Keele in 1817

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

KEELE (KEEL).

Keel, is a parish and village in Pirehill North, pleasantly situated about three miles west of Newcastle-under-Lyme, on the turnpike-road to Nantwich, in Cheshire. The village consists of many good tenements, farm-houses, and cottages. The parish is small, containing not quite 3000 acres. In the north and east parts of it, are some mines of iron-stone and coal, both of which are worked at Silverdale, where is also a smelting-furnace. The manor is co-extensive with the parish. 

Though Keel is now an independent manor, it seems to have been formerly an appendage to Newcastle-under-Lyme, as appears from the old record called Testa de Nevill, which also shews that it then belonged to the Knights Templars. 

The Church stands on a rising ground at the entrance of the village. It is a neat stone building, of an oblong square figure, embattled, with a tower at the west end, containing four bells. At the west end are two doors of entrance, one on each side, opposite to each other : that on the north side is seldom used. Keel Church was rebuilt in 1790. The interior forms an area of about 55 feet by 34. The font stands within a niche in the middle of the west wall, and is an elliptical bason of white marble, about half a yard long, and a foot in breadth; it rests on a square pillar of the same marble, about a yard high. Against the same wall is fixed a wooden screen about seven yards long, and extending to the ceiling in height. 

Attached to the south wall are monumental inscriptions in memory of Edward Brett, Esq. and his wife, and Lawrence Cranage, gent. There are also several sepulchral memorials of the Sneyds, 

The Parish Register commences May 1, 1540, from January to December, both inclusive. In 1541, there were six baptisms ; and from September 1540 to the end of 1542, three burials. For the first thirty years after the commencement of the Register, the average number of baptisms, each year, was seven, and of funerals three. For the same period, from the commencement of the last century, the average was 17 baptisms and 1 1 funerals. For the last twenty-eight years the average amount has been increased to 36 baptisms and 18 funerals each year. The whole number of funerals in this parish from the year 1700 to 1808, has also been calculated : these amount to 1546. The following enumeration will shew the months which have proved most fatal to humanity :

In January, 164; February, 143; March, 175; April, 171 ; May, 132; June, 109; July, 100; August,113; September, 105; October, 91 ; November, 117; December, 137. Hence it appears that most people have died in March, and fewest in October. 

In the tower of this church is a bell, on which is the following inscription : " Ora pro nobis sancte Johannes Baptista." 

Keel wake is kept the first or second Sunday in October, and therefore the bell may be considered evidence of the saint to whom the Church is dedicated. 

Extracts from old books belonging to the parish : 

" The Minister of Keel has six shillings and eightpence by a custom here or by a modus for every corpse that is carried through any part of the parish of Keel to be buried in any other parish; if he the said minister of Keel shall in his own person, or by his deputy in holy orders, offer burial to the said corpse." It may be 
needless to observe that such custom has long been obsolete. 

Origin of Surnames. " Sarah Legacy, who was left as such to the town, by some sorry person or other on the 5th of November last, baptized February 20th, 1737." 

The living of Keel is a small curacy, which has been augmented by Queen Anne's bounty. The patron and impropriator is Walter Sneyd, Esq. of Keel Hall, whose brother, the Rev. John Sneyd, is the present incumbent; and the Rev. W. Snape, is curate. A singularity attaches to Keel Church, which is noticed by Plot as also applying to the Cathedral Church of Lichfield, and the Church of Alveton, in this county, the former of which, he says, is " not placed due east and west, as other churches are, but declines no less than 27 from the true points ; whilst the Church at Alveton declines in like manner from the true east 32 northward. 

Longevity. Hannah Wright, died February 5, 1776, aged 96. 

The soil of this parish is generally a good loam, adapted either to corn or grass. 

The parish of Keel contains 176 houses, 178 families ; 461 males, 483 females : total, 944 persons. 

Keel Hall, the seat of Walter Sneyd, Esq. stands about half-a-mile south-east of Keel, and has been the residence of the principal part of the Sneyd s for upwards of two centuries. It is built principally of red stone, and, according to Plot, was erected in 1581, The south front underwent some alterations by the late Ralph Sneyd, Esq. but the upper part of the wings of that front still retain much of the same figure and plan as that engraved in Plot's History of Staffordshire. Over the entrance-door, on the same side of the house, are two shields, the one containing the arms of Sneyd, the other Sneyd impaling Bagot ; and there is affixed a lion passant guardant between them, the crest of the Sneyds. The present occupier has erected a handsome new west front, of the same kind of stone, which is embattled, and adorned with four octagon embattled turrets. The grounds of this demesne are embellished with flourishing groves and plantations, and a building or summer-house, noticed in most maps, called the Pavilion, erected on an eminence, which commands extensive views of the surrounding country. There is a dingle of excellent oak to the south-west on the road to Madeley. 

Walter Sneyd, Esq. the present possessor of Keel Hall, was many years Lieutenant-colonel of the King's Own or Staffordshire Militia, a distinction which the regiment acquired from the high state of discipline it attained under his command. He received many tokens of Royal regard from the King during the time the regiment was stationed at Windsor ; where it was employed as a kind of body guard for upwards of fourteen years, at that splendid Palace of our Kings. His Majesty stood sponsor to one of his children. Colonel Sneyd afterwards commanded the Local Militia for the division of Pirehill North. 

The poor in the neighbourhood of Keel Hall, are supplied with bread, meat, and soup, every Christmas, and in seasons of distress, by the liberality of the benevolent owner.