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131-669: Penkridge ( / ˈ p ɛ ŋ k r ɪ dʒ / PENG -krij ) is a village and civil parish in South Staffordshire District in Staffordshire , England. It is to the south of Stafford , north of Wolverhampton , west of Cannock , east of Telford and south-east of Newport . The wealthiest establishment in Penkridge in the Middle Ages, its collegiate church building survived the abolition of

262-522: A London borough . (Since the new county was beforehand a mixture of metropolitan boroughs , municipal boroughs and urban districts, no extant parish councils were abolished.) In 1974, the Local Government Act 1972 retained rural parishes, but abolished most urban parishes, as well as the urban districts and boroughs which had administered them. Provision was made for smaller urban districts and boroughs to become successor parishes , with

393-491: A Puritan , who promoted emigration to America. When the English Civil War broke out, he took command of a parliamentary army in central England and was killed during the siege of Lichfield Cathedral in 1643. He was succeeded by Francis Greville, 3rd Baron Brooke . The Littletons were purely local landowners and instinctively loyalist. Sir Edward Littleton was made a Baronet by Charles I on 28 June 1627 and

524-417: 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 , which for centuries were the principal unit of secular and religious administration in most of England and Wales. Civil and religious parishes were formally split into two types in

655-496: A coup d'état in favour of Lady Jane Grey . Mary prevailed and Dudley was arrested and beheaded as a traitor. His lands were forfeit to the Crown, the extensive estates at Penkridge among them. Dudley had the foresight to grant various estates to his relatives. So his daughter-in-law, Anne Dudley, Countess of Warwick , was able to keep a lifetime interest in Penkridge, while his wife hung on to Teddesley Hay until her death. Teddesley

786-515: A Special Expense, to residents of the unparished area to fund those activities. If the district council does not opt to make a Special Expenses charge, there is an element of double taxation of residents of parished areas, because services provided to residents of the unparished area are funded by council tax paid by residents of the whole district, rather than only by residents of the unparished area. Parish councils comprise volunteer councillors who are elected to serve for four years. Decisions of

917-576: A boundary coterminous with an existing urban district or borough or, if divided by a new district boundary, as much as was comprised in a single district. There were 300 such successor parishes established. In urban areas that were considered too large to be single parishes, the parishes were simply abolished, and they became unparished areas . The distinction between types of parish was no longer made; whether parishes continued by virtue of being retained rural parishes or were created as successor parishes, they were all simply termed parishes. The 1972 act allowed

1048-576: A brickyard in Penkridge. The fortunes of the village and the Littletons remained intertwined. Sir Edward Littleton, the fourth baronet, bought Penkridge manor from the Earl of Warwick in 1749, completing his family's dominance of the area. Soon after he built Teddesley Hall , a much more impressive seat for the family. He survived until 1812, although, his wife died childless in 1781. He adopted his great-nephew, Edward Walhouse , as his heir. Walhouse took

1179-477: A city council (though most cities are not parishes but principal areas, or in England specifically metropolitan boroughs or non-metropolitan districts ). The chairman of a town council will have the title "town mayor" and that of a parish council which is a city will usually have the title of mayor . When a city or town has been abolished as a borough, and it is considered desirable to maintain continuity of

1310-462: A city council. According to the Department for Communities and Local Government , in England in 2011 there were 9,946 parishes. Since 1997 around 100 new civil parishes have been created, in some cases by splitting existing civil parishes, but mostly by creating new ones from unparished areas. Parish or town councils have very few statutory duties (things they are required to do by law) but have

1441-559: A city was Hereford , whose city council was merged in 1998 to form a unitary Herefordshire . The area of the city of Hereford remained unparished until 2000 when a parish council was created for the city. As another example, the charter trustees for the City of Bath make up the majority of the councillors on Bath and North East Somerset Council. Civil parishes cover 35% of England's population, with one in Greater London and few in

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1572-481: A civil parish which has no parish council, the parish meeting may levy a council tax precept for expenditure relating to specific functions, powers and rights which have been conferred on it by legislation. In places where there is no civil parish ( unparished areas ), the administration of the activities normally undertaken by the parish becomes the responsibility of the district or borough council. The district council may make an additional council tax charge, known as

1703-497: A generation, with no decision on their fate. Not until the 1580s were matters resolved. In 1581 the college property was sold to speculators and in 1585 it was snapped up by Sir Edward Littleton. In 1582, Queen Elizabeth promised Penkridge manor to Sir Fulke Greville , heir to the Willoughby de Brokes, and he took over 1590. The Grevilles were powerful regionally and nationally. The Fulke Greville who inherited Penkridge in 1606

1834-663: A morrow priest to celebrate a daily mass, so that they could worship. Pastoral care and preaching were not taken seriously until the 16th century or later. Large areas surrounding Penkridge were placed by the Norman kings under Forest Law , a savage penal code designed to protect the ecology and wildlife for the king's enjoyment. These areas were part of the Royal Forest of Cank or Cannock Chase and were known as Gailey Hay and Teddesley Hay. Forest law kept most of south Staffordshire in an economic straitjacket. Conflicts between

1965-477: A new code. In either case the code must comply with the Nolan Principles of Public Life . A parish can be granted city status by the Crown . As of 2020 , eight parishes in England have city status, each having a long-established Anglican cathedral: Chichester , Ely , Hereford , Lichfield , Ripon , Salisbury , Truro and Wells . The council of an ungrouped parish may pass a resolution giving

2096-431: A new smaller manor, there was a means of making a chapel which, if generating or endowed with enough funds, would generally justify foundation of a parish, with its own parish priest (and in latter centuries vestry ). This consistency was a result of canon law which prized the status quo in issues between local churches and so made boundary changes and sub-division difficult. The consistency of these boundaries until

2227-686: A parish (a "detached part") was in a different county . In other cases, counties surrounded a whole parish meaning it was in an unconnected, "alien" county. These anomalies resulted in a highly localised difference in applicable representatives on the national level , justices of the peace , sheriffs, bailiffs with inconvenience to the inhabitants. If a parish was split then churchwardens, highway wardens and constables would also spend more time or money travelling large distances. Some parishes straddled two or more counties, such as Todmorden in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Back-formation For example,

