Penkridge
Encyclopedia
Penkridge is a market town
and ancient parish
in Staffordshire
, England
with a population of 7,836 (Census 2001). Many locals refer to it as a village
, although it has a long history as an ecclesiastical and commercial centre. Its main distinction in the Middle Ages was as the site of an important collegiate church
, which still dominates the skyline. It has continued to prosper mainly because of its favourable location on regional transport links.
of Penkridge, as defined from 1551 (although it existed in much the same form throughout the Middle Ages), was made up of four distinct townships: Penkridge itself, Coppenhall
, Dunston
, and Stretton. As a place with its own institutions of local government, the parish was also known as Penkridge Borough.
Penkridge became a civil parish
in the 1830s and in 1866 was shorn of the three smaller townships, which became separate parishes. It was constituted as a parish of four distinct constablewicks: Penkridge, Levedale
, Pillaton
, and Whiston. In 1934, the civil parish exchanged some territory with the surrounding parishes to rationalise the boundaries, acquiring the whole of the former civil parish of Kinvaston in the process. The present civil parish thus consists of the following settlements:
in the county
of Staffordshire. It is located between Stafford
which is five miles (8 km) to the north and Wolverhampton
, approximately ten miles to the south, and lies on the River Penk
. For many years it was commonly thought that the town derived its name from the river, but archaeological research indicates that the opposite is likely the case.
The development of Penkridge has been closely linked to its relationship to major routes. The town of Penkridge lies on the medieval route between the county town
s of Stafford and Worcester
, which also passed through Wolverhampton. The Penkridge section became part of the major stagecoach
routes linking London and Birmingham with Manchester and Liverpool and is now subsumed into the A449 road
. Just to the south, at Gailey
, this route crosses the historically still more important Watling Street
, now the A5 road
, which linked London to Chester
, Wales, and ultimately Ireland. The town was also bisected by the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal
from 1770. Today Penkridge is grazed on its eastern side by the M6 motorway
, the main route between London and the north-west of England and Glasgow.
, which flows through it. It was assumed that since the town could be said to stand on a ridge by the Penk, it must derive its name from the river. However, this is to reverse the true derivation. The name of the town, or something like it, is attested many centuries before that of the river. The name "Penk" is actually a back-formation
from the name of the town.
The occupying Romans gave their fort in the area the Latin
form Pennocrucium
. Cameron argues that this, like similar Latinized Celtic names, was passed by the native British directly, orally in its Celtic form, to the later Anglo-Saxon
occupiers—not through the medium of Latin. Thus the name Pennocrucium attests the origins of the name Penkridge, but is not its direct origin. In the indigenous Celtic
, the name of the village was almost certainly penn-crug, meaning "the head (or end) of the ridge", or "chief hill or mound", and pronounced roughly penkrik. In very early times of Anglian settlement the inhabitants of the district were known as the Pencersæte
. In 958, a charter uses the form Pencric for the settlement. This is obviously close to the modern "Penkridge", and both are closer in pronunciation to the Celtic root than to the Latinized form.
The name might reflect the town's location at the terminus of the long ridge of land running along the east side of the river. However, this ridge is not actually very prominent and few visitors would perceive Penkridge as a hill town. Modern toponymists
have become convinced that the hill in question was more likely a tumulus—prominent in pre-Roman and Roman times, and perhaps much later. Brewer comments that "none is evident in the locality". However, Margaret Gelling
, predisposed to find direct evidence for toponyms in the local landscape, has proposed a precise location for the mound, now destroyed by ploughing, that gave both the town and, ultimately, the river their names. This was a tumulus at Rowley Hill Farm, Ordnance Survey reference GR90251180, approximately 52.705°N 2.146°W, which was still prominent in the 18th century and still discernible in the early 20th. It would have directly overlooked the outlying Roman camp, across the Penk and just north of Pennocrucium on Watling Street
, the remains of which are clearly visible in satellite photographs. Certainly, it makes more sense to look for the hill in question in the immediate vicinity of the ancient settlement than that of the modern town, which is well to the north of it. The Rowley Hill tumulus is well documented, and was clearly an extremely important landmark for several millennia.
Gavin Williamson
.
Penkridge is covered by a two-tier system of Non-metropolitan county system of local government
:
All of Penkridge's councillors are currently Conservative.
Before 1974, Penkridge was part of Cannock Rural District
.
or Iron Age
barrow
at nearby Rowley Hill. A significant settlement in this vicinity has existed since pre-Roman times, with its original location being at the intersection of the River Penk
and what became the Roman
military road known as Watling Street
(today's A5 trunk road). This would place it between Water Eaton and Gailey
, about 2.25 miles (3.6 km) SSW of the modern town. The Roman settlement of Pennocrucium
and earlier settlements were in the Penkridge area, but not on the same site as present town of Penkridge.
, when the area was part of Mercia
, although the foundation date is unknown. King Edgar
in 958, described it as a "famous place", so it was already of importance by then. In the Tudor period
, it was claimed that the founder of the collegiate church of St. Michael at Penkridge was King Eadred (946-55), King Edgar's uncle, which seems plausible.
The collegiate church was the most important local institution for most of Penkridge's history: economically powerful and architecturally dominant. All the people of the parish had to be buried there, at considerable cost, so it was where the local magnates installed their memorials. Its area of jurisdiction defined Penkridge parish, which was also the main unit of local government until late Victorian times.
The dean and many of the canons were absentees, so they appointed vicars to act for them locally. The focus of worship was prayer and sacrifice for the dead, not service to the living. Two priests were employed solely to serve in chantries
for the monarch and for the Virgin Mary. By the 16th century, the people of Penkridge were subscribed to pay a morrow priest to celebrate a daily mass, so that they themselves could worship. Pastoral care
and preaching were not taken seriously until the 16th century and later.
and were known as Gailey Hay and Teddesley Hay. Forest law kept most of south Staffordshire in an economic straitjacket. Conflicts between the barons and kings in the 13th century monarchs forced a relaxation, starting with the first issue of the Forest Charter in 1217. So it was in Henry III's
reign that Penkridge began to grow economically and probably in population. Local people began to create new fields, called assarts, by clearing the trees and scrub (still a capital crime), and Penkridge acquired an annual fair and weekly market.
landlords.
The Church had large holdings of land. St. Michael's college had not only the deanery manor but also Preston and the Prebendal Manor of Congreve. The other prebends also held lands, but not as lords of the manor. Some manors belonged to Staffordshire monasteries. Burton Abbey held Pillaton, Bickford and Whiston, and also, for a time, Gailey, which later passed to the nuns of Black Ladies Priory
at Brewood
. Drayton belonged to the Augustinian Priory of St. Thomas, near Stafford.
Most of the manors were quite small and often their owners were fairly minor, although some small manors formed part of the wider holdings of great families. Even the most minor of lords had the right to hold manorial courts and to discipline their tenants, but a wealthy and important lord was like a monarch in his own manor. By the late 14th century the lords of Penkridge manor had obtained charter
s giving them rights to pursue criminals wherever they wished; to inflict the death penalty
; to force tenants to take collective responsibility for offenders; and to confiscate stray livestock.
Just before 1500, the Littleton family
make their first appearance in Penkridge. Richard Littleton brought Pillaton into the family's possession through marriage and Pillaton Hall was the Littleton family seat for about 250 years, the centre of an expanding property empire. Soon they took on the leases of most of St. Michael's church lands and established a family chapel in the church - a statement of their growing importance. They were the most important local representatives of the landed gentry
, a class that was to dominate rural life for several centuries.
, although the actual field names are not documented until 16th and 17th centuries, as they were about to be enclosed
. In Penkridge manor, for example, there were Clay Field, Prince Field, Manstonshill, Mill Field, Wood Field, and Lowtherne or Lantern Field, Fyland, Old Field, and Whotcroft, and also common grazing areas, Stretton Meadow and Hay Meadow. There are no detailed records of what was grown in medieval Penkridge. In 1801, when the first record was made, nearly half was under wheat
, with barley
, oats
, peas, beans, and brassicas the other major crops - probably similar to the medieval pattern: farmers grew wheat wherever the land in their their scattered strips supported it, and other crops elsewhere, with cattle on the riverside meadows and sheep on the heath.
The early medieval cultivators were mainly unfree, forced to work on the lord's demesne
in return for their strips in the open fields. From the 14th century wage labour replaced the feudal labour system. By the 16th century, most landowners were renting or leasing most of their land and paying cash for labour to cultivate what remained. In 1535, for example, the manor of Drayton was worth £9 4s. 8d. annually, and the lions share, £5 18s. 2d., came from money rents.
in 1278 and by Edward II
in 1312. The date varied, but in the middle ages it fell around the end of September and lasted for seven or eight days. It began as a general fair but developed into a horse fair by the late 16th century.
