Longnor, Staffordshire
Longnor is a village in the Staffordshire Peak District, England. The settlement dates from the first recorded church building being in the Middle Ages; the village was named Longenalre in the Domesday Book. Located on a major crossroads, Longnor was a significant market town in the 18th century, it lies on the north bank of the River Manifold, on a limestone ridge between the Manifold and the River Dove. Longnor is situated on the B5053 main road from Cheadle to Buxton, about 6 miles south of Buxton, it is at a cross roads with routes to Leek and Macclesfield to the west, Bakewell to the east. West of Longnor are the Staffordshire Moorlands, with a summit at Axe Edge Moor towards the north, Morridge further south. North and east of Longnor is the White Peak section of the Peak District, with the Dove flowing in a steep-sided limestone valley of which the famous Dovedale is a small part. Longnor village looks towards the Manifold, but lies on the southern slope of a limestone ridge between the two rivers.
Longnor is one of the more significant villages in this corner of north Staffordshire, chiefly for the market. Longnor is one of 13 parishes in the Deanery of Lichfield Diocese. Records of the village's early history have been lost, but there is evidence of activity in the area from around 700AD. Longnor is listed in the Great Domesday Book of 1086 as Longenalre, it is distinguished from the other modern Longnor near Shrewsbury, in the Domesday Book as Lege. According to local legend the village was burned during the reign of William II as a punishment for the poaching of deer from the forests around Leek; the first written record cites the founding of St Bartholomew's Church in 1223 on the site of the present 18th century parish church, over the next two centuries there were around 20 homes in the village. The 1787 Cary map of Staffordshire shows the village on a major crossroads. Cary wrote the name LONGNOR rather than Longnor, a style shared only with Leek and Cheadle in Staffordshire north of Stafford and The Potteries.
This implies that Longnor was a market town of some significance. Built in 1780, the Methodist Chapel is one of the oldest in the area. John Wesley once preached at Longnor; however Methodist preachers had established a Methodist society before this in 1769. The fuller story of early Methodism in Longnor is told by J. B. Dyson, along with a brief biography of Mrs Cecily Ferguson, hostess to John Wesley on his visit to Amsterdam. In 1784, Longnor Methodist Society had 42 members. In 1870, a new Methodist Circuit was created, named the "Wetton and Longnor Methodist Circuit"; the manse was built at Wetton, along with a new chapel building. But the importance of Longnor was recognised; the original Wetton and Longnor Circuit had been Wesleyan, in 1932 it took in some of the Primitive Methodist chapels in the area. In 1969 the circuit was closed and its chapels assigned to neighbouring circuits; the Methodist Chapel closed in the 1996, but some of the former members continued to meet for a while in a hired hall, because the journey to Buxton Methodist Church was not practical.
The village formed the basis of two paintings by L. S. Lowry, Derbyshire and A Village Square, he wrote of the latter work: I remember doing it quite well. It was based on a much earlier painting of mine of Longnor, a village in Derbyshire which I did about 40–45 years ago at least; some of the TV series Peak Practice was recorded here. The church of St. Bartholomew, Longnor has a contemporary sculpture of St. Bertram by British Frink School sculptor Harry Everington; the nearby Blakemere Pond is a body of water precariously perched upon a hilltop, with scenic views across the Peak District and beyond in two directions
Cheadle, Staffordshire
Cheadle is a small market town near Stoke-on-Trent, England, with a population of 12,165. Cheadle is an historic market town dating back to Anglo-Saxon times, being referred to in the Domesday Book, it was in the historic Staffordshire Hundred of Totmonslow. Cheadle appears in the Domesday Book as "Celle" held by the lord of the manor, Robert of Stafford, at the time the area covered 6 miles by 3 miles and listed 9 families. In 1176 the Basset family acquired the manor of "Chedle" and in 1250 Ralph Basset was granted a market charter and annual fair by King Henry III. In 1309, 75 families are recorded as using a corn-grinding mill sited near Mill Road. Fifty years a new church was built in the village replacing a 12th-century structure and this church remained in use until 1837. In 1606 a school was founded by the church, in 1685 the curate of the parish, Henry Stubbs, left an endowment to found a grammar school in Cheadle; the school was built at Monkhouse and was active until 1917. The endowment continues to this day.