2358-416: A parish council, and instead will only have a parish meeting : an example of direct democracy . Alternatively several small parishes can be grouped together and share a common parish council, or even a common parish meeting. A parish council may decide to call itself a town council, village council, community council, neighbourhood council, or if the parish has city status, the parish council may call itself

2489-405: A place with its own institutions of local government, the parish was also known as Penkridge Borough. Penkridge became a civil parish in the 1830s and in 1866 was shorn of the three smaller townships, which became separate parishes. It was constituted as a parish of four distinct constablewicks: Penkridge, Levedale , Pillaton , and Whiston. In 1934, the civil parish exchanged some territory with

2620-431: A population in excess of 100,000 . This scope is similar to that of municipalities in continental Europe, such as the communes of France . However, unlike their continental European counterparts, parish councils are not principal authorities , and in most cases have a relatively minor role in local government. As of September 2023 , there are 10,464 parishes in England, and in 2020 they covered approximately 40% of

2751-503: A population of between 100 and 300 could request their county council to establish a parish council. Provision was also made for a grouped parish council to be established covering two or more rural parishes. In such groups, each parish retained its own parish meeting which could vote to leave the group, but otherwise the grouped parish council acted across the combined area of the parishes included. Urban civil parishes were not given their own parish councils, but were directly administered by

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2882-1079: A range of discretionary powers which they may exercise voluntarily. These powers have been defined by various pieces of legislation. The role they play can vary significantly depending on the size, resources and ability of the council, but their activities can include any of the following: Parish councils have powers to provide and manage various local facilities; these can include allotments , cemeteries, parks, playgrounds, playing fields and village greens , village halls or community centres , bus shelters, street lighting, roadside verges, car parks, footpaths, litter bins and war memorials. Larger parish councils may also be involved in running markets , public toilets and public clocks, museums and leisure centres . Parish councils may spend money on various things they deem to be beneficial to their communities, such as providing grants to local community groups or local projects, or fund things such as public events, crime prevention measures, community transport schemes, traffic calming or tourism promotion. Parish councils have

3013-409: A role in the planning system; they have a statutory right to be consulted on any planning applications in their areas. They may also produce a neighbourhood plan to influence local development. The Localism Act 2011 allowed eligible parish councils to be granted a " general power of competence " which allows them within certain limits the freedom to do anything an individual can do provided it

3144-598: A set number of guardians for each parish, hence a final purpose of urban civil parishes. With the abolition of the Poor Law system in 1930, urban parishes became a geographical division only with no administrative power; that was exercised at the urban district or borough council level. In 1965 civil parishes in London were formally abolished when Greater London was created, as the legislative framework for Greater London did not make provision for any local government body below

3275-943: A small village or town ward to a large tract of mostly uninhabited moorland in the Cheviots, Pennines or Dartmoor. The two largest as at December 2023 are Stanhope (County Durham) at 98.6 square miles (255 km ), and Dartmoor Forest (Devon) at 79.07 square miles (204.8 km ). The two smallest are parcels of shared rural land: Lands Common to Axminster and Kilmington (Devon) at 0.012 square miles (0.031 km ; 3.1 ha; 7.7 acres), and Lands Common to Brancepeth and Brandon and Byshottles (County Durham) at 0.0165 square miles (0.043 km ; 4.3 ha; 10.6 acres). The next two smallest are parishes in built up areas: Chester Castle (Cheshire) at 0.0168 square miles (0.044 km ; 4.4 ha; 10.8 acres) (no recorded population) and Hamilton Lea (Leicestershire) at 0.07 square miles (0.18 km ; 18 ha; 45 acres) (1,021 residents at

3406-521: A spur to the creation of new parishes in some larger towns which were previously unparished, in order to retain a local tier of government; examples include Shrewsbury (2009), Salisbury (2009), Crewe (2013) and Weymouth (2019). In 2003 seven new parish councils were set up for Burton upon Trent , and in 2001 the Milton Keynes urban area became entirely parished, with ten new parishes being created. Parishes can also be abolished where there

3537-410: A verb derived from a Latin supine stem and a noun ending in ion entered the language together, such as insert/insertion , project/projection , etc. Back-formation may be similar to the reanalyses or folk etymologies when it rests on an erroneous understanding of the morphology of the longer word. For example, the singular noun asset is a back-formation from the plural assets . However, assets

3668-459: A vital part of the medieval economy, but a royal charter was needed for either, so they were highly profitable to the manors which had the right to hold them. The grant of Penkridge manor to the archbishop of Dublin included the right to hold an annual fair. This right was upheld for the Blund family by Edward I in 1278 and by Edward II in 1312. The date varied, but in the Middle Ages it fell around

3799-500: Is a back-formation from translation , which is from Latin trāns + lāt- + -tio . Lāt- is from the very irregular ( suppletive ) verb ferō 'to carry.' Trānslāt- in Latin was merely a semi-adjectival form of trānsferō meaning '[something] having been carried across [into a new language]' (cf. transfer ). The result of the action trānsferō textum 'to translate a text' was a textus trānslātus 'a text that has been translated.' Thus

3930-507: Is at present the only part of England where civil parishes cannot be created. If enough electors in the area of a proposed new parish (ranging from 50% in an area with less than 500 electors to 10% in one with more than 2,500) sign a petition demanding its creation, then the local district council or unitary authority must consider the proposal. Since the beginning of the 21st century, numerous parish councils have been created, including some relatively large urban ones. The main driver has been

4061-539: Is evidence that this is in response to "justified, clear and sustained local support" from the area's inhabitants. Examples are Birtley , which was abolished in 2006, and Southsea , abolished in 2010. Every civil parish has a parish meeting, which all the electors of the parish are entitled to attend. Generally a meeting is held once a year. A civil parish may have a parish council which exercises various local responsibilities prescribed by statute. Parishes with fewer than 200 electors are usually deemed too small to have

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4192-520: Is held on Wednesdays and Saturdays, hosting up to 100 stalls. There is also an antiques market every Thursday. The substantial tower of the Grade I listed Church of St. Michael and All Angels on the western edge of the village, parts of which date back to the early thirteenth century, is visible even to passing road and rail travellers. A smaller Methodist church is on the largest road (the A449) route through

