Christianity was introduced to Mercia, one of the Kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchies, in 653 AD. A monastery was founded at its capital, Repton. Soon afterwards, a religious settlement was established at Burton by Saint Modwen who hence became its patron saint. She was an Irish noble woman who became an abbess and made a pilgrimage to Rome.

She, together with two other accompanying nuns Lazar and Althia, visited Burton on the way and founded a church dedicated to God and Saint Andrew on an island on the river Trent. She named the island Saint Andrew’s Isle, or Andressey. They stayed for seven years before continuing to Rome.

On her return journey, she built another church across the river at the foot of Mount Calvus, later known as Scalpcliffe Hill, this time dedicated to Saint Peter on the site of the current church in Stapenhill. She undertook further missionary work in Scotland, where she died at a place called Lanfortin near Dundee. A traditional story tells that on her death, her companions saw her soul taken to heaven by silver swans, which became her emblem, as depicted by the large White Swan in Stapenhill gardens. Her body was returned to Burton for burial; she was reputed to be 130 years old. A shrine to Saint Modwen was built at the church on Andressey but this was destroyed by the Danes in 874 AD who left their heritage on a number of place names, most notably, Broadholme and Horsholme which are the names of two of Burton’s other neighbouring islands; ‘holme’ being Danish for water meadow or island. Her remains were reputedly recovered and ended up at Burton Abbey when it was established in 1002 AD by Wulfric Spot, a Saxon nobleman. A new shrine was established in the Abbey church and was reputedly visited by William the Conqueror.

Some of Modwen’s alleged remains were transferred from the chapel on Andresey to Burton abbey and a shrine built there. The move evidently took place between 1008, when the abbey’s dedication was recorded as ‘St. Benedict and All Saints’, suggesting that Modwen’s bones were not then within the abbey church, and the abbacy of Leofric (1051-66) who despoiled the shrine.

There is known to have been an altar to Modwen in the abbey church by the time of Abbot Geoffrey Malaterra (1085-94). An undated grant by William I (1066-87) makes the strong suggestion that he visited her shrine. The Abbot promoted Saint Modwen and increasing her importance.

When Abbot Geoffrey took over Burton Abbey in 1114 he knew little about the saint whose bones his Abbey possessed and was very intrigued to find out more. He re-built the shrine and wrote to Ireland for information, he was sent a ‘Life of Modwenna’ written by Conchubranus  (or Conchobhar), an itinerant Irishman searching for materials about an Irish abbesses. Abbott Geoffrey edited this and added a few stories of Modwen’s time in Burton and telling of her posthumous miracles. It was called ‘Life of Saint Modwenna’.

Amazingly, the Conchubranus book still survives and has recently been edited and translated by Professor Robert Bartlett of Saint Andrew’s University. For the first time we know what the monks believed and taught about Modwen. Conchubranus’ book contains references to Modwen’s time in Burton, of her establishing both churches, and talks about the Burton monks possessed her bones and her name. In Conchubran’s time in Ireland,  Burton was also known as ‘Mudwennestow’, meaning ‘Modwen’s holy place’.

Some relics of Saint Modwen were re-discovered in 1201 which prompted a renewed interest in her cult. Additional miracles were attributed to her, and she was depicted on the seal of Abbot Nicholas (1216-22). A new shrine was built in the abbey church in the early 15th century, and it was probably that shrine which by the 1530s had an image of the saint with a red cow and a staff said to be helpful to women suffering labour pains.

By the late 13th century, Saint Modwen was known in monasteries with earlier links to Burton including Winchester, where Abbot Geoffrey of Burton had been prior; Reading, where Abbot William Melburne had been a monk; and Wherwell nunnery, Hants. near Winchester. In addition, the two cathedrals of Canterbury and Salisbury have relics of her. No other English parish church however, has been dedicated to her outside of Burton, although there was a small chapel dedicated to her in Offchurch, Warwickshire. In the 1530s there was an image to Modwen in Ashbourne church, Derbyshire; she was also depicted in medieval window glass, mentioned in 1798, at Pillaton Hall, in Penkridge.

When the chapel on Andresey was dedicated in the early 13th century by Bishop Geoffrey Muschamp, it was called Saint Andrew’s church, and its keeper was given 1s. a year by Abbot William Melburne. There was still an altar dedicated to Saint Modwen on the island by 1280. When the chapel was rebuilt by Abbot Thomas Feld in the late 15th century, it was known as St. Modwen’s and contained her supposed tomb.

In Tudor times, St Modwen’s Holy Well was in a chapel on Andrew’s Island between two branches of the River Trent at Burton. It was famous for the cure of King’s Evil and other extraordinary cures. The water had long been used by the monks for brewing the famous Burton Ale and pilgrims came to partake of the water and possibly the ale too. The offerings received from the pilgrims visiting the shrine in the 1530s just before the dissolution, was around £2 a year.

The Abbey was the centre of life in Burton until Henry VIIIs Dissolution in 1538. During this period, the Saint Modwen cult in Burton was officially suppressed.

Sir William Bassett was at Meynell Langley, Derbyshire, at the end of August 1538 when he received instructions from Thomas Cromwell “that such images as you know… so abused with pilgrimages or offerings… you shall for avoiding that most detestable offence of Idolatry forthwith take down”. Sir William carried out his task and replied to Cromwell, as follows:

Right honourable my inespecial good lord, according to my bounden duty and the tenor of your lordship’s letter lately to me directed, I have sent unto your good lordship by this bearer, my brother Francis Bassett, the images of St Anne of Buxton and St Modwen of Burton upon Trent which images I did take from the places where they did stand, and brought them to my own house within 48 hours after contemplation of your said lordship’s letter, in as sober manner as my little and rude wits would serve me. And for that there should no more idolatry and superstition be there used I did not only deface the tabernacles and places, where they stand but also did take away the crutches, shirts and sheets with wax offered, being things that did allure and intice the ignorant people to the said offerings, also giving the keepers of both places admonition and charge that no more offerings should be made in those places till the King’s pleasure and your lordships be further known in that behalf. My lord, I have locked up and sealed the baths and wells at Buxton and none shall enter to wash them till your lordship’s pleasure be further known. Whereof I beseech your lordship that I may be ascertained again at your pleasure and I shall not fail to execute your lordship’s commandment to the uttermost of my little witt and power. And the trust that they did put in those images and the vanity of the things, this bearer, my brother can tell your lordship better at large than I can write for he was with me at the doing of all and in all places, as knoweth good Jesus, whom ever good lordship in his blessed keeping. Written at Langley with the rude and simple hand of your assured and faithful orator and as one ever at your commandment, next unto the King to the uttermost of my little power.

Signed William Bassett (Knight)

On 1st September, Thomas Thacker, Steward to Cromwell, wrote to his Master telling him that Francis Bassett had delivered to Austin Friars (Thomas Cromwell’s main residence) in London, “the image of St Modwyn with her red cow and her staff which women labouring of child in those parts were desirous to have with them to lean upon and to walk with“. This is the best available description of the statue.

Thomas Cromwell fell from grace a few years later and was arrested being accused of many crimes, most significantly treason. Cromwell was condemned to death without trial and beheaded on Tower Hill on 28 July 1540 (the day of the King Henry VIII’s marriage to Kathryn Howard). Following his death, an inventory was taken of his belongings which showed an extensive collection of treasures that had been confiscated from the church for supposed destruction. It has not been possible to identify the images of St Anne and St Modwen mentioned in the letter from Sir William Bassett.

Following removal of the shrine, the keeper was ordered not to accept any more offerings. Some elements of the cult, however, persisted. The name Modwen, which had some popularity before the Reformation, continued to be given to girls in Burton until at least 1585. Saint Modwen’s well on Andresey Island was recorded in 1686, still there in at least 1738, was said to work great cures. There was a 16th century attempt to rename the Island, Saint Modwen’s Isle, but this did not stick and it reverted to Andresey (Andrew’s Island).

When the chapel on Andresey passed to the Pagets as lords of Burton manor in 1546, it measured 60 by 27 feet. It was still standing in 1699 and possibly as late as 1837, but by 1857 the chapel site had gone. The area around the chapel was known as St. Modwen’s Orchard by 1760, when it was marked by a water-filled ditch. The ditch can just be seen today next to what is now known as the Cherry Orchard.

A modern monument to commemorate Saint Modwen was erected on Andressey Island at the end of the twentieth century. You may even have seen it but not registered who, or even what, is is supposed to depict. I certainly did! Strangely, it is half a mile away from where the original Saint Andrew’s Church and later Saint Modwen’s chapel stood.

The parish church still celebrates Saint Modwen’s day on 29th October (although the date appears to have been changed a number of times over the centuries).

One of Abbot Geoffrey’s stories in Professor Bartlett’s translation is included below.

A Miracle of St. Modwen – abridged from the ‘Life of Saint Modwenna’ by Abbot Geoffrey of Burton (c1120 AD), translated by Professor Robert Bartlett.

When St Modwen returned to England from Rome she came to the place called Scalpcliffe and saw there, by the hill, an island in the River Trent. It was secluded from men and had an isolated hermitage, and she loved the place very much. She stayed there for seven years and built a church dedicated to St. Andrew. To this day the island is known as Andressey, or Andrew’s Isle. At that time the area was a desolate wilderness, with woods and wild animals, but no people.

There lived at Breedon a saintly hermit who heard of Modwen’s reputation and used to visit her. He brought her writings on the lives of the saints which they read together, encouraging each other in their faith with the examples of the saints.

One day the hermit arrived but had forgotten the book. Modwen was grieved, and they decided to send for it. The hermit instructed two of Modwen’s companions where the book might be found, and Modwen instructed the two virgins to get into a boat and make all speed to fetch the book. They were rowing down the river when a strong wind sprang up which caused great waves on the Trent and filled the girls with fears of drowning and death.

When they reached a place called Leigh the wind got up further and they leant to one side and the boat overturned. They sank to the bottom of the river, and were trapped under the boat.

Modwen and the hermit began to grow anxious that they had been a long time. The thought occurred to Modwen that perhaps they had been drowned. She was desolate and blamed herself for having sent them and held herself responsible for their deaths. But the hermit consoled her, and suggested that they turned to prayer. They prostrated themselves on the ground and tearfully prayed to God for the lives of the girls. At length a bell rang and they rose, and noticed that a dry path had been miraculously opened up on the river bed. The water was divided in an astonishing manner into two parts, standing like a wall to the right and the left of the path.

Modwen and the hermit set off at once down the path on the river bed and came to the upturned boat. On one side of it the girls’ fingers were visible where they had clutched at the gunwale of the boat. The hermit tried to lift the boat but could not. It was as heavy and immovable as if it had grown roots into the river bed. He asked Modwen to try. She did so and the boat lifted as quickly and easily as if it had no weight at all. They found the two girls alive and well, safe and sound, preserved by the grace of God. There was mighty rejoicing and they all gave thanks to Almighty God for the miraculous saving of the girls, for his great wonders and the great marvels he had performed.

Once the boat was turned right way up they all climbed in and at once the waters rushed back into the river bed and bore them along with waves so that it should be clearly understood that God himself had divided the waters and saved the girls in answer to the prayers of the two saints.

In the early 1800s, a number of publishers produced county directories, a sort of forerunner of the Yellow Pages, which have become a valuable source of historic information. Among the most popular were Bradshaw & Parsons Directory of Staffordshire, Bagshaw’s Derbyshire Directory and White’s Directory of Derbyshire.

Below is an extract from the 1857 Whites’s Directory of Derbyshire. Burton upon Trent, at this time lying in both Staffordshire and Derbyshire with the county line being formed by the river Trent, appeared in the Derbyshire edition. It was organised by Town and each was described in some detail so providing an invaluable record. The Burton upon Trent entry is fully transcribed below, surrounding townships were in separate sections, I have included Winshill as an example:

BURTON-UPON-TRENT is an extensive parish, principally in the Offlow Hundred, Staffordshire, and partly in Repton and Gresley Hundred, Derbyshire. The entire parish comprises 7 townships, viz. : Burton-upon-Trent, Burton Extra, Branstone, Horninglow, and Stretton, in Staffordshire, with Winshill, and part of Stapenhill, which are in Derbyshire, with about 10,000 acres of land, and in 1851 had 2,250 houses, and 12,373 inhabitants, of whom 6,189 were males, and 6,184 females. The manor of Burton-upon-­Trent, with several hamlets, was granted in the 37th Henry VIII. to an ancestor of the present Marquis of Anglesey, who is lord of the manor, principal owner of the soil, and te impropriator of the great tithes of the whole parish. The east and west sides of the parish swell gradually into hills, and have a strong red loamy soil, suitable for the growth of barley and wheat, the former of which is extensively cultivated, and sold to the numerous malting establishments at Burton. The rest of the land is chiefly meadow, forming rich loamly pastures, which are often flooded by the waters of the Trent and Dove, which latter flows on the north side of the parish.

A well-built market town of considerable antiquity, is pleasantly situated on the west bank of the Trent, which here flows in two broad streams, and is crossed by an ancient stone bridge of 36 arches, in the centre of which is a stone which marks the boundaries between the counties of Derby and Stafford. It is in 52o 53’ north latitude, and 1o 35’ west longitude, and is distant 11 miles S.W. of Derby, 13 miles N.E. of Lichfield, 24 E. of Stafford, and 125 N.W. of London by the road, and 129 by the railway. The town of Burton has been considerably improved during the last 25 years, several New Streets have been made, many old buildings removed, and handsome houses erected on the sites. The principal streets are, High Street, Horninglow Street, New Street, Station Street, Lichfield Street, and Bridge Street; the former is the principal thoroughfare, been well flagged and paved, and contains many handsome houses, shops, and excellent inns; it is of considerable length, and runs paralell with the river from north to south. In 1851, it had (including Burton Extra and part of Horninglow) 1604 inhabited houses, 50 uninhabited, and 22 building; with 7,934 inhabitants, of whom 3,943 were males, and 3,991 females. Burton has long been celebrated for the excellence of its ale, and immense quantities are sent to all parts of Great Britain, to many foreign countries, the East and West Indies, Australia, and to all parts of the world. During thc reign of the second Catherine of Russia, great quantities were exported to the Continent, it being the favourite beverage of that queen, but this trade was extin­guished by the Berlin Decree, which shut out our manufactures from the Continent, but the taste for pale ale has greatly increased in this country, and most of the brewers are now employed in supplying the home market. The first Brewery established here was in 1610, but 30 years ago the number was only 5, it is now 19; and a greater extent of business is done at some of the older establishments than was done by the whole town at that time. The superior properties of Burton ale is partly attributable to the excellent hard water which is obtained from the neighbouring hills; and Dr. Darwin ingeniously supposes that some of the saccharine acid in the malt combines with the calcareous earth of hard water, and forms a sort of mineral sugar, which is convertible into spirits. Most of the breweries have also very extensive malting establishments, the consumption of which during the season, 1855-56, amounted to 1,216,000 bushels, of which quantity 704,000 bushels were made in the town. The cotton spinning and power-loom weaving were carried on to a considerable extent by Messrs. Peel & Co. till within the last few years. One of the factories is now occupied by Mr. John Taverner, tape manufacturer; another is used as stores by the brewers, and the others are unoccupied. There are also three Iron foundries, and an Engineer and Millwright’s establishments here. The river Trent is Navigable for barges up to the town, and the canal, which connects that river with the Mersey, opens a water communication with all the principal towns in the kingdom. The town has several times been inundated by the Trent, particularly in the years 1771, 1792, 1795, and 1798, when most of the streets were laid under water.

