From "A Pint-sized History of the Staffordshire Moorlands", Joan-Ann Grindley (Churnet Valley Books, ISBN 1-897949-25-1)

CHAPTER 2

Black Bob at the Stafford Arms in Bagnall

Like many of the smaller communities in the area, Bagnall is often missed completely on a day out in the country. Perhaps the reason is that, to the unobservant, it looks much the same as many other small villages. In fact many of the tourist maps of the Staffordshire Moorlands do not even give the village of Bagnall a mention. Nevertheless this well-loved place does exist, as any of the friendly residents will verify and like many other small villages, Bagnall can trace its pedigree right back.

Maybe then a visit to a place like Bagnall is the best way to discover what village life was like long ago. Don't be fooled though into thinking Bagnall has not altered over the years, in fact this community has seen as many changes as any of the more well known villages. All communities change with the passing of time, even Moorland villages with their traces of long ago evident at every comer. A small archway where once farm carts were brought in is now just part of a row of shops or houses. A stone roadside post worn with years of having a horse's leading rein tied to it, is nothing more now than a handy resting place or part of a garden wall. Why then do we look at places such as Bagnall and say nothing changes. Maybe because unlike major towns with their new roads and by- passes, almost overnight, changes in a rural community come much more slowly.

A leisurely visit on a sunny day is the best way to look for the changes in this village, but where to start? As a public house is by far the best place to start looking at any community and as any visit to Bagnall would be incomplete without calling into the Stafford Arms, what better place than this? This public house has seen many changes over the years both in appearance and behaviour. Some of the tales told by the older people when describing the goings on in and around the Stafford Arms would make even the most descriptive novelist wonder whether the facts were credible.

The locals in the bar will talk of the changes which have happened over the years inside their favourite drinking place; from a time long ago when the floor covering was supplied by the local timber yard - sawdust on the floor was normal in the Stafford Arms in years gone by - to a time when clinically filtered beer taps and computerisation produces a clear glass of beer that is an even temperature all the year round.

Nevertheless changes came to Bagnall long before the first cloudy pint of slightly warm beer was carried from the cellar in a stone jug. Even before the ransom of £300 was paid for the release of Justice Murhall from imprisonment by Highland soldiers in the 1700s, changes were taking place in and around Bagnall. After one or two refreshing drinks at the bar, step outside; the best place to begin looking at Bagnall is on the open space in the centre of the village, but not at the delivery lorries as they pass by - only a few years have passed since these were packhorses and farm carts. Let your eyes look at the changes in the structure of Bagnall itself.

The first changes to come to this landscape took place when man discovered the long high ridge 751 feet above sea level and decided to make a settlement. This immediately changed the landscape, instead of a skyline broken only by a flight of birds, smoke from open fires began to appear and gradually primitive bracken shelters. Then came the small wooden buildings altering what was once an open space into a settlement. Not long after this came the long low brick buildings for the animals and men, each dependent on one another for their survival.

The next changes came not in the landscape but in the name of the place itself. The Anglo-Saxon people called the area between Bucknall and Endon 'Bacgaholt'. The first part of the name probably came from the personal name 'Bacga' with the word Holt being the Anglo-Saxon word for woodland. Thus the first name of the settlement probably meant "the Woodland Owned by Bacga'. As the area developed so did the name. Due to the changing nationality of the landowners and to the illiteracy of people, the name altered many times over the years. From the original Bacgaholt to in the late 1200s then to Bagnold, and, with a few variations on the way, to the name it is known by today.

By the 1400s the inn which stood in the centre of Bagnall was beginning to change as well, as were the village people themselves. The inn changed from little more than a tiny shelter serving rough ale to a solid of building of local sandstone. The people changed from ragged peasants gathering what they could from where they could into a village community. When Bonnie Prince Charlie stopped at the inn in the 1700s, the hostelry he saw was not just a small sandstone building set in the centre of a settlement. By this time the alehouse had become a handsome staging post with stabling added for horses added to the original building.

Like many other alehouses at the time, this hostelry was eager to show its allegiance to the monarchy. For this reason it was, for many years before the 19th century, known by one and all as the Kings Arms. It was still known as this when James Myatt was the licensee in the mid 1880s. Before the 19th century turned into the 2Oth, with the help of licensees like Samuel Stonier and Ann Keates, it became known to visitors and regulars alike, first as the Marquis of Stafford Arms and then simply the Stafford Arms.

Even that wondrous space in front of the Stafford Arms has seen some changes in its title. First the area was just known as waste ground then it was called the Bowling Green. Now the area is given the grand but slightly strange name of the Pound. Perhaps this name is one the few a farming language that has almost completely disappeared. In times gone by a pound was a place for stray animals. Or, with the authenticity of those at the public house bar, is the name a fond reminder of how much Henry Matthews sold the land for in the 1900s?

With all areas of civilization, what changes first, the area or the people? This quandary has perhaps set conversations going for many generations of drinkers at the Stafford Arms. Nevertheless whatever the area in front of the public house is called and whatever name it is given in future it does not really matter that much. Because they and Bagnall itself have the pedigree of age and whatever name an area is known by it is only temporary, nothing is permanent except the land itself.