Tutbury in 1859

TUTBURY (ST. MARY), a parish, and formerly a market-town, in the union of BURTON-UPON-TRENT, N. division of the hundred of OFFLOW and of the county of STAFFORD, 5 miles (N.W. by N.) from Burton; containing 1535 inhabitants. On the division of lands after the Conquest, Tutbury was included in the domain allotted to Henry de Ferrars, a Norman nobleman, who either built the castle of this place, or received it in gift from William. His descendant, Robert, joining Leicester in the rebellion against Henry III., was fined £50,000, and, being unable to pay so large a sum, forfeited his castle to the king, who granted it to his son, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster.

After the attainder of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, who, with the Earl of Hereford, had attempted the dethronement of Edward II., the fortress was suffered to fall to ruin, and so remained till the year 1350, when John of Gaunt, becoming its possessor, rebuilt the greater part of it, with the gatehouse, and surrounded it on three sides by a wall, the precipitous declivity on the fourth rendering further security unnecessary. Mary, Queen of Scots, was for some time imprisoned here; and at the commencement of the civil war, it was garrisoned for the king, but, by order of parliament, was nearly demolished in 1646. The ruins, however, are still sufficient to indicate its former extent and magnificence, and exhibit good specimens of the early and later English styles. 

The TOWN, situated on the west bank of the river Dove, which is crossed by a stone bridge of five arches, of modern erection, was, at a very early period, erected into a free borough, and possessed many valuable privileges. On the river are extensive corn and cotton-spinning mills, and there is also a considerable cut-glass manufactory: the country between Tutbury and Needwood Forest abounds with alabaster. Fairs for horses and cattle are held on Feb.14th, Aug.15th, and Dec.1st. The manor, or honour, of Tutbury belongs to the crown, in right of the duchy of Lancaster; its jurisdiction extends over a great portion of Staffordshire, and into several of the neighbouring counties, and, in her Majesty's name, courts leet and baron are held here once a year; also a court of pleas every third Tuesday, for all debts under 40s. contracted within the honour. 

The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £7; patron, the Vicar of Bakewell ; impropriators, the Executors of R. Stone, Esq. The great tithes have been commuted for £400.10., and the vicarial for £37 ; there is a parsonage-house, and the glebe contains 83 acres. The church, which is the nave of a more extensive structure, and a fine specimen of the Norman style, has been enlarged, newly pewed, and greatly improved, at an expense of nearly £2000, whereof £250 were contributed by the Incorporated Society. There are places of worship for Wesleyans, Independents, and Primitive Methodists. A free school was founded by Richard Wakefield, who, about 1730, endowed it with lands producing about £40 per annum and the school-house was rebuilt in 1789; the same person also, by his will in 1773, devised land and tithes now producing about £450, to trustees, for charitable uses.

On the declivity of the commanding eminence upon which the castle stood, a Benedictine priory, in honour of the Blessed Virgin, was established in 1080, by Henry de Ferrars, and though a cell to the abbey of St. Peter super Divam, in Normandy, survived till the general Dissolution, when its revenue was valued at £244.16.5. In 1831, some workmen, while digging a quantity of gravel out of the bed of the river, discovered, thirty yards below the bridge, and from four to five feet under the surface of the gravel, about 100,000 valuable coins, chiefly sterlings of the empire of Brabant, Lorraine, and Hainault; several Scottish coins of Alexander III., John Balliol, and Robert Bruce; coins of Edward I., Henry III., and Edward II.; specimens of all the prelatical coins of the reigns of Edward I. and II.; of Beck, Keller, and Beaumont, bishops of Durham; some others, supposed to have been struck by the abbot of Bury St. Edmund's, bearing the inscription " Rob. de Hadley," and a few of the archiepiscopal see of York. These coins were the contents of the military chest of the Earl of Lancaster, left at Tutbury Castle on his retreat from that place, then threatened by the army of Edward II., to his castle of Pontefract, in the county of York; and which, with baggage entrusted to his treasurer, was lost in the river Dove, on his attempting to cross it at a high flood, in the darkness of the night and with a panic-struck guard.

Among other curious customs that formerly prevailed here, was a minstrel fete given by the Duke of Lancaster on Assumption-day, to which all the itinerant musicians of the neighbourhood were invited. There was also a sport called "Bull running," which consisted in chasing a bull with a soaped tail; and, if caught in the county, he was conducted to the market-place and there baited, otherwise he remained the property of the Duke of Devonshire, who held the priory on condition of furnishing a bull annually for the purpose. Ann Moore, who professed the ability to live without food, resided here during the period of her imposture. 
 

 

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