4323-405: Is not prohibited by other legislation, as opposed to being limited to the powers explicitly granted to them by law. To be eligible for this, a parish council must meet certain conditions such as having a clerk with suitable qualifications. Parish councils receive funding by levying a " precept " on the council tax paid by the residents of the parish (or parishes) served by the parish council. In

4454-563: Is now subsumed into the A449 road . Just to the south, at Gailey , this route crosses the historically still more important Watling Street , now the A5 road , which linked London to Chester , Wales, and ultimately Ireland. The village was also bisected by the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal from 1770. Today Penkridge is grazed on its eastern side by the M6 motorway , the main route between London and

4585-574: Is still generally considered nonstandard. The Latin preposition versus , meaning against, has frequently been mistaken by children and teenagers as the present tense of a verb "to verse." A reference to a school sports competition "the Sharks versus the Jets" might be interpreted as "the Sharks are versing the Jets." While this use of the verb has been reported in North America and Australia since

4716-504: The 'Standards Board regime' with local monitoring by district, unitary or equivalent authorities. Under new regulations which came into effect in 2012 all parish councils in England are required to adopt a code of conduct with which parish councillors must comply, and to promote and maintain high standards. A new criminal offence of failing to comply with statutory requirements was introduced. More than one 'model code' has been published, and councils are free to modify an existing code or adopt

4847-458: The A449 road was turnpiked under an Act of 1760. Bull Bridge, carrying the road over the Penk, was rebuilt in 1796 and widened in 1822. The improved road attracted more traffic: by 1818 there were stops by coaches on the London – Manchester, Birmingham – Manchester and Birmingham – Liverpool routes. The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal , opened in 1772, running straight through the parish and

4978-600: The Conservative Gavin Williamson . However, Penkridge area is a part of South Staffordshire district. Penkridge is covered by a Non-metropolitan county two-tier system of local government : All of Penkridge's councillors are currently Conservative. Early occupation of the area around Penkridge has been confirmed by the presence of a Bronze or Iron Age barrow at nearby Rowley Hill. A significant settlement in this vicinity has existed since pre-Roman times, with its original location being at

5109-526: The Corn Laws in 1846 and the Long Depression from about 1873. The 1831 census found that farmers and agricultural labourers accounted about 60% of the total adult male workforce. Next came shop keepers and artisans, showing that Penkridge remained a small but important commercial centre, although the market had gone. In 1881 agriculture employed about 48% of the working men: a considerable drop. Of

5240-693: The Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII . This swept away Burton Abbey, and its manor of Drayton was sold in 1538 to the Bishop of Lichfield , who wanted it for his nephews. The College of St. Michael was not threatened at first, as it was not a monastery, but Edward VI's reign brought a more radical phase of the Reformation. In 1547 the Abolition of Chantries Act decreed the end of

5371-1010: The Local Government Act 1894 ( 56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) to become the smallest geographical area for local government in rural areas. The act abolished the civil (non-ecclesiastical) duties of vestries . Parishes which straddled county boundaries or sanitary districts had to be split so that the part in each urban or rural sanitary district became a separate parish (see List of county exclaves in England and Wales 1844–1974 ). The sanitary districts were then reconstituted as urban districts and rural districts , with parishes that fell within urban districts classed as urban parishes, and parishes that fell within rural districts were classed as rural parishes. The 1894 act established elected civil parish councils as to all rural parishes with more than 300 electors, and established annual parish meetings in all rural parishes. Civil parishes were grouped to form either rural or urban districts which are thereafter classified as either type. The parish meetings for parishes with

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5502-627: The M1 motorway in 1971. The only large stores are the Co-operative supermarket. Independent shops, cafés, inns and services occupy the area between the old market place to the east and Stone Cross on the A449 to the west. The area between Pinfold Lane and the river, long the site of livestock sales, has emerged as a new market place, attracting large numbers of visitors to Penkridge on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Penkridge's local market has been revived and

5633-472: The break with Rome , parishes managed ecclesiastical matters, while the manor was the principal unit of local administration and justice. Later, the church replaced the manor court as the rural administrative centre, and levied a local tax on produce known as a tithe . In the medieval period, responsibilities such as relief of the poor passed increasingly from the lord of the manor to the parish's rector , who in practice would delegate tasks among his vestry or

5764-531: The death penalty ; to force tenants to take collective responsibility for offenders; and to confiscate stray livestock. Just before 1500, the Littleton family make their first appearance in Penkridge. Richard Littleton brought Pillaton into the family's possession through marriage and Pillaton Hall was the Littleton family seat for about 250 years, the centre of an expanding property empire. Soon they took on

5895-595: The lord of the manor , but not all were willing and able to provide, so residents would be expected to attend the church of the nearest manor with a church. Later, the churches and priests became to a greater extent the responsibility of the Catholic Church thus this was formalised; the grouping of manors into one parish was recorded, as was a manor-parish existing in its own right. Boundaries changed little, and for centuries after 1180 'froze', despite changes to manors' extents. However, by subinfeudation , making

6026-403: The monarch ). A civil parish may be equally known as and confirmed as a town, village, neighbourhood or community by resolution of its parish council, a right not conferred on other units of English local government. The governing body of a civil parish is usually an elected parish council (which can decide to call itself a town, village, community or neighbourhood council, or a city council if

6157-410: The noun resurrection was borrowed from Latin , and the verb resurrect was then back-formed hundreds of years later from it by removing the -ion suffix . This segmentation of resurrection into resurrect + ion was possible because English had examples of Latin words in the form of verb and verb+ -ion pairs, such as opine/opinion . These became the pattern for many more such pairs, where

6288-470: The (often well-endowed) monasteries. After the dissolution of the monasteries , the power to levy a rate to fund relief of the poor was conferred on the parish authorities by the Poor Relief Act 1601 . Both before and after this optional social change, local (vestry-administered) charities are well-documented. The parish authorities were known as vestries and consisted of all the ratepayers of

