Staffordshire

Staffordshire Historical Research

Staffordshire was established as a shire in the 10th century, centred on Stafford. It incorporated much of the ancient kingdom of Mercia's heartland and the forests of Cannock and Needwood.

Staffordshire is a midland county of contrasting character: the forested uplands of Cannock Chase in the south, the Potteries — the six towns of Arnold Bennett's fiction — in the north, and the agricultural Trent valley running through its centre. Lichfield Cathedral, one of the finest Gothic buildings in England, was the seat of a bishopric founded in 669. The county's later industrial history was dominated by the Potteries, where Josiah Wedgwood and others transformed the production of ceramics in the 18th century. The Staffordshire Hoard, discovered in 2009 near Lichfield, is the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork ever found.

England's 39 historic counties, established between the 9th and 12th centuries, are the framework through which English local history, legal records, and landscape have been organised for a thousand years. Most survive today as ceremonial counties, their boundaries deeply embedded in place identity.

Read in-depth research reports on notable historical places across the UK — explore →

Research Staffordshire's History

An Aubrey report for a specific location in Staffordshire draws on historical maps, archaeological records, Domesday data and landscape history to tell the full story of any site in the county.