Henry III granted Andrew le Blund a weekly market in 1244. This was challenged by the burgesses
of Stafford, who feared competition, but Penkridge kept its Tuesday market for centuries. After 1500 the market declined, expired and was revived several times, also changing days several times. The market place, still so-named but no longer used, was at the opposite end of the town from the church. The modern market is held on the livestock auction site close to Bull Bridge.
Mills were another great source of profit to lords of the manor, who forced their tenants to use them. The River Penk and a number of tributary brooks were able to drive mills. Domesday records mills at Penkridge at Water Eaton. A century later there were two mills at Penkridge and one of them was operated by the More family for centuries, as tenants of the dean. A mill is recorded at at Drayton by 1194; at Congreve, Pillaton, and Rodbaston in the 13th century; at Whiston in the 14th; and at Mitton in the 15th. These were all corn mills, but in 1345 Water Eaton had a fulling mill, as well as the corn mill.
brought major changes to landownership and social life at Penkridge. First came the Dissolution of the Monasteries
under Henry VIII
. This swept away Burton Abbey, and its manor of Drayton was sold in 1538 to the Bishop Of Lichfield
, who wanted it for his nephews. The College of St. Michael was not threatened at first, as it was not a monastery, but Edward VI's
reign brought a more radical phase of the Reformation. In 1547 the Abolition of Chantries Act decreed the end of the chantry churches and their colleges. St. Michael's was still a thriving institution: a major rebuilding was in progress. Its estates enriched the dean (Archbishop of Dublin), seven prebendaries, two chantry canons, an official principal, three vicars choral, three further vicar
s, a high deacon
, a subdeacon
, and a sacrist. In 1547 its property was assessed at £82 6s. 8d. annually. All this was swept away in 1548 and the first Vicar of Penkridge, Thomas Bolt of Stafford, was appointed on £16 per annum, with an assistant on £8.
Penkridge now became enmeshed in the meteoric career of John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, a key figure in Edward VI's
regency council. In 1539, Dudley got control of Penkridge manor by foreclosing on a debt its owners, the Willoughby de Broke
family, had owed to his father, Edmund Dudley
. Next he grabbed the Deanery Manor and Tedesley Hay, making him the most important landowner in the area, although day-to-day management of the deanery lands stayed with the Littletons, the lessees. Dudley went on to seize almost absolute power in England, and taking the title Duke of Northumberland
. Edward's early death in 1553 left Dudley high and dry. Edward's older sister, the Catholic Mary
, succeeded but Dudley attempted a coup d'état
in favour of Lady Jane Grey
. Mary prevailed and Dudley was arrested and beheaded as a traitor. His lands were forfeit to the Crown, the extensive estates at Penkridge among them.
Dudley had had the foresight to grant various estates to his relatives. So his daughter-in-law, Anne Dudley, Countess of Warwick
, was able to keep a lifetime interest in Penkridge, while his wife hung on to Teddesley Hay until her death. Teddesley was bought by Sir Edward Littleton in 1555. A new Sir Edward succeeded in 1558 and his vigorous enclosure
policy soon stirred up controversy. Penkridge manor entered into a limbo, prolonged by Anne's insanity. The fate of the deanery manor too was unresolved: it was taken from the Dudleys, but not restored to the Church, as Mary did not re-establish the chantries. So both remained with the Crown for a generation, with no decision on their fate. Not until the 1580's were matters resolved. In 1581 the college property was sold to speculators and in 1585 it was snapped up by Sir Edward Littleton. In 1582, Queen Elizabeth promised Penkridge manor to Sir Fulke Greville, heir to the Willoughby de Brokes, and he took over 1590.
who inherited Penkridge in 1606 was a poet and statesman. He served both Elizabeth and James I
, who gave him Warwick Castle
as a seat and elevated him to the peerage as the 1st Baron Brooke. In 1626 he was murdered by a servant. As he was unmarried and childless, he had adopted his younger cousin Robert as his son and heir to both the title and the great estates in Staffordshire and Warwickshire. Robert was a leading parliamentarian and a Puritan
, who promoted emigration to America. When the English Civil War
broke out, he took command of a parliamentary army in central England and was killed during the siege of Cathedral
in 1643. He was succeeded by Francis Greville, 3rd Baron Brooke
.
The Littletons were purely local landowners and instinctively loyalist. Sir Edward Littleton
was made a Baronet by Charles I on 28 June 1627 and was expelled from the House of Commons in 1644 for his royalist sympathies. In May 1645, royalist troops quartered in Penkridge were expelled by small parliamentary force after a brief skirmish. Littleton's estates were sequestrated
but he was able to recover them on payment of £1347. The Littletons' holdings were thus preserved and they found themselves in favour again after the restoration of Charles II in 1660. Despite the revolutionary turmoil, the real situation in Penkridge was little changed.
An anomaly surviving from before the Reformation was the peculiar jurisdiction of St. Michael's. Although the college was long gone, its privileges survived and were vested in the Littletons, owners of the deanery manor. They appointed vicars and kept bishops at bay, until the royal peculiar was ended in 1858.
From the 1660's the pace of enclosure quickened, with all of the manors being divided into small farms, usually with the cultivators' consent, and the these aggregated gradually into larger units. The second half of the 19th century, and especially the last quarter, were hard times for agriculture, with the repeal of the Corn Laws
in 1846 and the Long Depression
from about 1873. The 1831 census found that farmers and agricultural labourers accounted about 60% of the total adult male workforce. Next came shop keepers and artisans, showing that Penkridge remained a small but important commercial centre, although the market had gone. In 1881 agriculture employed about 48% of the working men: a considerable drop. Of the women whose employment is known, 150, the vast majority, were in domestic service. - probably mainly with the local gentry. The hospitality industry was quite important, with 40 men working in food and lodging and 15 working with carriages and horses - reflecting the continuing importance of the inns on a major route. The diversity of trades is marked. No less than 43 – 25 women and 18 men – were involved in dress-making, and there were quarrymen, traders, and many others. However, professionals are numbered at only 14.
Penkridge owed much to its transport links, which steadily improved. The main Stafford-Wolverhampton route, now the A449 road
was turnpiked
under an Act of 1760. Bull Bridge, carrying the road over the Penk, was rebuilt in 1796 and widened in 1822. The improved road attracted more traffic: by 1818 there were stops by coaches on the London - Manchester, Birmingham - Manchester and Birmingham - Liverpool routes. The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal
, opened in 1772, running straight through the parish and the township from north to south, with wharves at Spread Eagle (later called Gailey) and at Penkridge. In 1837, the Grand Junction Railway was opened. It cut through Penkridge on its west side, where Penkridge station was built, and was carried over the River Penk
by the large Penkridge Viaduct
. It began with two trains daily in each direction, to Stafford and Wolverhampton.
Heavy industry expanded in the 18th century, when a forge at Congreve was turning out 120 tons of iron a year, and in the 1820's the mill below Bull Bridge was used for rolling iron. However, this industry tailed off as the Black Country
ironworks outstripped it. Extraction of building materials grew in Victorian times, with the Littletons operating quarries at Wolgarston, Wood Bank, and Quarry Heath, as well as a sand pit at Hungry Hill, Teddesley, and a brickyard in Penkridge.
, a much more impressive seat for the family. He survived until 1812, although, his wife died childless in 1781. He adopted his great-nephew, Edward Walhouse
, as his heir. Walhouse took the name Littleton and took over the Littleton estates, although not the Littleton baronetcy
. He achieved far greater eminence as a politician than any other member of the family, serving as Chief Secretary for Ireland
under the Whig Prime Minister Grey
in 1833-35. He was elevated to the peerage as Baron Hatherton
, a title which remains with the head of the Littleton family to the present, and became an active member of the House of Lords.
Hatherton resided at Teddesley, where he established a free agricultural college and farmed 1700 acres successfully. He strongly promoted education in the area, paying for a National School
in Penkridge and another at Levedale, and for clothing for some of the school children. However, his lifetime saw a decisive shift in the family's interests. As heir to both the Walhouse family fortune and the Littleton estates, he owned great estates around Penkridge and mineral holdings and much residential property in the Cannock
and Walsall
areas. He owned coal mines at Great Wyrley
, Bloxwich
and Walsall; limestone quarries and brickyards in Walsall that were used to build much of the town; hundreds of residential and commercial properties; gravel and sand pits, stone quarries in many places. Unlike Penkridge, Cannock and Walsall were boom towns of the Victorian era, powered by the most modern and profitable industries of the age. The Littletons played a leading part in this phase of the Industrial Revolution
and made large profits from it, and this tilted their attention increasingly away from their landed estates.