The Monkhouse is home to 3rd Cheadle Scout Group. By 1676 Cheadle’s population is recorded as just over one thousand, a hundred years as one thousand eight hundred. At this time the main source of employment was farming. During the same period a new workhouse was opened, it was extended under the Cheadle Union an 1837. Part of the original building was demolished in 1909, renamed an infirmary; the whole complex was demolished in 1987 and a new hospital was built on the site, opened in 1989 by Princess Anne. In 1798, 10 weavers houses were built; the weavers lived the looms for the manufacture of tape were upstairs. By the 1820s the looms were transferred into a factory in Tape Street; this tape factory closed in 1972, is now a shop. In 1851 silk and narrow fabric mills were built in Cheadle, they employed hundreds of operatives, closed in 1981. In the Brookhouses area of Cheadle in 1725, the Cheadle Brass and Copper Company started production, transferring to the Oakamoor area 100 years under the company name Thomas Patten.
It was bought in 1851 by Thomas Bolton of Birmingham. In 1890 Bolton’s opened a factory at Froghall and the Oakamoor works were closed in 1963. St Giles' Catholic Church opened in 1846, its 200 feet spire still dominates the town today. It was built by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, commissioned by John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury to create a church that "would have no rival". To achieve his aim, Talbot gave Pugin unlimited resources with; the church is more known as'Pugin's Gem', is the centre of a local tourist event known as'Discover the Secret'. At the turn of the 20th century the first open air swimming baths were constructed at Brookhouses, telephone installation began in 1904. In 1901 Cheadle was linked to the railway network by the Cheadle Railway and owned by the North Staffordshire Railway, with the building of a railway station at Majors Barn, giving access to further industries and movement of passengers. At a period sand and aggregates used for building purposes were transported from the station as well as coal.
The first motor car arrived in Cheadle in 1903, the first licensed omnibus service – Cheadle to Longton – commenced in January 1914. One of the British Signals Intelligence Y-stations called RAF Cheadle was situated at Woodhead Hall, from land purchased by the Air Ministry playing a vital role in helping intercept German Luftwaffe radio communications during the Second World War; the 200 feet spire of St. Giles' Catholic Church dominates Cheadle's skyline. Known as "Pugin's Gem", it is considered to be the most complete expression of Pugin's beliefs about what a church ought to be, with everything in it having a practical and symbolic purpose; the church featured in local events celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Pugin. The town has an Anglican church dedicated to St Giles, it was rebuilt in 1837–39 to the design of J. P. Pritchett, but incorporating fragments and furniture from the earlier church. There is a strong Methodist tradition in Cheadle, in the 19th century it was the various Methodist chapels around the Cheadle area which taught many of the young boys who worked on the farms or in the coal mines to read and write.
There is a large modern Methodist church in the town. To the south-east of Cheadle are the remains of Croxden Abbey, founded in 1176 by Bertram de Verdun for monks of the Cistercian Order; the abbey is a 5-mile walk from the town centre. Cheadle is a base for exploring the Peak District National Park area, popular with walkers and rock climbers. Surrounded by lofty hills, Cheadle is the gateway to the wooded Churnet Valley and the Staffordshire Moorlands, it is around 4 miles from the Alton Towers Resort. Cecilly Brook Local Nature Reserve is near the centre of town, it is one of the most important breeding sites for water voles in Staffordshire. There are 42 acres of landscaped lakes at the JCB factory. Local leisure facilities are at South Moorlands Leisure Centre; the High Street of Cheadle has many old buildings and is little changed from how it looked in the Victorian era. Cheadle was mentioned in the Domesday Book as a small and unimportant hamlet with a small population; the town grew over the next few hundred years, with the development of industry and agriculture.
