Seighford ( ) is a village and civil parish about west of

Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, England. It is located about south of Stoke-on-Trent, north of Wolverhampton, and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 71,673 at the 2021–2022 United Kingd ...

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...

, England. The population of this

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

at the 2011 census was 1,793. The ford across a small stream is the origin of the village's

toponym Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''wikt:toponym, toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage, and types. ''Toponym'' is the general term for ...

. The village has a red brick

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ...

St Chad Chad (died 2 March 672) was a prominent 7th-century Anglo-Saxon monk. He was an abbot, Bishop of the Northumbrians and then Bishop of the Mercians and Lindsey People. After his death he was known as a saint. He was the brother of Bishop C ...

's, and Seighford Hall, a 16th-century Tudor mansion.

History

William White's ''History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire'' (1851) described the village:

Seighford is a scattered village above a small brook which flows east from Latford pool to the
River Sow The River Sow is a tributary of the River Trent in Staffordshire, England, and is the river that flows through Stafford. Course The river rises to the south of Loggerheads, Staffordshire, Loggerheads, near Broughton Hall, Staffordshire, Brough ...
. Its parish contains the hamlets of Aston and Derrington, from one to one and a half miles east, Coton Clanford, one mile south, and
Great Great may refer to: Descriptions or measurements * Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size * Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent People * List of people known as "the Great" * Artel Great (bo ...
and Little Bridgeford, three and a half miles north-east of Stafford.
Doxey Doxey is a village and civil parish in the borough of Stafford in Staffordshire, England. It is a north-western suburb of Stafford. The village became a civil parish on 1 April 2005. There is some uncertainty about the origin of the name D ...
, east of the
M6 motorway The M6 motorway is the longest motorway in the United Kingdom. It is located entirely within England, running for just over from the Midlands to the border with Scotland. It begins at Junction 19 of the M1 motorway, M1 and the western end of t ...
, became a separate civil parish in 2005. It forms a highly cultivated district, containing 803 inhabitants, and 3,830 acre of land. Francis Eld, Esq, is lord of the manor, and owner of most of the soil. He resides at Seighford Hall, an ancient house with modern wings, on the west side of the village…the Parish Church, St Chad, was partly rebuilt of brick about 100 years ago, and contains many neat mural monuments. It has a brick tower, five bells and a clock ... there is a small
Wesleyan Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan–Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charle ...
Chapel at Little Bridgeford, built in 1850."

Amenities

The village school is Cooper Perry Primary School. RAF Seighford was a

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

airfield that was opened in 1943 and closed in 1947. Remains of the control tower and some outbuildings survive.Control Towers: Seighford
/ref> Part of the site is still used by small aircraft, particularly gliders, along with a small runway close to the village of Seighford.

St Chad's

The

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

, was originally built around the time of the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...

. Some historians maintain there was a wooden

Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

church before that built around 650 AD. The earliest stone remains are Saxon and two four-column arcades are early

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 9th and 10th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norma ...

with typical billet and lozenge carving on the capitals. Shortly before 1600 the original Norman tower collapsed. The south side of the aisle and the main entrance were destroyed. The church was partly rebuilt in brick in about 1610 by a local builder called Clay. The parish register dates from 1561.

Notable people

Richard Cocks Richard Cocks (1565–1624) was the head of the British East India Company trading post in Hirado, Japan, between 1613 and 1623, from its creation until its bankruptcy and closure. Life in France He was baptised on 20 January 1565 at St Chad's ...

(1566–1624) head of the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

trading post in

Hirado is a city located in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 28,172, and a population density of 120 people per km2. The total area of the city is Geography Hirado City occupies the northern part of Nagasaki P ...

, Japan, 1613 to 1623; baptised at St Chad's, Seighford. * Sir (Edwin) Cooper Perry (1856–1938) a physician and medical administrator, the only son of Edwin Cresswell Perry (1828–1899), who became vicar of Seighford in 1861. Perry was brought up in the village and became

Vice-Chancellor A vice-chancellor (commonly called a VC) serves as the chief executive of a university in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Kenya, other Commonwealth of Nati ...

London University The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...

from 1917–19.

References

External links

Pictures of St Chad's parish church

Seighford
at genuki.org {{authority control Civil parishes in Staffordshire Borough of Stafford Villages in Staffordshire