Great Haywood
is a village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 in central Staffordshire

Staffordshire

Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, just off the A51

A51 road

The A51 is a road in England running from Kingsbury in Warwickshire to Chester. The road follows the following route:*Kingsbury*Tamworth*Lichfield*Rugeley *Little Haywood*Great Haywood*Weston*Sandon...

 about four miles from Rugeley

Rugeley

Rugeley is a historic market town in the county of Staffordshire, England. It lies on the northern edge of Cannock Chase, and is situated roughly midway between the towns of Stafford, Cannock, Lichfield and Uttoxeter...

.

Great Haywood lies on the River Trent

River Trent

The River Trent is one of the major rivers of England. Its source is in Staffordshire on the southern edge of Biddulph Moor. It flows through the Midlands until it joins the River Ouse at Trent Falls to form the Humber Estuary, which empties into the North Sea below Hull and Immingham.The Trent...

, where the Trent is met by its tributary

Tributary

A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean...

, the River Sow

River Sow

The River Sow is a tributary of the River Trent in Staffordshire, England.The river rises to the south of Newcastle-under-Lyme and flows south to become the major river through Stafford. It also flows near Bishop's Offley and Tixall. At Baswich it is joined by the River Penk, before meeting the...

. The village is also the site of a significant junction of the English inland canal

Canal

Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...

 network, Haywood Junction

Haywood Junction

Haywood Junction , or Great Haywood Junction, is the name of the canal junction where the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal terminates and meets the Trent and Mersey Canal near to the village of Great Haywood, Staffordshire, England....

, where the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal

Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal

The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal is a narrow navigable canal in the English Midlands, passing through the counties of Staffordshire and Worcestershire....

 meets the Trent and Mersey Canal

Trent and Mersey Canal

The Trent and Mersey Canal is a in the East Midlands, West Midlands, and North West of England. It is a "narrow canal" for the vast majority of its length, but at the extremities—east of Burton upon Trent and west of Middlewich—it is a wide canal....

. The waters around the village are widely regarded by guidebooks as some of the most attractive on the network.

There are two churches, each of which has an attached school, both of which have been classed as 'Good' in recent Ofsted

Ofsted

The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills is the non-ministerial government department of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools In England ....

 inspections http://www.anson.ik.orgSt. Stephen's was designed by Thomas Trubshaw, and became the centre of a parish

Parish

A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...

 in 1858. St. John the Baptist's Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 church was originally built in Tixall

Tixall

Tixall is a small village and former civil parish in the English county of Staffordshire lying on the western side of the Trent valley between Rugeley and Stone, Staffordshire and roughly 4 miles east of Stafford...

, about three miles away, as a private chapel to Tixall Hall, which was owned by the Aston family. When the estate was sold to Earl Talbot, the church was dismantled and rebuilt in Great Haywood. The marks made on the blocks to allow reassembly can still be seen inside the church.

There was originally a mill and a brewery in the village, but both have been closed down and demolished, commemorated by the names of the roads where they once stood (Mill Lane and Brewery Lane). Following a fatal automobile accident in 1905, the mill pond was drained and the road straightened.

Great Haywood was served by a railway station which was opened by the North Staffordshire Railway

North Staffordshire Railway

The North Staffordshire Railway was a British railway company formed in 1845 to promote a number of lines in the Staffordshire Potteries and surrounding areas in Staffordshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire and Shropshire....

 on June 6, 1887 and closed in 1957.

In August 2002 advertisements were placed in the national press for an "hermit

Hermit

A hermit is a person who lives, to some degree, in seclusion from society.In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Christian who lives the eremitic life out of a religious conviction, namely the Desert Theology of the Old Testament .In the...

" to take up residence on the Great Haywood Cliffs above the nearby Shugborough estate, ancestral home of Lord Lichfield. Fifty-five people applied, and Ansuman Biswas was chosen as hermit. Shugborough also serves as the headquarters of Staffordshire county's arts management team.

Great Haywood is the site of Essex Bridge

Essex Bridge, Staffordshire

Essex Bridge is a Grade I listed packhorse bridge over the River Trent near Great Haywood, Staffordshire, England.Lying on the River Trent one hundred yards downstream of the junction with the River Sow, it was built in 1550 by the then Earl of Essex for Queen Elizabeth I so that when she visited...

, one of the largest surviving packhorse bridge

Packhorse bridge

A packhorse bridge is a bridge intended to carry packhorses across a river or stream. Typically a packhorse bridge consists of one or more narrow masonry arches, and has low parapets so as not to interfere with the horse's panniers.Packhorse bridges were often built on the trade routes that...

s in the country which stands over the river Trent near Shugborough Hall

Shugborough Hall

Shugborough is a country estate in Great Haywood, Staffordshire, England, 4 miles from Stafford on the edge of Cannock Chase. It comprises a country house, kitchen garden, and model farm...

. It borders Cannock Chase

Cannock Chase

Cannock Chase is a mixed area of countryside in the county of Staffordshire, England. The area has been designated as the Cannock Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The Chase gives its name to the Cannock Chase local government district....

, designated an area of outstanding natural beauty since 1958.