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

Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It lies about north of Wolverhampton, south of Stoke-on-Trent and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 70,145 in t ...

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

, England. The population of this civil parish at the 2011 census was 1,793. The ford across a small stream is the origin of the village's toponym. 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 ca ...

St Chad Chad of Mercia (died 2 March 672) was a prominent 7th-century Anglo-Saxon Catholic monk who became abbot of several monasteries, Bishop of the Northumbrians and subsequently Bishop of the Mercians and Lindsey People. He was later canonised ...

's, and 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. Its parish contains the hamlets of Aston,
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 ...
, and
Derrington Derrington is a village west of the town of Stafford, in Staffordshire, England. For population details from the 2011 Census see under Seighford. Derrington had an 18th-century pub, The Red Lion, but it has ceased trading. Derrington has a villa ...
, from one to one and a half miles east,
Coton Clanford Coton Clanford is a small dispersed Staffordshire village lying in gently rolling countryside 3 miles due west of Stafford, England and 1 mile southeast of Seighford. The name of the village is sometimes hyphenated to Coton-Clanford, appearing thi ...
, one mile south, and Great and
Little Bridgeford Little is a synonym for small size and may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Little'' (album), 1990 debut album of Vic Chesnutt * ''Little'' (film), 2019 American comedy film * The Littles, a series of children's novels by American author John ...
, three and a half miles north-east of Stafford. 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 Seighford Hall is a house that lies slightly to north-west of the core of Seighford, England. It appears to have later- 16th to early-17th origins but the radical later changes made to it – particularly in the 19th century – make an accurate ...
, 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 Chapel at Little Bridgeford, built in 1850."

Amenities

The village school is Cooper Perry Primary School. RAF Seighford was a Royal Air Force 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 of

, was originally built around the time of the Norman Conquest. Some historians maintain there was a wooden

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

church before that built around 650 AD. The earliest stone remains are Saxon and two four-column arcades are early Norman 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 commences in 1561. The original registers for the period 1561-1879 (baptisms), 1561-1945 (marriages) and 1561-1925 (burials), together with Banns for the period 1754–1812, are deposited at Staffordshire Record Office. Bishop's Transcripts for the period 1661-1850 are deposited at Lichfield Record Office. A transcript of the registers for the period 1561-1812 was published by Staffordshire Parish Register Society in 1978, and has been reprinted by the Birmingham and Midland SGH.

Notable people

* Richard Cocks (1566–1624) head of the British East India Company trading post in Hirado, 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 of London University 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