The New Sewer, formed in 1843, is a very great improvement to the town of Burton, and has effectually removed those continual nuisances so detrimental to the health and com­fort of the inhabitants. Previous to the year 1788, High Street was not paved, nor had it a sewer of any kind, and the centre of the street was so low that it fanned a general receptacle for the refuse water from all the houses. At intervals, stepping stones were placed to enable persons to cross. In that year, an act of parliament was obtained for paving, repairing, cleansing, and lighting the town, and for removing and preventing nuisances, soon after which, a sewer of about two feet diameter was formed from the Bridge to High Street, but not being properly constructed, was continually stopping up for want of a regular fall. In 1843, however, it was determined to employ an engineer to see how far it was practicable to carry out the sewerage, so as effectually to drain the town; the result was satisfactory, and the Feoffees liberally responded to the wants of the town, by a grant of £400. The sewerage extends a distance of 2,159 yards, and the most sanguine expectations of the projectors have been fully realised. Each time a boat passes into the lock, which may be estimated at 12 times a day, the lock full of water is turned down the sewer, from Bond-end Wharf to the Bridge, by which means no filth can possibly accumulate, or offensive effiuvia be omitted.

The Town Hall, in the Market Place, is a commodious structure, created in 1772, by the late Lord Paget, father of the Marquis of Anglesey, the present owner of the manor, to whose ancestors it was granted in the reign of Henry VIII., and all such privileges, liberties, and franchises belonging to the same, as had heretofore been enjoyed by the abbots of Burton. In the exercise of these privileges, the lord of the manor appoints a steward and a bailiff, who retain their office during his pleasure. The steward presides as judge in a court for the recovery of debts under 40s., called the Genter’s Court. This court was judicially acknowledged by the Court of King’s Bench, on an informa­tion in the nature of a quo warranto, brought by the attorney-general in the reign of Queen Elizabeth against Thomas, then Lord Paget, who claimed the same as a prescrip­tive right in the abbots of Burton beyond the memory of man. The Genter’s court is held in the Town hall every third Friday, and has exclusive jurisdiction over the manor. The bailiff, John Richardson, Esq., in right of his office, is coroner; he has also a concurrent juriadiction with the county magistrates as a justice of the peace, but being a practicing attorney, he does not act in that capacity. In addition to the Genter’s court, the lord of the manor annually holds a Court leet and view of frank-pledge, at which the election of officers takes place, among whom are six decimers, and three constables. The Market is on Thursday. Here are four annual Fairs—held on Candlemas day, April 5, Holy Thursday, and October 22 to 29. The latter was granted by King John, and is noted for the sale of horses and cheese, A Hiring for servants is held on the Monday after New Michaelmas day, and a Feast on the nearest Sunday to Street Modeven’s day. Races were formerly held here, but have been discontinued some years.

The Gas Works, in Station Street, were erected in 1832 by a proprietary of £20 shareholders, at a cost of £2,500, and were leased at that time for a period of 21 years, to Mr. Samuel Sanders, since which period they have, by an act of parliament, come into the hands of the Town commissioners, who, in 1854, erected New works, in Anderstaff Lane, the original works having become too small for the requirements of the town. The Birmingham and Derby branch of the Midland railway has a convenient Station on the west side of the town, and communicates with the North and South Staffordshire, the Burton and Leicester and other lines.

The Bridge is the most interesting object of antiquity which the town possesses, and is supposed to have been erected by Bernard, Abbott of Burton, about the year 1174; others assign the erection to a much earlier period, Its zig-zag form stretches across the two steams of the Trent, and the adjoining low meadows, which are subject to inundation, a distance of 1,545 feet, and has 36 arches, three of which are entirely blocked up, and five more of them are only visited by the water in the time of floods, From its extreme narrowness and unnecessary length, many serious accidents have occurred, and it is a matter of consideration with the inhabitants how the danger shall be obviated. A battle was fought upon the bridge in 1322, when Edward III. obtained a decisive victory over the Earl of Lancaster; and it is supposed that the chapel which formerly stood at the end of the bridge was built to commemorate this victory. Mass was frequently said, in order to raise funds to defray the expenses of the bridge.

The Abbey appears to have been a place of some magnitude, from the few vestiges that are still to be seen. Tanner says: Ulfric Spot, finished and endowed, A.D. 1004, an abbey here for monks of the order of Street Benedict. It was dedicated to the blessed Virgin Mary and Street Modoven, and valued 26th Henry VIII., at £267 14s. 5d. per annum. But on the record in the first fruit’s office, the yearly valuation of this monastery is given at £501 7s. The Abbey and its dependencies were exempt from all exactions, duties, and services, except trinodas necessitas, the erection of fortresses and bridges, the repairing of highways, and the repelling of invasions. The abbot and convent surrendered this house Nov. 14th, 1539, and in 1541, Henry VIII, who, after robbing it of part of its estates, refounded it as a Collegiate Church, dedicated to Jesus Christ and his mother Mary; and granted for their support, the manor of Burton, and thirteen other manors, & Co., belonging to the monastery. This Church was but of short continuance, for it was dissolved in 1545, when all the lands and endowments of the same then worth £356 16s. 3d. per annum were conveyed by the said king to Sir William Paget, an ancestor of their present owner, the Marquis of Anglesey. The seal of this college is one of the most beautiful specimens of that style of engraving now extant. It represents our Saviour and his disciples at the last supper, with the arms of Ulfric, the founder, at the bottom. On the margin is a Latin inscription, signifying it to be.

The common seal of the dean and chapter of the collegiate church of Christ, at Burton-upon-Trent. Several abbots, at different periods, were re­turned as members of parliament, and they were empowered to hold a weekly market, collect tolls, and institute fairs. The Church was a handsome structure, 228 feet long and 52 feet wide, ornamented with an elegant tower at each end. The cloisters measured 100 feet square. Portions of the walls are still visible near the present Church, and the dormitory, fraytor, and all the other buildings, were on a scale of proportionable magnitude. The anicient mansion called the Abbey House is said to have been that part of the building which formed tbe private residence of the abbot, it is now occupied and held on lease by Thomas Thornewill, Esq., who has, at great expense nearly restored it to its pristine beauty, which had been destroyed by modern additions and repairs. The porter’s lodge is now converted into a blacksmith’s shop, and fragments of the wall which surrounded the abbey and its extensive gardens may still be seen. There are two other houses in the grounds, called the Priory and the Manor; the latter is occupied by the Marquis of Anglesey’s agent.

The Parish Church, dedicated to Street Modwen, is a handsome structure with a fine tower and was built in 1720, on the site of the ancient Church, which had been greatly dilapidated during the parliamentary war. It has 8 bells, a set of musical chimes, and a good organ, erected in 1771. The Churchyard is now very spacious, 1½ acres of land on the margin of the Trent being added in 1830, by the Marquis of Anglesey. Several stone coffins have been dug up; one of which is placed in an upright position, on the margin of the Trent, and a lid ornamented with rude sculpture is placed against the wall on the south side of the Church. The Marquis of Anglesey is impropriator and patron of the living, which is a perpetual curacy, but is now called a vicarage, value £192; the Rev. Samual Stead, M.A., incumbent.

Holy Trinity Church, Horninglow Street, is a beautiful edifice, in the florid Gothic style of architecture. It is partly built of brick cemented so as to correspond with the stone buttresses, pinnacles, and other ornamental portions of the building. The interior is exceedingly neat and has a richly foliated Gothic window of stained glass, with representa­tions of Street Peter and the four evangelists. It was built in 1824, by the executors of the late Isaac Hawkins, Esq., at a cost of £7,000, and will accommodate about 1,000 hearers; 700 sittings are free. There is an endowment of about £80 per annum from Queen Anne’s bounty, and from a small sum in the funds from other sources. The Marquis of Anglesey is the patron, and the Rev. Peter French, M.A., is the incumbent.

Christ Church, New Street, is an elegant cruciform structure in the early English style, with a tower surmounted by an elegant spire. It was consecrated in September, 1844, and was built at a cost of £2,750, raised by private subscriptions and a grant from the In­corporated Society for building churches. It has 600 sittings on the ground floor, and 400 in the galleries, and the whole of the sittings both free and appropriated, have carved stall ends; but the latter have small low doors. The living is a perpetual curacy, value £200 in the patronage of the vicar, and the incumbency of the Rev. William Morgan, B.A., who resides at the parsonage, a neat house in the Tudor style, erected between the church and its schools. Catholic Chapel, Guild Streetreet, is a neat brick building, erected a few years ago, the Rev. Thomas Telford is the priest.

Independent Chapel, High Street, occupies the site of a nonconformist meeting-house, built in 166l, when the Rev. Thomas Bakewell was ejected from the rectory of Rolleston. This chapel, however, was rebuilt about 80 years ago. The present edifice is in the Gothic style, and was rebuilt in 1842, at a cost of £2,200. The front is of hewn stone, and has a large window of beautiful proportions, filled with Gothic tracery which gives it a chaste and noble appearance. The interior fittings are all of oak, and it will seat 600 persons. The Rev. Daniel Horscraft is the pastor. The Wesleyan Chapel, Horninglow Street is a neat brick building, rebuilt in 1813; it is neatly fitted up with galleries, and the body of the chapel has been recently pewed; attached to it are two neat houses for the ministers. The Particular Baptist Chapel, Station Street, was erected in 1793, and was considerably en­larged and beautified with a Grecian portico, in 1842, at a cost of £1,150. The General Baptist Chapel, Burton Extra, was opened in 1825; Zion Chapel, (General Baptists) Union Street, was erected 1855; it is a handsome brick building, capable of seating 600 persons. The Primitive Methodist Chapel, Station Street, is a neat brick building, erected in 1829. And the Wesleyan reformers have a small chapel in George Sunday Schools are attached to all the churches and chapels, and are numerously attended.

The Free Grammar School, Friar’s walk, adjoining the church-yard, was founded in 1520, by William Beyne, Abbot of Burton, who built a school house on ground belonging to the Abbey. The endowment consists of a farm of 120 acres at Orton-on-the-Hill, in Leices­tershire, let for £250 a year, and 111 acres of land at Breaston, let for £202 per annum. The head masteter receives two-thirds of the rents arising from the lands, and the second master one-third. The former has also £3, and the lattir £6 a year, from the bequest of Elizabeth Paulett. The school is free to sons of parishioners, with preference to those who apply for classical instruction. The number is limited to 65. The present school was built in 1834, atthe cost of £600. It contains an ancient carved oak desk, supposed to have been in use ever since the foundation of the school. The Rev. Henry Day is Head master, and Mr. Henry Hodson, second master.

Allsopp’s Charity School is endowed with land now let for £24 per annum; left by Rd. Allsopp, in 1728, for the instruction of 30 poor boys. Six of the scholars are clothed out of the rents of the land now let for £6 a year, left by Francis Astle, in 1735. The feofees of the Town Lands are trustees of this school and the 30 poor boys are now instructed at the large and handsome National Schools, (Christ Church) Church street, erected in 1844, at the cost of about £1000. They form a handsome building in the Tudor style, and will accommodate about 400 children; the average attendance is 130 boys, and about the same number of girls, and 100 infants.

The National Schools, (Holy Trinity) Horninglow Street, were built by subscription, in 1827, and are supported by voluntary contributions; about 100 boys and 70 girls receive instruction; and an Infant school was erected in 1846, by subscriptions, and a grant of £100 from the National Society, in Anderstaff Lane, the average attendance is about 95.

The British Schools, Guild Streetreet, were built in 1843, on land given by the Marquis of Anglesey, at the cost of about £900, raised by subscriptions, and a Parliantentry grant of £274 12s. 19d. They are substantial buildings, and comprise a good house for the master and mistress, and two spacious rooms for about 160 boys and 100 girls.

The Burton Literary Society, High Street, commenced in 1844, has a reading room and a library of about 1,100 volumes on various scientific and interesting subjects. It is supported by a subscription of 20s. per annum from the first class, and a quarterly subscrip­tion of 2s. 2d. from the second class, and 5s. per annum the third class. The former have the privilege of attending the reading room at all hours of the day, the other from 5 o’clock in the evening until 10; but the latter have only the use of the library. The reading room is well supplied with London and provincial newspapers, and the most popular periodicals of the day; Mr. S. Simnett, Secretary and Librarian.

Natural History Society and Museum, High Street, established in 1842, contains a valuable collection of British and foreign birds, insects, fishes, fossils, minerals, and antiquities. This interesting exhibition is at all times open to the public free.

The Self-supporting Dispensary, in High Street, is a valuable institution, established in 1830, by which means the poor have the best medical and surgical aid, for the small charge of a 1d. a week, and also the privilege of choosing their own surgeon. The total receipts for the year ending Oct. 31, 1855, was £657 7s. 6d. The disbursements £653 16s. 3d. Mr. Thomas Ash is the dispenser.

The Savings’ Bank, established in 1818, is held at the Town Hall, which is open every Saturday, from 2 to 3 o’clock. The amount of deposits for the year ending 20th Nov. 1855, was £36,078 1s. 8d., and the number of depositors 1,352, of whom 24 were charitable and 29 friendly societies. The respective balances of 763 depositors did not exceed £20. 354 not exceeding £50, 131 not exceeding £100, 37 which did not exceed £150, 13 not exceeding £200, and 1 which exceeded that sum. William Coxon, actuary.

The Permanent Library, at Mr. R. R. Bellamy’s, Bridge Street, was commenced in 1838; it is supported by a number of shareholders and upwards of 70 subscribers, and contains 2000 volumes. The shares are £10 each, and an annual subscription of 16s. Subscribers, not being shareholders, pay 21s. a year.

Young Men’s Christian Association, Guild Streetreet, established about 11 years ago, has a reading room, and library containing about 1,400 volumes. Mr. John W. Lomas, Secretary.

Petty Sessions are held every Tuesday, at the County Court House, and Police, Station, Station Street. The magistrates for the district are—Sir Oswald Mosley, Bart., Robt. John Peel, Esq., Michael Thomas Bass, Esq., M.P., John Bott, Esq., Charles Walter Lyon, Esq., and Henry Allsopp, Esq. Mr. Jno. Thornewill, clerk to the magistrates; Jno. Anderson, inspector of police; here are also two constables.

The Stamp Office, High Street, is at Mr. Samuel Whitehead’s; it is open from nine to five o’clock.

The Inland Revenue and Corn Returns’ Office, Market Place; Mr. Ambrose Martin, supervisor.

The New Small Debts Act, or County Courts.This important act, which superseded the Court of Requests, came into operation on the 15th March, 1847.

Burton-upon-Trent County Court is held at the Court House, Station Street, Monthly, and the district comprises the following places:Anslow, Barton Blount, Barton-­under-Needwood, Branstone, Bretby, Burton Extra, Burton-upon-Trent, Castle Gresley, Catton, Caldwell, Church Broughton, Church Gresley, Coton in the Elms, Drakelow, Dunstall, Egginton, Foston and Scropton, Hanbury, Hatton, Hilton, Hoon, Horninglow, Linton, Lullington, Marston-upon-Dove, Milton, Newton Solney, Osleston, Repton Rolleston, Rosliston, Stanton and Newhall, Stapenhill, Stretton, Sutton-on-the-Hill, Swadlincote, Tatenhill, Thurvaston (Upper), Tutbury, Walton-upon-Trent, Wichnor, Winshill. J. T. Cantrell, Esq., Judge Philip Hubbersty, Esq., Wirksworth and John Thornewill, Esq., Burton-upon-Trent, registrars. George Ley, High bailiff, Burton-­upon-Trent.

THE BURTON-UPON-TRENT POOR LAW UNION, formed in 1837, comprises 53 parishes and townships, of which 40 are in Derbyshire and 13 in Staffordshire, with an area of 90,652 acres of land, and a population of 31,843 souls. The following is an enumera­tion of the parishes and townships in the county of Derby, viz: Ash, Barton Blount, Bearwardcote, Bretby, Burnaston, Castle Gresley, Catton, Caldwell, Church Broughton, Church Gresley, Coton-in-the-Elms, Dalbury with Lees, Drakelow, Egginton, Etwall, Findern, Foremark, Foston and Scropton, Hatton, Hilton, Hoon, Ingleby, Linton, Lul­lington, Marston-upon-Dove, Mickleover, Newton Solney, Osleston and Thurvastan, Rad­bourn, Repton, Rosliston, Stanton and Newhall, Stapenhill, Sutton-on-the-Hill, Swadlin­cote, Trusley, Twyford and Stenson, Walton-upon-Trent, Willington, and Winshill. The 13 parishes and townships in the county of Stafford are, Anslow, Barton-under-Needwood, Branstone, Burton-upon-Trent, Burton Extra, Dunstall, Hanbury, Horninglow, Rolleston, Stretton, Tatenhill, Tutbury, and Wichnor.