6419-550: The 18th century, when a forge at Congreve was turning out 120 tons of iron a year, and in the 1820s the mill below Bull Bridge was used for rolling iron. However, this industry tailed off as the Black Country ironworks outstripped it. Extraction of building materials grew in Victorian times, with the Littletons operating quarries at Wolgarston, Wood Bank, and Quarry Heath, as well as a sand pit at Hungry Hill, Teddesley, and

6550-403: The 19th century and are now entirely separate. Civil parishes in their modern form came into being through the Local Government Act 1894 ( 56 & 57 Vict. c. 73), which established elected parish councils to take on the secular functions of the parish vestry . A civil parish can range in size from a sparsely populated rural area with fewer than a hundred inhabitants, to a large town with

6681-564: The 19th century is useful to historians, and is also of cultural significance in terms of shaping local identities; reinforced by the use of grouped parish boundaries, often, by successive local authority areas; and in a very rough, operations-geared way by most postcode districts. There was (and is) wide disparity in parish size. Writtle , Essex traditionally measures 13,568 acres (21 sq mi) – two parishes neighbouring are Shellow Bowells at 469 acres (0.7 sq mi), and Chignall Smealy at 476 acres (0.7 sq mi) Until

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6812-591: The 2011 census, Newland with Woodhouse Moor and Beaumont Chase reported inhabitants, and there were no new deserted parishes recorded. Nearly all instances of detached parts of civil parishes (areas not contiguous with the main part of the parish) and of those straddling counties have been ended. 14 examples remain in England as at 2022, including Barnby Moor and Wallingwells , both in Nottinghamshire. Direct predecessors of civil parishes are most often known as "ancient parishes", although many date only from

6943-511: The 2021 census). The 2001 census recorded several parishes with no inhabitants. These were Chester Castle (in the middle of Chester city centre), Newland with Woodhouse Moor , Beaumont Chase , Martinsthorpe , Meering , Stanground North (subsequently abolished), Sturston , Tottington , and Tyneham (subsequently merged). The lands of the last three were taken over by the Armed Forces during World War II and remain deserted. In

7074-527: The 3rd Lord Hatherton had begun disinvestment in land, often selling farms to their tenants. Over 2,000 acres (8 km) went in the Penkridge area, including land in the Deanery Manor, Congreve , Lower Drayton, Upper Drayton, Gailey, Levedale and Longridge. In 1953 the 4th Lord Hatherton sold off nearly 4,000 acres (16 km), including Teddesley Hall, which was demolished within a year. The M6 motorway came around Stafford in 1962 and connected with

7205-458: The American sitcom Scrubs told another character, "I don't disdain you! It's quite the opposite – I dain you." As it happens, gruntle and dain are both attested much earlier, but not as antonyms of the longer forms. Back-formations frequently begin in colloquial use and only gradually become accepted. For example, enthuse (from enthusiasm ) is gaining popularity, though today it

7336-479: The Deanery Manor and Tedesley Hay, making him the most important landowner in the area, although day-to-day management of the deanery lands stayed with the Littletons, the lessees. Dudley went on to seize almost absolute power in England, and taking the title Duke of Northumberland . Edward's early death in 1553 left Dudley high and dry. Edward's older sister, the Catholic Mary , succeeded but Dudley attempted

7467-537: The English language . A butler is often described as "one who buttles," a verb which remains non-standard. Back-formations are frequent amongst river names in the England due to a number of reasons. Place names of Brittonic origin are especially susceptible to Folk Etymology and back-formations due to language and knowledge of the place names dying out with the arrival and settlement of Anglo-Saxon tribes . Frequently river names are derived from nearby settlements with

7598-515: The English population. For historical reasons, civil parishes predominantly cover rural areas and smaller urban areas, with most larger urban areas being wholly or partly unparished ; but since 1997 it has been possible for civil parishes to be created within unparished areas if demanded by local residents . In 2007 the right to create civil parishes was extended to London boroughs , although only one, Queen's Park , has so far been created. Eight parishes also have city status (a status granted by

7729-454: The House of Lords. Hatherton resided at Teddesley, where he established a free agricultural college and farmed 1,700 acres (688 ha) successfully. He strongly promoted education in the area, paying for a National School in Penkridge and another at Levedale, and for clothing for some of the school children. However, his lifetime saw a decisive shift in the family's interests. As heir to both

7860-562: The Old Market Square and are among its landmarks. Penkridge is a parish unit within the East Cuttleston Hundred of Staffordshire. Its boundaries have varied considerably over the centuries. The ancient parish of Penkridge, defined in 1551, although it existed in much the same form throughout the Middle Ages, was made up of four distinct townships: Penkridge itself, Coppenhall , Dunston , and Stretton. As

7991-487: The Victorian era, powered by the most modern and profitable industries of the age. The Littletons played a leading part in this phase of the Industrial Revolution and made large profits from it, and this tilted their attention increasingly away from their landed estates. Penkridge in the 20th and 21st centuries has remained a thriving market village while evolving into a residential centre, but its ties to

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8122-659: The Walhouse family fortune and the Littleton estates, he owned great estates around Penkridge and mineral holdings and much residential property in the Cannock and Walsall areas. He owned coal mines at Great Wyrley , Bloxwich and Walsall; limestone quarries and brickyards in Walsall that were used to build much of the town; hundreds of residential and commercial properties; gravel and sand pits, stone quarries in many places. Unlike Penkridge, Cannock and Walsall were boom towns of

8253-738: The administration of the poor laws was the main civil function of parishes, the Poor Law Amendment Act 1866 , which received royal assent on 10 August 1866, declared all areas that levied a separate rate or had their own overseer of the poor to be parishes. This included the Church of England parishes (until then simply known as "parishes"), extra-parochial areas , townships and chapelries . To have collected rates this means these beforehand had their own vestries, boards or equivalent bodies. Parishes using this definition subsequently became known as "civil parishes" to distinguish them from

8384-540: The barons and kings in the 13th century forced a relaxation, starting with the first issue of the Forest Charter in 1217. So it was in Henry III's reign that Penkridge began to grow economically and probably in population. Local people began to create new fields, called assarts , by clearing the trees and scrub (still a capital crime), and Penkridge acquired an annual fair and weekly market. Medieval Penkridge

