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Horton in 1817

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Description from A Topographical History of Staffordshire by William Pitt (1817)

HORTON.

Horton is a parish situated to the west of Leek: it comprises the township of Blackwood and Crowborough, and contains 152 houses, 156 families; 415 males, 379 females: total of inhabitants, 794.

The village of Horton stands on an eminence: it contains three good farm-houses, and a few smaller tenements. The fields in general are well-fenced, and consist mostly of pasturage. There is also some corn grown, and a good deal of lime used both on the pastures, and the land under tillage. Horton-common was lately inclosed: it is a thin, black, and meagre soil, which will require much manure and cultivation.

The Church is a handsome stone edifice, dedicated to St. Michael: it is a curacy.

In Rudyard vale, in the neighbourhood of Horton, there is a capacious reservoir, made by the proprietors of the Grand Trunk Canal, to provide an unfailing supply of water for the upper part of their navigation. This reservoir is about a mile and three quarters in length, and more than one-eighth of a mile in breadth, and its depth is about fifteen feet above their guage. It contains when full 2,420,000 cubic yards of water, or sufficient to supply their canal 100 miles in length, or to fill a lock three yards deep 10,000 times: it is consequently a sufficient supply in a dry season.