The war itself prepared the way for changes. Teddesley Hall, no longer the Littleton's family home since 1930, was used to house troops and prisoners of war. The old common lands between the Penk and the Cannock Road were used as a military camp during the war years. This eased their subsequent development as a large housing estate, greatly enlarging the size and population of Penkridge in the 1950's and 1960's. Between 1951 and 1961 the population grew from 2,518 to 3,383 – a rise of over 34% in just ten years.
In 1919, the 3rd Lord Hatherton had begun disinvestment in land, often selling farms to their tenants. Over 2000 acres (8.1 km²) went in the Penkridge area, including land in the Deanery Manor, Congreve, Lower Drayton, Upper Drayton, Gailey, Levedale and Longridge. In 1953 the 4th Lord Hatherton sold off nearly 4000 acres (16.2 km²), including Teddesley Hall, which was demolished within a year.
The M6 motorway
came around Stafford in 1962 and connected with the M1 motorway
in 1971, giving the town vastly improved communications. The long-awaited M54 motorway
, shadowing the ancient Watling Street, opened in 1983, greatly improving regional links. Penkridge was now very favourably placed on a truly national motorway network. Since the arrival of the M6, the population has more than doubled, as new houses have spread along all the roads, particularly north and south along the A449.
Penkridge has remained a substantial commercial and shopping centre. The major supermarket chains have not been allowed to open stores in the town and its only large store is a Co-operative
supermarket. Independent shops, cafés, inns and services occupy the area between the old market place to the east and Stone Cross on the A449 to the west. The area between Pinfold Lane and the river, long the site of livestock sales, has emerged as a new market place, attracting large numbers of visitors to Penkridge on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
and All Angels on the western edge of town, parts of which date back to the early thirteenth century, is visible even to passing road and rail travelers. A smaller Methodist church is located on the main A449 route through the town, and there are numerous buildings dating from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Penkridge has its own historic stocks
and cells still to be seen in the town centre.
The town has several pubs
, and there are also numerous sports clubs in Penkridge including well-respected cricket
, football
, rugby union
and tennis
clubs.
On the last Friday in November, for one night, the village centre used to close to traffic to allow a Victorian Night & Christmas Market to take place, in 2010 this event moved to the Market site where it has expanded to include over 70 stalls and a funfair.
and is mid-way between junctions 12 and 13 of the M6 motorway
. It is served by National Express
long-distance coaches, and also by local buses provided by Arriva
. It has a railway station
on the West Coast Main Line
, and can also be accessed by the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal
.
s (Marshbrook, St Michael's and Princefield), one middle school
(Penkridge Middle School) and one high school
(Wolgarston, recently granted Specialist Technology College status). The High School has its own swimming pool and the council-run leisure centre is on the same site. Villages and hamlets on the outskirts of Penkridge also use the Middle and High schools.
Market town
Market town or market right is a legal term, originating in the medieval period, for a European settlement that has the right to host markets, distinguishing it from a village and city...
and ancient 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 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...
with a population of 7,836 (Census 2001). Many locals refer to it as 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...
, although it has a long history as an ecclesiastical and commercial centre. Its main distinction in the Middle Ages was as the site of an important collegiate church
Collegiate church
In Christianity, a collegiate church is a church where the daily office of worship is maintained by a college of canons; a non-monastic, or "secular" community of clergy, organised as a self-governing corporate body, which may be presided over by a dean or provost...
, which still dominates the skyline. It has continued to prosper mainly because of its favourable location on regional transport links.
Definition
Penkridge is a parish unit within the East Cuttlestone Hundred of Staffordshire. Its boundaries have varied considerably over the centuries. The ancient parishParish
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...
of Penkridge, as defined from 1551 (although it existed in much the same form throughout the Middle Ages), was made up of four distinct townships: Penkridge itself, Coppenhall
Coppenhall
Coppenhall is a small settlement in Staffordshire, England. Coppenhall lies southwest of Stafford and NNW of Penkridge with Baron Stafford as lord of the manor. The parish of ~ is bounded on the east by the Pothooks Brook...
, Dunston
Dunston, Staffordshire
Dunston is a small village in England lying on the west side of the A449 trunk road about south of Stafford, close to Junction 13 of the M6 motorway. It lies at roughly 300 feet above sea level.-History:...
, and Stretton. As a place with its own institutions of local government, the parish was also known as Penkridge Borough.
Penkridge became a civil parish
Civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...
in the 1830s and in 1866 was shorn of the three smaller townships, which became separate parishes. It was constituted as a parish of four distinct constablewicks: Penkridge, Levedale
Levedale
Levedale is a small somewhat elongated English village situated some 4 miles southwest of Stafford, 2 miles northwest of Penkridge and a mile west of Dunston, Staffordshire....
, Pillaton
Pillaton, Staffordshire
Pillaton is a small village in Staffordshire, England, nearby to Penkridge and lying on the B5012 road between Cannock and Penkridge.It falls under the ST19 postcode district, associating it more with Penkridge and the county town Stafford...
, and Whiston. In 1934, the civil parish exchanged some territory with the surrounding parishes to rationalise the boundaries, acquiring the whole of the former civil parish of Kinvaston in the process. The present civil parish thus consists of the following settlements:
- Penkridge
- GaileyGailey, StaffordshireGailey is a small village in Staffordshire, England. It is at the junction of the A5 and A449 roads, and is on the boundary of the parishes of Brewood and Coven and Penkridge, in South Staffordshire....
- LevedaleLevedaleLevedale is a small somewhat elongated English village situated some 4 miles southwest of Stafford, 2 miles northwest of Penkridge and a mile west of Dunston, Staffordshire....
- Longridge
- Drayton
- Whiston
- BickfordBickfordBickford is a village in Staffordshire, England....
- Congreve
- Mitton
- PillatonPillaton, StaffordshirePillaton is a small village in Staffordshire, England, nearby to Penkridge and lying on the B5012 road between Cannock and Penkridge.It falls under the ST19 postcode district, associating it more with Penkridge and the county town Stafford...
- Lyne Hill
- Otherton.
Location
Penkridge is situated in the district of South StaffordshireSouth Staffordshire
South Staffordshire is a local government district in Staffordshire, England. The district lies to the north and west of Wolverhampton and the West Midlands, bordering Shropshire to the west and Worcestershire to the south...
in the county
County
A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain modern nations. Historically in mainland Europe, the original French term, comté, and its equivalents in other languages denoted a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain...
of Staffordshire. It is located between Stafford
Stafford
Stafford is the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It lies approximately north of Wolverhampton and south of Stoke-on-Trent, adjacent to the M6 motorway Junction 13 to Junction 14...
which is five miles (8 km) to the north and Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...
, approximately ten miles to the south, and lies on the River Penk
River Penk
The River Penk is a small river flowing though Staffordshire, England. Its course is mainly within South Staffordshire, and it drains most of the northern part of that district, together with some adjoining areas of Cannock Chase, Stafford, Wolverhampton, and Shropshire...
. For many years it was commonly thought that the town derived its name from the river, but archaeological research indicates that the opposite is likely the case.
The development of Penkridge has been closely linked to its relationship to major routes. The town of Penkridge lies on the medieval route between the county town
County town
A county town is a county's administrative centre in the United Kingdom or Ireland. County towns are usually the location of administrative or judicial functions, or established over time as the de facto main town of a county. The concept of a county town eventually became detached from its...
s of Stafford and Worcester
Worcester
The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...
, which also passed through Wolverhampton. The Penkridge section became part of the major stagecoach
Stagecoach
A stagecoach is a type of covered wagon for passengers and goods, strongly sprung and drawn by four horses, usually four-in-hand. Widely used before the introduction of railway transport, it made regular trips between stages or stations, which were places of rest provided for stagecoach travelers...
routes linking London and Birmingham with Manchester and Liverpool and is now subsumed into the A449 road
A449 road
The A449 is a major road in the United Kingdom. It runs north from junction 24 of the M4 motorway at Newport in South Wales to Stafford in Staffordshire....
. Just to the south, at Gailey
Gailey
Gailey may refer to:*Chan Gailey , American football player and coach*Gailey, Staffordshire, a village in Staffordshire, England**Gailey Reservoir is nearby...
, this route crosses the historically still more important Watling Street
Watling Street
Watling Street is the name given to an ancient trackway in England and Wales that was first used by the Britons mainly between the modern cities of Canterbury and St Albans. The Romans later paved the route, part of which is identified on the Antonine Itinerary as Iter III: "Item a Londinio ad...
, now the A5 road
A5 road
The A5 is a major road in England and Wales. It is also the first Roman built road in England hence the name Roman Road. It runs for about from London, England to Holyhead, Wales, following in part a section of the Roman Iter II route which later took the Anglo-Saxon name Watling...
, which linked London to Chester
Chester
Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...