8515-412: The century from 1851 to 1951: a decline relative to the country as a whole, but not a collapse. From the 1660s the pace of enclosure quickened, with all of the manors being divided into small farms, usually with the cultivators' consent, and these aggregated gradually into larger units. The second half of the 19th century, and especially the last quarter, were hard times for agriculture, with the repeal of

8646-594: The chantries and is the tallest structure in the village centre. The parish is crossed towards its eastern border by the M6 motorway and a separate junction north of the M6 toll between the West Midlands and Stoke-on-Trent . Penkridge has a railway station on the West Coast Main Line railway next to the Grade I listed medieval church. Penkridge Viaduct and the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal are to either side of Market Street and

8777-405: The chantry churches and their colleges. St. Michael's was still a thriving institution: a major rebuilding was in progress. Its estates enriched the dean (Archbishop of Dublin), seven prebendaries, two chantry canons, an official principal, three vicars choral , three further vicars , a high deacon , a subdeacon , and a sacrist . In 1547 its property was assessed at £82 6s. 8d. annually. All this

8908-399: The charter, the charter may be transferred to a parish council for its area. Where there is no such parish council, the district council may appoint charter trustees to whom the charter and the arms of the former borough will belong. The charter trustees (who consist of the councillor or councillors for the area of the former borough) maintain traditions such as mayoralty . An example of such

9039-537: The council are carried out by a paid officer, typically known as a parish clerk. Councils may employ additional people (including bodies corporate, provided where necessary, by tender) to carry out specific tasks dictated by the council. Some councils have chosen to pay their elected members an allowance, as permitted under part 5 of the Local Authorities (Members' Allowances) (England) Regulations 2003. The number of councillors varies roughly in proportion to

9170-464: The council of the urban district or borough in which they were contained. Many urban parishes were coterminous (geographically identical) with the urban district or municipal borough in which they lay. Towns which included multiple urban parishes often consolidated the urban parishes into one. The urban parishes continued to be used as an electoral area for electing guardians to the poor law unions . The unions took in areas in multiple parishes and had

9301-466: The council will an election be held. However, sometimes there are fewer candidates than seats. When this happens, the vacant seats have to be filled by co-option by the council. If a vacancy arises for a seat mid-term, an election is only held if a certain number (usually ten) of parish residents request an election. Otherwise the council will co-opt someone to be the replacement councillor. The Localism Act 2011 introduced new arrangements which replaced

9432-525: The creation of town and parish councils is encouraged in unparished areas . The Local Government and Rating Act 1997 created a procedure which gave residents in unparished areas the right to demand that a new parish and parish council be created. This right was extended to London boroughs by the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 – with this, the City of London

9563-559: The deanery manor but also Preston and the Prebendal Manor of Congreve. The other prebends also held lands, but not as lords of the manor. Some manors belonged to Staffordshire monasteries. Burton Abbey held Pillaton, Bickford and Whiston, and also, for a time, Gailey, which later passed to the nuns of Black Ladies Priory at Brewood . Drayton belonged to the Augustinian Priory of St. Thomas, near Stafford. Most of

9694-463: The desire to have a more local tier of government when new larger authorities have been created, which are felt to be remote from local concerns and identity. A number of parishes have been created in places which used to have their own borough or district council; examples include Daventry (2003), Folkestone (2004), Kidderminster (2015) and Sutton Coldfield (2016). The trend towards the creation of geographically large unitary authorities has been

9825-450: The early Middle Ages , when the area was part of Mercia , although the foundation date is unknown. King Edgar in 958, described it as a "famous place", so it was already of importance by then. In the Tudor period , it was claimed that the founder of the collegiate church of St. Michael at Penkridge was King Eadred (946-55), King Edgar's uncle, which seems plausible. Penkridge's church

9956-531: The early 1980s, very few dictionaries have accepted it as standard. The immense celebrations in Britain at the news of the relief of the Siege of Mafeking briefly created the verb to maffick , meaning to celebrate both extravagantly and publicly. "Maffick" is a back-formation from Mafeking , a place-name that was treated humorously as a gerund or participle . There are many other examples of back-formations in

10087-464: The east bank of the River Penk . The development of Penkridge has been closely linked to its relationship to major routes. The village of Penkridge lies on the medieval route between the county towns of Stafford and Worcester , which also passed through Wolverhampton. The Penkridge section became part of the major stagecoach routes linking London and Birmingham with Manchester and Liverpool and

10218-439: The ecclesiastical parishes. The Church of England parishes, which cover more than 99% of England, have become officially (and to avoid ambiguity) termed ecclesiastical parishes . The limits of many of these have diverged; most greatly through changes in population and church attendance (these factors can cause churches to be opened or closed). Since 1921, each has been the responsibility of its own parochial church council . In

10349-491: The end of September and lasted for seven or eight days. It began as a general fair but developed into a horse fair by the late 16th century. Henry III granted Andrew le Blund a weekly market in 1244. This was challenged by the burgesses of Stafford, who feared competition, but Penkridge kept its Tuesday market for centuries. After 1500 the market declined, expired and was revived several times, also changing days several times. The market place, still so-named but no longer used,

10480-534: The established English Church, which for a few years after Henry VIII alternated between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England , before settling on the latter on the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558. By the 18th century, religious membership was becoming more fractured in some places, due in part to the progress of Methodism . The legitimacy of the parish vestry came into question, and

10611-455: The government at the time of the Local Government Act 1972 discouraged their creation for large towns or their suburbs, but there is generally nothing to stop their establishment. For example, Birmingham has two parishes ( New Frankley and Sutton Coldfield ), Oxford has four, and the Milton Keynes urban area has 24. Parishes could not however be established in London until the law was changed in 2007. A civil parish can range in area from

10742-415: The hill in question was more likely a tumulus—prominent in pre-Roman and Roman times, and perhaps much later. Brewer comments that "none is evident in the locality". However, Margaret Gelling , predisposed to find direct evidence for toponyms in the local landscape, has proposed a precise location for the mound, now destroyed by ploughing, that gave both the village and, ultimately, the river their names. This

