There is no evidence for permanent Roman settlement at the site of present-day Stafford itself, although there was a Roman villa at Acton Trussell, 4 miles to the south. However, there is evidence that the Romans reclaimed part of the local marshland for agriculture rather than settlement. 2 Roman coins, dated from c. 335 AD, were discovered at Clarke Street in 1961.

Local legend has it that Stafford is the island of Bethnei (or Bethney), where Beorhthelm of Stafford (also known as Bertelin, among other variants) is said to have founded a hermitage in c. 700 AD. Beorhthelm of Stafford is venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church, with a feast day on 10 August. Beorhthelm is the patron saint of Stafford, and 1950s excavations revealed a late Anglo-Saxon shrine to Beorhthelm at St Mary's Church in the town.

The earliest mention of Stafford by name came in 918 AD, when the Anglo-Saxon chronicle records that Æthelflæd, Lady of Mercia and sister of Edward the Elder, built established a burh (fortified town) at Stafford as part of her campaign against attacks from Danish Vikings.

Following the Norman conquest of Anglo-Saxon England in 1066, the Battle of Stafford (1069) was a key part of William the Conqueror's invasion of England. Mercians, with the support of the Welsh, rose up against the Normans, only to have the king himself arrive to suppress the rebellion. The wider Harrying of the North (1069-1070) devastated much of the North and North Midlands of England; by 1086, some 17 years after the Battle of Stafford, the town was declared in the Domesday Book to still be partially waste, with nearly a third of its messuages vacant. Stafford had a recorded population of 34 households at the time of the Domesday survey. The feudal barony of Stafford also had its roots in the Norman conquest as Robert de Tosny (later Robert de Stafford) was awarded by William 131 manors in England, many of which were in Staffordshire. Robert built Stafford Castle, originally made of wood, some time in the 1070s as his seat. In 1090, Robert had built a motte-and-bailey castle on the site.

St Chad's Church, which in the 21st century is the oldest surviving building in Stafford, was first built in the 12th century and is an example of Norman architecture. St Chad was a 7th century Northumbrian monk credited with bringing Christianity to Mercia.

A walled town, Stafford's stone walls were constructed in 1225, with permission granted by Henry III to collect tolls for their construction. They replaced earlier wooden Mercian burh defences. The wall had four gates into the town at the north, east, south and west. Very little of the Medieval town walls remain, but their presence has survived in local street names such as South Walls, North Walls, Eastgate Street, Greengate Street and Foregate Street. Among the largest surviving sections of the town's Medieval walls is found at the junction between North Walls and Eastgate Street.

An important market town of the Middle Ages, there were numerous trades in Stafford by c. 1280, with tanning, glove making and shoe making being practised in the town. Stafford was particularly known for its cloth and wool trades.

Stafford was joined up to the canal network in 1814 with the construction of the River Sow Navigation, which connected Stafford to the Stafforshire and Worcestershire Canal (a 46-mile long canal linking the Trent and Mersey Canal at Great Heywood to the River Severn at Stourport).

Railways arrived in Stafford in July 1837, when the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was linked to Birmingham with the opening of the Grand Junction Railway. In 1844 the station was rebuilt, designed by John Cunningham in Elizabethan style, as the existing one proved inadequate. The station was rebuilt yet again in 1862. The present station was constructed in a Brutalist style in 1962.

The town was linked to the motorway network in 1962 when the M6 bypass of the town to the west was opened. This came 4 years after the opening of the first motorway in Britain, the M6 bypass of Preston some 75 miles to the north.

Elizabeth II visited Stafford on Friday, 31 March 2006, attending a thanksgiving service at the Collegiate Church of St Mary.

Transportation

Stafford is served by two junctions on the M6 motorway, which links the town with Stoke-on-Trent and the North West of England to the north, and Wolverhampton, the Black Country, Birmingham and routes to the south of England to the south.

The nearest international airports to Stafford are East Midlands Airport at Castle Donington, Leicestershire and Birmingham Airport at Bickenhill, Warwickshire, both around 30 miles away as the crow flies. Manchester Airport at Ringway, Cheshire is 39 miles away.

Notable people

• Mark Curry (born 1961) - actor and television host
• Neil Morrissey (born 1962) - actor and star of Men Behaving Badly, born in Stafford
• Climax Blues Band - blues rock band formed in Stafford in 1968
• Hannah Maybank (born 1974) - painter