Staffordshire

STAFFORDSHIRE, a midland county of England, bounded by Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire and Cheshire. The area is 1,158.3 square miles. The county may be divided into three geographical divisions, north, middle and south Staffordshire, depending on the geological struc ture. The highest land is in the north. Here the southern ends of the Peak folds bring up Lower Carboniferous rocks, with lime stones in the north-east and the Pendleside shales and Coal Measures forming four basins in the north-west and centre. The district is drained by the headwaters of the Trent and its tribu taries the Dove, Hamps, Manifold and Churnet and shows. a diversity of scenery, the limestone hills being domed and treeless, whilst the Pendleside shales form heather-covered moors, and the grit bands have bold scarp faces. Axe Edge (1,756 ft.), and the Roaches are the highest hills, being formed by Millstone Grit. The four coal-basins are the Pottery, Cheadle, Shaffalong and Goldsitch Moss coalfields. The last two are small and contain only the lowest coal-measures and are no longer worked. The Pottery and the Cheadle basins are more important and contain valuable seams of coal. The Bunter sandstones of the Cheshire plain overlap the coal-measures in the west of the Pottery basin.

Middle Staffordshire is a broad undulating plain, occupied by various members of the Triassic series and drained by the Trent. The plain is divided into an eastern and a western portion by Can nock Chase, formerly a royal preserve, now an important coal field concealed beneath a cover of glacial sands and gravel which rest upon Bunter sandstone. The high ground rises to about Boo feet. The "Black Country" occupies the greater part of South Staffordshire. Here again the country is low and undulating cov ered on its margins by the Trias whilst in the middle lies the South Staffordshire coalfield, in which there are several small inliers of Silurian rocks which stand up above the surrounding country to a height of Boo feet. Most of the county is drained by the river Trent, a few streams drain into the Dane which flows into the Mersey, whilst a small area in the west and south-west forms part of the Severn drainage system. The only considerable sheet of water is Aqualate Mere on the Shropshire boundary.

Staffordshire is an important coal-mining county. The Southern coalfield has an estimated reserve of 1,415 million tons and the northern coalfields 4,46o million tons. The latter contains the valuable black-band ironstones which are of commercial impor tance, and a smaller amount of iron is mined in the south where, however, there are important quarries for road metal.

History and Early Settlement.

Although remains of Palae olithic man have been found in the Derbyshire caves over the border, no finds are known from Staffordshire itself. Neolithic implements, especially round barrows and Beaker pots of later date are found almost entirely and in fairly large numbers in the north-east section of the county. In early times this region must be considered as part of the Peak district of Derbyshire. In the remainder of the county there are isolated finds of Bronze, not ably palstaves at Brewood, Biddulph, Bushbury and Stretton, a bronze sword at Alton Castle and a leaf-shaped spear-head at Yarlet. These isolated finds serve to indicate the beginnings of movement along the valley ways and the importance of the roads around the hills into Wales and the west. In Roman times Leto cetum just south of Lichfield was the most important settlement. In the 6th century a tribe of Angles settled about Tamworth, afterwards famous as a residence of the Mercian kings. Later the invaders advanced beyond Cannock Chase. The district was frequently overrun by the Danes, and it was after Edward the Elder had finally expelled the Northmen from Mercia that the land of the south Mercians was formed into a shire around the fortified burgh which he had made in 914 at Stafford. The county is first mentioned by name in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1016. The resistance which Staffordshire opposed to the Conqueror was punished by ruthless harrying and confiscation, and the Domes day Survey supplies evidence of the depopulated and impover ished state of the county. The five hundreds of Staffordshire have existed since the Domesday Survey, and the boundaries have remained practically unchanged. The shire court for Stafford shire was held at Stafford, and the assizes at Wolverhampton, Stafford and Lichfield, until by act of parliament of 1558 the assizes and sessions were fixed at Stafford.