The Union Workhouse, erected in 1839, is a handsome brick building, ornmented with stone, situated at the west end of Horninglow Street. It was erected at a cost of £8,300, and, with an additional sum of £700 expended for furniture, will make a total of £9,000. It contains ample accommodation for 400 inmates, and is well ventilated and supplied with fittings of the most substantial character. The present number of in­mates is 165. William Coxon in clerk and superintendent registrar; Alex. and Jane Phillips, master and matron; William Freeman, schoolmaster, and Emma Oakden, schoolmistress; Robt. R. Bellamy, registrar of marriages; John Killingby, relieving officer and registrar of births and deaths for the South district; Gervase Smedley, relieving officer, and registrar of births and deaths for the North district: Richard Stone, Esq., of Derby, auditor; and John Dawson, porter. The following is a list of the surgeons : Robert Shirley, Belcher, Burton-upon-Trent district; Robt. John Bell, Mickleover; Benjamin Miller, Barton-under-Needwood; George Ambrose Cope, Etwall; H. Edwards, Tutbury; George Lowe, Rosliston; Arthur Hewgill, M.D., Repton; and Spencer Thomson, M.D., Gresley district. The average weekly cost of the in-door paupers for the half-year ending March, 1856, was 2s. 5¾d. for food, and 3½d. for clothing.

WINSHILL township and small village, upon a declivity 1½ miles E. by N. from Burton-upon-Trent. to which parish it belongs, contains 1,150 acres of fertile land, 88 houses and 405 inhabitants, of whom 196 were males and 209 females, in 1851; rateable value, £2,313. The Marquis of Anglesey is lord of the manor and principal owner. There is an extensive corn mill on the Trent bank, and a factory for manufacturing tape, occupied by Mr. John Taverner; also Bladon House, a respectable boarding school. This manor belonged to the monastery of Burton, and having been granted after the dis­solution to the first Lord Paget, is now the property of his descendant. The Anglesey Coal Company, established in 1856, have extensive collieries here, situated on the Burton and Ashby-de-la-Zouch road, 1¾ miles E. from the former, and 7¼ miles N.W. from the latter. The coal obtained here is of a superior quality for making coke for malting, and also for steel converting; it is likewise in great demand for household purposes. The men employed are assisted by a steam engine of 20 horses power. Messrs. Bond, Brailsford, Hunt, & Wigfall are the proprietors. In 1846, a small National school was built by subscription; it a neat brick building, and is licensed for divine service, as a Chapel of Ease to Holy Trinity. The Wesleyans have also a chapel here. (For Directory, see end of Burton.)

The Towns Lands consist of about 40 acres in small detached parcels, with several tenements, producing an income of £190 a year, including the rent of Finney’s close and the Workhouse garden. For a long period they have from time to time been conveyed together to trustees or feoffees, for the common benefit of the inhabitants of Burton. The feoffees are also entitled to the sum of £1,800, which has been accumulated from fines received on different renewals of leases for lives. The interest of this money, £84 a year, is applied with the other income. The rents of the town lands are collected by the town masters, (to whose office the constables of the preceding year, appointed at the Court-leet, succeed as a matter of course,) and are paid by them to the treasurer of the feoffees, at their general annual meeting, held annually on the 21st December.

CHARITIES,(under the management of the feoffees of the Town Lands). Mr. Finney gave a close in Anderstaff Lane, and directed the rents to be given in apprenticing yearly some poor boy. The close is let for £11 18s. 8d.

The Workhouse Garden, in Anderstaff Lane, is let for £5 8s. a year, in respect of which it had long been customary to furnish annually six coats for poor men, but the practice was discontinued about 30 years ago. The rent is carried to the general account of the town lands.

The Pavement House consists of a messuage, shop, two cottages, and 36 perches of land, the rents of which are appropriated by ancient usage to the reparation of the pave­ment of the inferior inhabitants in High Street.

The New Close is a piece of lands of about 20 acres, formerly part of the town moors. It is now let in leys or gates for depasturing cows, and the clear profits have been applied since 1815 for repairing the pavements in Burton and Bond End.

Daniel Watson, in 1779, left a stable, coach house, and stable yard, in Cat street, and directed the rents to be given to the poor on Whit-Monday.

Isaac Hawkins, in 1712, left £100 to be laid out in land, for the maintenance of some poor man in Burton. This legacy was expended in land called the Low Gate Piece, now let for £7 7s. a year.

Mrs. Almond’s gift. There appears to be no original writings respecting this charity. It consists of a farmhouse and 30A, of land at Aston, a close 6A. 2R, called Blackwells, at Rolleston, and an allotment in Horninglow of 1A. 1R. 19P. The rents amount to £71 18s. 8d. In addition to the above, there belongs to this charity a part of certain lands in Rolleston, which were received in exchange from Sir Oswald Mosley, Bart., for land belonging to this charity. The annual value of this land was £2 2s. a year, but through mistake the rents have been carried since the enclosure to the account of Parker’s almshouses. Of the above rents, £5 17s. is paid for weekly distribution of bread; £6 6s. to the poor of Horninglow, Stretton and Branston, in sums of 3s. each and under; and £29 17s. to the poor of Burton and Burton Extra, chosen by the feoffees in sums of 5s. each.

William Hawkins, in 1724, left a rent charge of £5 a year to be distributed in bread. This amount has for some time been paid, towards furnishing 12 poor women of Burton with gowns.

Richard Steele left a rent charge of 21s. per annum, which is divided equally be­tween the poor of Burton, Branston and Stretton.

Richard Caldwell, M.D., in 1582, left in trust with the bailiff of Lichfield £160, to be lent free of interest to clothiers of small wealth and ability, or else to other handicraft­men, dwelling in Burton-upon-Trent. The sum of £40 is lent from five years to five years, and the sum of £120 alternately, in four sums of £30, aud twenty of £6 for five years. The bailiffs of Lichfield go over to Burton at the time when the securities are to be renewed, and they receive applications for, and advance the loans.

The Almshouses in the Swine market, for five poor women, were founded by Elizabeth Paulett, in 1591. The endowment consists of 25A. 1R. 22P. of land at Fenny Bentley, and several dwellings and shops adjoining the almshouses, producing an annual sum of £81 17s. The same donor also bequeathed a rent charge of £10 a year, of which £1 is given to the almswomen, and the remainder as noticed, with the Grammar school. The rent charge was exchanged in 1795, for £333 6s. 8d., three-per cent. consols. Each of the inmates receive 6s. per week, paid quarterly, and a supply of coals out of the rents of the town lands.

Parker’s Almshouses, High Street, were founded in 1634, by Ellen Parker, who left £800 in trust to build 6 almshouses for 6 poor widows or old maids of Burton and Stretton. The property consists of buildings and land in Anderstaff Lane, Horninglow, and Rolleston, let for £54 5s. 3d. per annum. The inmates have each 4s. weekly, and about £6 added from the funds of the town lands.

LIST OF STREETS, & Co., BURTON-UPON-TRENT 1857

Abbey Street, High Street
Anderstaff Lane, Horninglow Street
Bank square, High Street
Bond End, Abbey Street
Bond Street, Green st
Bridge Street., Horninglow Street
Brook Street, Horninglow Street
Church Street, New Street
Cross Street., Station Street
Dale Street, Park Street
Derby Lane, Station Street
Duke Street., New Street
Fennell Street, High Street
Fleet Street, Abbey Street
Friar walk, Market Place
George Street, Guild Street
Green Street, Bond End
Guild Street., Horninglow Street
Hawkins Lane, Horninglow Street
High Street, Market Place
Horninglow Street., High Street
Lichfield road, Lichfield Street
Lichfield Street, High Street
Market Place, High Street
Moor Street, New Street
Mosley Street, Station Street
Orchard Street, New Street
Nelson Terrace, Station Street
New Street., High Street
Paget Street, Station Street
Park Street, High Street
Stanley Street, Mosley Street
Station Street, High Street
Union Street, Station Street
Victoria Crescent, Horninglow Road
Wellington Street, Derby Lane

MISCELLANY, consisting of Gentry, Clergy, Partners in Firms, and others not arranged in the classification of Trades and Professions.

Post Office, High Street; Mr. John Whitehurst, postmaster.

Letters arrive from:
Derby, Leeds, & Co., (1st mail) at 1 a.m., (2nd mail) at 11 a.m.
London and all parts, (1st mail) at 2 30 a.m., (2nd mail) at 1 p.m.

Letters despatched to:
Birmingham, Tamworth, & Co., at 10 15 am.
Derby, Leeds, & Co., at 12 noon.
London, and all parts, at 10 p.m.

Money Order Office, open from 9 to 6 o’clock.
Branch Post Office, at William Peace’s, Victoria crescent.

BURTON UPON TRENT DIRECTORY 1857

Adams Mr. Edmund, Station Street
Alcock Edward scripture reader, Horninglow Street
Allen Charles, clerk, Station Street
Allen Francis Chawner, clerk, Lichfield Road
Allen James, clerk, Station Street
Allen John, brushmaker, New Street
Allsopp Henry, Esq., High Street
Atkins Michael, coach builder, Station Street

Bagnall Ann, furrier, Horninglow Street
Ballard William, manager of gas works, Anderstaff Lane
Barratt & Son, gun makers, High Street
Batkin Henry, cutler, High Street
Baxter Mr. Benjamin, Horninglow Street
Bell Adam, clerk, Lichfield Street
Bennett Edwin, joiner, & Co.; Cross Street
Birch Mrs. Sarah, Bank square
Birkin Chamberlain, horse breaker, Guild Street
Bishop Mr. William, Station Street
Bladon James, lessee of the market, and inspector of weights & measures, Market Place
Booth Mrs. Mary, Horninglow Street
Bloor John, cooper, High Street
Brooks Moreton, gents., Lichfield Road
Broster George, tripe dresser, High Street
Brown Henry, bank manager, High Street
Bryan Jesse, slater, Anderstaff Lane

Carter Mrs. Elizabeth, Station Street
Carter Thomas, coml. trav., Abbey Street
Chappells John, national schoolmster, Station Street
Chatterton John, pawnbroker, Union Street
Child John, inland revenue officer, Horninglow Street
Clark Henry, timber & Co. merchant, The Priory
Cliff James, engineer, High Street
Cooke Mark, agent, Horninglow Street
Cox Thomas, clerk, Union Street
Coxon James, clerk, Guild Street
Crichley Rev. Thomas, curate of Christ Church, Union Street

Davies Rev. Samuel, (baptist) Alma house
Dawson John, porter, Workhouse
Day Rev, Henry, headmaster grammar school, Lichfield Street
Dilworth Richard, station master, (M. R.) Station Street

Earp Thomas, agent, Horninglow Street
Farmer Mrs. Ellen, Brook Street
Ford Miss Ann, Horninglow Street
Franklin William, dyer, New Street
French Rev. Peter, M.A., incumbent of Holy Trinity, Horninglow Street

Gates Mrs. Elizabeth, Lichfield Street
George John Joseph, building surveyor, Nelson Terrace
Goer Thomas, cheese factor, High Street
Gorton Thomas, assistant overseer, Mosley Street
Govan Andrew, farm bailiff, Station Street
Green Rev. Walter, curate of Trinity Church Union Street
Gregg Rev. John Robert, curate, Market Place
Gretton Miss Fanny, Horninglow Street
Gretton John, Esq., High Street
Grundy Richard, inland revenue officer, Horninglow Street

Hales Thomas, commercial traveller, Station Street
Hanson Thomas, bird preserver and fishing tackle maker, High Street
Hanson Mr. John Nicholas, Station Street
Harris Edward, brewer; Lichfield Road
Harris Mr. William, High Street
Haywood Rev. George, (reform) George Street
Heafield Thomas, clerk, Station Street
Healey John, clerk, Station Street
Hill John, brewer, Lichfield Road
Hill William, clerk, Station Street
Hill Robert, commercial traveller, Station Street
Hodgson Stanley, surveyor of taxes, Guild Street
Hodson Miss Ann, Horninglow Street
Hodson Henry, 2nd master Grammar school, Station Street
Hodson Mr. Thomas, High Street
Holloway Mr. Charles, Lichfield Road
Holmes Ed., assistant brewer, Horninglow Street
Horscraft Rev. Daniel, (Ind.) High Street
Hunter John, joiner & Co., Duke Street

Jackson Mr. Henry, Horninglow Street
James Ezra, sup. brewer, Horninglow Street
Johnson Eliza, berlin wool and fancy repository, High Street
Jefford John, clerk, Horninglow Street
Johnson Miss Elizabeth, High Street
Jones William Esq., M.D., Lichfield Street

Keenan John, trav, draper, New Street
Kenney Rev. Richard, (baptist) Lichfield Road
Kent William, maltster, Horninglow Street
Killingley John, relieving officer and regr. of births and deaths, Horninglow Street

Lander Thomas, land agent, Manor House
Lathbury Miss Elizabeth, Nelson Terrace
Leigh Henry B., Esq., Hunter’s Lodge

Martin Ambrose, supervisor Inland revenue, Market Place
Martin William Shubrick, managing brewer, New Street
Massey Richard, brewer’s clerk, Mosley Street
Miller Mrs., Union Street
Mathews John, head brewer, High Street
Mayberry Richard M., clerk, High Street
Meakin Francis Lewis, brewer, Lichfield Street
Meakin George, brewer, Abbey Street
Merry Charles, accountant, Station Street
Moor Mrs., Horninglow Street
Morgan Rev. William, B.A., incumbent of Christ church, Church Street
Morris Samuel Coates, Esq., Bridge Street
Morris William, manager, Station Street
Mortimer Joseph, grocer’s manager, New Street
Moth John, Inland revenue officer, Station Street
Moulder Mrs. Elizabeth, Horninglow Street

Ordish Mrs. Ann, keeper of museum, High Street
Osborne William, clerk, Horninglow Street

Parsons Fredk. Joseph., wine & spirit merchant, High Street
Peel Street John, Esq., Lichfield Street
Pendleton William, brewer, High Street
Payne Mrs. Maria, High Street
Phillips Alex. and Jane, master & matron, Workhouse, Horninglow Street
Poyser Thomas, Esq., Horninglow Street
Pratt Joseph, fruiterer, High Street
Pratt Miss Sarah, High Street
Proudman John, manager at Burton Brewery Co., High Street

Radford Mr. James, Lichfield Street
Ratcliff Samuel, Esq., Horninglow Street
Richardson Mrs. Caroline, High Street
Richardson John, solicitor, high bailiff and coroner for the borough, High Street
Richardson Mrs. Mary, Station Street
Robinson Rhd., accountant, Horninglow Street
Robinson Thomas, clerk, Lichfield road
Robinson Thomas, brewer; h. High Street

Salloway Mr. Edward, Horninglow Street
Salt James, carrier to Derby, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, New Street
Saunders Mrs. Mary, Horninglow Street
Shardlow William, carriers agent, Station Street
Shipley Samuel, inland revenue officer, Mosley Street
Shreeve William Henry, inland revenue officer, Lichfield Street
Simnet John, temperance hotel, Union Street
Small William, solicitor, Lichfield Road
Smith David, clerk, Horninglow Street
Smith Robert Thomas, accountant, Cross Street
Stanley Miss Mary, Horninglow Street
Stanley Mr. William Day, High Street
Stanley William, painter, Market Place

Staton John, plaster, cement, and gypsum manufacturer, Park Street
Stubbs Mr. Solomon, Guild Street

Taylor Miss Frances, Horninglow Street
Taylor James, woodman, Abbey Street
Telford Rev. Thomas, Catholic Priest, Cross Street
Thompson John, brewer, Horninglow Street
Thornewill Robert, ironfounder, & Co.,  The Abbey
Townsend Mrs. Susannah, Station Street
Townsend William, clerk, Lichfield Road
Tranmer Rev. Francis T., (Wesleyan), Horninglow Street
Treace John, commercial traveller, Station Street
Trease Mr. John, Horninglow Street
Turton Henry, Engineer, Station Street

Wall Richard, highway overseer, Station Street
Warham John Robson, ironfounder, & Co., New Street
Whitehead Mrs. Cath., Lichfield Street
Williams Mr. David, Hawkins Lane
Whitehead Samuel, solicitor’s clerk, and stamp distributor, High Street
Wilson, Rev. John, (Wesleyan), Horninglow Street
Wilson Bateman, clerk, Horninglow Street
Wood Halder, managing brewer, Guild Street
Wright Joseph, ironfounder, and inventor of the patent reciprocating vertical fire bars, Horninglow Street
Wright Joseph George, librarian Young men’s Christian association; Guild Street
Wright Joseph, merchant’s clerk, High Street
Wyllie Stewart Eaton, brewer, Lichfield Street
Wyllie William, brewer; h. Lichfield road

Yates Mrs. Elizabeth, High Street

BURTON UPON TRENT BUSINESS DIRECTORY, 1857

ACADAMIES (Marked ** take Boarders).

