Cuttlestone Hundred in 1851

"Cuttlestone is the most thinly populated, and one of the smallest of the five Hundreds of Staffordshire, bounded on the west by Shropshire, on the south by Seisdon, on the east by Offlow, and on the north by Pirehill Hundred.
It is a fine agricultural district, about 20 miles in length and 12 in breadth, and is all in cultivation, except part of the extensive heath called Cannock Chase, which embraces about 32,000 acres, of which 14,000 are still unenclosed.
The River Penk, which divides it into two nearly equal parts, flows through it from south to north, and after receiving many smaller streams, falls into the Sow near Stafford.
Parallel with the Penk, the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal crosses this Hundred, in its route to the Trent & Mersey Navigation, and the Birmingham & Liverpool Junction Canal, (opened in January, 1834) intersects its western division, passing near Brewood and Church Eaton.
The London & North Western Railway, between Wolverhampton and Stafford, crosses the centre of the Hundred, and it is skirted on the north by the Trent Valley and Shropshire Union Railways.
Coal and ironstone are got extensively near Wyrley and Rugeley. The meadows and pastures on the banks of the Penk are very productive, the uplands to the east of that river have generally a mixed gravelly soil, but most of the lands to the west are a stronger mixed loam, except near the Shropshire border, where the soil becomes lighter.
This Hundred is separated into East & West Divisions, and contains two small market towns (Rugeley and Penkridge), seventeen parishes, one extra parochial place, six chapelries, and about forty townships, villages and hamlets. Mr Thomas Pike, of Penkridge, is the High Constable."

[From History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire, William White, Sheffield, 1851]