10873-487: The intersection of the River Penk and what became the Roman military road known as Watling Street (today's A5 trunk road). This would place it between Water Eaton and Gailey , about 2.25 miles (3.62 km) SSW of the village. The Roman settlement of Pennocrucium and earlier settlements were in the Penkridge area, but not on the same site as present village of Penkridge. The village of Penkridge dates back at least to

11004-548: The land were weakened and those to the landed gentry broken. Residential development began even in Victorian times, with the middle-class villas of the St. Michael's Road area, close to the railway. The main Stafford-Wolverhampton road was greatly improved between the wars, reshaping both Penkridge and Gailey. The war itself prepared the way for changes. Teddesley Hall, no longer the Littleton's family home since 1930,

11135-476: The late 19th century, most of the "ancient" (a legal term equivalent to time immemorial ) irregularities inherited by the civil parish system were cleaned up, and the majority of exclaves were abolished. The census of 1911 noted that 8,322 (58%) of "parishes" in England and Wales were not geographically identical when comparing the civil to the ecclesiastical form. In 1894, civil parishes were reformed by

11266-744: The leases of most of St. Michael's church lands and established a family chapel in the church – a statement of their growing importance. They were the most important local representatives of the landed gentry , a class that was to dominate rural life for several centuries. Much of the Penkridge area was cultivated under the open field system , although the actual field names are not documented until 16th and 17th centuries, as they were about to be enclosed . In Penkridge manor, for example, there were Clay Field, Prince Field, Manstonshill, Mill Field, Wood Field, and Lowtherne or Lantern Field, Fyland, Old Field, and Whotcroft, and also common grazing areas, Stretton Meadow and Hay Meadow. There are no detailed records of what

11397-428: The lord's demesne in return for their strips in the open fields. From the 14th century wage labour replaced the feudal labour system. By the 16th century, most landowners were renting or leasing most of their land and paying cash for labour to cultivate what remained. In 1535, for example, the manor of Drayton was worth £9 4s. 8d. annually, and the lion's share, £5 18s. 2d., came from money rents. Fairs and markets were

11528-469: The manors were quite small and often their owners were fairly minor, although some small manors formed part of the wider holdings of great families. Even the most minor of lords had the right to hold manorial courts and to discipline their tenants, but a wealthy and important lord was like a monarch in his own manor. By the late 14th century the lords of Penkridge manor had obtained charters giving them rights to pursue criminals wherever they wished; to inflict

11659-465: The mid 19th century. Using a longer historical lens the better terms are "pre-separation (civil and ecclesiastical) parish", "original medieval parishes" and "new parishes". The Victoria County History , a landmark collaborative work mostly written in the 20th century (although incomplete), summarises the history of each English "parish", roughly meaning late medieval parish. A minority of these had exclaves , which could be: In some cases an exclave of

11790-508: The name Littleton and took over the Littleton estates, although not the Littleton baronetcy . He achieved far greater eminence as a politician than any other member of the family, serving as Chief Secretary for Ireland under the Whig Prime Minister Grey in 1833–35. He was elevated to the peerage as Baron Hatherton , a title which remains with the head of the Littleton family to the present, and became an active member of

11921-804: The nautical sense) was first a noun and later was used as a verb). That process is called conversion or zero-derivation. Like back-formation, it can produce a new noun or a new verb, but it involves no back-forming. Back-formation may be particularly common in English given that many English words are borrowed from Latin, French and Greek, which together provide English a large range of common affixes. Many words with affixes have entered English, such as dismantle and dishevelled , so it may be easy to believe that these are formed from roots such as mantle (assumed to mean "to put something together") and shevelled (assumed to mean "well-dressed"), although these words with those meanings have no history of existing in English. Many words came into English by this route: pease

12052-465: The new district councils (outside London) to review their parishes, and many areas left unparished in 1972 have since been made parishes, either in whole or part. For example, Hinckley , whilst entirely unparished in 1974, now has four civil parishes, which together cover part of its area, whilst the central part of the town remains unparished. Some parishes were sub-divided into smaller territories known as hamlets , tithings or townships . Nowadays

12183-405: The north-west of England and Glasgow. The popular etymology of the village's name derives it from the River Penk , which flows through it. It was assumed that since the village could be said to stand on a ridge by the Penk, it must derive its name from the river. However, this is to reverse the true derivation. The name of the village, or something like it, is attested many centuries before that of

12314-462: The origins of the name Penkridge, but is not its direct origin. In the indigenous Celtic , the name of the village was almost certainly penn-crug , meaning "the head (or end) of the ridge", or "chief hill or mound", and pronounced roughly penkrik . In very early times of Anglian settlement the inhabitants of the district were known as the Pencersæte . In 958, a charter uses the form Pencric for

12445-488: The other conurbations. Civil parishes vary greatly in population: some have populations below 100 and have no settlement larger than a hamlet , while others cover towns with populations of tens of thousands. Weston-super-Mare , with a population of 71,758, is the most populous civil parish. In many cases small settlements, today popularly termed villages , localities or suburbs, are in a single parish which originally had one church. Large urban areas are mostly unparished, as

12576-448: The parish has city status). Alternatively, in parishes with small populations (typically fewer than 150 electors) governance may be by a parish meeting which all electors may attend; alternatively, parishes with small populations may be grouped with one or more neighbours under a common parish council. Wales was also divided into civil parishes until 1974, when they were replaced by communities , which are similar to English parishes in

12707-401: The parish the status of a town, at which point the council becomes a town council . Around 400 parish councils are called town councils. Under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 , a civil parish may be given one of the following alternative styles: As a result, a parish council can be called a town council, a community council, a village council or occasionally

12838-404: The parish. As the number of ratepayers of some parishes grew, it became increasingly difficult to convene meetings as an open vestry. In some, mostly built-up, areas the select vestry took over responsibility from the entire body of ratepayers. This innovation improved efficiency, but allowed governance by a self-perpetuating elite. The administration of the parish system relied on the monopoly of