British, Guild Street., Jas. Samble and Anne Standley
Cleaver Mary, Horninglow Street
Cooke Jane, Horninglow Street
Dunwell William, High Street **
Dyche Mary Ann, Bridge Street
Free Grammar, Friar’s walk, Rev. Henry Day, head master; and Henry Hodson, second master
Graggs Mary & Jane, Horninglow Street
King Matilda, Station Street
Leedham Mary Jane, Horninglow Street **
National, (Christ Church,) Church Street, John Chappell & Ann Ford; Harriet Cox, infant mistress
Trinity, Horninglow Street., Henry Taylor & Sarah Ann Gould.
Infant’s, Anderstaff Lane, Mary Hoose
Union, Horninglow Street., William Freeman & Emma Oakden
Wragg Jemima, Market Place

ATTORNIES

Bass Abraham, Bridge Street
Coxon William, (& clerk to the Union,) Horninglow Street
Drewry James, High Street
Goodyer Henry, Guild Street
Perks John, Lichfield Street
Richardson & Small, High Street
Thornewill John, (and clerk to County Court, and to Magistrates,) Station Street, Green street

AUCTIONEERS

Leedham Fras., Nelson terrace
Wilkins Stephen, High Street
Bakers & Flour Dealers.
Burton William, Park Street
Coates Samuel, High Street
Dales John, Guild Street
Duker John George. New Street
Evans Thomas, High Street
Hicklin John, Lichfield Street
Insley George, High Street
Lee Francis, High Street
Mason John, Horninglow Street
Mason Joseph, Mosley Street
Mason Joseph, Station Street
Merrey Jas., New Street
Oxford Jas., Station Street
Patrick John, Station Street
Rice Thomas, New Street
Scattergood William, Horninglow Street
Sheavyn Samuel, Bridge Street

BANKERS

Burton, Uttoxeter, & Ashbourn Banking Co., (draw on Roberts & Co.) High Street.; Edwin Brown, manager
Savings’ Bank, Town Hall, (open every Sat, from 2 to 3); William Coxon, sec.

BASKET MAKER

Parker Isaac, High Street

BLACKSMITHS

Bircher Joseph, Anderstaff Lane
Brandon John, Horninglow Street
Brandon Thomas, Guild Street
Hill John, New Street
Johnson Richard, Station Street
Robinson George, High Street
White Charles, New Street

BOOKMAKERS, PRINTERS & CO.

Bellamy Robt. Raynar, (and Registr. of mars.) Branch Post-Office, Bridge Street
Darley William Butterfield, (and bookbinder, patent medicine vendor, and licensed to sell stamps,) High Street
Goodman Caleb, High Street
Whitehurst Jno., High Street

BOOT AND SHOE MAKERS

Adams William, Station Street
Bagnall George, Horninglow Street
Bagnall Richard, Station Street
Bagnall Thomas, High Street
Cartmall Charles, Anderstaff Lane
Cooper John, High Street
Dean George Port, High Street
Dean Philip, High Street
Dyche John, Bridge Street
Eaton John, Station Street
Foster William, High Street
Gilbert William, Station Street
Goodhead Hugh, Moor Street
Jackson George, High Street
Langley Charles, Union Street
Langley Robert, Horninglow Street
Norton Thomas, High Street
Nutt Henry, New Street
Port George, Mosley Street
Redfern Thomas, High Street
Rose William, New Street
Siddals Edmond, Victoria Cresent
Simnett John, Union Street
Smith Elijah, Cross Street
Smith Joseph, Horninglow Street
Walker William, Horninglow Street
Ward Richard, Park Street
Wardle William, Horninglow Street
Whitehead Jas., Market Place

BOWLING GREENS

Atterbury Jas., Bank Square
Buxton Thomas, Derby Lane
Mc George Jas. H., High Street

BRAZIERS AND TINNERS

Ash Jas., High Street
Barratt William, sen., High Street
Rattcliff Edwin, High Street
Redfern Benj., New Street
Slater Henry, Station Street
Wilson Robert, High Street

BREWERS AND MALTSTERS (Marked ** are also Exporters).

Allsopp Samuel & Sons, High Street **
Bass, Ratcliff, and Gretton, High Street **
Bell John, Lichfield Street
Cooper Charles, High Street
Eadie James, Cross Street
Hill Charles & Son, Lichfield Road
Ind Coope,& Co. Paget Street
Meakin & Co., Abbey Street
Middleton William, High Street
Nunneley Joseph, Bridge Street
Perks & Co., Horninglow Street
Salt Thomas & Co., High Street **
Saunders William, Horninglow Street
Thompson Jno. & Sons, Horninglow Street
Tooth Bros., Victoria Cresent **
Wilders Burton Brewery Co., High Street **
Worthington & Robinson, High Street **
Wyllie Brothers, High Street
Yeomans John, High Street

BRICKLAYERS AND BUILDERS

Bowler Joseph, New Street
Clark William, Bridge Street
Keates John, Wellington Street
Keates John D., Lichfield Street
Lowe Thomas, New Street
Mason William, Guild Street
Sidley Robt., Station Street
Yeomans George, Moor Street

BRICKMAKERS

Bradley George, Moor Street
Lowe Thomas, Ashby Road
Simnett Samuel, Station Street

BUTCHERS

Atkin William, High Street
Bell William, Lichfield Street
Hanson Samuel Wilson, Horninglow Street
Heath Thomas, High Street
Lea Jno, Horninglow Street
Moorcroft William, Station Street
Port Francis, High Street
Robinson Joseph, Station Street
Shutes William, Bridge Street
Smith John, New Street
Simnett Ed., Horninglow Street
Stanley William, High Street
Tivey William, High Street
Whitehead David, High Street
Wilson Charles, Guild Street
Woodward Thomas, Guild Street

CABINET MAKERS AND UPHOLSTERERS

Chambers Thomas, Lichfield Street
Hunt William High Street
Rowland Charles, Station Street
Wilkins Stephen, High Street
Woolley George, High Street

CHEESE FACTORS

Daniels and Goer, High Street
Etches Bros., Railway station
Kettle George M., Horninglow Street. Thomas Earp, agent

CHEMISTS AND DRUGGISTS

Brookes Hugh, High Street
Hallam Charles M., High Street
Lomas John W., High Street
Pountney William, High Street
Ratcliff Jas. & Samuel, High Street
Taylor Thomas, High Street
Townsend William, High Street

CHIMNEY SWEEPERS

Dolman Edward, Duke Street
Peach Jno., Station Street
Saltinstall Jno., New Street

COAL AND COKE MERCHANTS

Anglesy Coal Co., Winshill; Bond, Brailsford, Hunt & Wigfall, proprietors.
Appleby John, Station Street
Heath Joseph, Railway Station, Station Street
Jenkins Lambert, Railway Station, High Street
Walker William, Railway Station, Station Street

CONFECTIONERS

Bickley John, High Street
Coates Samuel, High Street
Lee Francis, High Street
Oxford James, Station Street
Scattergood William, Horninglow Street
Whittingham John, High Street
Wright William, High Street

COOPERS

Dearle Edward, Union Street
Ewers John, High Street
Jelly William, Cross Street
Johnson Chpr., Horninglow Street
Morris John, (and vat maker), Horninglow Street
Southerns Thomas, High Street

CORK CUTTERS

Cashman Michael, (and sock manufacturer) wholesale and retail, Horninglow Street
Wilders Henry, Market Place, Victoria crescent

CORN MERCHANTS

Bailey William, High Street
Douglas James, (and flour) Station Street

CORN MILLERS

Buxton John, Derby Lane
Wilson Joseph & Co., Burton Mill

CURRIERS AND LEATHER CUTTERS

Elliott Robert Spencer, (and Tanner), High Street
Marshall William, High Street
Pountney Thomas, Bridge Street

ENGINEERS AND MILLWRIGHTS

Capes & Burton, (and portable and steam engine manufacturers, Britannia Foundry, Horninglow Street

FARMERS

Greaves Elizabeth, Horninglow Road
Lathbury John, Whetmore House
Ordish James, Park Street
Parker Rd., (cowkeeper) George Street
Port John, Lichfield Road
Shutes William, Bridge Street
Wood William, Lichfield Road

FIRE AND LIFE OFFICES

Birmingham District, (Fire) William Nichols, Guild Street
County, (Fire) William Coxon, Horninglow Street
European, (Life) John W. Lomas, High Street
Industral & General, (Life) William Pountney, High Street
Mutual, (Life) C. Goodman, High Street
National Economic Hail Storm, John Riley, High Street
Norwich Union, William Scott Goodger, Bridge Street
People’s Provident, John Riley, High Street
Provident (Life) William Coxon, Horninglow Street
Royal Exchange, Henry W. Hodson, High Street
Scottish Amicable (Life) W. Dunwell, High Street
Star, Thomas Lowe, New Street
Traveller & Marines, John Riley, High Street
Times, Robert Thomas Smith, Cross Street
Unity, (Fire) John Riley, High Street
Yorkshire, John Whitehurst, High Street

FISHMONGERS

Appleby William, High Street
Wilson John, High Street

GARDENERS AND SEEDSMEN

Appleby William, Station Street
Heath Richard, High Street
Staley Thomas, New Street
Wardle William, Station Street

GLASS AND CHINA DEALERS

Abbott Richard, Bridge Street
Wildman Sarah, High Street

GREENGROCERS

Appleby Henry, Lichfield Street
Bagnall Richard, Guild Street
Bladon Mary, High Street
Brown Oliver, Park Street
Redfern Thomas, High Street
Young Robert, High Street

GROCERS AND TEA DEALERS

Adams John & Son, High Street
Bickley John, High Street
Birch Henry High Street
Brookes James, (wholesale & retail), New Street
Burton John, Guild Street
Buxton Joseph, Moor Street and Station Street
Buxton William, Park Street
Dales John, Guild Street
Dams Allen, Horninglow Street
Dickinson John, High Street
Dukes John George, New Street
Evans Thomas, High Street
Gane Elizabeth, New Street
Goodhead Samuel, Horninglow Street
Goodger William & Son, Bridge Street
Haddon Martha & Son, (John), Moor st and Horninglow Street
Hickling John, Lichfield Street
Hudson William, Horninglow Street
Killeen Charles, New Street
Lathbury Richard, High Street
Leedam William Whittingham, High Street
Mason John, Horninglow Street
Mason Joseph, Moseley Street
Mason Joseph, Station Street
Ratcliff Jas. & Samuel, High Street
Sanders Charles, New Street
Scattergood William, Horninglow Street
Streeter Harriet, Lichfield Street
Wayte Ann M., High Street and Lichfield Street
Whittingham John, High Street
Worsey Thomas, High Street
Wright William, High Street

HAIR DRESSERS

Bradley William, New Street
Foster Henry, Horninglow Street
Goodwin John, High Street
Hanson Thomas, High Street
Lakin Charles, Horninglow Street
Martin John, Station Street
Port Horatio, Lichfield Street

HATTERS

Hawkins John, Bridge Street
Kelsey John, High Street

HOOP (Wood) MAKERS

Riley Charles, Victoria Crescent
Riley William, Moor Street
Tunnadine Henry, Horninglow Street

HORSE AND GIG AND CAB PROPRIETORS

Eardley Ellen, Bridge Street
Teat Samuel, Horninglow Street

HOSIERS

Cooper John, High Street
Fitchett Benjamin, Horninglow Street
Herratt Samuel, (and toy dealer) High Street
Jackson George, High Street
Mansfield Ann, Horninglow Street
Roe Thomas, High Street

INNS AND TAVERNS

Anchor, Joseph Bowler, New Street
Angel Commercial Inn, Jas.
Atterbury, Bank square
Barley Mow, William Wood, Park Street
Bear Inn, Thomas Frederick Dugmore, Horninglow Street
Bell, Joseph Phillips, Horninglow Street
Black Horse, John Oakden, Moor Street
Blue Posts, Mary Yeomans, High Street
Boot, Fras. Whitby, High Street
Bowling Green Inn, Thomas Buxton, Derby Lane
Carpenters’ Arms, William Gretton, New Street
Coach & Horses, John Redfern, High Street
Devonshire Arms, William Appleby, Station Street
Dog, Jno. Carder, Lichfield Street
Dingo, Joseph Bircher, Victoria Crescent
Fox & Goose, Ellen Eardley, Bridge Street
George Inn, Henry Townsend, High Street
Guild Tavern, Ann Greves, Guild Street
King of Prussia, William Gibson, New Street
Lamb, William Milward, High Street
Leopard, William Swindale, Abbey Street
Midland Coml. Hotel, Michael Atkins, Station Street
Nag’s Head, John Ducker Keats, Lichfield Street
Old White Lion, Frederick Dickinson, Lichfield Street
Plough, Thomas Soar, Horninglow Street
Queen’s Commercial & Posting Hotel, John Witton Lees, Bridge Street
Rising Sun, Robert Smith, Horninglow Street
Royal Oak. John Hooper, Market Place
Sarcen’s Head, William Hoult, Bridge Street
Spirit Vaults, William Chambers, Bridge Street
Spread Eagle, Joseph Baker, New Street
Spread Eagle, Joseph Hill, Lichfield Street
Star, Sarah Meason, High Street
Swan, Thomas Johnson, Anderstaff Lane
Talbot, Martha Blood, Horninglow Street
Union Inn, James Gaunt, Horninglow Street
Wheat Sheaf, Edward Morrall. High Street
White Hart, commercial and posting Hotel, James Henderson Mc George, High Street
White Horse, Frances Woolley, High Street
White Lion, John Downing, High Street

BEERHOUSES

Annable Benj., Horninglow Street
Allard Samuel, Green Street
Appleby John, Station Street
Atkin Edward, New Street
Atkin Abraham, Victoria Cresent
Barnes Abraham, Cross Street
Beddows Thomas, New Street
Bircher William, Anderstaff Lane
Bond William, Station Street
Blant Joseph, New Street
Brailsford John, Guild Street
Cookes William, Union Street
Cooper Charles, High Street
Cross Thomas, Lichfield Street
Dyche Samuel, Horninglow Street
Elson George, Anderstaff Lane
Fern John, Lichfield Road
Finch George, Victoria Cresent
Fisher Peter, Duke Street
Goodhead James, Station Street
Harrison Joseph, High Street
Jeffcoat Enoch, Cross Street
Johnson Richard, Station Street
Johnson William, New Street
Marlow William, Guild Street
Orme Thomas, New Street
Orton Richard, Park Street
Robinson Fras., Lichfield Road
Sandars Samuel, Anderstaff Lane
Smith Henry, Moor Street
Southern William, Lichfield Street
Strettan Thomas, Anderstaff Lane
Stringer Elizabeth, Horninglow Street
Thacker John, Horninglow Street
Turner David, Victoria Cresent
Turner Edwin, Anderstaff Lane
Ward John, Abbey Street
Watson George, Mosley Street
Winfield Williams, High Street
Yeomans Thomas, Lichfield Street