The historic industries that the town has depended on have been coal mining, agriculture, brass making and the historic copper industry in nearby Froghall and Oakamoo
Kingsley, Staffordshire
Kingsley is a small village in the Staffordshire Moorlands near to Cheadle, situated on the A52 from Stoke on Trent to Ashbourne. The civil parish population taken at the 2011 census was 2,204. Nowadays Kingsley is a quiet rural village, but until the early 20th century it was the centre of the Churnet Valley iron mining industry; as a result, the village had many pubs, but today only one remains, the Bull's Head, in the High Street. Since 2000, the old Swan pub has been converted into a large family house, the Plough has been demolished and houses have been built where the pub and its car park were; the village is close to Alton Towers. The one school is called St Werburghs Primary School, named after the local Church of England parish church. Media related to Kingsley, Staffordshire at Wikimedia Commons
County court
A county court is a court based in or with a jurisdiction covering one or more counties, which are administrative divisions within a country, not to be confused with the medieval system of county courts held by the high sheriff of each county. Since 2014, England and Wales have had what is described as "a single civil court" named the County Court, with unlimited financial jurisdiction; however it should be understood that there are County Court buildings and courtrooms throughout England and Wales, not one single location. It is "a single civil court" in the sense of a single centrally organised and administered court system. Before 2014 there were numerous separate county court systems, each with jurisdiction across England and Wales for enforcement of its orders, but each with a defined "county court district" from which it took claims. County court districts did not have the same boundaries as counties: the name was used because the county courts had evolved from courts which did in fact correspond to a county's territory.
Today the court sits in many County Court centres corresponding to the old individual county courts. County Court matters can be lodged at a court in person, by post or via the Internet in some cases through the County Court Bulk Centre. Cases are heard at the court having jurisdiction over the area where the claimant lives. Most matters are decided by a district circuit judge sitting alone. Civil matters in England do not have juries. Judges in the County Court are either former barristers or former solicitors, whereas in the High Court they are more to have been a barrister. Civil claims with an amount in controversy under £10,000 are dealt with in the County Court under the small claims track. Claims between £5,000 and £25,000 that are capable of being tried within one day are allocated to the "fast track" and claims over £25,000 to the "multi track." These'tracks' are labels for the use of the court system - the actual cases will be heard in the County Court or the High Court depending on their value.
For personal injury and some landlord-tenant dispute cases the thresholds for each track have different values. Appeals are to a higher judge, the High Court of Justice or to the Court of Appeal, as the case may be. In debt cases, the aim of a claimant taking County Court action against a defendant is to secure a County Court judgment; this is a legal order to pay the full amount of the debt. Judgments can be enforced at the request of the claimant in a number of ways, including requesting the Court Bailiffs to seize goods, the proceeds of any sale being used to pay the debt, or an Attachment of Earnings Order, where the defendant's employer is ordered to make deductions from the gross wages to pay the claimant. County Court judgments are recorded in the Register of Judgments and Fines and in the defendant's credit records held by credit reference agencies; this information is used in consumer credit scores, making it difficult or more expensive for the defendant to obtain credit. In order to avoid the record being kept for years in the register, the debt must be settled within thirty days after the date the County Court judgment was served.
If the debt was not paid within the statutory period, the entry will remain for six full years. County court is the name given to the intermediate court in one Australian state, namely the County Court of Victoria, they hear indictable criminal offences except for treason and manslaughter. Their civil jurisdiction is intermediate over civil disputes where the amount claimed is greater than a few tens of thousands of dollars but less than a few hundreds of thousands of dollars; the limits vary between states. In some states the same level of court is called a district court. Below them are the magistrates courts. Above them are the state supreme courts; some states adopt the two-tier appellate system, with the magistrates courts below and the state supreme courts above. In Northern Ireland there are seven county courts, following the same model as those of England and Wales before unification in 2014; these are the main civil courts. While higher-value cases are heard in the High Court, the county courts hear a wide range of civil actions, consumer claims, appeals from magistrates' courts.