12969-562: The parish; the church rate ceased to be levied in many parishes and became voluntary from 1868. During the 17th century it was found that the 1601 Poor Law did not work well for very large parishes, which were particularly common in northern England. Such parishes were typically subdivided into multiple townships , which levied their rates separately. The Poor Relief Act 1662 therefore directed that for poor law purposes 'parish' meant any place which maintained its own poor, thereby converting many townships into separate 'poor law parishes'. As

13100-499: The perceived inefficiency and corruption inherent in the system became a source for concern in some places. For this reason, during the early 19th century the parish progressively lost its powers to ad hoc boards and other organisations, such as the boards of guardians given responsibility for poor relief through the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 . Sanitary districts covered England in 1875 and Ireland three years later. The replacement boards were each entitled to levy their own rate in

13231-411: The population of the parish. Most rural parish councillors are elected to represent the entire parish, though in parishes with larger populations or those that cover larger areas, the parish can be divided into wards. Each of these wards then returns councillors to the parish council (the numbers depending on their population). Only if there are more candidates standing for election than there are seats on

13362-528: The remains of which are clearly visible in satellite photographs. Certainly, it makes more sense to look for the hill in question in the immediate vicinity of the ancient settlement than that of the modern village, which is well to the north of it. The Rowley Hill tumulus is well documented, and was clearly an extremely important landmark for several millennia. Penkridge is part of the Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge parliament constituency , currently represented by

13493-405: The revolutionary turmoil, the real situation in Penkridge was little changed. An anomaly surviving from before the Reformation was the peculiar jurisdiction of St. Michael's. Although the college was long gone, its privileges survived and were vested in the Littletons, owners of the deanery manor. They appointed vicars and kept bishops at bay, until the royal peculiar was ended in 1858. In 1666,

13624-460: The river. The name "Penk" is actually a back-formation from the name of the village. The occupying Romans gave their fort in the area the Latin form Pennocrucium . Cameron argues that this, like similar Latinized Celtic names, was passed by the native British directly, orally in its Celtic form, to the later Anglo-Saxon occupiers—not through the medium of Latin. Thus the name Pennocrucium attests

13755-549: The settlement. This is obviously close to the modern "Penkridge", and both are closer in pronunciation to the Celtic root than to the Latinized form. The name might reflect the village's location at the terminus of the long ridge of land running along the east side of the river. However, this ridge is not actually very prominent and few visitors would perceive Penkridge as a hill town. Modern toponymists have become convinced that

13886-629: The suffix -ford. Typically because it is assumed that the first half of the name is in reference to the river or stream. Below are some examples of these -ford back-formations . River Alre The river Alre in Hampshire, was named due to a false assumption that the nearby village Alresford was named after the river which it was located near. In reality its name comes from the Old English alor . River Chelmer The River Chelmer in Essex

14017-439: The surrounding parishes to rationalise the boundaries, acquiring the whole of the former civil parish of Kinvaston in the process. The civil parish was the merger of the following settlements or entirely farmed manors : Penkridge is in the district of South Staffordshire in the county of Staffordshire. It is between Stafford , 5 miles (8 km) to the north and Wolverhampton , 10 miles (16 km) south, and lies mostly on

14148-487: The township from north to south, with wharves at Spread Eagle (later called Gailey) and at Penkridge. In 1837, the Grand Junction Railway was opened. It cut through Penkridge on its west side, where Penkridge station was built, and was carried over the River Penk by the large Penkridge Viaduct . It began with two trains daily in each direction, to Stafford and Wolverhampton. Heavy industry expanded in

14279-408: The township of Penkridge had 212 households and the rest of the parish about a hundred, giving a total population of perhaps 1200 to 1500. By the first census, in 1801, it was 2,275. It rose to a peak of 3316 in 1851. A fall thereafter is mainly the result of the parish being reduced in size by the loss of Coppenhall, Stretton and Dunston. Penkridge itself seems to have had a fairly stable population for

14410-414: The verb in English is really from a (semi-)adjectival form in Latin. Even though many English words are formed this way, new coinages may sound strange, and are often used for humorous effect. For example, gruntled (from disgruntled ) is used only in humorous contexts, as when P. G. Wodehouse wrote, "I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled", or the character Turk in

14541-715: The village centre used to close to traffic to allow a Victorian Night and Christmas Market to take place, in 2010 this event moved to the Market site where it has expanded to include over 70 stalls and a funfair. Penkridge lies on the A449 and is midway between junctions 12 and 13 of the M6 motorway . It is served by National Express long-distance coaches, by Chaserider service 75 ( Cannock - Stafford ) and also by occasional services provided by Select Bus from Wolverhampton to Stafford on service 878. As from April 2021, service 75 will be replaced by Select Bus service 875 six days per week. The previous hourly Arriva Midlands service 76

14672-487: The village, and there are three short streets of buildings dating from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, from the railway station eastward. Penkridge has its own historical stocks and cells remain in the village centre. The village has several pubs , and there are also numerous sports clubs in Penkridge including cricket , football , rugby union and tennis clubs. On the last Friday in November, for one night,

14803-666: The way they operate. Civil parishes in Scotland were abolished for local government purposes by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929 ; the Scottish equivalent of English civil parishes are the community council areas established by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 , which have fewer powers than their English and Welsh counterparts. There are no equivalent units in Northern Ireland . The parish system in Europe

14934-708: The women whose employment is known, 150, the vast majority, were in domestic service. – probably mainly with the local gentry. The hospitality industry was quite important, with 40 men working in food and lodging and 15 working with carriages and horses – reflecting the continuing importance of the inns on a major route. The diversity of trades is marked. No less than 43 – 25 women and 18 men – were involved in dress-making, and there were quarrymen, traders, and many others. However, professionals are numbered at only 14. Penkridge owed much to its transport links, which steadily improved. The main Stafford–Wolverhampton route, now

15065-528: Was a poet and statesman. He served both Elizabeth and James I , who gave him Warwick Castle as a seat and elevated him to the peerage as the 1st Baron Brooke. In 1628 he was murdered by a servant. As he was unmarried and childless, he had adopted his younger cousin Robert as his son and heir to both the title and the great estates in Staffordshire and Warwickshire. Robert was a leading parliamentarian and

