Local Scenes -More Village Information
The present day layout of the village with its scattered homesteads and ancient field names indicates the practices of the early days of farming. The size of the fields near the nucleated part of the village and the winding lanes suggests that some of the enclosures were made before the main Enclosures Acts.
The centre of Bagnall village was declared a preservation area in 1972. The boundary is close around the historic centre of the settlement and excludes the southern parts of the village whose character is largely protected by being in the local Green Belt.
It seems that
the earliest dwellings were of the type in which the main farm building
was divided into a section comprising the living accommodation with
and integral barn under the same roof. There is evidence of such buildings
near Bagnall. More recently, later free standing farmhouse with seperate
farm outbuildings having been built in the period between the seventeenth
and nineteenth centuries.
The first two pictures shown on this page are of a group of 6 modernised
cottagesknown as "The Terrace", just a hundred yards down
from the the old Post Office.
Visitors entering the building for the first time from the direction of Milton and Stoke-on-Trent will see a stone cross in the centre of a fork in the road. The left hand fork passes the Village Hall and skirts the centre of the village on its way past Stanley Pool on the way to Stanley.
The ridge on which the village stands tops a plateau separated from the main gritstone massif od North Staffordshire by a marshy valley. To the North their are views over hills and valleys to Mow Cop on the Staffordshire/Cheshire border. There are gentler views across the high plateau.
The right hand
fork travels into the centre of the village and the Stafford Arms and
church on the edge of the village green. This cross is not on the site
of the ancient market (or butter-) cross, but is a memorial to a local
lad.
When you reach the
village green it is not what you might expect. Instead of an open space
where a maypole could be erected you are confronted by four Chestnut
trees which were planted on 22 June 1897 to commemorate Queen Victoria's
Diamond Jubilee. One tree died and was replaced with a sycamore.
On the Green approximately 30 yards north of Bagnall Hall is a Grade
II listed possibly 16th century stone cross which was restored in either
the late 19th or early 20th century. It has a 4-tier stepped base of
which the top is a solid block. A square shaft appx. 2.5 yeards high,
chamfered and finished by a Celtic cross head; the top parts of the
cross are rough-faced and must date from the restoration.
Bagnall once had its own weekly market on the Green and traders came from the surrounding towns - it was a ideal meeting point for those from Leek, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Cheadle and Uttoxeter, particularly at the time of the Great Plague in the 1660s when it was preferable to trade in Bagnall rather that in the diseased ravaged towns around Newcastle.
There is a story that a man called "the twixt man" used to act as an intermediary at the market, cleaning coins in a barrel of lime as they were passed between the purchaser and the seller to avoid the possibility of passing the disease via the coinage.
Important Early Buildings
Oak was the main building material in the Middle Ages, except for high status buildings where stone was more common. No timber construction survives externally in the Bagnall area. Walling consisted of either square framing with wattle and daub or close-studding with split laths and plaster. Interior walls in stone buildibgs continued to be built this way until the 18th century.
Bagnall Hall - a Grade II listed building, merits a separate page on this website: click to view
Barn - approximately 25 yards south of Bagnall Hall. Grade II listed 18th century building, now a dwelling house with 19 century alterations and 20th century fenestration. 2 storeys and 4 bays divided by butresses. Window to each bay of first floor.
Old Hall Farm. Rebuilt about 1800, the farmhouse and farm buildings are a strong reminder of Bagnall's past. Either Bagnall Hall or Old Hall Farm was the site of a medieval manor house (the name "Manor House" for a local outlying farm is misleading as it belongs to a relatively late farmstead renamed in the late 19th century). Only Old Hall Farm survives as a working farm with a large farmyard flanked by a number of traditional barns.
Bagnall Grange. This farmhouse was traditionally connected to Hulton Abbey by trackways. The Abbey owned two grain mills, on of them being at Bagnall next to Bagnall Grange.
Moor Hall. The current building known as Moor Hall (SJ943509 & SJ941509) is on the eastern fringe of the early settlemet and dates back to the sixteenth century and is the only Scheduled Ancient Monument in the parish. It was built on the site of a moated farmhouse. It was here that a prehistoric axehead, now in the Hanley (Stoke-on-Trent) Museum, was found.
Lawn Farm. In 1791 an agreement the use of Lawn Farm to John Hand and Thomas Harding. They in turn agree that Thomas Jackson could purchase the farm and its lands for £285.
Bank House. This is a 17th century detached property next door to Bank Farm. It was known as Bagnall Bank and was part of Bank Farm until it was divided in 1841. It is widely believed that Adams the potter started his business at Bank House, and that somewhere they may be a kiln. The Stoke-on-Trent City Museum dated some pieces of pottery found in the garden as being salt glaze from as early as 1760.
Bank Farm. Grade II listed building. The oldest building in the village, the 16th century timber framed closed-truss central division of Bank Farm is concealed behind 17th century stonework and a "gentified" 18th century ashlar facade. 2 story 2 window entrance front. It was occupied between 1794 and 1810 by William Adams, who had a flint mill locally at Stanley Pool. His friend Josiah Spode often visited Bagnall to join in the festivities playing the violin. By the early 19th century Bank Farm has engulfed its eastern neighbour and Bank House ceased to be a farmhouse.
Greenfields. This building dates to before the Hearth Tax of 1666.
Jackhaye Farm. The deeds for Jackhaye Farm begin in 1652 when George Titterton of Shafferlong, a Yeoman, was given £200 by Thomas Cliffe for the house. Above a door at the back of the house are his initials T.C. and the date 1675.
The majority of the details relating to local buildings were extracted from "Bagnall - on the Fringe of the Moorlands".