, Wales, and ultimately Ireland. The town was also bisected by 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....
from 1770. Today Penkridge is grazed on its eastern side by the M6 motorway
M6 motorway
The M6 motorway runs from junction 19 of the M1 at the Catthorpe Interchange, near Rugby via Birmingham then heads north, passing Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester, Preston, Carlisle and terminating at the Gretna junction . Here, just short of the Scottish border it becomes the A74 which continues to...
, the main route between London and the north-west of England and Glasgow.
Etymology
The popular etymology of the town's name derives it from the River PenkRiver Penk
The River Penk is a small river flowing though Staffordshire, England. Its course is mainly within South Staffordshire, and it drains most of the northern part of that district, together with some adjoining areas of Cannock Chase, Stafford, Wolverhampton, and Shropshire...
, which flows through it. It was assumed that since the town could be said to stand on a ridge by the Penk, it must derive its name from the river. However, this is to reverse the true derivation. The name of the town, or something like it, is attested many centuries before that of the river. The name "Penk" is actually a back-formation
Back-formation
In etymology, back-formation is the process of creating a new lexeme, usually by removing actual or supposed affixes. The resulting neologism is called a back-formation, a term coined by James Murray in 1889...
from the name of the town.
The occupying Romans gave their fort in the area the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
form Pennocrucium
Pennocrucium
Pennocrucium was a Romano-British settlement and military complex located at present day Water Eaton, just south of Penkridge, Staffordshire, with evidence of occupation from the mid-1st century until the 4th century....
. Cameron argues that this, like similar Latinized Celtic names, was passed by the native British directly, orally in its Celtic form, to the later Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...
occupiers—not through the medium of Latin. Thus the name Pennocrucium attests the origins of the name Penkridge, but is not its direct origin. In the indigenous Celtic
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
, the name of the village was almost certainly penn-crug, meaning "the head (or end) of the ridge", or "chief hill or mound", and pronounced roughly penkrik. In very early times of Anglian settlement the inhabitants of the district were known as the Pencersæte
Pencersæte
The Pencersaete or Pencersæte were a tribe or clan in Anglo-Saxon England living in the valley of the River Penk in the West Midlands of England and remaining around Penkridge throughout the existence of the Kingdom of Mercia....
. In 958, a charter uses the form Pencric for the settlement. This is obviously close to the modern "Penkridge", and both are closer in pronunciation to the Celtic root than to the Latinized form.
The name might reflect the town's location at the terminus of the long ridge of land running along the east side of the river. However, this ridge is not actually very prominent and few visitors would perceive Penkridge as a hill town. Modern toponymists
Toponymy
Toponymy is the scientific study of place names , their origins, meanings, use and typology. The word "toponymy" is derived from the Greek words tópos and ónoma . Toponymy is itself a branch of onomastics, the study of names of all kinds...
have become convinced that the hill in question was more likely a tumulus—prominent in pre-Roman and Roman times, and perhaps much later. Brewer comments that "none is evident in the locality". However, Margaret Gelling
Margaret Gelling
Margaret Joy Gelling, OBE was an English toponymist, Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, and member of the Society of Antiquaries of London and the British Academy....
, predisposed to find direct evidence for toponyms in the local landscape, has proposed a precise location for the mound, now destroyed by ploughing, that gave both the town and, ultimately, the river their names. This was a tumulus at Rowley Hill Farm, Ordnance Survey reference GR90251180, approximately 52.705°N 2.146°W, which was still prominent in the 18th century and still discernible in the early 20th. It would have directly overlooked the outlying Roman camp, across the Penk and just north of Pennocrucium on Watling Street
Watling Street
Watling Street is the name given to an ancient trackway in England and Wales that was first used by the Britons mainly between the modern cities of Canterbury and St Albans. The Romans later paved the route, part of which is identified on the Antonine Itinerary as Iter III: "Item a Londinio ad...
, the remains of which are clearly visible in satellite photographs. Certainly, it makes more sense to look for the hill in question in the immediate vicinity of the ancient settlement than that of the modern town, which is well to the north of it. The Rowley Hill tumulus is well documented, and was clearly an extremely important landmark for several millennia.
Government
Penkridge is part of the South Staffordshire UK Parliamentary constituency, currently represented by the ConservativeConservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
Gavin Williamson
Gavin Williamson
Gavin Alexander Williamson is an English Conservative Party politician. He was elected at the 2010 general election as Member of Parliament for South Staffordshire. Williamson is currently a ministerial aide at the Northern Ireland Office.-Early life and family:Williamson originally hails from...
.
Penkridge is covered by a two-tier system of Non-metropolitan county system of local government
Local government
Local government refers collectively to administrative authorities over areas that are smaller than a state.The term is used to contrast with offices at nation-state level, which are referred to as the central government, national government, or federal government...
:
- The District CouncilNon-metropolitan districtNon-metropolitan districts, or colloquially shire districts, are a type of local government district in England. As created, they are sub-divisions of non-metropolitan counties in a so-called "two-tier" arrangement...
is South StaffordshireSouth StaffordshireSouth Staffordshire is a local government district in Staffordshire, England. The district lies to the north and west of Wolverhampton and the West Midlands, bordering Shropshire to the west and Worcestershire to the south...
, based in CodsallCodsallCodsall is a large village in the South Staffordshire district of Staffordshire, England. It is situated north west of the city of Wolverhampton.-History:...
. Penkridge is divided among three wards for elections to the district council: Penkridge North East and Acton Trussell; Penkridge West; Penkridge South East. - The non-metropolitan county is Staffordshire County Council. Penkridge constitutes a single electoral division of the county.
All of Penkridge's councillors are currently Conservative.
Before 1974, Penkridge was part of Cannock Rural District
Cannock Rural District
Cannock was a rural district in Staffordshire, England from 1894 to 1974.It was created by the Local Government Act 1894, based on the Cannock rural sanitary district, and has the town of Cannock on its eastern border...
.
Early settlement
Early human occupation of the area around Penkridge has been confirmed by the presence of a BronzeBronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
or Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
barrow
Tumulus
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn...
at nearby Rowley Hill. A significant settlement in this vicinity has existed since pre-Roman times, with its original location being at the intersection of the River Penk
River Penk
The River Penk is a small river flowing though Staffordshire, England. Its course is mainly within South Staffordshire, and it drains most of the northern part of that district, together with some adjoining areas of Cannock Chase, Stafford, Wolverhampton, and Shropshire...
and what became the Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
military road known as Watling Street
Watling Street
Watling Street is the name given to an ancient trackway in England and Wales that was first used by the Britons mainly between the modern cities of Canterbury and St Albans. The Romans later paved the route, part of which is identified on the Antonine Itinerary as Iter III: "Item a Londinio ad...
(today's A5 trunk road). This would place it between Water Eaton and Gailey
Gailey, Staffordshire
Gailey is a small village in Staffordshire, England. It is at the junction of the A5 and A449 roads, and is on the boundary of the parishes of Brewood and Coven and Penkridge, in South Staffordshire....
, about 2.25 miles (3.6 km) SSW of the modern town. The Roman settlement of Pennocrucium
Pennocrucium
Pennocrucium was a Romano-British settlement and military complex located at present day Water Eaton, just south of Penkridge, Staffordshire, with evidence of occupation from the mid-1st century until the 4th century....
and earlier settlements were in the Penkridge area, but not on the same site as present town of Penkridge.
Anglo-Saxon origins
The town of Penkridge dates back at least to the early Middle AgesMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, when the area was part of Mercia
Mercia
Mercia was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands...
, although the foundation date is unknown. King Edgar
Edgar of England
Edgar the Peaceful, or Edgar I , also called the Peaceable, was a king of England . Edgar was the younger son of Edmund I of England.-Accession:...
in 958, described it as a "famous place", so it was already of importance by then. In the Tudor period
Tudor period
The Tudor period usually refers to the period between 1485 and 1603, specifically in relation to the history of England. This coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII...
, it was claimed that the founder of the collegiate church of St. Michael at Penkridge was King Eadred (946-55), King Edgar's uncle, which seems plausible.
The importance of the church
Penkridge's church was of central importance to the town from Anglo-Saxon times and the Norman conquest did not change this. It was of a special status.- It was a collegiate churchCollegiate churchIn Christianity, a collegiate church is a church where the daily office of worship is maintained by a college of canons; a non-monastic, or "secular" community of clergy, organised as a self-governing corporate body, which may be presided over by a dean or provost...
: a church served by a community of priestsPriesthood (Catholic Church)The ministerial orders of the Catholic Church include the orders of bishops, deacons and presbyters, which in Latin is sacerdos. The ordained priesthood and common priesthood are different in function and essence....
, known as a chapterChapter (religion)Chapter designates certain corporate ecclesiastical bodies in the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Nordic Lutheran churches....
. The members were known as canonsCanon (priest)A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....
