PEOPLE AND PLACES
WALK MILL
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A demand for a cloth or ‘fulling’ mill arose in the area from an increase in the supply of wool. The clearance of Eccleshall forest in the 12th century led to areas of common land which were used as sheep runs. The wool provided the raw material for cloth and gave the commoners a cottage industry in spinning and weaving. All walk mills have been cloth or fulling mills at some period in their history (Dulgnan, 1902). The earliest recorded occupier of the mill site is John Pershall in 1606. Subsequent tenants of a ‘cornmill and adjacent fulling mill’ are noted throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. Further 17th century records detail the property as consisting of a fulling mill, a corn mill and a meadow known as Copmere Suck. At this time, the mill and mill pool lay within the township of Sugnall Magna within the parish of Eccleshall. The cloth produced at Walk Mill supplied local tailors, contributing to the growth of the cloth industry in the area; this industry became part of an important trade and economy in Eccleshall parish which lasted for some 500 years.
The local fulling trade had declined during the 18th century and there was an increase in the corn trade. In 1795, Walk Mill was auctioned for sale by its occupant at the time, John Jones. The sale particulars for the building mention the corn mill as ‘lofty and newly erected’ and it is thought that this is the building on the site today. The mill was purchased by a Robert Deakin and was to remain in the Deakin family throughout the 19th century.
In 1911 the Walk Mill, Walk Mill House, Walk Mill Farm and the Millers House were auctioned for sale by the Deakin estate as one lot. The mill and farm complex were purchased by Charles Lowe of Sugnall Hall. Milling continued at Walk Mill well into the 20th century. In 1975 the mill building was severely damaged by a tree which fell during a storm and milling operations ceased
THE STAR INN
The earliest record I have mentioning a pub is from the 1828 trade directory which lists John Woodhouse as publican of the Rising Sun at Copmere End. This is the old name of the Star Inn.
In the 1841 census William Matthews 23, is the publican, then by 1851 Thomas Wilcox is the publican at the Star Inn and runs the shop next door. In 1861 the publican changed to George Webb, 34, and Thomas Wilcox is listed as a brewer’s agent. In 1871 two publicans are listed, Thomas Wilcox at the Star Inn and William Vernon at the Alehouse. I think that Thomas Wilcox was the owner, while William Vernon 30 is the publican of the Star Inn and Martha Key who lives next door is a retailer of tea and coffee. In 1881 George Barnett is running the Star Inn and this changes to Thomas Bradbury Wakefield in 1891. By 1896 Charles Case Blakeman is listed in the Trade Directory as running the Star Inn. In 1900, Charles Blakeman 45 was still the publican and in fact remains there until at least 1928. In 1939, Ellen Silvester is running the Star Inn and her son George is a grocery shop assistant. I think he probably worked next door where Ellen Jackson had a grocery store and sub post office.
OFFLEY HAY FARM
On the map of 1820, a cluster of buildings is shown along the lane around the site of Offley Hay Farm. So, this was built sometime in the first 20 years of the 19th century. This makes it one of the earliest buildings along Walk Mill Road.
William Gardener is the first owner I can identify from the 1828 Trade Directory. His father John also farmed at Walk Mill Farm.
The Tithe maps of 1837, show the field names of Offley Hay farm and their usage. The farm is a typical self sufficient mixed farm of the time. William Gardener at the farm had a brother John who was a baker in Eccleshall and his son Thomas, William’s nephew, is also described as a baker. Thomas inherits the farm from William and lives there from the 1850’s, so perhaps the Gardeners built a bakehouse around this time.
Thomas never married, like his uncle William, so when he died in 1887, and his sister Martha's husband Thomas Woolfe died at almost the same time, Â Martha and her son Thomas Henry came to Offley Hay farm. Thomas Henry took over the farm in 1897 when his mother Martha died. Thomas and his wife Harriet had no children and they are still at the farm in 1911. However when Thomas dies in 1926 he leaves Wiley Farm Gnosall to Harriet, so at some point they left Offley Hay
In the 1921 Trade Directory, Edward Buckless is shown as farming in Offley Hay. He is the only person who is not in directories or censuses for the area at the same time as either Thomas Henry Woolfe or Albert E Young, so I think that he was the owner of Offley Hay Farm from at least 1921 to before 1939.
In 1939 the farm was occupied by Albert Young and his family. Albert’s wife, Margaret Ellen Hill, was the daughter of William Hill, a dairy farmer in Croxton. Albert’s father George farmed at Greatwood Farm Croxton
STORES HOUSE
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In the 1837 tithe the house was occupied by James Sutton, a woodcutter and his wife Ann. She had died by 1861.
In 1871, James then aged 80, is still living in the cottage. He dies in 1876 and the following year a newspaper advert appeared, offering a new house for sale, along with the existing cottage. The vendor was John Hitchen. This suggests that in fact the original cottage was still standing, so there were two dwellings on the plot, James Sutton living in the original cottage and Thomas Ogden renting the new house.