15196-404: Was a tumulus at Rowley Hill Farm, Ordnance Survey reference GR90251180, approximately 52°42′18″N 2°08′46″W  /  52.705°N 2.146°W  / 52.705; -2.146 , which was still prominent in the 18th century and still discernible in the early 20th. It would have directly overlooked the outlying Roman camp, across the Penk and just north of Pennocrucium on Watling Street ,

15327-494: Was also the main unit of local government until late Victorian times. The dean and many of the canons were absentees, so they appointed vicars to act for them locally. The focus of worship was prayer and masses on behalf of the dead, not care for the living. Two priests were employed solely to serve in chantries for the monarch and for the Virgin Mary . By the 16th century, the people of Penkridge themselves subscribed to pay

15458-449: Was at the opposite end of the village from the church. The modern market is held on the livestock auction site close to Bull Bridge. Mills were another great source of profit to lords of the manor, who forced their tenants to use them. The River Penk and a number of tributary brooks were able to drive mills. The Domesday Book of 1086 records mills at Penkridge at Water Eaton. A century later there were two mills at Penkridge and one of them

15589-461: Was bought by Sir Edward Littleton in 1555. A new Sir Edward succeeded in 1558 and his vigorous enclosure policy soon stirred up controversy. Penkridge manor entered into a limbo, prolonged by Anne's insanity. The fate of the deanery manor too was unresolved: it was taken from the Dudleys, but not restored to the Church, as Mary did not re-establish the chantries. So both remained with the Crown for

15720-498: Was established between the 8th and 12th centuries, and an early form was long established in England by the time of the Norman Conquest . These areas were originally based on the territory of manors , which, in some cases, derived their bounds from Roman or Iron Age estates; some large manors were sub-divided into several parishes. Initially, churches and their priests were the gift and continued patronage (benefaction) of

15851-429: Was expelled from the House of Commons in 1644 for his royalist sympathies. In May 1645, royalist troops quartered in Penkridge were expelled by small parliamentary force after a brief skirmish. Littleton's estates were sequestrated but he was able to recover them on payment of £1347. The Littletons' holdings were thus preserved and they found themselves in favour again after the restoration of Charles II in 1660. Despite

15982-458: Was grown in medieval Penkridge. In 1801, when the first record was made, nearly half was under wheat , with barley , oats , peas, beans, and brassicas the other major crops – probably similar to the medieval pattern: farmers grew wheat wherever the land in their scattered strips supported it, and other crops elsewhere, with cattle on the riverside meadows and sheep on the heath. The early medieval cultivators were mainly unfree, forced to work on

16113-485: Was not originally a plural; it is a loanword from Anglo-Norman asetz (modern French assez ). The -s was reanalyzed as a plural suffix. Back-formation varies from clipping  – back-formation may change the word's class or meaning, whereas clipping creates shortened words from longer words but does not change the class or meaning of the word. Words can sometimes acquire new lexical categories without any derivational change in form (for example, ship (in

16244-534: Was of central importance to the village from Anglo-Saxon times and the Norman conquest did not change this. It was of a special status. The collegiate church was the most important local institution for most of Penkridge's history: economically powerful and architecturally dominant. All the people of the parish had to be buried there, at considerable cost, so it was where the local magnates installed their memorials. Its area of jurisdiction defined Penkridge parish, which

16375-514: Was once a mass noun (as in " pease pudding "), but was reinterpreted as a plural , leading to the back-formation pea . The noun statistic was likewise a back-formation from the field of study statistics . In Britain, the verb burgle came into use in the nineteenth century as a back-formation from burglar (which can be compared to the North American verb burglarize formed by suffixation). Other examples are The verb translate

16506-470: Was operated by the More family for centuries, as tenants of the dean. A mill is recorded at Drayton by 1194; at Congreve, Pillaton, and Rodbaston in the 13th century; at Whiston in the 14th; and at Mitton in the 15th. These were all corn mills, but in 1345 Water Eaton had a fulling mill , as well as the corn mill. The Reformation brought major changes to landownership and social life at Penkridge. First came

16637-598: Was organised on the manorial system . There were a number of manors within the parish, of varying size and importance, each with its own lord, who owed feudal service to his own overlord, but exercised authority over his tenants. A list of the different medieval manors and estates would include: Penkridge Manor, Penkridge deanery manor, Congreve , Congreve Prebendal Manor, Drayton, Gailey, Levedale, Longridge , Lyne Hill or Linhull, Mitton , La More (later Moor Hall), Otherton, Pillaton, Preston, Rodbaston, Water Eaton, Whiston, Coppenhall or Copehale, Dunston, and Stretton. The largest

16768-564: Was swept away in 1548 and the first Vicar of Penkridge, Thomas Bolt of Stafford, was appointed on £16 per annum, with an assistant on £8. Penkridge now became enmeshed in the meteoric career of John Dudley, Earl of Warwick , a key figure in Edward VI's regency council. In 1539, Dudley got control of Penkridge manor by foreclosing on a debt its owners, the Willoughby de Broke family, had owed to his father, Edmund Dudley . Next he grabbed

16899-508: Was the manor of Penkridge itself. King John's gift of 1215 to the Archbishop of Dublin included Penkridge manor. The Archbishop decided to divide it, giving about two-thirds to his nephew, Andrew de Blund, and keeping the rest for the deanery. The manor of Penkridge was passed on through the Blund (later called Blount) family and later other families of lay landlords. The Church had large holdings of land. St. Michael's college had not only

17030-476: Was used to house troops and prisoners of war. The old common lands between the Penk and the Cannock Road were used as a military camp during the war years. This eased their subsequent development as a large housing estate, greatly enlarging the size and population of Penkridge in the 1950s and 1960s. Between 1951 and 1961 the population grew from 2,518 to 3,383 – a rise of over 34% in just ten years. In 1919,

17161-484: Was withdrawn in 2019 due to competition from National Express West Midlands service 54, which was itself withdrawn in 2020. Penkridge is served by Penkridge railway station on the West Coast Main Line , and can also be accessed by the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal . Otherton Airfield is in Penkridge, it is the home of Staffordshire Aero club. Civil parishes in England In England,

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