. They were not monks, but secular clergySecular clergyThe term secular clergy refers to deacons and priests who are not monastics or members of a religious order.-Catholic Church:In the Catholic Church, the secular clergy are ministers, such as deacons and priests, who do not belong to a religious order...
. In 1086 the Domesday survey found that most of the farm land at Penkridge was held from the king by the nine priests of St. Michael's, who had six slaves and seven villeins working for them. - It was a chapel royalChapel RoyalA Chapel Royal is a body of priests and singers who serve the spiritual needs of their sovereign wherever they are called upon to do so.-Austria:...
- a place set aside by the monarchs for their own use - generally to pray and to offer massMass (liturgy)"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...
for their souls. This allowed it to become completely independent of the local Bishop of LichfieldBishop of LichfieldThe Bishop of Lichfield is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Lichfield in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers 4,516 km² of the counties of Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and West Midlands. The bishop's seat is located in the Cathedral Church of the Blessed...
- an institution called a Royal PeculiarRoyal PeculiarA Royal Peculiar is a place of worship that falls directly under the jurisdiction of the British monarch, rather than under a bishop. The concept dates from Anglo-Saxon times, when a church could ally itself with the monarch and therefore not be subject to the bishop of the area...
. In 1280 Penkridge even shut its doors on the Archbishop of CanterburyJohn PeckhamJohn Peckham was Archbishop of Canterbury in the years 1279–1292. He was a native of Sussex who was educated at Lewes Priory and became a Franciscan friar about 1250. He studied at Paris under Bonaventure, where he later taught theology. From his teaching, he came into conflict with Thomas...
, when he tried to carry out a tour of inspection (known as a canonical visitationCanonical VisitationA canonical visitation is the act of an ecclesiastical superior who in the discharge of his office visits persons or places with a view of maintaining faith and discipline, and of correcting abuses by the application of proper remedies.-Catholic usage:...
). - It was organised like a cathedral chapterCathedral chapterIn accordance with canon law, a cathedral chapter is a college of clerics formed to advise a bishop and, in the case of a vacancy of the episcopal see in some countries, to govern the diocese in his stead. These councils are made up of canons and dignitaries; in the Roman Catholic church their...
. This happened during the 12th century, probably during the AnarchyThe AnarchyThe Anarchy or The Nineteen-Year Winter was a period of English history during the reign of King Stephen, which was characterised by civil war and unsettled government...
of Stephen'sStephen of EnglandStephen , often referred to as Stephen of Blois , was a grandson of William the Conqueror. He was King of England from 1135 to his death, and also the Count of Boulogne by right of his wife. Stephen's reign was marked by the Anarchy, a civil war with his cousin and rival, the Empress Matilda...
reign. The reorganised chapter was headed by a DeanDean (religion)A dean, in a church context, is a cleric holding certain positions of authority within a religious hierarchy. The title is used mainly in the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church.-Anglican Communion:...
. The other canons each received a particular estate to live off, called a prebend, so they were prebendariesPrebendaryA prebendary is a post connected to an Anglican or Catholic cathedral or collegiate church and is a type of canon. Prebendaries have a role in the administration of the cathedral...
. - It was headed by the Archbishop of DublinArchbishop of DublinThe Archbishop of Dublin may refer to:* Archbishop of Dublin – an article which lists of pre- and post-Reformation archbishops.* Archbishop of Dublin – the title of the senior cleric who presides over the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin....
from 1226. This was because in 1215 King JohnJohn of EnglandJohn , also known as John Lackland , was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death...
gave to Archbishop Henry of LondonHenry de LoundresHenry de Loundres was an Anglo-Norman churchman who was Archbishop of Dublin, from 1213 to 1228. He was an influential figure in the reign of John of England, an administrator and loyalist to the king, and is mentioned in the text of the Magna Carta, the terms of which he helped to negotiate.He...
, one of his most trusted administrators, the right to appoint the dean of Penkridge. He took it for himself and subsequent archbishops of Dublin automatically became deans of Penkridge.
The collegiate church was the most important local institution for most of Penkridge's history: economically powerful and architecturally dominant. All the people of the parish had to be buried there, at considerable cost, so it was where the local magnates installed their memorials. Its area of jurisdiction defined Penkridge parish, which was also the main unit of local government until late Victorian times.
The dean and many of the canons were absentees, so they appointed vicars to act for them locally. The focus of worship was prayer and sacrifice for the dead, not service to the living. Two priests were employed solely to serve in chantries
Chantry
Chantry is the English term for a fund established to pay for a priest to celebrate sung Masses for a specified purpose, generally for the soul of the deceased donor. Chantries were endowed with lands given by donors, the income from which maintained the chantry priest...
for the monarch and for the Virgin Mary. By the 16th century, the people of Penkridge were subscribed to pay a morrow priest to celebrate a daily mass, so that they themselves could worship. Pastoral care
Pastoral care
Pastoral care is the ministry of care and counseling provided by pastors, chaplains and other religious leaders to members of their church or congregation, or to persons of all faiths and none within institutional settings. This can range anywhere from home visitation to formal counseling provided...
and preaching were not taken seriously until the 16th century and later.
The grip of the forest
Large areas surrounding Penkridge were placed by the Norman kings under Forest Law, a savage penal code designed to protest the ecology and wildlife for the king's enjoyment. These areas were part of the Royal Forest of Cank or Cannock ChaseCannock 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....
and were known as Gailey Hay and Teddesley Hay. Forest law kept most of south Staffordshire in an economic straitjacket. Conflicts between the barons and kings in the 13th century monarchs forced a relaxation, starting with the first issue of the Forest Charter in 1217. So it was in Henry III's
Henry III of England
Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...
reign that Penkridge began to grow economically and probably in population. Local people began to create new fields, called assarts, by clearing the trees and scrub (still a capital crime), and Penkridge acquired an annual fair and weekly market.
Manors and magnates
Medieval Penkridge was organised on the manorial system. There were a number of manors within the parish, of varying size and importance, each with its own lord, who owed feudal service to his own overlord, but exercised authority over his tenants. A list of the different medieval manors and estates would include: Penkridge Manor, Penkridge deanery manor, Congreve, Congreve Prebendal Manor, Drayton, Gailey, Levedale, Longridge, Lyne Hill or Linhull, Mitton, La More (later Moor Hall), Otherton, Pillaton, Preston, Rodbaston, Water Eaton, Whiston, Coppenhall or Copehale, Dunston, and Stretton. The largest was the manor of Penkridge itself. King John's gift of 1215 to the Archbishop of Dublin included Penkridge manor. The Archbishop decided to divide it, giving about two thirds to his nephew, Andrew de Blund, and keeping the rest for the deanery. The manor of Penkridge was passed on through the Blund (later called Blount) family and later other families of layLaity
In religious organizations, the laity comprises all people who are not in the clergy. A person who is a member of a religious order who is not ordained legitimate clergy is considered as a member of the laity, even though they are members of a religious order .In the past in Christian cultures, the...
landlords.
The Church had large holdings of land. St. Michael's college had not only the deanery manor but also Preston and the Prebendal Manor of Congreve. The other prebends also held lands, but not as lords of the manor. Some manors belonged to Staffordshire monasteries. Burton Abbey held Pillaton, Bickford and Whiston, and also, for a time, Gailey, which later passed to the nuns of Black Ladies Priory
Black Ladies Priory
Black Ladies Priory was a house of Benedictine nuns, located about 4km west of Brewood in Staffordshire, on the northern edge of the hamlet of Kiddemore Green. Founded in the mid-12th century, it was a small, often struggling, house. It was dissolved in 1538, and a large house was built on the site...
at Brewood
Brewood
Brewood refers both to a settlement, which was once a town but is now a village, in South Staffordshire, England, and to the civil parish of which it is the centre. Located around , Brewood village lies near the River Penk, eight miles north of Wolverhampton city centre and eleven miles south of...
. Drayton belonged to the Augustinian Priory of St. Thomas, near Stafford.
Most of the manors were quite small and often their owners were fairly minor, although some small manors formed part of the wider holdings of great families. Even the most minor of lords had the right to hold manorial courts and to discipline their tenants, but a wealthy and important lord was like a monarch in his own manor. By the late 14th century the lords of Penkridge manor had obtained charter
Charter
A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified...
s giving them rights to pursue criminals wherever they wished; to inflict the death penalty
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
; to force tenants to take collective responsibility for offenders; and to confiscate stray livestock.