So the plot was obviously owned by John Hitchen, the same John Hitchen who had bought plot 27/28, next door, from David Austin’s executors, in 1870. So the assumption is that David Austin bought both plots from the Diocese of Lichfield, some-time after 1837, then they were both bought by John Hitchen after David's death in 1870. John Hitchen obviously took the opportunity to capitalise on the plot next door to his home. He builds a new house and leaves the original cottage standing, where James Sutton lived until his death in 1876. It would seem unlikely that he would build a bakehouse speculatively, rather that there was an existing bakery already on the site, alongside the original cottage. I don’t know who bought the house from John Hitchin, but at the time of the 1877 advert, the tenant was Thomas Ogden who lived there after the death of James Sutton, He was from Newcastle and had moved on by 1881, perhaps after the house was sold.
The next owner of Stores House I can track, is James Warrilow. He was the Inn Keeper of the Four Crosses pub in Offley Brook. He married Mary Ann Holland in 1860. He was the last of her three husbands. The first Thomas Johnson died in 1855. She then married John Dixon in 1856, but he died in 1858! Mary’s youngest son from her marriage to Thomas Johnson, was Herbert Johnson. He married Elizabeth Johnson (no relation as far as I can tell) in 1875. They had a son Herbert William Johnson born in 1884. Herbert Johnson died in 1891 and Elizabeth remarried Thomas Williams in 1893. Perhaps James Warrilow, bought the house as a new build from John Hitchen in 1877, but I don’t think he lived in it as he would need to be on the spot at the pub.
In 1892 James was granted an indenture (an old term for conveyance) by the trustees of Court General Jackson Branch No. 4862 of the Ancient Or der of Foresters for £200. James died in 1897, so maybe he was realising his assets? In the 1896 Trade Directory, he was still at the pub, the Four Crosses, another indication that he did not live in Stores House. However, I think that his step son-in-law, Herbert Johnson and his wife Elizabeth Johnson, may have been tenants in the old cottage on Plot 27/28. Elizabeth had moved with her son Herbert William Johnson to the shop at Copmere End by 1911, so this maybe when Henry Plant took over the tenancy and subsequently bought it in 1917 having demolished the old cottage. . Henry’s father, Henry, was originally a farm labourer from Slindon. By 1891 he was farming High Lanes Farm at Sugnall helped by his son. Henry George became a baker and by 1901 he was running the shop and bakery in Bishops Offley next door to the Brown Jug pub. In the 1911 census, Henry Plant was living in Offley Hay. He is listed as Baker and Grocer, but in the 1912 Trade Directory Thomas Pennance is running the shop in Bishop’s Offley, so Henry is no longer involved in the day to day running of that shop.
Henry had married Matilda Parton in 1896. When he bought Stores House in 1902, Henry then entered a deal with Vernon Hitchen, to buy his garden share of the next-door plot 27/28 for £35, and to buy the house when his mother Martha, died for £500. So, in 1917 Henry was the owner of both plots. Not long after buying the plot, Henry added the shop
The person listed as being in possession of the house at the time of the sale in 1902, was George Green. He had married Alice Jane Williams whose parents were William Williams and Margaret Watkin. Alice’s brother Thomas Williams was the second husband of Elizabeth Johnson, the step daughter-in-law of James Warrilow.
In the 1921 Census, Henry George Plant is living at Walk Mill with wife Matilda and daughters Matilda and Olive. Henry is listed as a Baker and Grocer, so the presumption is that he was living at Stores House. Both Matilda's are on Home Duties, probably helping in the shop and Olive his elder daughter is a School Teacher at Offley Hay school.
In 1928, the Trade Directory lists John Deakin Leese is at Stores House. This is the first time that I can definitively place a shopkeeper at Stores House itself, because John Deakin Leese is identified as tenant in the deeds for Stores House.
In 1939 John D Leece is a roundsman and his wife Evelyn Deakin does shop work. The Leeses are still listed in the shop in 1940
Henry George Plant had moved back to his home village of Slindon, sometime between 1921 and 1928. I am not sure how long the Leeses remained at the shop, but Henry Plant died in 1953 and his wife Matilda in 1960. In 1963 Kenneth and Dorothy Rochelle who were tenants living in the house and running the shop, bought Stores House from Henry Plant’s daughter Matilda Lockett after the Plants died. In the conveyance it is called The Stores, so was still operating as such at this date. In 1965 Leslie Gordon Gwinnell Hill and Diana Rosella Florence Hill bought Stores House. Although Hill is a local name, it is very common, and I can find no village links. Quite why the Hills moved to Staffordshire is not known. The Hill family seem to be Londoners for several generations and the Gwinnell family came to London from Gloucestershire back in the early 1800’s.
Stores House was then sold in 1972 to John William Ford. He was born in 1921 in Cannock to John Thomas Ford and Rose Goring. John Thomas was a coal miner in the Staffordshire mines, he moved to Warwickshire and worked there making pit props. In 2015, the house was auctioned after John William died, and bought by the current owners. A condition of the sale was that the old bakehouse had to be demolished as it was structurally unsafe.It has been replaced by a modern extension.
At some point after 1965 the plot was split back into its original two parts and The Garth was built on plot 27/28