Leigh in 1872

LEIGH, a parish in Uttoxeter district, Stafford; on the river Blythe and the North Stafford railway, 4 miles WNW of Uttoxeter. It contains the hamlets of Church Leigh, Lower Leigh, Upper Leigh, Dodsley, Painley-Hill, Middleton-Green, Lower Nobut, Upper Nobut, and Withington, and the township of Field; and it has a station on the railway, and a post-office under Stafford. Acres, 7,055. Real property, £10,796. Pop. in 1851, 1,074; in 1861, 986. Houses, 199. The property is much subdivided. Much of the land is in pasture.

The living is a rectory in the diocese of Lichfield. Value, £748; Patron, Lord Bagot. The church, excepting the tower, was rebuilt in 1846, at a cost of £8,272; is cruciform, with central embattled tower; and contains an altar-tomb, of 1523, to Sir John and Lady Aston. There are a national school for girls, an endowed school with £67 a-year, and charities £87. 

An 1872 Gazetteer description of the following places in Leigh is to be found on a supplementary page.

• Church-Leigh
• Dodsley
• Field
• Middleton-Green
• Nobutt (Lower & Upper)
• Painley-Hill
• Withington

[Description(s) from The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72) - Transcribed by Mike Harbach ©2020]