The county courts are called family care centres when hearing proceedings brought under the Children Order 1995 and appeals from the family proceedings courts. Many United States states have a county court system, which may be purely administrative focused on registration of properties and deeds or most may have jurisdiction over civil cases such as lawsuits and criminal courts and jails where trials from misdemeanors to felony cases are centered about a common jail system managed by the county Sheriffs departments. For example, in Texas, county courts handle Class A and B misdemeanors, share jurisdiction with justice of the peace and district courts on some mid-size civil cases, have appellate jurisdiction from municipal and justice of the peace court cases. With the growth of the largest cities, many large urban centers have subsumed whole or most of c
Ilam, Staffordshire
Ilam is a village in the Staffordshire Peak District, lying on the River Manifold. The population of the civil parish as taken at the 2011 census was 402. Ilam is best known as the location of the neo-Gothic Ilam Hall, a stately home built in the 1820s, now a youth hostel owned by the National Trust, it is set in large parklands. Ilam is about 4 miles from Ashbourne at the entrance to the scenic Manifold Valley. Ilam is picturesque, with its "Swiss chalet" style houses and matching school house, it lies close to the popular Dovedale valley. While most of the buildings in the village are from the past two centuries, Ilam dates from Saxon times or earlier; the village has attracted praise for its commitment to eco- friendly policies. Ilam became the first community in the United Kingdom to phase out incandescent light bulbs, cutting annual carbon emissions by 4 tonnes; the initiative was part of the Ilam Climate Change Project, supported by the Marches Energy Agency. Ilam is situated in the Manifold Valley near the southern end.
The Dove forms the county boundary between Derbyshire. Upstream from Ilam is the famous Dovedale walk to Milldale. At the Ilam end, the walk crosses the Dove on a famous line of stepping stones. A wide and picturesque curve of the Manifold provides an ideal setting for Ilam Hall; the River Manifold flows underground from Wetton Mill, rises again at Ilam in the grounds of the hall. At some times of the year, the river bed is dry apart from the occasional pool; the River Hamps is a tributary of the Manifold which flows underground leaving a dry river bed. At Ilam Hall, the Manifold rises a few yards downstream from a local spring. During certain weather conditions, when muddy water flows upstream of Wetton Mill, there is a clear difference between the clear water from the spring, the muddy water rising just downstream. A hall has been here since John Port had the first one built in 1546. Both William Congreve and Samuel Johnson stayed at the hall. Congreve wrote his first play, The Old Bachelor here and Paradise valley inspired Johnson to write his novel Rasselas.
In 1820 the estate was bought by a wealthy industrialist. It was Watts-Russell, responsible for the Swiss look of Ilam, he built the school in 1857 and funded it, at a time when schooling was not compulsory. His son, John Charles Watts-Russell, built another Ilam Hall; the farm/homestead that he created grew and became the Ilam area of Christchurch. The site of the homestead was one of the main social centres of early Christchurch society; the present homestead was built in 1914. The Conservative politician Robert William Hanbury and was buried here. In 1934 Sir Robert McDougal bought the hall and gave it to the National Trust to become a Youth Hostel and it is still run as such today; the grounds are open to the public, are a starting point for one of the prettiest river walks in the area. Saxon, the church is now 17th and 19th century following restoration in those two centuries; some of its Saxon origins can be seen in its carved stone Saxon font, in two stone cross shafts in the churchyard. Arthur Mee records that the church was restored in the 19th century by Sir Gilbert Scott, with three chapels, but "still has the 13th century base of its tower, a wall of the same age.
Its most ancient jewel is the wonderful font, so old that it is Saxon or Norman, the round bowl carved with humans and dragons."It is in the Chapel of St Bertram, built in 1618 by the Meverell and Hurt families, that the remains and shrine of the St Bertram can be found. St Bertram was an 8th-century son of a Mercian king who renounced his royal heritage for prayer and meditation after his wife and child were killed by wolves, he is said to have converted many to Christianity, his shrine became a point of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, it being reputed to be able to work miraculous cures. Wingfield Cromwell, 2nd Earl of Ardglass is buried here; the former vicarage, Dovedale House, is now run as a residential Youth centre. Owned by the Church of England, it is under the management of the Diocese of Lichfield, it is a large old house near the entrance of Ilam Hall. It was opened as a residential centre in 1967; the village primary school serves quite a wide area because schools as far afield as Alstonfield have closed.
