Hanbury in 1859

HANBURY (St. James), a parish, in the union of Burton-upon-Trent, N. division of the hundred of Offlow and of the county of Stafford; comprising the townships of Coton, Draycott-in-the-Clay, Fauld, Hanbury, Hanbury-Woodend, and Marchington-Woodlands, and the chapelries of Marchington and Newborough; the whole containing 2483 inhabitants, of whom 114 are in the township of Hanbury, 7 miles (N.W. by W.) from Burton. This parish is very extensive, being upwards of five miles square.

The living is a vicarage not in charge, in the gift of the Bishop of Lichfield: the tithes have been commuted for £862, of which £510 are paid to the bishop, and £352 to the vicar, who has also a glebe of 20 acres. The church, principally in the later English style, with a Norman font, was repewed, and the north aisle rebuilt, in 1824. Marchington and Newborough form separate incumbencies.

A school is endowed with about £24 per annum, and there are several bequests for the poor. In the year 680, the Saxon princess, St. Werburgh, became abbess of a nunnery founded here by her brother Ethelred, King of Mercia: she was buried in this convent but in 876 her remains were removed to Chester, where an elegant shrine was erected to her memory. No vestige of the nunnery is now visible. 

An 1859 Gazetteer description of the following places in Hanbury is to be found on a supplementary page.

• Coton  
• Draycott in the Clay
• Fauld
• Hanbury-Woodend
• Hoarcross
• Moreton
• Stubby Lane

 

[Description(s) from The Topographical Dictionary of England (1859) by Samuel Lewis - Transcribed by Mike Harbach ©2020]