IRONFOUNDERS AND ENGINEERS

Halbard Philip, (and stove grate manufacturer), Horninglow Street
Thornewill & Warham, New Street
Wright, Salisbury & Co., (and stove grate manufacturers) ,Anderstaff Lane

IRONMONGERS

Ash James, High Street
Barratt William, senior, (and letter cutter, stove grate, kitchen range, and cooking apparatus manufacturer), High Street
Bindley Thomas, High Street
Ratcliff Edward, High Street
Smith George, High Street
Wilson Robert, High Street

JOINERS AND BUILDERS

Bagnall Thomas, Mosley Street
Corder John, Lichfield Street
Deville Samuel, George Street
Dickinson Daniel, (and boatbuilder), Lichfield Street
Heath Richard, High Street
Hunter & Bennett, Duke Street
Mason Henry, Station Street
Sherwin Joseph, Union Street
Stratton John, Lichfield Street

LIBRARIES

Darley William B., (circulating), High Street
Permanent Library, Bridge Street, Robert Bellamy, librarian
Young Men’s Christian Association, Guild Street.; Joseph G. Wright, librarian

LINEN AND WOOLEN DRAPERS

Douglas George, High Street
Hawkins, Son, and Nephew, Horninglow Street
Jones William. High Street
Kelsey John, High Street
Ordish Walter Daniel, High Street
Robinson John, High Street
Sowter Thomas, Station Street
Styan John Chpr., High Street
Walker William, High Street

MILLINERS

Bladon Mary, High Street
Bryan Mary, High Street
Carter Elizabeth, Station Street
Evans & Ordish, High Street
Ewers Eliza, New Street
Fitzsimons John, High Street
Gaunt Diana, Horninglow Street
Glover Elizabeth, Market Place
Heginbotham Elizabeth, Lichfield Street
Jefford Ann, Horninglow Street
Jones Rebecca, High Street
Milner Lucy & Elizabeth, High Street
Morris Amelia, Station Street
Redfern Jane, High Street
Robinson Mary, (and silk mercer), High Street
Rose, High Street
Southerns Ann and Sarah, Horninglow Street
Wheatcroft Ann, High Street
Willsher Sarah Ann, Orchard Street

NAIL AND RIVET MAKERS

Jackson George Frederick, New Street
Renwick Thomas, New Street
Stringer Elizabeth, Horninglow Street
Whiteman, Brett, and Bartle, Horninglow Street

NEWSPAPERS

Burton Times, published every Saturday, by John Whitehurst, High Street
Burton Weekly News, published by Robt. R. Bellamy, every Friday, High Street

PAINTERS & CO.

Green John, High Street
Harrard Math., Anderstaff Lane
Newbold George, Lichfield Street
Rastall Joseph, Horninglow Street
Stanley William, High Street

PLASTERERS

Simpson John, New Street
Simpson, John, jun., Moor Street

PLUMBERS AND GLAZIERS

Fitchett William, High Street
Fletcher Samuel, Lichfield Street
Knight Frederick, New Street
Nichols William, (& gas fitter & coppersmith) Guild Street
Sandars Samuel, Station Street
Turner James, Guild Street

PROFESSORS OF MUSIC

Barratt George Paul, (and organist and teacher of the
pianoforte, thorough bass, harmony, and composition), Station Street

Day Lewis, Lichfield Road
Orme George, High Street

REFRESHMENT ROOMS

Doherty Laura, Maria, (and dealer in British wines), Station Street
Whittingham John, High Street

REGISTER OFFICES FOR SERVANTS

Doherty L. M., Station Street
Jackson George, High Street
Simnett William Henry, Guild Street

ROPE AND TWINE MAKERS

Elson James, High Street
Lowe John, Fleet Street

SADDLERS AND HARNESS MAKERS

Brooke William, High Street
Gibson Thomas, High Street
Newbold Thomas, High Street
Orme Thornas, New Street
Ward William, High Street

SHOPKEEPERS

Bannister S., Horninglow Street
Collier William, Cross Street
Cox Thomas, Moor Street
Dales Robert, Station Street
Dickinson Daniel, Lichfield Street
Elson George, Anderstaff Lane
Elson Thomas, Anderstaff Lane
Harris Jas. Kellem, Station Street
Heath William, High Street
Hurst George, New Street
Patrick John, Station Street
Merry James, New Street
Newell Henry Thomas, New Street
Renwick Thomas, New Street
Slater William, Moor Street
Talbot Jane, Park Street
Underwood Thomas, High Street
Walker William, Horninglow Street
Waterson Thomas, Anderstaff Lane
Woolley Wm, Horninglow Street
Yeomans Handel, Victoria Crescent

STONE MASONS (Marked * are Merchants).

Bassett David, Station Street
* Clark Thomas & Son, Green Street
* Clark William, Bridge Street
Harrison Joseph, High Street
Parker James, Horninglow Street

STRAW HAT MAKERS

Egginton Mary, Bridge Street
Gaunt Diana, Horninglow Street
Jones Rebecca, High Street
Jefford Ann, Horninglow Street

SURGEONS

Belcher Robert Shirley, Lichfield Street
Hawkeswotth Charles A., High Street
Leedam William A., High Street
Lowe George, Horninglow Street
Mason William, Horninglow Street

SURVEYORS AND LAND AGENTS

Grace Robert, Station Street
Spooner Thomas, Union Street
Whitehead Henry Egginton, Lichfield Street

TAILORS AND DRAPERS

Brunt and Ward, High Street
Dakin John, Horninglow Street
Dakin Joseph, Guild Street
Denston Moses, jun., Cross Street
Feakes William, Horninglow Street
Goodhead William, Union Street
Gothard William James, High Street
Jackson George, High Street
Leedam Charles, High Street
Mousley William, Lichfield Street
Marklew Edward & Son, High Street
Orgill Matthew, High Street
Orgill Thomas, High Street
Parry Richard, Victoria Crescent
Smith Thomas, Bridge Street
Webb John, High Street
Weston Charles, High Street

TIMBER AND SLATE MERCHANTS

Clark Thomas & Son, Green Street
Perks Charles & Sons, Lichfield Road
Riley William, Moor Street

TOBACCONISTS

Doherty Laura Maria, (and dealer in foreign & British
cigars, Meerschaum and other pipes), Station Street

Moger Joseph, Market Place

TURNERS AND CHAIR MAKERS

Gilbert William, Guild Street
Moore Charles, Guild Street
Noon William, Anderstaff Lane
Simpson Thomas, Guild Street
Simpson William, High Street
Summers Charles, New Street
West Thomas, Bridge Street

UMBRELLA MAKERS

Martin John, Station Street
Tong John, High Street

VETERINARY SURGEONS

Taylor Thomas, High Street
Wildsmith George, Market Place

WATCH AND CLOCK MAKERS

Sherwin Joseph, High Street
Steer John, High Street
Sutton John, Lichfield Street
Wilson Thomas, High Street
Worthington Thomas, High Street

WHEELWRIGHTS

Bailey Edward, Horninglow Street, Duke Street
Port Philip, Hawkins Lane
Sandars Samuel, Anderstaff Lane

WHITESMITHS AND BELLHANGERS

Barratt William, sen., (and locksmith), High Street
Mansfield Samuel, (and machinist) Horninglow Street
Webster George, High Street

WINE AND SPIRIT MERCHANTS (Marked * are also retaillers)

Lyon, Joule, and Parsons, Bridge Street
* Mc George, Jas. H., High Street
Morrall Edward, (ale and porter merchant), High Street
* Smith Edmund., Market Place
* Smith William, Horninglow Street
Worthington William & Son, (importers) High Street Railway Conveyance.

BURTON UPON TRENT TRANSPORT

Midland Railway Co.’s Station, Foot of Station Street.
Trains several times a day, to all parts; Rd. Dilworth, station master

Omnibus from the Queen’s Hotel meets every train

Carriers by Railway.

Midland Railway Co., (to all parts); Pickford and Co., agents

Water Conveyance.

Grand Junction Canal Co., (carriers by fly boats to all parts), Bond End; William Shardlow, agent

Carriers from the Inns.

Those marked 1 go from the Angel; 2, Bear; 3, Blue Posts; 3½, Coach & Horses;
4, Star; 5, White Horse; and 6, White Lion.
3 Alrewas, Harrison, Thurs.
4 Appleby, J. Fish, Thurs.
1 Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Thomas Broadhurst, Thurs.
6 Austery, Orton, Thurs.
2 Barton – under – Needwood, Geary, Tu., Thur. & Sat.
3½ Barton-under-Needwood, Bakewell, Thur. & Sat.
2 Birmingham, Boswell, Tues.
1 Church Broughton, Joseph Jackson, Thurs.
3 Church Broughton, William Cooke, Thurs.
1 Coton, Whetton, Thurs.
3 Coton, William Lester; Thurs.
Derby, James Salt, from New Street, Mon., Wed. & Fri.
5 Egginton, Baldwin, Thurs.
4 Gresley, Gilbert, Thurs.
1 Hanbury, Jas. Burnan, Thurs.
5 Hartshorn, Glover, Thurs.
6 Hartshorn, Cooke, Thurs.
1 Hatton, George, Locker, Thurs.
5 Hilton, Yeomans, Thurs.
1 Marchington, Parker, Thurs.
3 Newall, Thomas Taylor, Thurs.
1 Netherseal, John Mear, Thurs.
3½ Newborough, Easom, Thurs.
1 Overseal, Redfern, Thurs.
4 Overseal, Stewardson, Thurs.
1 Repton, Marshall, Thurs.
4 Repton, Maddocks, Mon. and Thurs.
3 Ticknall, Jas. Peace, Thurs.
2 Tutbury, Mayer, Mon. and Thurs.
1 Walton, Redfern, Thurs.
3 Yoxall William Mosedale, Thurs.
3½ Yoxall, John Upton, Thurs.

WINSHILL TOWNSHIP

Anglesey Coal Company, Ashby Road, Bond, Brailsford, Hunt., and Wigfall, proprietors.
Bailey Misses, boarding school, Bladen hill
Cooper Thomas, brickmaker
Croxall Ann, schoolmistress
Douglas James, flour factor, Alma House
Emery Henry, vict., Royal Oak
Finlay John, Esq., Trent Cottage
Fletcher David, shoemaker
Forman Robert, coal master, Bridge end
Hunt Sarah, shopkeeper
Lowe Thomas, brickmaker
Measham George, beerhouse
Morris Samuel, pipe maker, Bridge end
Plummer John, vict., Jolly Farmer
Sharratt Thomas, beerhouse
Shephard Joseph, brick maker
Siddalls John, brick maker
Taverner John, tape manfactr., Forge mills
Tomlinson Robert S., surgeon, Wood field
Toone Thomas, pipe maker
Wardle Frank, Esq., High Field
Wilson Joseph and Co., corn millers, Burton mill
Woodhead Mr. George, Bridge end

WINSHILL FARMERS

Fitchett Joseph & Richard
Hallam Charles
Hallam Francis
Henson Thomas
Hardy Richard
Newton William
Sale William
Taylor Thomas

William the Conqueror (William I) is recorded to have come to Staffordshire in person during 1069 and 1070 in campaigns to stamp out rebellion. The force of this and general level of destruction was so great that large crowds of men, women and children wandered as far south as Evesham trying to scavenge food. William I is also known to have visited the shrine of Saint Modwen so certainly visited Burton and its Abbey.

A survey later nicknamed and now commonly known as ‘The Domesday Book’ was compiled on the order of King William in 1086.

In the Burton entry in the ‘Domesday Book’, it is wrongly entered as ‘Stafford’ instead of ‘Burton’ which led to some later confusion. 20 estates were bestowed in Staffordshire by Wulfic but only 9 of these are recorded in the survey. Despite the Abbey, Burton was actually recorded as smaller than Stretton.

The Norman lords who accompanied William on the conquest of England were rewarded with land and title. The most significant beneficiary in the Burton area was Henry de Ferrers, who was given Tutbury castle in 1071. Another was Robert de Toeni whose son Nigel obtained Drakelow and Gresley. Royal commissioners visited each area and the inhabitants gave the information required in Old English although the final record was written in abbreviated Latin. Henry de Ferrers, of Tutbury castle, was one of the commissioners for Staffordshire.

William’s principal aim in making the survey was to provide a complete audit of England for the purposes of tax assessment. It was also used as a land registry to record new rightful ownership which could be used to settle disputes of ownership that had arisen in the twenty years since the battle of Hastings in 1066.

One unit of measure used in the ‘Domesday Book’ a ‘hide’. This was the amount of land that could be ploughed by a team of 8 oxen in a year and was equal to around 120 acres. A quarter of this was the ‘virgate’, and an eighth the ‘bovate’, which therefore, represented the amount of land that one ox could plough in a year and was around 15 acres.

Aside from ‘The Domesday Book’ survey, two later surveys were made in 1114 and 1126 to record the Burton Abbey estates. These show record a class of persons known as ‘censarii’ or rent-payers. An example is William (of) Shobnall. He held two bovates of land for which William (of) Shobnall paid a rent of two shillings a year. Another example was Tintor, the dyer, who also paid a more expensive two shillings and sixpence for his two bovates and also had to adhere to an agreement to work his plough on the Abbey Demesne (home farm) twice a year and had to mow three times in August.

In 1121, Ralph the ox-herd of Winshill had charge of four oxen and had to plough the Abbey Demesne. In return for this, held 8 acres of land.

The later surveys suggest that as many as two thirds of the inhabitants of Burton were omitted from the Domesday survey, most likely due to deliberate evasion to avoid taxes.

Another listed class of person was a ‘villein’. They were a class of medieval land tenants who held the legal status of freemen in their dealings with all people except their lord. A medieval village or manor usually contained several classes of laborers, consisting of in order of hierachy, the villein, the serf and peasant.

There might be a number of freemen, who paid a fixed rent, either in money or produce, for the use of their land. Gradually the distinction between the villein and the serf disappeared. Most of the peasants were serfs or villeins. The serf and the villein laboured in the lord’s household or at work on his domain. Under feudalism the lords and nobles of the land had certain rights over Medieval Villeins which included the right of jurisdiction, which gave judicial power to the nobles and lords and the right of hunting.

Among the local villeins listed in the early 12th century surveys was Alwin. He owed two day’s work on the Abbey Demesne every week. He also had to fetch salt once a year and fish on some occasions. At Christmas he had to bring a cartload of wood to the abbey and provide two hens, and during the year he had to make a ‘sester’ (large measure of malt) used by the monks for brewing, and fulfil various other obligations to pay for the right to graze his pigs.

Other recorded groups of tenants on the Abbey lands were cottagers, working one day a week on the Demesne for their small plot of land, and oxen (usually one or two). In addition the surveys mention a number of skilled craftsman such as goldsmiths, dyers and masons, each of whom paid between sixpence and eighteen pence for a dwelling house with around half an acre of attached land.

The two surveys suggest that in the early 12th century the arable Demesne land, which was scattered about the open fields in pieces called ‘flatts’ totalled about 500 acres within the manor of Burton. On the manor, the Abbey also had four oxen for drawing lime and four for drawing timber, one horse for harrowing, 70 mares and foals in the breeding stud, three Spanish asses, nineteen cows, one bull, eight heifers, two oxen not used for draught and 128 pigs.

