Abbots Bromley
Encyclopedia
Abbots Bromley is a village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 in Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is famous for the annual Abbots Bromley Horn Dance
Abbots Bromley Horn Dance
The Abbots Bromley Horn Dance is an English folk dance involving reindeer antlers and a hobby horse that takes place each year in Abbots Bromley, a small village in Staffordshire, England.-Origins:...

. It is also the home of one of the Woodard Schools
Woodard Schools
Woodard Schools is a group of Anglican schools affiliated to the Woodard Corporation which has its origin in the work of Nathaniel Woodard, an Anglo-Catholic clergyman....

, Abbots Bromley School for Girls
Abbots Bromley School for Girls
Abbots Bromley School for Girls is an independent, fee-paying school for girls aged 3–18 located in the village of Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire, England...

 (formerly known as the School of S. Mary and S. Anne). The parish includes Bagot's Wood
Bagot's Wood
Bagot's Wood is the largest extant piece of the ancient Needwood Forest, located near to Abbots Bromley, in Staffordshire, England. The forest derives its name from the Bagot family, seated for centuries at Blithfield Hall in Staffordshire....

 the largest remaining part of the Needwood Forest
Needwood Forest
Needwood Forest was a large area of ancient woodland in Staffordshire which was largely lost at the end of the 18th century.-History:Needwood Forest was a chase or royal forest given to Henry III's son Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster, in 1266...

 and Blithfield Reservoir
Blithfield Reservoir
Blithfield Reservoir is a large drinking water reservoir in South Staffordshire, England, owned by South Staffordshire Water.Some 800 acres of reservoir was formed on land sold by Baron Bagot to the South Staffordshire Water Company in the 1940s. Blithfield Reservoir was opened by H.M...

.

Phil Drabble
Phil Drabble
Philip Percy Cooper Drabble OBE was an English countryman, author and television presenter. Raised in the Black Country, he later lived in – and wrote mostly about – the countryside of north Worcestershire and at Abbots Bromley in south Staffordshire, where he created a nature reserve.-Early...

's Goats Lodge nature reserve is there.

History

The first historical record of the village dates from 942, when the manor of "Bromleage" was given to Wulfsige the Black. The will, dated 1002, of Wulfric
Wulfric Spot
Wulfric , called Wulfric Spot or Spott, was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman. His will is an important document from the reign of King Æthelred the Unready...

 Spot, Earl of Mercia
Mercia
Mercia was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands...

, gave the village to the Abbey of Burton upon Trent
Burton upon Trent
Burton upon Trent, also known as Burton-on-Trent or simply Burton, is a town straddling the River Trent in the east of Staffordshire, England. Its associated adjective is "Burtonian"....

. There is some evidence that the current settlement was a planned town - there is evidence of burgess plots, a grid pattern of streets and a wide market place. Abbas Bromley is recorded in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

of 1086-7 as Brunlege, when it was part of the land of St Mary of Burton.

In 1227, a weekly market was confirmed by Royal Charter at the site of the Butter Cross (recorded in 1339, the present structure said by Pevsner
Pevsner
Pevsner is a surname, and may refer to:* Antoine Pevsner , a Russian sculptor* Sir Nikolaus Pevsner , a German-born British scholar of the history of architecture;** ....

 to date from the 17th Century), which survives to the present. The current, triangular market place is now grassed over and serves as a village green
Village green
A village green is a common open area which is a part of a settlement. Traditionally, such an area was often common grass land at the centre of a small agricultural settlement, used for grazing and sometimes for community events...

 and the focus for events on Horn Dance Day.

The village remained affiliated to the Abbey till the Dissolution of the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

 in 1545. Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

 gave Bromley Abbatis to Sir William Paget, Clerk of the Signet and Privy Councillor. The village was known as Paget's Bromley for several centuries, (distinguishing it from the part of the parish in the hands of the Bagot family, still known as Bagot's Bromley) but eventually the influence of the Paget family declined, and the name reverted to Abbots Bromley.

Despite being an agricultural centre on account of its market and fairs, Abbots Bromley enjoyed some industrial success - in the 16th century it was a major centre for glass manufacture
Glass production
Glass production involves two main methods - the float glass process, which produces sheet glass, and glassblowing which produces bottles and other containers.-Glass container factories:...

. In 1606 it gained a grammar school
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...

, now Richard Clarke First School, founded by a bequest from local citizen Richard Clarke who had achieved success in London. The school is one of the most sought after primary schools in Staffordshire, with five single entry classes, the school is part of the Uttoxeter catchment (popular for its middle school system and entry to Thomas Alleyne's Secondary School) and has a good Ofsted report.

The church spire, destroyed by lightning strike, was rebuilt in a classical style in 1685.

Despite nineteenth century efforts to connect the town to the expanding railway network the North Staffordshire Railway
North Staffordshire Railway
The North Staffordshire Railway was a British railway company formed in 1845 to promote a number of lines in the Staffordshire Potteries and surrounding areas in Staffordshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire and Shropshire....

 received an act of parliament to build a branch line from Stowe-by-Chartley which was never taken advantage of. Abbots Bromley remained comparatively isolated and in decline, losing its market, fairs and economic status.

By the 1950s the village faced economic decay and an ageing population. It was also comparatively late in receiving mains electricity and gas services. More recently it has become a dormitory settlement for surrounding urban areas such as the West Midlands conurbation
West Midlands conurbation
The West Midlands conurbation is the name given to the large conurbation that includes the cities of Birmingham and Wolverhampton and the large towns of Dudley, Walsall, West Bromwich, Solihull, Stourbridge, Halesowen in the English West Midlands....

 and Derby
Derby
Derby , is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands region of England. It lies upon the banks of the River Derwent and is located in the south of the ceremonial county of Derbyshire. In the 2001 census, the population of the city was 233,700, whilst that of the Derby Urban Area was 229,407...

. There has been some new development as well as the restoration of historic buildings, with a Millennium Hall perhaps the most noted recent example.

The village has a large number of listed buildings, and its historic core has conservation area
Conservation area
A conservation areas is a tract of land that has been awarded protected status in order to ensure that natural features, cultural heritage or biota are safeguarded...

status, reflecting its pre-industrial townscape. Of these, the half timbered Church House, The Goats Head Inn (claimed to be the original town hall) and the Schoolhouse (Richard Clarke's 1606 Grammar School) are some of the most noteworthy.

Abbots Bromley has a community first responder group working with the West midlands ambulance service.This charitable organisation provides rapid response medical care to the village and surrounding areas.The group was the first in South Staffordshire and is run by volunteers.

Sport

Abbotts Bromley has a village cricket club ( ABCC) that has 1st XI 2nd XI and an U15's XI.

External links

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