Just before 1500, the Littleton family
Littleton Baronets
Two Baronetcies have been created in the Baronetage of England for members of the Littleton family.The Littleton family had their origins in South Lyttleton, near Evesham, Worcestershire. Thomas de Littleton was appointed a judge at the Court of Common Pleas in 1464 and was created a Knight of the...
make their first appearance in Penkridge. Richard Littleton brought Pillaton into the family's possession through marriage and Pillaton Hall was the Littleton family seat for about 250 years, the centre of an expanding property empire. Soon they took on the leases of most of St. Michael's church lands and established a family chapel in the church - a statement of their growing importance. They were the most important local representatives of the landed gentry
Landed gentry
Landed gentry is a traditional British social class, consisting of land owners who could live entirely off rental income. Often they worked only in an administrative capacity looking after the management of their own lands....
, a class that was to dominate rural life for several centuries.
Agriculture
Much of the Penkridge area was cultivated under the open field systemOpen field system
The open field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe from the Middle Ages to as recently as the 20th century in some places, particularly Russia and Iran. Under this system, each manor or village had several very large fields, farmed in strips by individual families...
, although the actual field names are not documented until 16th and 17th centuries, as they were about to be enclosed
Enclosure
Enclosure or inclosure is the process which ends traditional rights such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land. Once enclosed, these uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used for the...
. In Penkridge manor, for example, there were Clay Field, Prince Field, Manstonshill, Mill Field, Wood Field, and Lowtherne or Lantern Field, Fyland, Old Field, and Whotcroft, and also common grazing areas, Stretton Meadow and Hay Meadow. There are no detailed records of what was grown in medieval Penkridge. In 1801, when the first record was made, nearly half was under wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
, with barley
Barley
Barley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...
, oats
OATS
OATS - Open Source Assistive Technology Software - is a source code repository or "forge" for assistive technology software. It was launched in 2006 with the goal to provide a one-stop “shop” for end users, clinicians and open-source developers to promote and develop open source assistive...
, peas, beans, and brassicas the other major crops - probably similar to the medieval pattern: farmers grew wheat wherever the land in their their scattered strips supported it, and other crops elsewhere, with cattle on the riverside meadows and sheep on the heath.
The early medieval cultivators were mainly unfree, forced to work on the lord's demesne
Demesne
In the feudal system the demesne was all the land, not necessarily all contiguous to the manor house, which was retained by a lord of the manor for his own use and support, under his own management, as distinguished from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants...
in return for their strips in the open fields. From the 14th century wage labour replaced the feudal labour system. By the 16th century, most landowners were renting or leasing most of their land and paying cash for labour to cultivate what remained. In 1535, for example, the manor of Drayton was worth £9 4s. 8d. annually, and the lions share, £5 18s. 2d., came from money rents.
Fairs, markets and mills
Fairs and markets were a vital part of the medieval economy, but a royal charter was needed for either, so they were highly profitable to the manors which had the right to hold them. The grant of Penkridge manor to the archbishop of Dublin included the right to hold an annual fair. This right was upheld for the Blund family by Edward IEdward I of England
Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...
in 1278 and by Edward II
Edward II of England
Edward II , called Edward of Caernarfon, was King of England from 1307 until he was deposed by his wife Isabella in January 1327. He was the sixth Plantagenet king, in a line that began with the reign of Henry II...
in 1312. The date varied, but in the middle ages it fell around the end of September and lasted for seven or eight days. It began as a general fair but developed into a horse fair by the late 16th century.
Henry III granted Andrew le Blund a weekly market in 1244. This was challenged by the burgesses
Burgess
Burgess is a word in English that originally meant a freeman of a borough or burgh . It later came to mean an elected or unelected official of a municipality, or the representative of a borough in the English House of Commons....
of Stafford, who feared competition, but Penkridge kept its Tuesday market for centuries. After 1500 the market declined, expired and was revived several times, also changing days several times. The market place, still so-named but no longer used, was at the opposite end of the town from the church. The modern market is held on the livestock auction site close to Bull Bridge.
Mills were another great source of profit to lords of the manor, who forced their tenants to use them. The River Penk and a number of tributary brooks were able to drive mills. Domesday records mills at Penkridge at Water Eaton. A century later there were two mills at Penkridge and one of them was operated by the More family for centuries, as tenants of the dean. A mill is recorded at at Drayton by 1194; at Congreve, Pillaton, and Rodbaston in the 13th century; at Whiston in the 14th; and at Mitton in the 15th. These were all corn mills, but in 1345 Water Eaton had a fulling mill, as well as the corn mill.
Dissolution
The ReformationEnglish Reformation
The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....
brought major changes to landownership and social life at Penkridge. First came the Dissolution of the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
under Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
. This swept away Burton Abbey, and its manor of Drayton was sold in 1538 to the Bishop Of Lichfield
Rowland Lee
Bishop Rowland Lee was an English administrator and bishop of Coventry and Lichfield.He belonged to a Northumberland family and was educated at Cambridge. Having entered the Church he obtained several livings owing to the favour of Cardinal Wolsey; after Wolsey's fall he rose high in the esteem of...
, who wanted it for his nephews. The College of St. Michael was not threatened at first, as it was not a monastery, but Edward VI's
Edward VI of England
Edward VI was the King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. He was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant...
reign brought a more radical phase of the Reformation. In 1547 the Abolition of Chantries Act decreed the end of the chantry churches and their colleges. St. Michael's was still a thriving institution: a major rebuilding was in progress. Its estates enriched the dean (Archbishop of Dublin), seven prebendaries, two chantry canons, an official principal, three vicars choral, three further vicar
Vicar
In the broadest sense, a vicar is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior . In this sense, the title is comparable to lieutenant...
s, a high deacon
Deacon
Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...
, a subdeacon
Subdeacon
-Subdeacons in the Orthodox Church:A subdeacon or hypodeacon is the highest of the minor orders of clergy in the Orthodox Church. This order is higher than the reader and lower than the deacon.-Canonical Discipline:...
, and a sacrist. In 1547 its property was assessed at £82 6s. 8d. annually. All this was swept away in 1548 and the first Vicar of Penkridge, Thomas Bolt of Stafford, was appointed on £16 per annum, with an assistant on £8.
The Dudley inheritance
Edward VI of England
Edward VI was the King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. He was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant...
regency council. In 1539, Dudley got control of Penkridge manor by foreclosing on a debt its owners, the Willoughby de Broke
Baron Willoughby de Broke
Baron Willoughby de Broke is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created by writ in 1491 for Sir Robert Willoughby, of Brooke/Broke manor, Heywood, near Westbury, Wiltshire, de jure 9th Baron Latimer...
family, had owed to his father, Edmund Dudley
Edmund Dudley
Edmund Dudley was an English administrator and a financial agent of King Henry VII. He served as Speaker of the House of Commons and President of the King's Council. After the accession of Henry VIII, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London and executed the next year on a treason charge...
. Next he grabbed the Deanery Manor and Tedesley Hay, making him the most important landowner in the area, although day-to-day management of the deanery lands stayed with the Littletons, the lessees. Dudley went on to seize almost absolute power in England, and taking the title Duke of Northumberland
Duke of Northumberland
The Duke of Northumberland is a title in the peerage of Great Britain that has been created several times. Since the third creation in 1766, the title has belonged to the House of Percy , which held the title of Earl of Northumberland from 1377....
. Edward's early death in 1553 left Dudley high and dry. Edward's older sister, the Catholic Mary
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
, succeeded but Dudley attempted a coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
in favour of Lady Jane Grey
Lady Jane Grey
Lady Jane Grey , also known as The Nine Days' Queen, was an English noblewoman who was de facto monarch of England from 10 July until 19 July 1553 and was subsequently executed...
. Mary prevailed and Dudley was arrested and beheaded as a traitor. His lands were forfeit to the Crown, the extensive estates at Penkridge among them.
Dudley had had the foresight to grant various estates to his relatives. So his daughter-in-law, Anne Dudley, Countess of Warwick
Anne Dudley, Countess of Warwick
Anne Dudley Countess of Warwick was a writer during the sixteenth century in England, along with her sisters Lady Margaret Seymour and Lady Jane Seymour....
, was able to keep a lifetime interest in Penkridge, while his wife hung on to Teddesley Hay until her death. Teddesley was bought by Sir Edward Littleton in 1555. A new Sir Edward succeeded in 1558 and his vigorous enclosure
Enclosure
Enclosure or inclosure is the process which ends traditional rights such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land. Once enclosed, these uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used for the...
policy soon stirred up controversy. Penkridge manor entered into a limbo, prolonged by Anne's insanity. The fate of the deanery manor too was unresolved: it was taken from the Dudleys, but not restored to the Church, as Mary did not re-establish the chantries. So both remained with the Crown for a generation, with no decision on their fate. Not until the 1580's were matters resolved. In 1581 the college property was sold to speculators and in 1585 it was snapped up by Sir Edward Littleton. In 1582, Queen Elizabeth promised Penkridge manor to Sir Fulke Greville, heir to the Willoughby de Brokes, and he took over 1590.