The total Burton population is estimated at about 60 households. The ‘Domesday Book’ mentions just nine villeins.

The area of the Burton Demesne was limited by the fact that Burton was a town and Demesnes elsewhere on the Abbey estates, for example in Shobnall, were larger. Crops grown included wheat, barley, oats, rye, peas, beans and vetch. The Abbey was largely self-sufficent in food, the fertile soils of the river plain providing for both arable cultivation and cattle-rearing; the river provided fish and power for the water-mills, also listed, to grind the corn.

Saint Modwen’s is probably Burton’s most significant church since it occupies part of what used to be the original abbey and hence has a history that dates back to that time.

Much of this section, photographs and text, is extracted from a booklet covering the history of Saint Modwen’s Church by kind permission of Dr Robin Trotter who produced it. The booklet is still available at the church.

Select page to view:

• Saint Modwen History
• Saint Modwen’s – Early Religion
• Present Saint Modwen’s Church
• Stained Windows
• Sister Church

ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH
The Life of St. Modwen references an Anglo-Saxon chapel dedicated to St. Andrew on Andresey, it is possible that it was associated with one of the foundations of the Northumbrian Bishop Wilfrid when he was exercising episcopal functions in Mercia between 666 and 669. Wilfrid founded a number of unidentified ‘monasteries’ in Mercia, and his devotion to St. Andrew is indicated by his churches at Hexham, Northumberland, and Oundle, Northants. The church on Andresey is thought to have been destroyed in a 9th century Danish invasion.

There is also evidence for a pre 11th century minster church serving an extensive parochia in Burton. In the 1120s the abbey was recorded as having the typical exemptions of an earlier minster church: it did not have to pay for ‘chrism or holy oil or any other parochial matter’, nor send a representative to chapter or synod. The extent of the parochia may be suggested by the abbot’s spiritual jurisdiction over Abbots Bromley and Mickleover (Derby) in the 13th century.

The endowment of a monastery on the west bank of the Trent by Wulfric Spot, an Anglo-Saxon nobleman, by a will dated between 1002 and 1004 presumably followed the conversion of the minster church to a Benedictine abbey in the late 10th century. That abbey is treated in an earlier volume of the History.

PAROCHIAL ORGANIZATION TO 1545
In the early 12th century the parish was served by a chaplain, presumably the man named Recelbert who received half the income of the parish altar, a corn render (or thrave), and the provisions of one monk, and who had a lodging house. The abbey supplied him with candles for the parish altar, presumably in the abbey church. He was probably assisted by a man known variously as Alwine the deacon, Alwine the priest, and, evidently in jest, Alwine ‘the bishop’. The abbey endowed Alwine with an annual payment of 2s., 4 bovates of land in Stapenhill worth 6s. a year, the provisions of one monk, fodder for one horse, and a house outside the abbey gate, probably the lodging house which Recelbert had previously held. Alwine’s son, also Alwine, later became chaplain for life with the same endowment as his father. Some time between 1160 and 1175 the younger Alwine was in turn succeeded by his son, a third Alwine, who held the post on similar terms. Vincent, son of the third Alwine, evidently followed in the office c1190.

The abbot and convent were said to be the rector of the parish in 1319, when the clergy included two parochial chaplains and four priests. There were two parochial chaplains in 1324, but probably only one in 1342 and 1383 (styled a perpetual vicar in 1391 but a parish priest in 1421), and still probably only one in 1434. Guild priests may have had some parochial responsibilities from the 15th century, although it is not known precisely how the parish was served when the abbey was dissolved in 1539.

The laity used the west end of the nave of the abbey church for their services probably from the rebuilding of the church in the early 12th century. The division between the upper church for the monks and the lower one for the laity was probably at the first nave pier west of the crossing, and services for the laity were probably taken at the Holy Cross altar, recorded in the early 13th century. In 1459 the pope granted permission for the celebration of a mass before dawn for laity who came to the abbey. A divinity lecture ordered by the abbot in 1537 to be read three times a week in the church by the schoolmaster of Burton may have been intended partly for the benefit of the laity.

Burton college, founded in 1541 after the abbey had been dissolved in 1539, maintained a single parish priest in 1544, whose stipend was £6 13s 4d a year. He was styled a curate in 1545, when the college was itself dissolved.

There was a graveyard for the laity separate from that for the monks by 1402.

GUILD
There is thought to have been a guild in Burton by the mid 13th century, when William ‘de Gildhus’ was recorded as holding land in Branston. He is probably the William ‘atte Gyldehus’ mentioned in 1270. The four priests who celebrated at Burton in 1319 may have been guild priests.

The first definite evidence for a guild is a bequest of 1465, when the guild evidently had more than one priest. By 1466 there were four priests, the normal complement, and the guild was often known as ‘the four guilds’. Each priest, who had his own clerk maintained by the guild, was assigned a part of the parish: Branston, Shobnall, and Sinai; Horninglow and Wetmore; Winshill and Stapenhill; and Stretton. In the 1540s there was lay master of the guild and a steward, who was also styled ‘the warden of the pyx’ of the borough of Burton. The guild presumably ceased to function on the dissolution of the chantries in 1547.

The Guild maintained a chapel dedicated to St. Luke, presumably in its hall; the chapel was probably founded in 1468 when the Crown granted a fair on St. Luke’s day. Each priest had a chest with a chalice, four suits of vestments, altar cloths, and hangings. In addition to its liturgical plate the guild had plate for guild dinners including a great standing cup of silver gilt, 25 silver spoons, 8 brass candlesticks, napkins, towels, and tablecloths. The guild priests also celebrated by turns in the chapel on the bridge over the river Trent, which had its own chalice and three suits of vestments.

Membership of the guild was presumably open to all parishioners, and several testators in the 1530s and 1540s left 3s. 4d. to be included in the guild book and for prayers to be said for their souls. Each guild priest had £4 13s. 4d. a year intended to be raised by the profit of four ‘ales’ (or dinners), to which parishioners brought ‘a dish of meat… to make merry’; any deficit was made up from income from the guild land. Each priest also had a chamber (cubiculum or camera) in what was evidently a row between the church and guild hall, which in 1550 stood on the south side of the market place.

In 1547 the guild held lands in Burton worth no more than £3 a year. In 1564, however, it was claimed that the guild had also held lands at Morrey, in Yoxall, and elsewhere, and in the late 16th century the total value of its lands was said to have been more than £14 a year. After 1547 some of the lands became part of the town lands.

PECULIAR JURISDICTION
Bishop Robert Peche (1121-6) confirmed to Burton abbey as ‘the mother church of Burton’ various rights then said to date from the church’s foundation. The church was free of payments for chrism, holy oil, and ‘any other parochial matter’, and it was not required to send a man or a woman to chapter or synod; moreover, it could hold its own court. The grant was confirmed by archbishops of Canterbury and diocesan bishops in the 12th and 13th centuries, and was acknowledged by archdeacons of Stafford in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries. In the 1140s the diocesan confirmed that the chaplain of Burton was exempt from paying any custom or exaction to the archdeacon of Stafford, and in 1280 the archbishop determined that the chaplain should pay nothing to the diocesan or archdeacon except 3 shillings for Peter’s pence.

The powers of the abbot’s court were confirmed in the 1120s by Bishop Peche ‘so long as justice is not wanting’, perhaps implying a right of appeal to the bishop. In a later confirmation by Archbishop Theobald (1150-61), however, the abbot’s court was said to be for ‘all causes’. In the mid 13th century the abbot claimed matrimonial jurisdiction, but the right appears to have been stopped by the pope.

In the 13th and 14th centuries the bishop’s right to visit Burton parish was contested by the abbot. The bishop, however, held a visitation of the parish in 1390, and by 1535 the abbey had acknowledged his visitation rights and paid procurations. Bishops and archdeacons continued to visit the parish church after the Reformation.

In the 18th century the peculiar jurisdiction was again contested. The Earl of Uxbridge resisted the bishop’s claim to exercise faculty jurisdiction in Burton when the parish church was pulled down in 1718, although in 1723 the churchwardens by-passed Uxbridge and appealed to the bishop to allot the pews in the new church. In 1751 there was a dispute over the bishop’s attempt to exercise the right of excommunication within Burton.

In the early 19th century it was stated that while the lord of the manor had the uncontested right to prove all wills in Burton, other matters such as licensing the perpetual curate, granting marriage licences, swearing in the churchwardens, and ‘all contentious jurisdiction whatsoever’ belonged to the bishop.

Probate of Wills
There was an official of the abbey’s spiritual jurisdiction in 1344. His functions are unknown, but the survival among the abbey’s muniments of a Burton will made in 1402 suggests that the abbey exercised probate jurisdiction by that date, and an official of the abbey’s jurisdiction was certainly granting probate of wills by 1465. After the dissolution of the abbey, probate jurisdiction passed first to Burton college and then to the Pagets as lords of the manor, and they continued to employ an official of the peculiar jurisdiction, also styled a commissary. Some wills, however, were in the mid 16th century proved in the bishop’s consistory court at Lichfield.

In 1728 the post of official of the peculiar was described as ‘an office of some dignity and trust, but of very little profit and advantage’. Wills were kept ‘in a loose promiscuous manner’ at Sinai Park House, the home of the Earl of Uxbridge’s bailiff; because many had been lost, the Earl appointed Richard Rider, then an officer of the episcopal registry at Lichfield and later chancellor of the diocese, as registrar or assistant to the Burton official, and he kept Burton wills with those proved at Lichfield. In 1729 Rider was succeeded by John Fletcher, who acted as registrar of several peculiar jurisdictions. In the late 18th century two probate courts were held each year in Burton by the official, although in the 19th century at least one will was proved at Lichfield by an attorney acting for the peculiar court of Burton. There may have been some confusion between the jurisdictions of the Burton peculiar court and the Lichfield consistory court: in 1820 a will was proved first at Burton and subsequently at Lichfield. Nevertheless, the lord of the manor still exercised probate jurisdiction in Burton in 1856. Under the Court of Probate Act of 1857 the Pagets’ probate jurisdiction was extinguished in 1858.

PAROCHIAL ORGANIZATION FROM 1545
After the dissolution of Burton college in 1545, the parishioners used the transepts and crossing of the church, in addition to the western arm, as their parish church. By 1687, and possibly from the 1650s, the parish was divided between the ‘town’ (Burton and Burton Extra) and the ‘country’ (Branston, Horninglow, Stapenhill, Stretton, and Winshill), an arrangement reflected in the appointment of two churchwardens for each division.

ST. MODWEN’S PARISH CHURCH FROM 1545

Benefice and Advowson
After the dissolution of Burton college in 1545, Sir William Paget as the lord of the manor was charged with maintaining a curate and a preacher to serve the parish; the two offices were combined from the mid 17th century. Described as a perpetual curacy in 1768, the living became a vicarage under the Incumbents Act, 1868. From 1957 it was held in plurality with Holy Trinity until 1969, when the two benefices were united as the benefice of Burton-on-Trent, and in 1982 St. Paul’s was included in the benefice.

On the dissolution of the college, the Crown appointed a ‘chief curate’, but shortly afterwards it granted the advowson to Sir William Paget and the advowson thereafter descended with the manor. The patron was occasionally susceptible to popular pressure: in the 1690s Lord Paget replaced the curate on the petition of the parishioners

Income and Property
The clergy originally received only what the lord of the manor allowed them. By the terms of the 1546 grant of Burton manor Sir William Paget received all the tithes and in return was charged with annual payments of £7 to the curate for administering the sacraments and £10 to another priest for preaching; there was no other endowment of the living. Paget initially raised the curate’s stipend to £10 and lowered the preacher’s to £7, and from 1558 he dispensed with the preacher and paid the curate £13 6s. 8d. a year. By 1585 there was once more both a curate, paid £14 10s,. and a preacher, paid £14. The salaries were confirmed when the Crown restored the Paget estates in 1597, the preacher then described as being for the borough of Burton. By 1639 the two offices had been combined and the minister was paid £28 10s. By 1689 the minister received £35 from the manor, and that remained the stipend until it was raised to £50 in 1777. Secured by the patron’s endowment of a £30 rent charge in 1826, that stipend was still received from the marquess of Anglesey in 1953 and probably continued until around 1972.

The lord of the manor also received the Easter dues, worth between £7 13s. 4d. and £11 2s. 8d. in the later 16th century, but by 1693 they had been granted to the minister.

The first endowment assigned to the curacy was a grant of £50 a year made by parliament in 1652 out of Hanbury rectory; it evidently ceased to be paid after the Restoration. In 1820 a benefaction of £200 was made by the executors of the Burton lawyer Isaac Hawkins. To meet that benefaction and the securing of the curate’s stipend in 1826, Queen Anne’s Bounty in 1827 made two grants of £300 each; it had already given £800 on account of population in 1825. In 1838 the living was worth only £217 18s. 5d.; by 1855 it had risen to £255. In 1897 the endowment was described as ‘miserable’. In 1902 parishioners devised a plan to guarantee a stipend of £350 a year, and in 1924 Fred Young gave £100 to endow an Easter offering for the vicar.

Incumbent’s House The ‘chamber of the parish priest’ which adjoined the graveyard in 1550 was probably one of the former guild priests’ houses. In 1585 the curate had a tenement (possibly the Earlier chamber) in High Street, provided by the lord of the manor, who was also paying to clothe him. By 1612 the curate occupied a room provided by Paget within the former monastic precinct, and by 1666 he had a house probably still within the precinct.

Lecture
By will proved in 1649 Thomas Boylston, a London clothier who was probably the son of John Boylston of Anslow, bequeathed to the London Company of Clothworkers £800 to establish a lecture in Burton every Thursday morning. The lecturer was to be appointed by the bailiff of Burton and between four and six of the chief inhabitants, on the advice of three local ministers, and he was to be paid £31 4s. a year. For tolling the sermon bell the parish clerk was to have 16s. By the 18th century it was customary for the incumbent of St. Modwen’s to be the lecturer, as a means of augmenting his stipend.

Clerical Provision
The curate appointed by the Crown after the dissolution of the college was Robert Baslowe, formerly a petty canon of the college; he was succeeded in turn by Bartholomew Francis (d. 1557) and Thomas Smith, a former guild priest. Another former guild priest, William Smith, officiated as ‘under curate’ in the 1550s. Anthony Gefscocke, who succeeded on Thomas Smith’s retirement in 1578, had been a scribe of wills in Burton since 1570.

William Browne, minister from the 1690s, was a pluralist with independent means; although he chiefly resided at Burton, he regularly employed an assistant curate from the 1720s. Thereafter there was usually an assistant curate.

Church Life after the Reformation
Under the terms of the 1546 grant of Burton manor, Sir William Paget as lord of the manor was expected to pay £1 a year for bread, wine, and other necessaries; in fact, he usually spent considerably more. Paget also paid for copies of the new Book of Common Prayer in 1549 and 1552. His son Thomas, Lord Paget, was an ardent recusant, and although John Tailor of Burton Extra had an English Bible in 1568 and the will of James Sutton, a Burton carpenter, made about the same time, suggests zealous godliness, committed protestantism failed to get a hold in Burton until after Paget’s flight in 1583. The subsequent influence in Burton of the godly Hastings family of Ashby-de-la-Zouch (Leics.), Earls of Huntingdon, allowed evangelical protestantism to grow.

Peter Eccleshall, the preacher at Burton by 1585 and the curate from 1587, was indicted in 1588, probably for not using the Book of Common Prayer, and it may have been the growth of puritanism in Burton which attracted Philip Stubbes, a godly pamphleteer, to settle briefly in the town in the early 1590s. Eccleshall and Arthur Hildersham, a celebrated godly minister of Ashby-de-laZouch, were conducting a ‘common exercise’ in Burton by 1596. After 1603 the exercise included William Bradshaw, another noted puritan and preacher at Stapenhill, and it rotated between Burton, Stapenhill, Repton, and Ashby until its suppression in 1611.