A conspicuous landmark is the Grade II* listed Mary Watts-Russell Memorial Cross. Standing as a roundabout at the road junction where a lane branches off towards Blore, this is an ornate gothic-style obelisk of local limestone in the style of an Eleanor Cross. Standing on a three-step plinth, it has two tiers of statues surmounted by a spire with a cross at the top. In style, it bears some resemblance to the decorated facade of Lichfield Cathedral. A restoration was completed in 2011; the Manifold Valley Agricultural Show has for a number of years been held within the parish. This show has been held on the second Saturday of August; the wide range of categories and activities provides a valuable social focus for this agricultural area. The venue is farmland owned by and above Casterne Hall just under a mile north of the village, on the plateau about halfway towards Stanshope; the road continues toward
Flash, Staffordshire
Flash is a village within the Staffordshire Moorlands and the Peak District National Park. It is the highest recognised village in the United Kingdom. Population details taken at the 2011 census can be found under Quarnford, it was an early centre for Wesleyanism. Flash is the main village in Quarnford Parish, it lies just off the A53 main road about 4 miles southwest of Buxton. It is on the southern slope of the highest ground on Axe Edge Moor, which rises to a peak of 551 metres; the parish forms the Staffordshire corner of Three Shire Head, a tripoint marked by a packhorse bridge on a tributary of the River Dane, where Staffordshire and Cheshire meet. To the south is Morridge, with a trig point at 489 metres at Merryton Low which provides views across the Cheshire plain and The Roaches. In this area is Ramshaw Rocks, a part of the range which includes Hen Cloud and The Roaches; the Winking Man is a rock outcrop on Ramshaw Rocks. The River Dane rises within the parish. East of Flash, just over the A53, are the heads of the River Dove and River Manifold.
Further south is the head to the north is the head of the River Goyt. Other interesting features include caves on the west side of Axe Edge, one of, known as "The Devil's Hole" from some strange sounds heard there when the wind blows in the right direction. At 1,519 feet above sea level, Flash claims to be the highest village in Great Britain. In 2007 the claim was upheld by the BBC, which settled a dispute with its rival claimant, Wanlockhead in Dumfries and Galloway; the Ordnance Survey measured the highest house in each village and Flash was higher, although the results were disputed by residents of the Scottish village. More the claim has been disputed by the residents of Nenthead in Cumbria. There is, however. During the first half of the 19th century the population of the parish was around 700. In 1851 there were 40 agricultural labourers, about the same number of silk workers, as many colliers. There were stonemasons, dressmakers and cordwainers, a shoemaker, errand boy, game-keeper, grocer and tailor, as well as a number of house servants, 275 young people and 50 scholars.
At one time 29 families were receiving weekly relief and 23 families occasional relief, nearly a quarter of the population. The first record of coalmining in the parish comes from 1401 when Thomas Smith took a year's lease on the'vein coal' of Black Brook, near Upper Hulme. There were a large number of coal pits in the area, including Orchard Common, Hope and Knotbury, they were worked throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, some into the early 20th century, for both commercial and domestic use. Flash is an isolated community with a small population. Flash had a reputation for being a centre for illegal activities such as cock fighting and counterfeiting. According to some sources, the counterfeit money manufactured at Flash used to be exchanged at the nearby Three Shires Head; the village has a village shop, Flash bar stores with a web cam, a brewery, Flash Brewery, which has bottled beer suitable for vegans. Wesleyan Methodism was so well-established in Flash during the 18th century that a chapel was built as early as 1784.
At this time, there were 61 Methodist "members of Society". This account suggests that Flash became a centre from which Methodism spread into other neighbouring villages, such as Hollinsclough. Quarnford Parish page on ONS website
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