Civil war
The Grevilles were powerful regionally and nationally. The Fulke GrevilleFulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke
Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, de jure 13th Baron Latimer and 5th Baron Willoughby de Broke , known before 1621 as Sir Fulke Greville, was an Elizabethan poet, dramatist, and statesman....
who inherited Penkridge in 1606 was a poet and statesman. He served both Elizabeth and James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
, who gave him Warwick Castle
Warwick Castle
Warwick Castle is a medieval castle in Warwick, the county town of Warwickshire, England. It sits on a bend on the River Avon. The castle was built by William the Conqueror in 1068 within or adjacent to the Anglo-Saxon burh of Warwick. It was used as a fortification until the early 17th century,...
as a seat and elevated him to the peerage as the 1st Baron Brooke. In 1626 he was murdered by a servant. As he was unmarried and childless, he had adopted his younger cousin Robert as his son and heir to both the title and the great estates in Staffordshire and Warwickshire. Robert was a leading parliamentarian and a Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
, who promoted emigration to America. When the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
broke out, he took command of a parliamentary army in central England and was killed during the siege of Cathedral
Lichfield Cathedral
Lichfield Cathedral is situated in Lichfield, Staffordshire, England. It is the only medieval English cathedral with three spires. The Diocese of Lichfield covers all of Staffordshire, much of Shropshire and part of the Black Country and West Midlands...
in 1643. He was succeeded by Francis Greville, 3rd Baron Brooke
Francis Greville, 3rd Baron Brooke
Francis Greville, 3rd Baron Brooke was the eldest son and heir of Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke and his wife Margaret....
.
The Littletons were purely local landowners and instinctively loyalist. Sir Edward Littleton
Sir Edward Littleton, 1st Baronet
Sir Edward Littleton was a 17th century English Baronet and politician.He was the son of Sir Edward Littleton Kt. and Mary Fisher of Pillaton Hall, Staffordshire and representative of that notable family of Cavalier sympathies...
was made a Baronet by Charles I on 28 June 1627 and was expelled from the House of Commons in 1644 for his royalist sympathies. In May 1645, royalist troops quartered in Penkridge were expelled by small parliamentary force after a brief skirmish. Littleton's estates were sequestrated
Sequestration (law)
Sequestration is the act of removing, separating, or seizing anything from the possession of its owner under process of law for the benefit of creditors or the state.-Etymology:...
but he was able to recover them on payment of £1347. The Littletons' holdings were thus preserved and they found themselves in favour again after the restoration of Charles II in 1660. Despite the revolutionary turmoil, the real situation in Penkridge was little changed.
An anomaly surviving from before the Reformation was the peculiar jurisdiction of St. Michael's. Although the college was long gone, its privileges survived and were vested in the Littletons, owners of the deanery manor. They appointed vicars and kept bishops at bay, until the royal peculiar was ended in 1858.
Changing fortunes: Georgian and Victorian Penkridge
Economy and population
In 1666, the township of Penkridge had 212 households and the rest of the parish about a hundred, giving a total population of perhaps 1200 to 1500. By the first census, in 1801, it was 2,275. It rose to a peak of 3316 in 1851. A fall thereafter is mainly the result of the parish being reduced in size by the loss of Coppenhall, Stretton and Dunston. Penkridge itself seems to have had a fairly stable population for the century from 1851 to 1951: a decline relative to the country as a whole, but not a collapse.From the 1660's the pace of enclosure quickened, with all of the manors being divided into small farms, usually with the cultivators' consent, and the these aggregated gradually into larger units. The second half of the 19th century, and especially the last quarter, were hard times for agriculture, with the repeal of the Corn Laws
Corn Laws
The Corn Laws were trade barriers designed to protect cereal producers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against competition from less expensive foreign imports between 1815 and 1846. The barriers were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 and repealed by the Importation Act 1846...
in 1846 and the Long Depression
Long Depression
The Long Depression was a worldwide economic crisis, felt most heavily in Europe and the United States, which had been experiencing strong economic growth fueled by the Second Industrial Revolution in the decade following the American Civil War. At the time, the episode was labeled the Great...
from about 1873. The 1831 census found that farmers and agricultural labourers accounted about 60% of the total adult male workforce. Next came shop keepers and artisans, showing that Penkridge remained a small but important commercial centre, although the market had gone. In 1881 agriculture employed about 48% of the working men: a considerable drop. Of the women whose employment is known, 150, the vast majority, were in domestic service. - probably mainly with the local gentry. The hospitality industry was quite important, with 40 men working in food and lodging and 15 working with carriages and horses - reflecting the continuing importance of the inns on a major route. The diversity of trades is marked. No less than 43 – 25 women and 18 men – were involved in dress-making, and there were quarrymen, traders, and many others. However, professionals are numbered at only 14.
Penkridge owed much to its transport links, which steadily improved. The main Stafford-Wolverhampton route, now the A449 road
A449 road
The A449 is a major road in the United Kingdom. It runs north from junction 24 of the M4 motorway at Newport in South Wales to Stafford in Staffordshire....
was turnpiked
Turnpike trust
Turnpike trusts in the United Kingdom were bodies set up by individual Acts of Parliament, with powers to collect road tolls for maintaining the principal highways in Britain from the 17th but especially during the 18th and 19th centuries...
under an Act of 1760. Bull Bridge, carrying the road over the Penk, was rebuilt in 1796 and widened in 1822. The improved road attracted more traffic: by 1818 there were stops by coaches on the London - Manchester, Birmingham - Manchester and Birmingham - Liverpool routes. 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....
, opened in 1772, running straight through the parish and the township from north to south, with wharves at Spread Eagle (later called Gailey) and at Penkridge. In 1837, the Grand Junction Railway was opened. It cut through Penkridge on its west side, where Penkridge station was built, and was carried over the River Penk
River Penk
The River Penk is a small river flowing though Staffordshire, England. Its course is mainly within South Staffordshire, and it drains most of the northern part of that district, together with some adjoining areas of Cannock Chase, Stafford, Wolverhampton, and Shropshire...
by the large Penkridge Viaduct
Penkridge Viaduct
Penkridge Viaduct is a railway viaduct on the West Coast Main Line where it crosses the River Penk and Levedale Road near the town of Penkridge, Staffordshire, England . It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II listed building....
. It began with two trains daily in each direction, to Stafford and Wolverhampton.
Heavy industry expanded in the 18th century, when a forge at Congreve was turning out 120 tons of iron a year, and in the 1820's the mill below Bull Bridge was used for rolling iron. However, this industry tailed off as the Black Country
Black Country
The Black Country is a loosely defined area of the English West Midlands conurbation, to the north and west of Birmingham, and to the south and east of Wolverhampton. During the industrial revolution in the 19th century this area had become one of the most intensely industrialised in the nation...
ironworks outstripped it. Extraction of building materials grew in Victorian times, with the Littletons operating quarries at Wolgarston, Wood Bank, and Quarry Heath, as well as a sand pit at Hungry Hill, Teddesley, and a brickyard in Penkridge.
Zenith of the Littletons
The fortunes of the town and the Littletons remained intertwined. Sir Edward Littleton, the fourth baronet, bought Penkridge manor from the Earl of Warwick in 1749, completing his family's dominance of the area. Soon after he built Teddesley HallTeddesley Hall
Teddesley Hall was a large Georgian country house located close to Penkridge in Staffordshire, now demolished. It was the main seat firstly of the Littleton Baronets and then of the Barons Hatherton...
, a much more impressive seat for the family. He survived until 1812, although, his wife died childless in 1781. He adopted his great-nephew, Edward Walhouse
Edward Littleton, 1st Baron Hatherton
Edward John Littleton, 1st Baron Hatherton PC, FRS , was a British politician, of first the Canningite Tories and later the Whigs. He had a long political career, active in each of the Houses of Parliament in turn over a period of forty years...
, as his heir. Walhouse took the name Littleton and took over the Littleton estates, although not the Littleton baronetcy
Littleton Baronets
Two Baronetcies have been created in the Baronetage of England for members of the Littleton family.The Littleton family had their origins in South Lyttleton, near Evesham, Worcestershire. Thomas de Littleton was appointed a judge at the Court of Common Pleas in 1464 and was created a Knight of the...
. He achieved far greater eminence as a politician than any other member of the family, serving as Chief Secretary for Ireland
Chief Secretary for Ireland
The Chief Secretary for Ireland was a key political office in the British administration in Ireland. Nominally subordinate to the Lord Lieutenant, from the late 18th century until the end of British rule he was effectively the government minister with responsibility for governing Ireland; usually...
under the Whig Prime Minister Grey
Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey
Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, KG, PC , known as Viscount Howick between 1806 and 1807, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 22 November 1830 to 16 July 1834. A member of the Whig Party, he backed significant reform of the British government and was among the...
in 1833-35. He was elevated to the peerage as Baron Hatherton
Baron Hatherton
Baron Hatherton, of Hatherton in the County of Stafford, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1835 for the politician Edward Littleton, Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1833 to 1834...