Eccleshall was one of those who supported the claim made in 1596 by a 13-year-old boy, Thomas Darling of Burton, that he had been bewitched by Alice Gooderidge of Stapenhill and diabolically possessed. Known as ‘the boy of Burton’, he had visions of green angels and a green cat, with convulsions and temporary paralysis. Darling continued a zealous puritan after being exorcized, and when a student at Oxford in 1602 he was sentenced to be whipped and to have his ears cropped for attacking the vice-chancellor’s campaign against puritans.

In 1609 Edward Wightman, a Burton draper and alehouse keeper who had helped record Darling’s fits and who had signed a testimonial of the boy’s character, attended the Burton exercise and began voicing heterodox views about the soul. After presenting James I with an heretical tract concerning the Trinity he was arrested in 1611, whereupon he claimed to be the Holy Spirit. He was executed at Lichfield in 1612, the last heretic to be burnt in England. It was because of its association with Wightman that the exercise was suppressed.

Music
The deacon assigned £4 a year for playing the organ under the terms of the 1546 grant of Burton manor may be identifiable as John Bradshaw, a singing man of Burton college, who was recorded as the organ player in 1557. The organ had probably been removed from the church by the 1580s when Bradshaw was paid the same salary but described as a sexton.

The purchase of a singing book in 1697 possibly indicates the existence of a society of psalm singers, but it is not known how they were organized nor for how long they existed.

Church Buildings
St. Modwen’s Old Church, predecessor of the current church, was part of the former abbey church which was reserved to the parish when the Crown granted the possessions of the dissolved Burton college to Sir William Paget in 1546. It comprised the aisled nave of seven bays, west tower, west porch, crossing with tower and spire, and trans epts. By 1603 the eastern arm, which had been granted to Paget, was in ruins and the arch separating it from the crossing was walled up. In the early 18th century the pulpit and font stood on the south side of the nave, and a ‘spread eagle in brass’ which then stood in front of the pulpit may have been the brass lectern bought by the parishioners from Burton college in 1545. There were three galleries, one each for the ‘town’ and the ‘country’ parts of the parish and a private one for the Every family of Burton and Egginton besides seats for the poor in the south aisle.

The parish registers date from 1538.

In 1545 the commissioners for dissolving Burton college gave one pair of organs and sold another to the parish church.

There were six bells ‘in the college steeple’ in 1545 but only two bells and a sanctus bell in the church in 1553. A ‘great bell’ and a hand bell were mentioned in 1570.

There was a clock in the early 1550s. A later mechanism with chimes was added which needed repairing in 1707.

Maintenance of the fabric was a problem, especially after 1643 when an explosion of gunpowder in the church destroyed the roof and blew out the windows. The church was again in disrepair in 1697 when props had to be inserted in the chancel. Further buttressing was needed in 1707 and in 1710, when all the doors on the south side had to be nailed shut ‘to prevent all danger’ and the dismantling of the spire was considered. It was then claimed that the minister and parishioners could not meet in the church for services ‘without hazard of their lives’, and a brief was obtained to raise money for repairs. In fact, without the consent of minister or churchwardens, and contrary to a resolution of a parishioners’ meeting, the church was dismantled in 1718.

The Earl of Uxbridge was said to have approved the demolition, which was supervised by two close associates, William Woodcock, rector of Egginton, and his relative George Hayne, lessee of the Trent navigation and a resident of the abbey precinct. The costs of demolishing the old church and building the new one, however, were met by levies on the parish.

A combined pulpit and reading desk was provided in 1722. It may also have included a clerk’s seat: in the mid 19th century a three-decker pulpit stood at the east end of the nave. Also in the mid 19th century the font was at the west end of the nave, and the centre aisle was filled with wooden benches; behind the altar were text panels and the royal arms, and the side windows of the chancel were filled with clear and coloured glass.

Saint Modwen’s Church was built between 1719 and 1728 but the church history goes back very much further. The present church stands on the site of the church of the Benedictine Abbey founded in 1002 by Wulfric Spot. The abbey had a very large cathedral-like church which served both the monks and the people of the town. After the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII, Burton Abbey was one of the very few that was not destroyed.

Over the next two centuries, it gradually fell into disrepair and disappeared as its stone was pillaged for other building work. Eventually, all that remained was the abbey church which continued to be used as a parish church, which can be seen in the below footprint. In its heyday, the enormous abbey extended down to include the current building labelled as The Abbey on the map.

By 1718, this too had become dilapidated and unsafe and it was decided to demolish it and build a replacement. The architect and builder William Smith, and his brother Richard, of Tettenhall were appointed by the parish vestry to build the new church. Smith had already worked on the impressive Saint Mary’s Church in Warwick and had built the church of Saint Alkmund in Whitchurch, Shropshire which was of very similar design. He was one of the most experienced church builders in the Midlands.

It was designed in a Classical style by the brothers Richard and William Smith of Tettenhall. The same design as Saint Alkmund’s was used which was based on a design of John Barker which itself was based on ideas by Sir Christopher Wren.

Work on the new church started in 1719. Their first job was to fit up a building known as the High Hall, which stood in the Market Place, for worship while the abbey came down and the new church was built. Unfortunately, neither William or Richard Smith lived to see the church completed; William died in 1724 and Richard in 1726. The church was completed by their younger brother Francis – ‘Smith of Warwick’, who had by now become more famous. He oversaw the completion of the church and addition of the churchyard walls. It was finally completed in 1928.

The church itself is built in red sandstone and comprises an aisled five-bay nave with galleries on the north, west, and south, an apse, and a western narthex with central tower, north and south gallery stairs, and internal porch. The west tower is of three stages and has a balustrade with urns and round windows with radial glazing bars. The apse has wide Doric pilasters at the opening and between the windows. The nave arcades have tall Doric piers without an entablature, the flat ceiling has a deep cove, and there are nave galleries cut across the high, arched windows of the aisles. The church retained its original altar rails and gated pews.

The main tower is 92 feet high to the parapet, over 100 feet to the top of the four vanes.

Churchyard
In the mid 16th century the graveyard lay to the south of the church. A lychgate mentioned in 1568 may be the church stile of 1682, and stone left over from the rebuilding of the church was used in 1727 to make a churchyard wall encompassing land to the south, east, and north of the church. In 1829 a railing fence was put up in front of the church. The same year the vestry leased land called the Arbour on the north side of the churchyard as an additional burial ground, and in 1830 an adjoining 1.5 acres was leased from the marquess of Anglesey.

In 1835 the churchyard covered 3 a. 25 p. New burials were restricted from 1856, and the churchyard was closed in 1866 when the municipal cemetery was opened. That part of the churchyard north of the church was vested in Burton corporation in 1939, and was converted in 1952 into a garden of remembrance for Burtonians who had died in the Second World War.

Alabaster Figure
An alabaster figure of a knight, dating from the late 15th or early 16th century, lay under the tower of the abbey church. Although already damaged, it was though important enough to preserve and move into the new church. When the church was completed, it stood under the west tower. Much admired, it was moved in the mid 19th century to a position where it could be clearly viewed from the market place.

By 1878 it had been moved to the garden of the Priory, a house in the south-west corner of the former monastic cloister. In 1924, it was presented to Burton museum but, when the museum was closed, like numerous items of Burton’s heritage, it mysteriously disappeared.

Pulpit
Christopher Wren had recommended that churches were planned so that everyone could see and hear the minister, especially when he was preaching. In accordance with this, the original pulpit was centrally placed. In this central position however, the pulpit completely obscured the Communion table from the rest of the church. That suited Anglican worship of the eighteenth century where communion was rarely celebrated and when it was, communicants would pass beyond the pulpit and gather round the table.

The galleries were part of Smith’s design and the pews are an integral part of the building. The columns stand on plinths that are panelled and integral with the seating. The church can seat over a thousand people in original Georgian pews!

A large chandelier was presented to the church by William Hawkins in 1725, in time for the completion. This, of course, was to be the only available lighting.

Font and Plate
The font has survived from the abbey church. It has an octagonal bowl from the fifteenth century – during the Tudor period. It is one of the few survivals from the medieval church.

The plinth is newer, dating from 1662, and bears the initials of the vicar, Rev. William Middleton) and church wardens of the day. The basin was later lined with lead and is covered by a nineteenth century wooden cover.

The plate in 1549 included two chalices and two patens, but only one of each pair remained in 1552. A silver chalice and paten were acquired in 1662. Anne, wife of Sir Henry Every, gave a paten in 1705, and Mary, widow of Sir Robert Burdett of Bramcote, in Polesworth, Warwickshire, gave a flagon in 1726 when she was living in Burton. In 1727 the minister, William Browne, gave another flagon and his wife Ann gave a paten. A further chalice was acquired between 1795 and 1830.

Church Organ
An organ was installed in the west gallery in 1771. It was built by Johann Snetzler who was one of the foremost organ builders of the time. The case was designed by James Wyatt. His design remains in the Royal Institute of British Architects. Iron columns were inserted into the west galley to bear the weight of the organ.

Anthony Greatorex (d. 1814) was appointed organist. His salary was met by public subscription until 1790, when, subscriptions falling off, it was met out of the church rates. Anthony was succeeded as organist by his son Thomas Greatorex (d. 1831), a distinguished musician, although his conducting and playing duties in London must have restricted his ability to perform in Burton. He resigned in 1828 and was succeeded by Charles Yates, who resigned in 1847 after the minister of St. Modwen’s had accused him of immoral conduct and professional incompetence and had employed a police constable to prevent him from playing in services.

A group of church singers under control of the organist was described in 1807 as “a set of industrious, hard working people, some of whom have large families and can ill afford any expense“. Consequently, their costs, estimated at 2 guineas a year, were to be raised by subscription, the Earl of Uxbridge pledged 1 guinea. They were replaced in 1847 by a volunteer church choir.

The cameo panel on the case, perhaps made by Josiah Wedgwood, is thought to represent the composer, George Frederic Handel, whose organ music was highly popular at the time. There is none of Snetzler’s original organ in the church today, although some of the pipes are believed to be in Trinity Methodist Church. The case was extended on each side to accommodate a larger organ which was installed in 1972, built by Hill, Norman and Beard.

An electrically operated organ was installed in 1900.

Clock and Bells
Five bells survived from the previous abbey church. These were re-cast into six in 1725, during the building of the new church, by Abraham Rudhall of Gloucester. The largest tenor bell weighs 18 cwt. Two new small bells were cast at the same time to make a ring of eight bells. The Ringers Rules dating from 1726 are painted on the wall of the ringing chamber. These date from when the bells were installed but before the church was complete.

Despite the conspicuous rules. Disturbances caused by bell ringers led to the adoption in 1727 of rules governing conduct in the belfry: no ringing was allowed after 10 pm and only known and qualified ringers were allowed in the belfry, and only the sexton was to ring for sermons and services.

The tower clock was installed in 1785 at a cost of £203, half of which was donated by the Earl of Uxbridge. It was manufactured by the celebrated clock maker, John Whitehurst of Derby. The mechanism controls two clocks through a simple gearbox; one facing the market place, the other facing the memorial gardens.

Also installed at the same time as the clock were eight bells and a Carillon; this resembles a huge musical box with pegs on a rotating drum which depress levers which in turn operate hammers against the bells. The Carillon was installed to play a variety of tunes on the bells at certain times. In the early 20th century the chimes played a different tune on each day of the week. After the Second World War it only chimed on market days. The Carillon remains functional but until recently were only heard on special occasions. In 2010 pleasingly, its use was restored to play a tune every day at midday.

In the early 19th century the ringers were threatened with losing a third of their fee because they would ring only for their own pleasure and not for the church’s services. In 1829 they were paid £7 4s for ringing at services, the appointments of churchwardens, and on national holidays, and between 1829 and 1838 they also received £1 for an annual feast. In 1865 their fee was raised from £10 to £15 a year. In 1895 Francis Charrington gave £60 to pay for the ringing of the bells each year on Trafalgar day (21 October).

Vicarage
In 1808, the minister is known to have had a house in High Street. The minister still resided in High Street in 1851 but some time before 1860, this had moved to a house called Trent Bank at Bond End. This was described in the 1890s as “anything but compatible with the dignity which one associates with the principal minister of the town“.

In 1893 a house called The Orchard in Orchard Street was purchased as a vicarage house with money raised by public subscription and a grant from Queen Anne’s Bounty. That house, which had formerly belonged to Martha Thornewill, mother of the vicar, C. F. Thornewill, was sold to a union of the benefices in 1982 but was demolished in 1989. A new vicarage house was built in Rangemore Street in 1983.

Financial support for an assistant curate was provided by the Additional Curates’ Society from 1844 until 1877, but the bulk of the assistant’s income came from voluntary local contributions. One or occasionally two curates were still employed until 1910; thereafter however, the de-population of the town centre meant that there was no curate until the later 1950s. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the curate lived in the former Christ Church vicarage house in Moor Street, renamed St. Modwen’s House. In 1994 the minister of St. Aidan’s in Shobnall Road, was appointed to serve also at St. Modwen’s as a town centre chaplain.

Parish Division
In 1824 the parish was divided into two districts, a southern one for the church of St. Modwen and a northern one for the newly built Holy Trinity church; the northern area was constituted a separate parish in 1842. Thereafter both parishes were subdivided by the creation of further ecclesiastical districts and parishes: Christ Church (1845); Horninglow (1867); Winshill (1867); Branston (1870); St. Paul’s (1873); Stretton (1873); All Saints’ (1898); St. Chad’s (1903); and Shobnall (1916). Holy Trinity and St. Modwen’s were united in 1969, as the parish of Burton-on-Trent, and in 1982 Christ Church and All Saints’ were united.

Despite the division of the parish, St. Modwen’s vestry continued to collect a single church rate for all the town churches. Compulsory church rates were abolished by an Act of 1868, and thereafter a voluntary rate was levied by St. Modwen’s vestry for St. Modwen’s, Christ Church, and Holy Trinity, with the addition of St. Paul’s from 1876. The system was changed in 1879 so that the churchwardens of each of those parishes collected their own rate from individuals, whilst the wardens of St. Modwen’s, on behalf of all four churches, continued to collect the rate from brewers and other firms in the town. Often known as the brewers’ rate, it raised over £411 in 1890, (but thereafter income began to decline as firms withdrew from the scheme and only a little over £209 was given in 1928. Bass, Ratcliff, and Gretton withdrew from the scheme that year to make individual contributions directly to each of the four churches, but St. Modwen’s continued to collect donations from other firms until at least 1954, when less than £23 was given in total.

Church Life from the Nineteenth Century
Services in 1829 were held on Sunday mornings and afternoons, with prayers on Wednesdays, Fridays, and saints’ days and the Boylston lecture on Thursdays. Communion was celebrated eight times a year, with about 70 attending at each occasion. The average Sunday attendance in 1851 was 400 at both morning and afternoon services, besides Sunday school children. A Sunday evening service started in 1860 was so well attended by 1892 that there were hardly enough seats. A children’s Sunday service, probably held weekly, began in 1871 but had ceased by 1892; by 1896 a monthly one had been reinstated. There was a harvest festival by 1877. Further liturgical changes were introduced from the late 1880s, and in 1887 the choir, which then numbered 38, was robed and provided with stalls and a vestry in the upper storey of the tower. Coloured stoles and a chalice veil were first used in 1889, when daily morning prayer was also begun. A New Year’s Eve watchnight service was held for the first time in 1892, and in 1895 or 1896 the celebration of communion was increased from two Sundays a month to weekly. A communicants’ guild, established in 1896, was reorganized in 1899 by the vicar, H. B. Freeman, as the Guild of the Ascension, modelled on one at Christ Church, Bath, where Freeman had been curate. It appears to have folded in 1918. In 1910 St. Modwen’s was described as having ‘a good medium service – not too high, and not too low’, a style still followed in the 1990s.