, a title which remains with the head of the Littleton family to the present, and became an active member of the House of Lords.
Hatherton resided at Teddesley, where he established a free agricultural college and farmed 1700 acres successfully. He strongly promoted education in the area, paying for a National School
National school (England and Wales)
A national school was a school founded in 19th century England and Wales by the National Society for Promoting Religious Education.These schools provided elementary education, in accordance with the teaching of the Church of England, to the children of the poor.Together with the less numerous...
in Penkridge and another at Levedale, and for clothing for some of the school children. However, his lifetime saw a decisive shift in the family's interests. As heir to both the Walhouse family fortune and the Littleton estates, he owned great estates around Penkridge and mineral holdings and much residential property in the Cannock
Cannock
Cannock is the most populous of three towns in the district of Cannock Chase in the central southern part of the county of Staffordshire in the West Midlands region of England....
and Walsall
Walsall
Walsall is a large industrial town in the West Midlands of England. It is located northwest of Birmingham and east of Wolverhampton. Historically a part of Staffordshire, Walsall is a component area of the West Midlands conurbation and part of the Black Country.Walsall is the administrative...
areas. He owned coal mines at Great Wyrley
Great Wyrley
Great Wyrley is a parish and town in South Staffordshire, England, with a population of 11,236 at the 2001 census.-Etymology:The word "Wyrley" derives from two Old English words: wir and leah. Wir meant "bog myrtle," and leah meant "woodland clearing," suggesting that Great Wyrley was, at genesis,...
, Bloxwich
Bloxwich
Bloxwich is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, West Midlands, England, with a population of around 40,000 people.-Early history:Bloxwich has its origins at least as early as the Anglo-Saxon period, when the place name evidence suggests it was a small Mercian settlement named after the...
and Walsall; limestone quarries and brickyards in Walsall that were used to build much of the town; hundreds of residential and commercial properties; gravel and sand pits, stone quarries in many places. Unlike Penkridge, Cannock and Walsall were boom towns of the Victorian era, powered by the most modern and profitable industries of the age. The Littletons played a leading part in this phase of the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
and made large profits from it, and this tilted their attention increasingly away from their landed estates.
The modern town
Penkridge in the 20th and 21st centuries has remained a small market town while evolving into a residential centre, but its ties to the land were weakened and those to the landed gentry broken. Residential development began even in Victorian times, with the middle-class villas of the St. Michael’s Road area, close to the railway. The main Stafford-Wolverhampton road was greatly improved between the wars, reshaping both Penkridge and Gailey, paving the way for the great boom in private cars and suburbanization after World War II.The war itself prepared the way for changes. Teddesley Hall, no longer the Littleton's family home since 1930, was used to house troops and prisoners of war. The old common lands between the Penk and the Cannock Road were used as a military camp during the war years. This eased their subsequent development as a large housing estate, greatly enlarging the size and population of Penkridge in the 1950's and 1960's. Between 1951 and 1961 the population grew from 2,518 to 3,383 – a rise of over 34% in just ten years.
In 1919, the 3rd Lord Hatherton had begun disinvestment in land, often selling farms to their tenants. Over 2000 acres (8.1 km²) went in the Penkridge area, including land in the Deanery Manor, Congreve, Lower Drayton, Upper Drayton, Gailey, Levedale and Longridge. In 1953 the 4th Lord Hatherton sold off nearly 4000 acres (16.2 km²), including Teddesley Hall, which was demolished within a year.
The M6 motorway
M6 motorway
The M6 motorway runs from junction 19 of the M1 at the Catthorpe Interchange, near Rugby via Birmingham then heads north, passing Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester, Preston, Carlisle and terminating at the Gretna junction . Here, just short of the Scottish border it becomes the A74 which continues to...
came around Stafford in 1962 and connected with the M1 motorway
M1 motorway
The M1 is a north–south motorway in England primarily connecting London to Leeds, where it joins the A1 near Aberford. While the M1 is considered to be the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the United Kingdom, the first road to be built to motorway standard in the country was the...
in 1971, giving the town vastly improved communications. The long-awaited M54 motorway
M54 motorway
The M54 is a 23 mile east-west motorway in the English counties of Shropshire and Staffordshire. It is also referred to as the Telford Motorway, after the road's primary westbound destination, the new town of Telford...
, shadowing the ancient Watling Street, opened in 1983, greatly improving regional links. Penkridge was now very favourably placed on a truly national motorway network. Since the arrival of the M6, the population has more than doubled, as new houses have spread along all the roads, particularly north and south along the A449.
Penkridge has remained a substantial commercial and shopping centre. The major supermarket chains have not been allowed to open stores in the town and its only large store is a Co-operative
The Co-operative Group
The Co-operative Group Ltd. is a United Kingdom consumer cooperative with a diverse range of business interests. It is co-operatively run and owned by its members. It is the largest organisation of this type in the world, with over 5.5 million members, who all have a say in how the business is...
supermarket. Independent shops, cafés, inns and services occupy the area between the old market place to the east and Stone Cross on the A449 to the west. The area between Pinfold Lane and the river, long the site of livestock sales, has emerged as a new market place, attracting large numbers of visitors to Penkridge on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Facilities
Penkridge's local market has been revived and is held on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The substantial tower of the Grade I listed Church of St. MichaelMichael (archangel)
Michael , Micha'el or Mîkhā'ēl; , Mikhaḗl; or Míchaël; , Mīkhā'īl) is an archangel in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic teachings. Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Lutherans refer to him as Saint Michael the Archangel and also simply as Saint Michael...
and All Angels on the western edge of town, parts of which date back to the early thirteenth century, is visible even to passing road and rail travelers. A smaller Methodist church is located on the main A449 route through the town, and there are numerous buildings dating from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Penkridge has its own historic stocks
Stocks
Stocks are devices used in the medieval and colonial American times as a form of physical punishment involving public humiliation. The stocks partially immobilized its victims and they were often exposed in a public place such as the site of a market to the scorn of those who passed by...
and cells still to be seen in the town centre.
The town has several pubs
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
, and there are also numerous sports clubs in Penkridge including well-respected cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
, football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
, rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
and tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
clubs.
On the last Friday in November, for one night, the village centre used to close to traffic to allow a Victorian Night & Christmas Market to take place, in 2010 this event moved to the Market site where it has expanded to include over 70 stalls and a funfair.
Transport
Penkridge lies on the A449A449 road
The A449 is a major road in the United Kingdom. It runs north from junction 24 of the M4 motorway at Newport in South Wales to Stafford in Staffordshire....
and is mid-way between junctions 12 and 13 of the M6 motorway
M6 motorway
The M6 motorway runs from junction 19 of the M1 at the Catthorpe Interchange, near Rugby via Birmingham then heads north, passing Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester, Preston, Carlisle and terminating at the Gretna junction . Here, just short of the Scottish border it becomes the A74 which continues to...
. It is served by National Express
National Express
National Express Coaches, more commonly known as National Express, is a brand and company, owned by the National Express Group, under which the majority of long distance bus and coach services in Great Britain are operated,...
long-distance coaches, and also by local buses provided by Arriva
Arriva
Arriva plc is a multinational public transport company owned by Deutsche Bahn and headquartered in Sunderland, United Kingdom. It has bus, coach, train, tram and waterbus operations in 12 countries across Europe, employs more than 47,500 people and services over 1.5 billion passenger journeys each...
. It has a railway station
Penkridge railway station
Penkridge railway station is a station serving the town of Penkridge in Staffordshire, England.It is situated on the Birmingham branch of the West Coast Main Line. To the north, the line continues towards Stafford. To the south, the line continues towards the city of Wolverhampton...
on the West Coast Main Line
West Coast Main Line
The West Coast Main Line is the busiest mixed-traffic railway route in Britain, being the country's most important rail backbone in terms of population served. Fast, long-distance inter-city passenger services are provided between London, the West Midlands, the North West, North Wales and the...
, and can also be accessed by 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....
.
Education
Penkridge has three First SchoolFirst School
First school and lower school are terms used in some areas of the United Kingdom to describe the first stage of primary education. Some English Local Education Authorities have introduced First Schools since the 1960s...
s (Marshbrook, St Michael's and Princefield), one middle school
Middle school
Middle School and Junior High School are levels of schooling between elementary and high schools. Most school systems use one term or the other, not both. The terms are not interchangeable...
(Penkridge Middle School) and one high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
(Wolgarston, recently granted Specialist Technology College status). The High School has its own swimming pool and the council-run leisure centre is on the same site. Villages and hamlets on the outskirts of Penkridge also use the Middle and High schools.