An unlicensed mission room was opened from St. Modwen’s in the mechanics’ institute in Guild Street in 1871. Run by a lay deacon from Lichfield Theological College, it was closed in 1876. A scripture reader was appointed in 1872, and was styled a lay assistant by 1893, when his duties included running weekly cottage meetings. The post was apparently abolished in 1902. A monthly service in what is called Wetmore Hall, a former Primitive Methodist chapel at the north end of Wetmore Road, began in the mid 1980s, after the transfer in 1969 of that area from Stretton ecclesiastical parish to the parish of Burton-on-Trent.

A parochial lending library of some 132 volumes was kept in the clergy vestry in 1829, but was little used. A monthly parish magazine was probably first started in 1872 and certainly existed by 1892; it continued in 2000.

A mothers’ meeting, begun by 1892, and a branch of the Mothers’ Union, in existence by 1899, were amalgamated in 1927. By 1893 there was a team of women district visitors whose duties included relieving the poor with money and medicines and ‘awaken[ing] the higher life of those they visit’; by 1924, however, they were employed mainly in distributing the parish magazine. A girls’ club, in existence by 1920 and known as the Guild of St. Modwen by 1937, was dissolved in 1970, when its membership included adult women.

A Church of England Young Men’s Association which was formed in Burton in 1846 was opened to all protestants in 1856. A Burton branch of the Church of England Young Men’s Society was formed c. 1878, with premises by 1889 in Friars Walk. Renamed the Parish Church Society in 1892, it was dissolved in 1913.

The former premises of Burton grammar school in Friars Walk were acquired in 1877 for use as Sunday schools and church rooms after the Grammar School was relocated to new premises in Bond Street.

Royal Arms
Royal Arms and Monuments Royal arms hung above the altar in 1829, and remained there until 1865. There were apparently two sets of royal arms in the church in 1869: those of Charles I (1625-1649) in the vestry, and those of George I (1714-1727) in the porch. Nothing further is known of the former, but the latter were still in the porch in 1962 but were later stored in the north gallery. A hatchment associated with the Peel family is also stored in the north gallery.

The Royal Arms were replaced in 1865 by coloured glass depicting the Crucifixion, given by the Marquess of Anglesey. At the same date new side chancel windows depicting the Annunciation, the Transfiguration, the Last Supper, and the Resurrection were given by the brewers Michael Thomas Bass and Henry Allsopp.

1865 Re-arrangement
There was a re-arrangement of the church in 1865. The apse was extended and three stained glass windows were installed. The pulpit was moved to one side and choir stalls were set up replacing the pews on either side of the old three-decker.

Lecturn
The fine eagle lecturn shown below standing in the isle, was given to Saint Modwen’s in 1886 in memory of Alderman John Yeomans.

Altar and Reredos
An Altar and Reredos (decorative screen behind the alter) was added in 1739 which required that the central east window be shortened. It was described after installation as “a beautiful altar piece of Italian marble“. It was gifted by Thomas Hixon, the manorial bailiff, who owned Sinai Park. He left £120 in his will for the purpose. It originally displayed the text of the Ten Commandments, The Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer.

A new communion table was installed in 1879.

Alabaster panels were added in 1889. These show Christ in Majesty in the centre. Also depicted are Saint Chad, Saint Peter, Saint Martha and, of course, Saint Modwen, offering their churches to the Lord. At the same time that the alabaster panels were added to the reredos in 1889, the sanctuary ceiling above it was cleverly painted to look like a mosaic.

In 1870 the congregation was allowed to elect a vicar by secret ballot. Shortly after appointment of the new vicar in 1870, the lecture was moved to Wednesday evening because attendance rarely reached twenty, and most of them were comprised of a group of old women from the almshouses. Again held on a Thursday morning from 1933, the weekly lecture was replaced in 1968 by one given four times a year and the annual payment was directed towards cleaning the church. By a Scheme of 1978 the trusteeship of Boylston’s charity was transferred to the vicar and churchwardens of St. Modwen’s, and the lecture ceased to be delivered c. 1982.

In 1884 the advowson was purchased from the Marquess of Anglesey by public subscription and vested in the bishop of Lichfield. Under the terms of the union of the benefices in 1982 the presentation was to be exercised jointly by the bishop of Lichfield and Lord Burton who were both patrons.

William Tate designed the brass altar cross given in 1889 as well as the candlesticks and processional cross given in 1895. At the end of each arm of the processional cross, seen below, are the Emblems of Evangelists.

In 1883 the three-decker pulpit was split in two: the pulpit was moved to the north-east end of the nave and the reading desk to the south-east end. Carved panels were added to the pulpit by Lord Burton in 1890. A new lectern was acquired in 1886. In 1887 stalls were made for the clergy and choir. In 1889-90 William Tate of London directed the redecoration of the whole interior of the church and the re-ordering of the sanctuary, including a mosaic ceiling in the apse and fluting to the apse pilasters. New furnishings included an oak altar and a brass altar cross; a reredos in alabaster and green marble, with carved panels showing Christ in glory flanked by various saints including St. Modwen, was given by the vicar, C. F. Thornewill, and his two brothers.

Despite its recent improvements, St. Modwen’s was described in the 1890s as “lonely and practically lamented“, lacking the patronage of the brewers that many of the newer churches in the town had attracted. In 1894, however, work began on restoring the church, including the removal of the font from the centre aisle to the south-west corner of the nave; much of the cost was defrayed by the brewers of the town. The architect, J. A. Chatwin of Birmingham, had proposed creating new vestries to replace the choir vestry on the first floor of the tower and the clergy vestry in the south porch, but the expense and local opposition meant that it was not until 1902 that new vestries were added, under the direction of Henry Beck, wrapping around the apse, and again paid for with brewers’ money. By 1904 the brewing families had given £13,000 for the restorations.

Vestries were added around the east end of the church in 1904. This resulted in the shortening of the remaining two apse windows and their glass was moved to the north and south aisles. At some time all the doors were removed from the pews, except for the wardens’ pews at the very back of the church.

A memorial to the dead of the First World War, in the form of a carved oak tympanum with bronze panels, made by Martyn & Company of Cheltenham, was erected in the west porch in 1920. It was extended in 1948 to a design by R. S. Litherland of Burton, as a memorial to the dead of the Second World War.

A Lady Chapel was created in 1956 at the east end of the south aisle.

In 1961 the decoration of the sanctuary was restored by Campbell Smith & Co. of London.

A sepulchral slab inscribed with a floriated cross, and dating possibly from the 14th century, was moved in 1968 from the south wall of the churchyard into the south porch.

Generally, the church has been altered little since it was completed and preserves nearly all its Georgian woodwork and is still a well used church in the centre of Burton.

You would be forgiven for thinking that the two above pictures are the opposite sides of Saint Modwen’s church. In fact, whilst the top one is St Modwen’s but the bottom one is actually St Alkmund’s curch in Whitchurch, Shropshire.

They are almost identical, bar a few differences to suit their respective locations and a few additions over the years. Both were designed and built under the supervision of architect and builder William Smith, and his brother Richard. Saint Alkmund’s was completed first but William died before Saint Modwen’s was fully completed.

I had always imagined that churches were all unique so this was quite a revelation. In was strangely disappointing to find that Saint Modwen’s of all of Burton’s churches was a duplicate of an existing church being the mosty historically important church in Burton, and maybe even Staffordshire, occupying the site of Burton Abbey.

Burton from the East – 1800 (One of the most useful sources of the old bridge)

Trent Bridge at Burton – a scene from the early 1800s

Burton Abbey – 1812, View of Manor House (Formerly the private residence of the Abbot.)

Burton Abbey Gates – 1830 (now Abbey Arcade, High Street)

Peel Mill – 1830s (Still evident as apartments, Newton Road, Winshill)

Old Trent Bridge – 1840, although anonymous, this picture provides terrific insight of the time

Old Trent Bridge – 1844 by John Harden (Winshill end of old bridge)

Old Trent Bridge – 1857 by William Wilde (North side, note footbridge and lock gate)

View from Stapenhill- c1870

The Triangle, Stapenhill – by John Harden (Saint Peter’s Street)

Stapenhill Village – by John Harden (Junction of Hill Street and Main Street)

Stapenhill Green – by John Harden (Tree felling on what is now Saint Peter’s Island)

Burton Washlands – 1881 (View from top of the new Saint Peter’s Church tower)

River Trent – 1890s (View from Stapenhill Road)

The origin of the old bridge on the north side of Burton is not known, but it is certain that for a long time it ranked amongst the wonders of the land. In the early records of the Abbey there is reference made to a sum of money being set apart for the bridge, but this is thought to be for the repairing of it, not for the building.

There seems to have been a bridge of sorts on the site before the Abbey was established in 1004 AD. For many years after the Abbey was built, High Street, then called Old Street and later Long Street, consisting of very little beside two sloping banks and a ditch between them. There was little else to Burton aside from the Abbey. Some antiquarians even claim that the bridge is over two thousand years old, and that the Icknield Road, stretching from Derby to Ashby, must have crossed it. If that be true, it gives much credit to Roman building skill and materials.

There was certainly a substancial bridge on the site by the early 12th century. A bridge keeper was recorded as holding land on the Winshill side. It is not certain whether it fully spanned the river at this time but it certainly did by the end of the 12th century by which time, burgage plots were established in Horninglow Street, ‘west of the great bridge’. It was probably built of stone, or at least had stone footings, although the first surviving mention of a stone bridge is from 1322. The exact form of the structure is unknown but providing that it was not later substantially altered it would have been as described in the 18th century: running north from Winshill before turning west across the river and the west arm, the bridge was then 515 yards long and 15 feet wide and had 36 arches. By the 1590s water no longer passed through two of the arches where land had silted up at the south end of Burton meadow, creating Umpler green. The east end of the bridge was widened in 1831, and in 1839 the first two arches on that side were filled in.

The west end of the bridge originally terminated with a causeway on the south side of which cottages had been built by 1550. In 1835 there were three houses there and four on the north side. The causeway was raised in the later 1750s, after the road had been turnpiked, and two low arches were inserted as culverts.

Grants of land and bequests of money for the upkeep of the bridge are recorded occasionally in the Middle Ages, and in 1546 the endowment comprised three houses and a small amount of land and meadow, worth 21s 4d a year. The abbey seems to have taken no formal responsibility for maintaining the bridge and much of the money needed for repairs came from alms, presumably collected by a chaplain who maintained a bridge chapel. When part of the bridge was swept away by flood in 1284 John of Norfolk, who was acting as keeper of the works of the bridge, was given royal protection to beg for alms to repair it, as was the keeper in 1324. A grant of pontage made in 1383 was to a body of trustees, including a chaplain who may have been the bridge keeper. John of Norfolk, described as a ‘monk’ in the royal grant of 1284, and a ‘bridge monk’ recorded in 1396 are unlikely to have been monks of Burton abbey, and were almost certainly lay hermits, possibly following the rule of St. Paul: a house called the Hermitage in 1546 stood at the west end of the bridge on its north side, opposite the chapel.

In 1441 the abbot and leading townsmen appointed a layman as keeper and proctor of the bridge for a 30 year term, and a layman was appointed for life in 1493. In 1527 an appeal for funds was launched by the abbot, the prior of Tutbury, George, Lord Hastings, and local gentry.

Some of the £20 a year that Burton college was obliged, probably from its establishment in 1541, to spend on making and repairing roads may have been applied to the upkeep of the bridge. At its dissolution in 1545 the college was paying 33s. 4d. a year to a bridge master named William Mason (or Edge), who seems to have been a stone mason retained originally by the abbey; he was still paid a fee by the Paget family in the later 1560s. The annual cost to the manor of maintaining the bridge was estimated at £16 13s. 4d. in 1585. The Pagets evidently assumed responsibility for the bridge, and the obligation was specifically included in the Crown’s grant to William Paget of his father’s forfeited estates in 1597. The cost of repairs was a constant drain on the manor in the 17th and 18th centuries, and when the road over the bridge was turnpiked in 1753 the earl of Uxbridge was awarded £20 a year from the tolls for bridge repair. It remained the lord’s responsibility until 1864.

Bridge Chapel
There was a bridge chapel by the 1260s, and its dedication to St. James was recorded in 1332. On the eve of the Reformation services were being celebrated there by the town’s guild priests. The chapel stood at the south-west end of the bridge and had a south door onto Burton hay. There was also a cross at the east (now Winshill) end of the bridge in 1598. The chapel, having fallen into disrepair, was demolished in 1777.

On 12th April, 1200, King John, son of Henry II, younger brother of Richard I (Lionheart) probably most famous for being forced to sign the Magna Carta in 1215, is recorded as granting the necessary charter to allow Burton to have a weekly market. The date of the charter seems to have been authenticated but at this time, King John was on the continent and arrived in England in early October with his child bride before they were crowned together at Westminster Abbey on 8th. If the date is correct therefore, the charter would therefore have been handled by the king’s administration. King John did however, visit Burton that autumn during a grand tour around the country which included Staffordshire to Nottingham along the river Trent.

This allowed permission for a weekly Thursday market and a three-day festival on the eve, day and morrow of St Modwen’s Day (28th-30th October) to the Abbot William Melburne.

The first Market House was built by Thomas Feylde, Abbot of Burton 1472-93. This actually survived until 1772 when it was finally demolished to make space for a new Town Hall built by Lord Paget.

A competition for architectural designs was launched in May 1880, with one of its terms being the inclusion of an ornamental design connected with the history of the town over the west entrance. The competition was won by Dixon and Moxon of Barnsley, and tenders for the building of the new market hall were invited by 19 December 1881. A model of the main sculpted panel was approved by the Fire Brigade, Markets and Fairs Committee on 23 May 1883. Work was commenced and the Market Hall was officially opened later the same year.

Stone Sculpture
The impressive stone sculpture above the main market hall entrance depicts the scene of King John accompanied by two knights as he hands over a scroll to confirm the rights and liberties to the kneeling abbot, who is accompanied by two monks and a figure bearing a bishop’s crozier.

The inscription beneath is flanked by the coat of arms of King John on the right and those of Burton Abbey on the left. It reads…

KING JOHN BRINGING CHARTER GRANTING A FAIR AND
WEEKLY MARKET AT BURTON AND CONFIRMING THE RIGHTS
AND LIBERTIES OF THE ABBOT AND MONKS OF BURTON

There was also some debate about the type of lettering to be used for the inscription: there was a suggestion that it should be in Gothic script, but the architect felt this would be inappropriate to the Renaissance style of the building. At the time, there was also some dispute over that actual date with different sources claiming 1200, 1203 and 1204 so the date was not included as originally intended.

The carving was still uncompleted in August, with the sculptor, John Roddis arguing that he should receive an additional £60 for the work because the stone was much harder than the Coxbench stone originally agreed upon so took longer than planned.

Above the doorway set into a triangular entrance pediment is a relief of the Burton upon Trent coat of arms, a shield, crest and motto. The shield is divided into lower and upper sections, with the lower one depicting six wavy lines across the shield that symbolise the Rivers Trent and Dove. The upper segment of the shield bears a spread-eagle flanked by two fleur-de-lys taken from the arms of the Paget family. The crest is a castellated crown, a symbol of civic government. The motto reads ‘HONOR ALIT ARTES’.

The upper facades on each wing of the building have semi-circular pediments each containing a pair of seated male figures holding fruit, a reference to the market products.

The side entrance of the market building has a sculptural relief of a bull’s head, complete with a ring through its nose. There are also smaller decorative features of garlands and faces at various points on the building.

And there is an assortment of stonework worth looking up for.

Originally, as well as stalls laid out pretty much as in the current day, the Market Hall interior used to have stalls around the whole of the upstairs balcony, accessible by stairs at the far end. The balcony is actually still there but, since it is no longer used, it goes largely unnoticed. I bet you look up the next time you visit!

A fish market was added to the Market Hall in 1925.

In the twenty-first century, the Market remains an important feature of Burton’s identity.